WW1 Paved the Way for the Battle of Britain.
 

It's not always understood that a mini-Battle of Britain occured in WW1. Mainly between 1916 and 1918.

Britain was being bombed by Zeppelins and later by German bombers in WW1.

The defending British aircraft of the RFC and RNAS had huge problems as regards interceptions and the destruction of these crafts.

It was realised that both a Detection System and heavily armed high performance fighters was the answer.

Hence, radar and eight gunned fast fighters desigined for the RAF in the 1930's.

The only flaw in the calculations was as follows. It was anticipated that the German Luftwaffe bombers would have to fly unescorted from Germany. The fall of France was not envisaged.

Enter the Defiant. Built to intercept unescorted bombers.

Any thoughts?


Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

And yet, the RAF still only avoided defeat in BoB owing to faulty German strategy.

But what would defeat for the Brits have looked like? Sure the Germans might have gained air superiority over a quarter of the Island, but then what? Invasion? With the half hearted preparations they made? I'm not sure. (of course the lack of real planning for the invasion could be included in the poor German strategy)

Had the Germans not wasted so much of their Naval resources on the utterly useless Norway operation, the whole Idea of an invasion of England might not have been so farfetched.

Of course England could possibly have been subdued by air and Naval action (Including, of course the U-Boats), had German (and Italian, and French) resources been managed properly, thus rendering an invasion unnecessary.

All of the above said, knowing as many Brits as I do, I can hardly entertain the thought of them being subdued by such minor inconveniences as starvation and overwhelming military force. Perhaps if you cut off the supply of Tea............

Sorry Avro, I've strayed horribly off topic. It's the Baron's fault.

I agree with you- the British got a huge fright from the Zeppelin and Gotha raids in WW1. The damage done was relatively light due to the low bomb loads and primitive navigation and bomb aiming used (they basically went over a large town and dropped by guesswork). It served to illustrate that Britain was vulnerable and intercepting incoming raids needed careful planning. The British planned for exactly the type of Battle the Germans offered in 1940, whereas the German battle plan was ill-considered and poorly coordinated. As you say the only element the Brits hadn't counted on was the proximity of German airbases- they had developed tactics for confronting flotillas of unescorted bombers and had to adapt quickly.
A similar scenario happened with the Allies use of tanks in WW1- sending waves of tanks in poorly organised ranks with little/no support from artillery and aeroplanes was barely effective. The later battles of WW1 where the allies used tanks tightly packed to punch holes in enemy ranks with artillery and planes interfering with the German efforts to reinforce the breaches in their lines were extremely effective.

In WW2 the Germans had learned their lesson well and used exactly those tactics against the Allies whereas the Allies seemed to have forgotten what had worked (Many don't realise the French had far more tanks than the Germans but used them quite ineffectively).
As Napoleon said 'You must not fight the same enemy too often or you'll teach him all your art of war'.

The Germans had no chance of winning the BoB.

Their industry was not on a true war time footing.

Even during June and July they could not keep up with the losses they were incurring at the hands of the RAF.

The Luftwaffe was over politicized and poorly led, and it was organized as a tactical support branch of the Heer. It was not designed or equipped for long range strategic conflict, how could they be with only medium bombers and short range interceptors as the bulk of their force?

Coupled with the laughable state of the Kriegsmarine and the fact that Great Britain had the best planned and organized air defense on the planet at the time, and the world's largest navy and it's plain that they had no chance of success.

None.

Yup and the fact that we are on an island with the best (at that time) navy.

I dont think Germany could have taken Britain, we may have lost a fair bit of the fleet, but those invasion barges wouldnt have been able to take the necessary supplies nor withstand the Royal Navy ships that would have been able to get through the German bombers.

Germany was lucky in the early stages that no one called their bluff, they wern't really prepared for a lengthy war and probably suprised themselves at how easily they took France, Belgium etc, Britain called there bluff and no matter how much bombimg they did, you cant capture a country by bombing it, you have to have troops on the ground.

I think Hitler believed after the 1938 crisis and the Western power stance on many deeds on his part that he would never have to fight France or Britain as they would just do what they had done before: protest and then accept it.

If I remember well, I once heard in a documentary that he was really surprised when he got the declaration of war from France and Britain.

One may conclude from it that the German Luftwaffe and army was never actually meant to invade France, let alone Britain. It was done and attempted because facts were different from what was planned for and had to be accounted for by going into the offensive, trying to take out France and Britain, with what they had, before turning to their real objective.

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