From Bristol Bulldog to Spitfire, Handley Page Heyford to Lancaster - the revolution in aircraft design in the late 1930s

[F-UnitMad]

10 hours ago, OnTheBranchline said:

Why did WW2 RAF bombers for the most part not have ventral/ball turrets compared to contemporary USAF bombers?

With the increased German use of "Schrage Musik" guns later in the war, taking advantage of the RAF bombers' blind spot, a ventral ball turret seems an obvious solution.

But the RAF bombers did have an advantage the USAAF did not - they could use evasive action as individual aircraft, provided of course that the night fighter was spotted in time. As the USAAF flew in formation, they couldn't do that. Sure it"s been covered before in this thread that 'corkscrewing' was often a more effective defence than firing back.

[PupCam]

47 minutes ago, Hroth said:

......... after the BoB and went on to develop the Typhoon and the Tempest.

 

 

Which spookily enough were monocoque* construction just like those new fangled Spitfires.

 

* Slight misnomer but the essential element of a monocoque is the stressed skin albeit in the case of aircraft these are typically held together and in-place on a "frames and stringer" structure.

[whart57]

1 hour ago, PupCam said:

Would the BoB have been won with only Hurricanes? 

 

Yes.

 

Without taking anything away from the brave RAF pilots, there were three factors that meant the BoB was an almost impossible task for the Luftwaffe.

 

The first and most obvious one is that the German planes had to cross the Channel or the North Sea limiting the time their best fighters could be in action over England. Not only did the Luftwaffe have to cross the sea, so would any ground troops, meaning that the RAF's fighter airfields were not threatened by ground attack. Only Manston, by far the most easterly RAF base, was put out of action and some RAF bases were simply out of reach for the German air force.

 

The advantage of having a wide moat was enhanced with the invention and deployment of radar. The British High Command knew when and where the attacks were coming from and get planes up into the air to intercept them

 

The final advantage was that Britain had had more time to prepare. The Germans were still dealing with French resistance for some weeks after the RAF had effectively withdrawn from France, so by the time it was Britain's turn, the RAF had closed the gap in numbers of planes. Yes the Luftwaffe did put more planes into the BoB, but the numbers of fighters on each side were more balanced.

[PupCam]

19 minutes ago, whart57 said:

The advantage of having a wide moat was enhanced with the invention and deployment of radar. The British High Command knew when and where the attacks were coming from and get planes up into the air to intercept them

 

 A most significant advantage despite any limitations of the early technology.    It enabled a national defence "system" to make use of and essentially attempt (being the operative word) coordinate all of the resources available.    Of course the Big Wing / smaller flights argument will no doubt run and run.    I wonder if anyone has modelled the situation and tried both scenarios out to see which actually was the most successful?    Hmm, that would be interesting.

 

[jjb1970]

The decisive weapon wasn't radar itself, it was the system of fighter control of which radar was only a part. 

 

The other decisive weapon was math. The German's had to grind down the RAF and achieve some sort of air superiority whilst maintaining sufficient force to protect the invasion, and do it quickly. The numbers game was against the Luftwaffe from the outset considering relative force numbers and time available if the invasion was to have been launched in 1940 (or even 1941) although it was still a hugely difficult battle for the RAF to fight.

[whart57]

16 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

The decisive weapon wasn't radar itself, it was the system of fighter control of which radar was only a part. 

 

The other decisive weapon was math. The German's had to grind down the RAF and achieve some sort of air superiority whilst maintaining sufficient force to protect the invasion, and do it quickly. The numbers game was against the Luftwaffe from the outset considering relative force numbers and time available if the invasion was to have been launched in 1940 (or even 1941) although it was still a hugely difficult battle for the RAF to fight.

 

The scale of German losses in the Battles for France and the Low Countries should not be overlooked either. Over 1500 planes were lost, making it about a third of the Luftwaffe front line strength. The RAF lost about 900 planes, but the bulk were light bombers like the Fairey Battle or Bristol Blenheim, and few Spitfires were deployed to France.

[F-UnitMad]

1 minute ago, whart57 said:

and few Spitfires were deployed to France.

Not saying you're wrong, but I was under the impression that although Spits operated over France at that time, none were actually deployed to airfields there?

[OnTheBranchline]

55 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

The decisive weapon wasn't radar itself, it was the system of fighter control of which radar was only a part. 

