Battle Of Britain: Combat & Balance of Force 

I think that more than half the British pilots shot down didn't survive the experience.

Dan Zervos So 50% of downed British pilots were returning to their squadrons while 100% of downed German pilots were not.

No this is not the case , the number of pilots that returned to active service was much higher . I can't remember the exact percentage, more like 60 to 70%, which was a surprise to me . Some of course could not fly until long after the Battle of Britain was over . If you wish , you may be able to find the exact numbers on the Internet .

Many were picked up by the British. The German Pilots would spit in there faces being hauled out the Channel. Stupid!

The RAF lost 1087 aircraft and 544 pilots during the battle.

Absolutely!

Battle of the Atlantic

And the Atlantic,good point!

Campaign! there was no battle. British Propaganda!

Same as WW1. the battle of Somme several months of attacks and planned battles.

They were terrorists like ISIS.

I saw that too and it threw me for a loop :)

@@danwest3825 We know MHV is thinking it

Yeah, but well, they still did the right thing I guess; what's more important? Your homeland or a random territory you're trying to occupy? And after all, they won the war no matter what.

I think you missed his point, wildly

@@thehummusgavemeaids1596 Who? Him or me?

+MaxRavenclaw - And the attack (from Norway) might have succeeded. The Luftwaffe had sent a diversion of 6 seaplanes to draw off the fighters away from the bombers, and it worked. However, a navigational error by the bombers sent them directly into the teeth of the British fighters anyway and they were cut to pieces. There were no Bf-109 fighters only the useless Bf-110 for protection. The British didn't lose a single plane and the Germans lost 23 bombers and crews. That was 10% of the Luftwaffe force in Norway and so, no raids from Norway were ever mounted again.

Rick Roscoe Yes, interesting. I didn't know this part.

+Rick Roscoe Wasn't that out of an attacking force of something like 75?

Why were the BF-110's so useless? I'm not really familiar with them. But pretty much everything I've heard about them says they were a pretty awful plane. Why was this?

Never knew, war is awfull and I hate it but it is interesting as long as your not participating. 77 years ago my Grannie was terrified of invasion!

thank you! ok, I will think about it, I usually try to visualize all the numbers because it gives a better "feel" of the proportions. Yeah, those two topics are definitely on my list, although may take a while.

I agree with visualizing all the numbers by showing the silhouettes of the unit types. I was thinking that writing the actual number in addition to the silhouettes would add to the visualization.

+ProudToBeNoob thank you! Be careful, I don't think there is something as "objective", I am analytical and try to be as "objective" as possible, but our sources are limited, basically when it comes to History, I don't think there is something as objective and even in the "hard" sciences there is a lot of debate. well, that could take a while, I know almost nothing about those two topics at all :(

+GM6linx thank you! just digesting my breakfast, than I will start the next one :)

The Luftwaffe lost many flight instructors because they used them to fly Ju 52 transports. Hundreds died in Holland, Crete, Norway and later Damyansk and Stalingrad. The Ju 52 was very inefficient due to high fuel consumption, low speed, short range limiting the number of load carrying trips it could make. It could lift as much as a DC3/C47 but for the same fuel and time flew only 55% as far. In the essence you need twice as many aircraft and crew to do the same job unless they are ultra short trips of 300km or less. This loss of instructors killed flying transports drastically effected training replacements. The Germans could clearly build much better transports such as the Ju 252, Arado 232 and Fw 200 but setting up mass production was much harder.

Dude,in France, Poland, Norway , Luftwaffe losses wasn't at all at high level !! Not even in russia first 2 years ! But after the end of 1942 yes ,because of too much fronts.

Yes they were as couldn’t replace the planes to cover looses

+Juibus I will, but they require a lot of research and do to the amount of information a series is needed. So far my experience with series like the Battle of Britain and the Imperial Roman Army were mixed, got tired and didn't really finish them, e.g., no weapons for the Roman Army and no conclusion of the Battle of Britain. Also I need to find a proper format for them, but right now I am still learning a lot and trying out different stuff.

+jackofswords7 thank you!

thank you!

+Jimbob7595 thank you!

A view of the facts, not the facts per se insomuch as we are referencing by two books only as far as is shown above. Nonetheless an informative video; doesn't change the outcome which is the fact.

thank you! I did a video on Luftwaffe Logistics: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZgGXRJg-NNU.html and also the shortcoming of the Luftwaffe: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nR0r7yrowhU.html Yeah, the British Air Defense system was the best in the world. I describe it a bit in previous video of the Battle of Britain. The Cambridge History of the Second World War (2015) goes so far to call it the "Battle of Britain?".

Of course when the Battle of Britain was going on the USA weren't in the war.

Against the wishes of the camberlen administration

thank you, nope not a professor, but I have a M.A. and M.Sc., I mainly use academic sources and create videos from those.

thank you!

