WW1 Paved the Way for the Battle of Britain.

[609_Huetz]

I'd be very careful with the country bashing or country praising.

The unpleasant truth is, with the experiences gained in Spain, Poland, Norway and France, the Luftwaffe was as prepared as they could possibly be, despite the losses in previous campaigns. In addition, they had the abolute advantage in numbers and what's much more important the initiative.

What spoiled it for Hitler, Goering, etc. were three factors:

a.) The abysmal intelligence service of the OKL. Their CO Oberst Beppo Schmidt reported on 19.July 1940 that the 110 and the 109 were both much superior to anything the RAF could and would field during the upcoming campaign. In addition, his report doesn't underestimate the effect of radar, it didn't even mention it!

b.) British Air Defense and Early Warning Systems. While the Few had to face desperate odds as far as numbers go, just imagine what would have happened if they had to fill slots on standing patrols 24/7 during the BoB. The sophisticated combined system of OC and Radar was indeed a dealbreaker for Goerings praised (and overrated) Luftwaffe.

c.) Strategical/Tactical Errors. Intially, the Germans did pick their targets well in accordance of their goals for the campaign (radar, airfields, etc.), however they did not learn from their mistakes during the inital stages and grossly underestimated the true strength of the RAF. During the early days of September 1940, Goering and Kesselring both overconfidently claimed that the RAF is on it's knees and that it's time to deal the final blow, this time to the people of Britian. While losses remained high on both sides, that was the final and capital error in Germany's strategy. One can only imagine what could have happened if it (thank god) wasn't for Hitler's and Goering's stupidity. Here's personell loss percentages for both sides during the BoB (Fighter Command and Jagdwaffe):

RAF: July 10%
August 26%
September 28%

LW: July 11%
August 15%
September 23%

An interesting aspect worth mentioning is also how little was learned from the experiences in the BoB during the later stages of the war within the RAF and the USAAF. Both thought long range fighter escort unneccesary and attributed German losses to poor discipline, inadequate equipment and low combat altitude. Two attacks on Schweinfurt in '43 had to proove them wrong.

If you want to do some good reading on the subject, I'd recommend Williamson Murray's "War in the Air 1914-45" for starters, that goes a long way further than just comparing numbers, but also elaborates on the doctrines of the mid-war years that led to what was happening in those fateful months of 1940.

Let's also not forget that this should be about history, not about which country is better or worse than the other.

[MB_Avro_UK]

Anyway.... back on topic


Here's a picture of my WW1 Royal Flying Corps pilot's helmet and goggles. Also shown is my RFC Mark V Omega cockpit watch, the pilot's Log Book I mentioned earlier and a .303 bullet casing found at Stow Maries airfield.



The WW1 German raids exposed the British vulnerability to air attack. Things were changed by 1940.

But did the Germans learn anything from their WW1 experiences against the British defences?


Best Regards,
MB_Avro

[baronWastelan]

Considering the technology and the objectives were vastly different from 1st war to the 2nd, the Germans would have been well served forgetting the WWI experiences. Unfortunately for the LW, WWI experiences were 99% of Goering's knowledge.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by baronWastelan

Considering the technology and the objectives were vastly different from 1st war to the 2nd, the Germans would have been well served forgetting the WWI experiences. Unfortunately for the LW, WWI experiences were 99% of Goering's knowledge.

Yes that's quite correct.

The decimation of the Luftwaffe in 1940 had nothing to do with the British having the most comprehensive air defence system ever conceived.

Or that Britain had a more efficient training and manufacturing output.

Or that the British believed in giving the pilots a rest as opposed to making them fly until they died.

It was all the fat git's fault.

By the way, there was nothing unfortunate about it, unless you believe the world would be better off under nazi rule.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Good God, everything you just said is so wrong on so many counts I can't begin.

No offence!

Just realised that someone's being reeeeally sarcy. Result. You got me!

One should keep in mind that BoB was the FIRST ever attempt for an oversea invasion with air power playing a role, afaik. There was NO precedent to learn from and learning was by doing it. And it was obviously a very difficult task. And it was done against a defense system that was by its time unique and extremely efficient.

WW1 was a complete different story and the raids had a completely different task.