 

The other decisive weapon was math. The German's had to grind down the RAF and achieve some sort of air superiority whilst maintaining sufficient force to protect the invasion, and do it quickly. The numbers game was against the Luftwaffe from the outset considering relative force numbers and time available if the invasion was to have been launched in 1940 (or even 1941) although it was still a hugely difficult battle for the RAF to fight.

Even so, Sealion would have been a disaster for the German Navy if the Royal Navy showed up.

Edited February 3, 2023 by OnTheBranchline

[PupCam]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

The decisive weapon wasn't radar itself, it was the system of fighter control of which radar was only a part.

 

Precisely - it was a (key) component of a defence "system"

[62613]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The decisive weapon wasn't radar itself, it was the system of fighter control of which radar was only a part. 

 

The other decisive weapon was math. The German's had to grind down the RAF and achieve some sort of air superiority whilst maintaining sufficient force to protect the invasion, and do it quickly. The numbers game was against the Luftwaffe from the outset considering relative force numbers and time available if the invasion was to have been launched in 1940 (or even 1941) although it was still a hugely difficult battle for the RAF to fight.

It was as much an intelligence failure as anything that the Luftwaffe failed to appreciate how the British defence system actually operated; they had plenty of opportunities, in that they could actually listen to the fighter controllers directing their planes.

 

Has anyone mentioned the Zero yet? Had its faults, but in the opening months of the Pacific war, it was a terror to the Allied air forces  

[2750Papyrus]

Interestingly, I think all posters ascribe to the opinion that the BoB was a British victory.  Eric "Winkle" Brown records that, in his meeting with Goering, he asked who won the BoB.  Goering replied that it was a draw, citing that British losses in the latter part of the battle were similar to German losses, and that the battle ended when Hitler cancelled Sea Lion and started planning for the Russian campaign.  I don't think I've ever seen discussion of this view.

[Flying Pig]

1 minute ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Interestingly, I think all posters ascribe to the opinion that the BoB was a British victory.  Eric "Winkle" Brown records that, in his meeting with Goering, he asked who won the BoB.  Goering replied that it was a draw, citing that British losses in the latter part of the battle were similar to German losses, and that the battle ended when Hitler cancelled Sea Lion and started planning for the Russian campaign.  I don't think I've ever seen discussion of this view.

 

It's hard to see a situation in which Britain remained at war with Germany and the conduit from US production capacity remained open as anything other than a British and later Allied victory, regardless of who shot down more aircraft.

 

[whart57]

29 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

It's hard to see a situation in which Britain remained at war with Germany and the conduit from US production capacity remained open as anything other than a British and later Allied victory, regardless of who shot down more aircraft.

 

That is the post-1945 perspective. Two months after the Battle of Britain Roosevelt would promise the American voters that he wouldn't involve the USA in a European war, and from the German point of view, the West was neutralised. France was defeated and occupied and while Britain could still be a nuisance, Germany didn't have to fear Britain opening up a second front. Things looked different in late 1940 and the Soviet Union was always Hitler's target.

[whart57]

1 hour ago, 62613 said:

Has anyone mentioned the Zero yet? Had its faults, but in the opening months of the Pacific war, it was a terror to the Allied air forces  

 

If your frontline fighter was the Brewster Buffalo then it would be. There were maybe half a dozen Hurricane equipped squadrons in the Far East, split between the RAF, the Australian airforce and the Dutch airforce based in the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia). Nothing better.

[2750Papyrus]

18 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

It's hard to see a situation in which Britain remained at war with Germany and the conduit from US production capacity remained open as anything other than a British and later Allied victory, regardless of who shot down more aircraft.

 

An interesting viewpoint, strategically, though I think most people at the time - including Goering? - would have taken a tactical perspective. 

 

I think I agree that Brits would have been aware that the immediate threat of invasion had been defeated. Was there a widespread appreciation of the extent to which US production would contribute to eventual victory? 

 

Whilst Churchill believed this and worked hard to achieve US support, the Battle of the Atlantic determined how valuable this output was. 

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, 2750Papyrus said:

records that, in his meeting with Goering, he asked who won the BoB.  Goering replied that it was a draw, citing that British losses in the latter part of the battle were similar to German losses,

Goering would never have admitted to "losing", not in a million years!! If  anything his leadership was a major hindrance to the Luftwaffe throughout the war - one of many, of course.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

29 minutes ago, whart57 said:

There were maybe half a dozen Hurricane equipped squadrons in the Far East, split between the RAF, the Australian airforce and the Dutch airforce based in the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia).

