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

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by adonys

it seems that the vast majority of the people... are blind and deaf and stupid idiots

There's no point in trying to debate this, as long as people are throwing in name calling

Brilliant. Stunning work.

And now you're suggesting that our point of view is going to lead to history repeating itself. I don't understand that at all. I think that killing is bad, so how can that viewpoint lead to another war?

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

People will believe what their governments tell them to believe, and yet we wonder why the Germans didn't do more to oppose their government. Same question should be asked now of each of our respective governments, but people prefer to be sheep.

Speak for yourself.

[DD_crash]

I think that this is how stern sees it.
Possible outcomes for Germany : Win or Draw
Possible outcome for Britain : Loose or Draw.
We are on a hiding to nothing then.
This thread has developed like Monty Pythons argument sketch

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by DD_crash

I think that this is how stern sees it.
Possible outcomes for Germany : Win or Draw
Possible outcome for Britain : Loose or Draw.
We are on a hiding to nothing then.
This thread has developed like Monty Pythons argument sketch

No it hasn't.

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

You guys de-contextualise the air battle of 1940 as an episode per se, not considering it part of a more fluid, multi-layered and complicated warfare.

This particular air battle was just part of the entire war effort, no one is saying otherwise. But we are discussing this particular battle and each sides objectives for that battle, and there's nothing wrong with that.

"THE Battle of Britain" was happening only in England, there was no perception or interest as such in Germany on the matter. Surely, you lived it personally cos you were the ones being attacked and bombed, nobody is questioning that, but it had little or no reach to the Germans.

That sounds about right to me, but what's the relevance of this point? People in Germany may not have cared about the battle, that's not relevant to who won it.

You put up an efficient but desperate in some points defence system, which fortunately allowed you to put a marginal but effective limit to the offensive.

The RAF and Luftwaffe lost a similar number of pilots (The Luftwaffe lost more aircrew), and the numbers of the 4 months of intense battle show a similar number in losses proportionally. Let's not forget that the RAF sent up mainly two kinds of fighter planes and that's it, while the Luftwaffe invested more in terms of bombers and fighters.

You are refusing to look at the facts. The number of RAF pilots increased while the number of Luftwaffe pilots decreased, but that doesn't matter - it wouldn't matter if it was the other way round. Hitler had an objective for the air battle, and it failed, regardless of how well each side was doing with numbers.

Because of the poor planning and mistakes made by their Air Marshal, the Luftwaffe didn't manage to produce results as they were supposed to: the RAF was effective ONLY because of FAC and Radar, the real target that the Luftwaffe should have neutralised first.

Again... so? We're not currently debating why the Luftwaffe messed it up, or why the RAF were able to win.

Everything else is history of course, but the decision of concentrating the majority of fighters and logistic efforts over the Russian campaign wasn't an admission of defeat.

It doesn't matter whether Hitler 'admitted defeat'. He didn't exactly have a good grip of reality when it came to accepting defeat. Did the BoB destroy Germany's war machine - no of course not. We're not debating the significance of the battle at this point. Simply that Hitler had objectives and failed to meet them. Are we saying this was the most important thing to him - no, we're not trying to attach any level of importance or significance. We are simply saying that it was an air battle where both sides had objectives and one side met their objectives and the other didn't.

Many people talked about "David vs Goliath", with the difference that Goliath didn't die, just lost his interest and moved onto something else. You want to call that a victory?

Yes, that is a victory. If China were to attach Taiwan (well you brought up David and Goliath), and Taiwan were able to fight them off enough that China gave in (lost interest in you words), do you think that would be a draw? You do not understand the difference between defence and attack, you think a defender cannot win unless they go on the offensive. And as for losing interest - you think it was like this thread where at some point people will lose interest in trying to discuss this with you. When you're at war, fighting for you country, and thousands of people are dying, you don't just lose interest like with a board game.

The victory of the Battle of Britain was a perfect propaganda idea to celebrate a much needed victory after the shambles of the BEF and Dunkirk, this goes without saying, and of course it is understandable to be happy about the loosening of the attacks, but it's not like they stopped altogether or you managed to cripple the Luftwaffe.

It is true that it was useful to publicise it as a victory, but when looking back to determine whether it actually was or not, we don't need to look at what was said at the time, it's not relevant.

Truth is that the Germans didn't perceive it as a "battle", it was part of an operation which was interrupted by the command as it was going on.

Again that's not relevant. If you want to argue that it wasn't a battle, fine, stick to that. But you're arguing that 'it' (whatever term you'd like to use) was a draw, and we are arguing that 'it' was a British victory and German defeat.

I don't want to deprive anyone of their finest hour, but this whole concept of "winning" makes me think of Charlie Sheen's winning, more than the real victory that was celebrated on V-Day.

Seriously, none of us were flying, it wasn't 'our' finest hour. It's just one part of centuries of history and it doesn't make any difference to our daily lives whether it's called a battle or a victory.

