Historical Sorties (Time, Size, Distance, Objective)

[nakedsquirrel]

I've found a lot of macroscopic views of the BoB, but does anyone have better, microscopic snapshots of the air war?

My problem is that most articles say something along the lines of: 100 bombers were covered by a total of 35 fighters on X day and X number of fighters and X number of bombers were shot down.

I'm looking for slightly more detailed snapshots. What I want to know are things like:

How many Axis bombers were in a single formation?
How far apart were the formations (How far apart were their targets)?
When did they take off? (Did they attack all at once or did they attack at different times during the day)
How many Axis fighters were in a formation?
How many Allied fighters were allocated to defensive air patrols?
How many Allied fighters were allocated to scramble?
How many fighters per fighter formation?
How many Axis fighters were allocated for defensive patrols.
How many Allied bombers were allocated for bombing missions.

Something (somewhat) like the following is what I'm trying to fill out:

[Day Bombing]
[Axis]
Total number of bombers
Plane types
Bomber formation size
Formation type?
Targets
Total number of escorts
Escort formation size
[Allied]
Total number of bombers
Bomber formation size
Formation type?
Targets
Total number of escorts
Escort formation size

[Defensive Formations]
[Axis]
Total number of fighters on patrol
Types
Formation size
Total number of fighters on standby
Types
Formation size
[Allied]
Total number of fighters on patrol
Types
Formation size
Total number of fighters on standby
Types
Formation size

[Night Bombing]
[Axis]
Total number of bombers
Plane types
Bomber formation size
Formation type?
Targets
[Allied]
Total number of bombers
Bomber formation size
Formation type?
Targets

[Sea Operations (Ship/Sub hunting)]
[Axis]
Total number of bombers
Plane types
Bomber formation size
Formation type?
Targets
Total number of escorts
Escort formation size
[Allied]
Total number of bombers
Bomber formation size
Formation type?
Targets
Total number of escorts
Escort formation size



Also, if anyone has particulars on certain plane types and their formation sizes/roles, that would also be appreciated. (IE bf 110 vs 109's role, Hurricane vs Spit's role, Beaufighter vs Blenheim)
I would really appreciate any help, thanks.

[5./JG27.Farber]

What you will find is the scale of the BoB missions are huge! Battles rolling throughout the day in different areas! For some of the missions you really could use the whole map and more!


Forget RAF Bomber Command for the BoB... They just sent unescorted obsolete bombers on suicide missions.

Axis Bombers flew in Kette (3 in a Vic?) Fighters in Schwarm (4 in finger4). German bombers would approach the coast before braching off in different directions for their targets. From memory the compistion of raids was something like bombers/bf110/109 was something like 2/1/2. Although sometimes bombers went alone like in the instance of Eprogruppe 210 on Adlertag. Generally until Spet time the axis threw up a fighter screen. Sometimes decoy aircraft were used to rattle the radars before an attack in a different place to the attack.

Allied flew in Vic (3) or Line astern which the Germans called the idiot row. They were generally below the Luftwaffe because they were reacting to the LW.


But dont take it from me, there are always exceptions as well...

This is a very good site:

http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/631...weather-diary/

and some more:

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles...f_britain.html

http://www.ww2.dk/

http://www.battleofbritain1940.net/contents-index.html

[csThor]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

What you will find is the scale of the BoB missions are huge! Battles rolling throughout the day in different areas! For some of the missions you really could use the whole map and more!

Careful with that, Farber. That is, in a nutshell, one of the urban myths about the BoB. It may look huge when taking all aircraft sorties of one day but essentially individual missions were rarely flown by anything more than a Gruppe against a specific target, often even breaking further down to one Staffel. Not to mention that when Luftflotte 2 attacked in the morning and forenoon Luftflotte 3 was just waking up from a restful slumber, prepared for lunch and only became active in the afternoon - hours after the last aircraft of Luftflotte 2 had retired.

To give an example. On August 12 1940 KG 51 raided the Portsmough area with all Gruppen. In the end they struck at three different targets and the initially powerful formation of roughly 100 Ju 88 was divided into three formations of 30+ bombers plus escort. Given the bombloads in these days that is not really an attack with much destructive potential (in the strategic sense) anymore.

[5./JG27.Farber]

I suppose it depends on what you thought was big before you researched it. I was suprised at some of the sizes of the raids. especially when there was sometimes 3 major sorties in one day. I was talking of when they hit different areas all in the same day... If you recreate some of the events you can use the whole map and still not be able to do it all as you cant do the more northern attacks. So yes the scale is big, its bigger than the map we have!

Originally Posted by csThor

Given the bombloads in these days that is not really an attack with much destructive potential (in the strategic sense) anymore.

Dont think that matters when there falling on you.

[csThor]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

Dont think that matters when there falling on you.

True ...