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

Anyway.... back on topic


Here's a picture of my WW1 Royal Flying Corps pilot's helmet and goggles. Also shown is my RFC Mark V Omega cockpit watch, the pilot's Log Book I mentioned earlier and a .303 bullet casing found at Stow Maries airfield.



The WW1 German raids exposed the British vulnerability to air attack. Things were changed by 1940.

But did the Germans learn anything from their WW1 experiences against the British defences?


Best Regards,
MB_Avro

I think most of the worlds airforces learned the wrong lessons, from both perspectives on both sides. Nearly all had some form of "the bomber will always get through" doctrine in operation during the interwar years and we know how well that worked out for everyone. For the most part the tactics that were used during WWII were more or less stumbled upon through a mixture of expediency and necessity, and the farsightedness of a few individuals who were in the right place at the right time.

I think that pretty much all of the players were keenly aware of their (and their potential enemies) vulnerabilities to airpower. They just, for the most part didn't see how it would work out.

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by 609_Huetz

a.) The abysmal intelligence service of the OKL. Their CO Oberst Beppo Schmidt reported on 19.July 1940 that the 110 and the 109 were both much superior to anything the RAF could and would field during the upcoming campaign. In addition, his report doesn't underestimate the effect of radar, it didn't even mention it!

c.) Strategical/Tactical Errors. Intially, the Germans did pick their targets well in accordance of their goals for the campaign (radar, airfields, etc.)

The two statements seem to be at odds with each other. On hand - a logical fallacy often repeated in British BoB literature - it claims the Germans didn't even know about radar, so poor was their intelligence - another favourite British theme - yet they somehow kept bombing them still.

Now either Göring should have played lottery instead of beim RM of the LW, for being so lucky picking targets he supposedly did not even know of, OR the Beppo Schmidt report was hardly the only German intelligence material, nor the only considered in mission planning, and British historians (who often state a ridiculus amount of wishful commentary regarding the 'truth' vs this report) simply - probably also out of complete ignorance of German intel during WW2 - simply set up a strawman arguement to illustrate how ingenious the British, and in contrast how stupid the Germans were.

IMHO Beppo's report was mostly correct, he made one cardinal serious mistake, when he underestimated current fighter production - though his numbers would be quite correct a few months before, as British production was just about ramped up in mid-1940 from its modest levels, also inspired by the state of the Army after Dunkerque.

OTOH the British also seem to have very faint idea what was happening on the other side of the channel, they had no clear idea how many planes the Germans had, how many were they producing, and where they were located in France, nor did they had any idea on German radar (and for about a year or two, knew next to nothing about it) or German radio navigation and blind bombing systems. So on what ground do they criticize German intel in 1940, I do not know.

[winny]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

The two statements seem to be at odds with each other. On hand - a logical fallacy often repeated in British BoB literature - it claims the Germans didn't even know about radar, so poor was their intelligence - another favourite British theme - yet they somehow kept bombing them still.

Now either Göring should have played lottery instead of beim RM of the LW, for being so lucky picking targets he supposedly did not even know of, OR the Beppo Schmidt report was hardly the only German intelligence material, nor the only considered in mission planning, and British historians (who often state a ridiculus amount of wishful commentary regarding the 'truth' vs this report) simply - probably also out of complete ignorance of German intel during WW2 - simply set up a strawman arguement to illustrate how ingenious the British, and in contrast how stupid the Germans were.

IMHO Beppo's report was mostly correct, he made one cardinal serious mistake, when he underestimated current fighter production - though his numbers would be quite correct a few months before, as British production was just about ramped up in mid-1940 from its modest levels, also inspired by the state of the Army after Dunkerque.

OTOH the British also seem to have very faint idea what was happening on the other side of the channel, they had no clear idea how many planes the Germans had, how many were they producing, and where they were located in France, nor did they had any idea on German radar (and for about a year or two, knew next to nothing about it) or German radio navigation and blind bombing systems. So on what ground do they criticize German intel in 1940, I do not know.

I'll tell you why I can criticise German intelligence..

Of course they knew what Radar was, they already had Freya..
However, in '39 they sent a zepplin over (General Wolfgang Milch) to see what the giant masts were. They were expecting to hear some kind of response from the masts, but they had discounted using HF radio for radar (because they were using VHF and UHF) it simply did not occur to them that what they were looking at was radar because it was so primative.