We're just sticking to the facts. See post #704 on page 71 which states what the directive was. If you find new evidence showing that that was just a trick, and that Hitler's actual objective was just to distract Britain while he concentrated his war effort elsewhere (and actually he had no plans to invade Britain at all) - wow, that would change things. Suddenly Hitler's objectives would have been met, and the battle/smokescrene would have been a success. But back in the real world, we know what his objectives were, and he failed to meet them. And you bringing random points into the arguement, like 'well the RAF were lucky because the weather changed and there was a load of water in the way' etc doesn't change the facts.

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by DD_crash

This thread has developed like Monty Pythons argument sketch

I'm sorry to resort to insults, but it's like arguing with a 6 year old.

[adonys]

ok, let's make a short analogy here, maybe our islander friends will get it better this way:

if a tiger is fighting a cat, and at some point the tiger has to go away because he has to pee, that doesn't mean the cat won the fight.. right?!!

But go ahead, call it a THE GREATEST VICTORY EVER for my part.

Truth is.. brits always need their big thug nephews help to get our from the mess they've got themselves into (think any other WWII brit operations). Kind of like the italians

But they were great warriors, and look, they won BoB.. Of course they did, otherwise.. what else would have they to celebrate?!! The almighty colonial british empire? Battle of France? Dunkerque? Singapore? Dutch Indies? North Afrika? Market Garden?!!

Using another analogy, is like trying to get away from him the only rotten bone a skinny dog ever had.. of course he'll jump to bite you for trying to get his only reason for life away from him.

It's a normal denial behavior as we know it from kindergarten psychology.

[Al Schlageter]

The RAF and Luftwaffe lost a similar number of pilots (The Luftwaffe lost more aircrew), and the numbers of the 4 months of intense battle show a similar number in losses proportionally. Let's not forget that the RAF sent up mainly two kinds of fighter planes and that's it, while the Luftwaffe invested more in terms of bombers and fighters.

Where is your reference to this statement of 'lost a similar number of pilots'? You expect others to supply references but you are just a wee bit lax in suppling references.

In Aug the Lw lost 424 pilots KIA. MIA, POW while the RAF lost 148 pilots. During the 4 months of the BoB the RAF lost 481 pilots KIA, MIA, POW.

http://cz-raf.hyperlink.cz/BoB/stat.html#production
http://history-world.org/battlelosses.htm

APPENDIX 2. Directive No. 17
THE FUHRER & CINC
FUHRER HQ1 Aug 1940
OF THE WEHRMACHT

OKW/WFL/L # 33 210/40 G. Kdos., Chefs. Geheime Kommandosache.
Fourth of ten Copies.
Chef Sache.
Officer Courier Only.

DIRECTIVE NO. 17

FOR THE CONDUCT OF AIR AND NAVAL WARFARE AGAINST ENGLAND

For the purpose of creating conditions for the final defeat of Britain, I intend continuing air and naval warfare against the English motherland in a more severe form than hitherto. For this purpose I order as follows:

1. The Luftwaffe will employ all forces available to eliminate the British air force as soon as possible. In the initial stages, attacks will be directed primarily against the hostile air forces and their ground service organization and supply installations, and against air armament industries, including factories producing AAA equipment.

2. Once temporary or local air superiority is achieved, operations will continue against ports, particularly against installations for the storage of food, and against food storage installations farther inland. In view of intended future German operations, attacks against ports on the south coast of England will be restricted to a minimum.

3. Air operations against hostile naval and merchant ships will be considered a secondary mission during this phase unless particularly lucrative fleeting opportunities offer or unless such action will achieve increased effects in the operations prescribed under Item 2, above, or in the case of operations serving to train aircraft crews for the continued conduct of air warfare.

4. The intensified air offensive will be so conducted that adequately strong air forces can be made available whenever required to support naval operations against favorable fleeting targets. In addition, the Luftwaffe will remain prepared to render effective support for Operation Sea Lion.

5. Terrorization attacks as retaliatory measures will be carried out only on orders from me.

6. Intensified air warfare can commence at any time from 5 August on. The Luftwaffe will itself determine the deadline after completion of its preparations and in accordance with weather conditions.

s/ Adolf Hitler

Initialed: K[eitel]

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ETO/...rman-A.html#a2

Please take note of '1'. And you still want to say it was a draw Stern when the objectives of '1' was not achieved.

[adonys]

you just don't get the difference between willingly giving up (due to whatever reasons), and being forced to give up (like in gettin' beaten).. do you?!!

[Al Schlageter]

Originally Posted by adonys

you just don't get the difference between willingly giving up (due to whatever reasons), and being forced to give up (like in gettin' beaten).. do you?!!

You just don't get it do you. The Lw abandoned the daylight attacks and switched to night attacks because they were loosing, err gettin beaten.