Tim Neemo 'Also, was it a systemic fault - that is, did the Germans tend to underestimate their opponents?' A reasonable question. The Germans gambled on a short war. Perhaps their timetable made them disregard warning signs or indulge in wishful thinking.

They're always underestimate their opponents

thx

It's a good deal more complex than that. The RAF command and control system, (Group/Sector/Satellite airfield) developed during the 1930s played a key role along with radar. The short endurance time of Luftwaffe fighters over southern England was also a major factor, and the RAF's ability to call in support squadrons from 12 Group were crucial.

Mostly agree, reading the narrative written by German Ace Adolph Galland, depicting the bad use of the fighters by Goering, seems to confirm your post. But the extraordinarily good coordination of the British system was also crucial. When you wrote "RADAR", in reality it was a complex ststem of many subsystems, aided by anything like the small unassuming "fishing vessel" on the Channel, the large pyramidal acoustic trumpets, the many observation posts, the network of telephone communications, the magnificent command of the squadrons at the command centers, and the invaluable contribution of people like mechanics and armorers supplying the British fighters and the WAAFs, just for example.

This was exploited by fighter command during the Battle of Britain - figher sweeps would fly over to the french coast at altitude and force a scramble of Bf109s then turn tail and run before they could get up to altitude. The Bf109s would then land, but with their narrow landing gear they were quite likely to crash. Eventually the Luftwaffe got wise to what was going on and refused to come up so they sent a bomber with the sweep to drop some bombs on the base - not sure if it was effective but it did lead to the fighters being scrambled again and the bomber (with a big altitude advantage and fighter escort, running:-). No doubt several of these flights didn't come off.

Didn't happen during the Battle of Britain at All, Did happen in 1941-43 and the operations were called Rodeos and Ramrods. Germans won that one with a kill loss ratio of 10-1 in their favor (They only has 150 fighters in France after the start of the USSR campaign) ,

Dicky. The Germans never had a 10 to 1 kill rate, maybe 10 times the number of claims but claims and kills are very different.

The fact is the policy was to take out the bombers and try not to get into fights but in reality the pilots often had to fight and with the Spitfires better climb and altitude performance it was logical for Hurricanes to attack bombers while spitfires held off the fighters but as is so often the case sometimes the roles were reversed, both Hurricanes and Spitfires were capable of defeating Bf 109`s in a turning fight, in fact the bombers were often harder to deal with. Too much is made of poor RAF tactics but the biggest difference between the Germans and British is the British were better at adapting when things were not going right.

+willconq thank you. Completely agree, Sealion was impossible. James Corum made had an interesting idea about how the Battle of Britain should have been thought, it is outlined in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nR0r7yrowhU.html

+willconq Good points, but actually the Royal Navy was of limited value, as land based artillery could be used in the narrow points of the channel... Dover was even hit by German artillery from France... 1940-1944 the only ship to go through the channel was a single RN destroyer, ones. It was not waters controlled by anyone at sea. However the greater issue would be what to use for transporting troops across. The Germans had no way of moving ships into the channel, and while Falschimsjäger could probably establish a beachhead in Kent, then they would need resupply by sea and reinforcements (and by reinforcements I mean a lot and fast). They simply did not have the transports needed. In many ways Seelöwe seemed more like an operation to force the British to surrender (if a sweet enough offer was made), but Hitler by sending him, and especially von Rippentrop as ambassador had learned nothing of the British, and on top of that the events during the operation (the Blitz..) made it impossible to force peace from the air even with air superiority. So the Germans could either have a failed airborne landing in the UK with massive losses making them a easy meal for Stalin, or face a slow starvation of resources. The actual intentions of the Germans in relation to Britain in 1940 is still unclear and there was a lot of disagreement between the different branches of the Wehrmacht. So much that invasion might have been possible to a degree, but would have certainly failed on the ground even if they got across the channel. And then there is the important question of if it was ever really Hitlers intention to give Seelöve the green light at all.

Erm I think you'll find some rather larger ships than a single British Destroyer when through the Channel - much to the embarrassment of the RN/RAF and pretty much everyone - there were regular MTB raids (and german equivalent - sorry name escapes me) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash Once you got a beachead in kent barges across the channel whilst contested would be nothing we didn't manage with dunkirk. It would have been difficult but in 1940 Britain was a mess. My Personal tactic though would have been a much more serious and prepared U boat campaign - logistics are king and the Uboats nearly won anyway...

The Air Battle was crucial. Planes would have demolished the British Navy. like at Singapore. Churchill never understood aircraft!