Mentioned in a related thread but the air cover for Task Force Z was intended to be a load of 48 Hurricanes being ferried by HMS Indomitable (92). They were delayed because Indomitable grounded on a reef off Jamaica in November 1941 on her maiden voyage.

 

Ultimately they were delivered to Sumatra in January 1942 where they were (mostly) destroyed on the ground during the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies.

 

It's hard to know how well Hurricanes would have stood up to front-line Japanese fighters of the time like the Zero. A substantial difference was the training/experience level of the Japanese pilots which was far superior to most allied pilots in theatre at the time.

[PupCam]

2 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Interestingly, I think all posters ascribe to the opinion that the BoB was a British victory.  Eric "Winkle" Brown records that, in his meeting with Goering, he asked who won the BoB.  Goering replied that it was a draw, citing that British losses in the latter part of the battle were similar to German losses,

 

I think it could be quite valid to suggest that "Goering would say that wouldn't he!".   

 

Is there any evidence to suggest that Winkle actually agreed with the sentiment or, as I suspect, was the question asked merely in his attempts to try and further understand Goering's character during the war crimes trials?  

[duncan]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Mentioned in a related thread but the air cover for Task Force Z was intended to be a load of 48 Hurricanes being ferried by HMS Indomitable (92). They were delayed because Indomitable grounded on a reef off Jamaica in November 1941 on her maiden voyage.

 

Ultimately they were delivered to Sumatra in January 1942 where they were (mostly) destroyed on the ground during the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies.

 

It's hard to know how well Hurricanes would have stood up to front-line Japanese fighters of the time like the Zero. A substantial difference was the training/experience level of the Japanese pilots which was far superior to most allied pilots in theatre at the time.

 

My knowledge is based on "Hurricanes versus Zeros" by T Kelly, and may interpretation is that the main problems were lack of warning of air attacks, poor communication & a large amount of commanders / pilots not learning fighting lessons from the BoB.

[jjb1970]

7 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Interestingly, I think all posters ascribe to the opinion that the BoB was a British victory.  Eric "Winkle" Brown records that, in his meeting with Goering, he asked who won the BoB.  Goering replied that it was a draw, citing that British losses in the latter part of the battle were similar to German losses, and that the battle ended when Hitler cancelled Sea Lion and started planning for the Russian campaign.  I don't think I've ever seen discussion of this view.

 

Roy Hattersely, the former British Labour party politician, ascribed to the same view as Goering in considering it a draw, and there has always been some support for it even in Britain.

 

I think it is a fundamental misunderstanding. Wars and battles are not usually about how many people and machines are lost, but about whether objectives are achieved. The objective of the RAF was to maintain air superiority over Britain and deny conditions which would have allowed an invasion. The German objective is actually a lot more complicated than normally recognized because it is unclear whether they really had one other than a generalized ambition to win.

 

Was it to grind down the British economy and capacity to resist? This would mean a real degradation of RAF operability, aircraft production and access to raw materials in a sustained campaign over many months in coordination with the U-Boat campaign. Was it to establish local air superiority over SE England long enough to allow an invasion? That probably needed a short but very high intensity attack on the RAF, assuming they had sufficient resources to do it without destroying themselves in the process. Was it terror attacks to try and break the will to fight?

 

The German's don't seem to have figured out what their objective was nor a real operational plan other than that if they attacked the RAF the Luftwaffe would win and after that things would work themselves out.

 

Given that at the end of the battle the RAF maintained air superiority over Britain (and despite difficult moments was never in real risk of losing it), Germany never established conditions to make an invasion remotely realistic and that the Luftwaffe was reduced to night bombing and suffered imense long term damage from the losses inflicted on them it's difficult to see it as anything other than a decisive defeat for Germany regardless of numbers of aircraft lost.

 

The BoB seems reflective of a German inability to develop strategy following the collapse of France. In his brilliant book 'The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West' (which was published as the official German history of the campaign) Karl Heinz Frieser posited that the long term effects of Blitzkrieg were disastrous for Germany as German commanders substituted operational planning for strategy and assumed that the same dynamic of operational victories leading to strategic success would be replicated elsewhere. David Stahel wrote an excellent book on operation Barbarossa which posited that Germany lost the war in the summer of 1941 (a view shared by a number of historians), whether that is right or wrong he provides an excellent analysis of German planning which shows that the German plan was basically inflict a Blitzkrieg defeat on the USSR and then watch them collapse. There was no real analysis of Soviet industrial capacity or a strategic plan nor consideration of what might happen in the event of a drawn out war with the USSR in which all the numbers would be against Germany.