They sent another zepplin over because they thought that there must be a defect with thier own radio equipment and by massive coincidence on that day the station they were looking at was switched off for repairs. This further confused them, and they stopped investigating them.

Once the battle had started

They also continually bombed costal and bomber command airfields whilst trying to destroy fighter comand, thay had no knowledge of the civillian repair network, no idea about british aircraft production and they believed thier own 'kill' count (in this aspect they were different from RAF who were more concerned with how many of thier own planes thay had lost)

In September Scmhid reported to Goering that the RAF had 177 aircraft left (they had 659)
At no point during the battle did the LW have a clear picture of Fighter Commands structure, they failed to exploit the strengths they had, the use of the fighter arm was, well, incompetent. They did not look after thier men, they swictched tactics and suffered from mission creep. All because Schmid (as Galland pointed out 'Trimmed his salis to the wind' in order to please his superiors, not give them the truth)

Problem is if you say anything negative about the LW on here you get a load of 'no they weren't' posts. Can we at least have some realism here?
To use the 'well the RAF didn't know what was going on either' argument is juvenille, they didn't need to at that point they just needed to know what was coming and try and stop it.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Blakduk

It's quite silly to question the LW as being the preeminent airforce in the world in 1940- they were better equipped and better led in tactics than then RAF. During the BoB the RAF learned some very hard lessons, the ill-conceived Defiant and 'Vic' formations are prime examples. In 1941 the RAF's performance over France was pathetic- the attrition in Spitfires alone was almost criminally negligent.
The BoB campaign was really aimed at imposing a cost on the British and challenging the will of their citizens to continue hostilities against Germany when they were cast out of the continent of Europe. The intransigence of Churchill and the unexpected resilience of the populace were what thwarted the German offensive.
The British failed to learn the lesson however and made exactly the same mistakes against the Germans when they started to take the offensive in the air. The Germans developed a coordinated air defence, chose which raids to confront, and the German people displayed the same stoicism as the British had when bombs fell on their cities. The RAF performance during the Dieppe raid was a travesty.
What the Germans didn't do however was gear their industry for full war production until Speer took over in late 1943- far too late. The LW never acquired a large enough strategic reserve and each pilot basically flew until he was dead, captured or crippled.

The attrition finished them in the end- their men were men after all, not ubermensch.

Very good, well balanced post.

There's no reason getting worked up when studying history, unless we want to reach wrong conclusions

I mean, one time we hear how the RAF was fighting tooth and nail while outnumbered (the legend of the few) because we like boosting the heroic aspect of the allied war effort, then we hear how the RAF had better training and production to boost the ingenious aspect of the allied war effort and make us feel good that the allies beat the axis in their own game (industry), many times from the exact same people.

Well, it doesn't take a genius to understand that these statements openly contradict each other unless we provide the correct frame of reference for each one. We can't say the RAF had the better manufacturing and logistics AND was fighting an uphill battle at the same time. What we can say is that the RAF was in situation A until that point during the battle, then they learned from experience and their preparations started having a result which got them to a better situation B during a certain month.


Don't get me wrong, i'm glad the axis lost, but when studying history there's no need to prop up the actions of anybody.

The way i see the whole WWII in Europe is that Germany was all about trying to produce the absolute best in terms of manufacturing, equipment, new technologies and training of the people in their armed forces without having sufficient strategic resources and logistics planning in place to ensure this would work long term. Naturally, after a point in time they couldn't keep up and their system collapsed by the allied decision to do the opposite: focus on outnumbering them first, essentially throwing bodies and inferior equipment to the fire to stem the tide while stockpiling strategic reserves (of all kinds), then turning that strategic advantage into a quality advantage at a time where the axis quality factor was on the decline.

If we wanted to draw an internet meme analogy, Germany was putting 100 ninjas on the field against a haphazard crowd of 1000 less experienced and worse equipped enemies. It worked initially, but then attrition took its toll on numbers, training was accelerated to replace losses and their blacksmiths lacked the metals to give them shinny,razor sharp swords to fight with, while the crowd of 1000 was growing in numbers, improving in experience and getting better equipment, so they lost