The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by Al Schlageter

If "Germany didn't achieve its goals as expected", then Germany lost and GB won, PERIOD.

that's the tangible evidence I was looking for

Germany lost 1,922 aircraft (including 879 fighters, 80 Stukas and 881 bombers). German Luftwaffe losses from August 1940 until March 1941 were 2,840 aircraft. Casualties of the German aircrew were 3,363 KIA, 2,117 WIA and 2,641 taken prisoner.

Interesting numbers, but I have different ones

From Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

GB Strength at the beginning of the conflict:

1,963 serviceable aircraft

Germany strength at the beginning of the conflict:

2,550 serviceable aircraft.

544 aircrew killed 2,698 aircrew killed
422 aircrew wounded
967 captured
638 MIA bodies identified by British Authorities
1,547 aircraft destroyed 1,887 aircraft destroyed


So Germany had more planes and lost slightly more, but in fact it proportionally lost less aircraft. The huge difference in terms of aircrew is because apart for the 109s, all attacking aircraft were multi-crew (the skilled crew members like pilots and navigators lost were in similar numbers of the ones lost by the RAF).

As I mentioned before, it was attrition and it caused similar losses on both ends.

The Lw never really recovered from these losses.

the LW neve recovered from the losses of the Eastern Campaign, not the Battle of Britain. Thanks to replacements they still had pretty much the same number of aircraft when the BoB ended and Barbarossa started.

Germany paid the heavier toll as GB was not knocked out of the war.
Damage during the BoB and the Blitz was quickly repaired.

43000 civilians killed and 46000 wounded is small numbers to you?

[JimmyBlonde]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

the LW neve recovered from the losses of the Eastern Campaign, not the Battle of Britain. Thanks to replacements they still had pretty much the same number of aircraft when the BoB ended and Barbarossa started.



43000 civilians killed and 46000 wounded is small numbers to you?

The losses in terms or aircraft were trivial to the Luftwaffe and RAF alike, both sides had the capacity to produce more aircraft than they had pilots to fly them. The kill figures just make a good score-card for the drones who provide the labour.

The losses in experienced crews were the deciding factor.

Basically the core of Luftwaffe veterans was depleted to a point which subsequent attrition never allowed full recovery from whereas, on the RAF side, they didn't have that many combat veterans to lose. Mainly the RAF lost inexperienced replacements with whom the British bought themselves time where they could probably withdrawn to the north and saved themselves the trouble since the Germans could not make a strategic impact on Britain by air power anyway, nor is it entirely convincing that they could have invaded in light of their entirely inferior naval strength and the logistical demands of such an undertaking.

Also, 43,000 fatalities looks like a big number, well, it is a big number. However, in terms of bombing casualties during WW2, is isn't really that big. Civilian losses during many late war allied raids reached totals like that in less than a week, sometimes even in a single raid. Take Dresden for example, current estimates put the toll from that one night at 25,000 killed. Hamburg, 50,000, Pforzheim, 18,000. In Tokyo the largest casualty figure from a single conventional raid is estimated to have been 88,000 killed in one night during February 1945. (Figures all from Wiki for what it's worth)

Destruction of civilian and industrial property is widely acknowledged as only having a marginal effect on the war effort by both sides, this is a well documented and incontrovertible fact. People can relocate, industry can go underground.

Just look at German aircraft production figures in 1944. The combined weight of the sustained RAF and USAAF bombing campaigns made absolutely no dent in German industrial capacity at all in regards to aircraft production. Figures show that production actually steadily increased during the entire campaign as demand increased. Basically the allied plan to disrupt aircraft production in the Reich by bombing factories was a total failure in terms of their specified objective and it wasn't until ground forces secured those centers that production halted.

The true success of their efforts came from the attrition of resistance and the depletion of strategic resources.

[NedLynch]

Are you guys still at it?

War's over, has been for a long time, remember the dead on all sides and the lives they never had.

Don't try to rewrite history by arguing about what cannot be argued about.


And how did the luftwaffe pilots cope with their defeat? Everyone differently in his own way.