[whart57]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Karl Heinz Frieser posited that the long term effects of Blitzkrieg were disastrous for Germany as German commanders substituted operational planning for strategy and assumed that the same dynamic of operational victories leading to strategic success would be replicated elsewhere. David Stahel wrote an excellent book on operation Barbarossa which posited that Germany lost the war in the summer of 1941 (a view shared by a number of historians), whether that is right or wrong he provides an excellent analysis of German planning which shows that the German plan was basically inflict a Blitzkrieg defeat on the USSR and then watch them collapse.

 

One factor often overlooked is that in Josef Stalin, the Nazis faced a leader as ruthless, inhumane and careless of suffering as they were themselves. Not democratic politicians as they had in the summer of 1940. The leaders of France, the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway were all unwilling to sacrifice their people in a lost cause. Had Britain actually faced the reality of the German army street fighting their way through south and east London and no help coming from elsewhere then Churchill might not have capitulated himself, but he is likely to have been realistic enough to resign and let someone else do the unpleasant task of hanging out the white flag. Stalin on the other hand was quite prepared to sacrifice the inhabitants of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow to their sieges, and if Russians starved while resisting, then Stalin would use his KGB bullies to keep them loyal.

[62613]

16 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

An interesting viewpoint, strategically, though I think most people at the time - including Goering? - would have taken a tactical perspective. 

 

I think I agree that Brits would have been aware that the immediate threat of invasion had been defeated. Was there a widespread appreciation of the extent to which US production would contribute to eventual victory? 

 

Whilst Churchill believed this and worked hard to achieve US support, the Battle of the Atlantic determined how valuable this output was. 

The only way the UK could have been defeated after June 1940 was at sea; if the Germans could have interrupted shipping to and from home ports, so that we couldn't feed ourselves or carry out military operations. They came close to that really only twice, in the summer of 1942, and for a couple of months in spring 1943

[Ozexpatriate]

17 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Karl Heinz Frieser posited that the long term effects of Blitzkrieg were disastrous for Germany as German commanders substituted operational planning for strategy and assumed that the same dynamic of operational victories leading to strategic success would be replicated elsewhere.

Variations on the theme of "Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics and sustainability in warfare"*

 

* Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) - November 11, 1979

 

Which arguably is a version of "Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars" - often attributed online (questionably) to  John Pershing, or, relatedly Omar Bradley's:

Quote

To tell the story of how and why we chose to do what we did, no one can ignore the personalities and characteristics of those individuals engaged in making decisions. For military command is as much a practice of human relations as it is a science of tactics and a knowledge of logistics. Where there are people, there is pride and ambition, prejudice and conflict. In generals, as in all other men, capabilities cannot always obscure weaknesses, nor can talents hide faults.

 

[62613]

On 04/02/2023 at 20:54, Ozexpatriate said:

Variations on the theme of "Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics and sustainability in warfare"*

 

* Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) - November 11, 1979

I think that General Sir Archibald Wavell mentioned something similar in his Lees - Jones Lecture, On Generalship, in 1938. Does anyone know where you could obtain a copy.

 

I'd agree with JJB; the Germans didn't really do grand strategy, in that there was no overall plan as to what would happen next. There was no steady plan to allocate or procure the raw materials required for the war effort; there was no - one allocating personnel to specific tasks. Even what was produced seems to have been don almost on a whim.

 

Hitler ordered the invasion of Norway because he thought the British and French were going to invade, and cut off his source of prime Swedish iron ore (Churchill had been advocating for this in the British press since November 1939, as a means to aid the Finns against the Soviets). He was right; the invasion force was actually embarked on several British cruisers when the German invasion occurred; they had to be quicly disembarked. He sent Rommel to Libya because he couldn't bear the thought of his ally Mussolini being humiliated; there wasn't anything of real strategic value for the Germans in North Africa. He invaded Yugoslavia after a British - backed coup toppled a leader who was more or less allied to him, there was a follow - on into Greece and then Crete, just because British Empire troops were in both places. The casualties incurred by the Germans in the invasion of Crete quite probably saved Cyprus and, long - term, Malta.

 

Note also that the sea - borne part of the German invasion of Crete was a complete failure, even though they had undisputed air superiority, and that the majority of the garrison escaped.

Edited February 6, 2023 by 62613
Last paragraph added

[Ozexpatriate]

11 minutes ago, 62613 said:

there wasn't anything of real strategic value for the Germans in North Africa ...

Besides the Suez Canal?