Hitler wanted Britain to be his junior partner. He thought that when he finished of the Soviets they would have to come to heel.

even that went up all the time, not sure maybe I skipped that part, was ages ago.

not to mention that the British could recover their pilots the Germans couldn't, hence if the British had problems than the Germans should have way more problems unless they had substantially fewer losses, which was clearly not the case. Btw. the Cambridge History of the Second World War 2 (2015) named the Chapter "Battle of Britain?" yes with a question mark and they clearly state that most stuff is old war-time propaganda and that the Germans never had a chance.

and also a lot of wrong assumptions during the war too.

+Military History Visualized the decline of English pilots available was alarming in August but as the Wikipedia page states so was the German. According to the same source the Germans did correctly assessed the RAF in September and concluded that by no means the RAF was finished. There are many historian opinions, books and documentaries (as this one) and it's hard to grasp an overall conclusion. Still on a strategic level by attacking the USSR and not dealing with Britain decisively Germany left the backdoor open.

forget wikipedia in that regard go with Overy or better the latest Cambridge History of Second World War (2015). Wikipedia in that case is just a lot of people mixing together a lot of qualified and unqualified sources.

If the purpose of the war with Russia was to get ahold of oil, and oil alone, a better strategic goal would have been to concentrate forces on the conquest of Egypt in 1940 & 41 when the British really didn’t have much of an army in Britain to say nothing of North Africa. Had they made it to the Suez Canal, they Germans would have had an easy time getting to Palestine, Syria & Iraq, thus gaining the resources in Southern Iraq and Southwestern Iran. They would have, initially the support of the Muslim Arabs. They could have used this positioning to cajol a favorable arrangement with the Turks allowing a free flow of oil and other resources men and material to and from the Near East, thru Turkey into Central Europe. The conquest of Russia was not possible. Hitler didn’t know that. The USSR looked to be in worse shape in late fall 1940 than it was in 1914 when Germany defeated Russia (by virtue of the USSR’s problems in 1939-40 winter war with Finland). But in 1941 the USSR’s industrial production was perhaps greater than Germany’s and more importantly had a better tank than anyone else (something Hitler didn’t know) which it would be able to produce at a rate many times greater than Germany’s. So a war in the Middle East was a better bet, but no one knew that yet. If Hitler had obtained the Middle East he could have achieved most of his goals in invading the USSR and coming to an agreement by the time he had conquered Ukraine, White Russia and the Baltic’s and accepted the agreement that looked much like Brest-Litovsk. That would have given him his lebens-room and with the Mid-East, all the resources he needed. He would have been stuck with a U.S. backed adversarial UK on his Wester flank and an adversarial smaller, mostly Russian USSR on his eastern flank. I think that’s the best possible outcome for Germany after the invasion of Poland. Otherwise there was no going to be no defeat of Russia in WWII, it was just too big and too productive. Overall, it would have been best if Hitler had not come to power at all. But going back further, it would have been best if the Archduke not have been shot at Sarajevo in 1914.

As Germany did not want war the people was not prepared at all

Germany did not want war? They had a funny way of trying not to have war then.

@Charles Burnham It was the first time in the war that German forces were turned back without accomplishing their objective. And left Britain free to serve as a staging base for allied troops throughout the rest of the war. It also depleted the Luftwaffe of many experienced air crew ( More than 4,000 pilots ) which meant the war in the east would have less veteran pilots than expected.

I'm just referring to the output mentioned in the video, from the time period of the battle of britain.

Doubt it! Very much,

MarcAFK the UK produced more. Here's an overall listing (all types): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production. UK production exceeded that of Germany over all times in all years apart from 1944. The lack of increase from the UK in later years was essentially a function of lend-lease as it was more effective to produce them in the USA (and to some extent Canada) where huge factories could be created out of the way of bombing, then fly them over. In exchange the UK manufactured some items for US forces in the UK, such as uniforms and equipment, as it was more effective to do so. In terms of just fighters, the UK produced 3700 Hurricanes and Spitfires, plus about 500 of other types, compared to 2700 fighters by German in 1940. Even more than that, due to excellent repair facilities and spares in the UK, that figure is effectively increased by remanufacture.

I have read that there were an official total of 2,433 British/Allied pilots in the BofB. The German total I dont know. Some 500 Brit/Allied pilots were killed. The German losses were much worse.

@@robertlight5227 The old American Propaganda video did explain that German Pilots weren't given parachutes (in order to make them fight harder and they would just be captured anyway) whereas if British pilots got shot down they might parachute to safety. Combined with the fact that they were fighting for their homeland...

@James Henderson Yes and no. It was civilian infrastructure and ports. Which are being used by the civilian and military. So since the Civilian infrastructure was used by the military to transport weapons and other types of equipment it is per definition not a civilian target but a legitimate military target we are talking about.

@James Henderson Yes they had. The luftwaffe went for those and the ports since it imported and exported a large amount of munitions.

@James Henderson Well I don't complain about it since it is war and don't know why you bring it up. As soon as the military use any kid of civilian infrastructure it is allowed to be bombed in the Geneva convention. So it it no longer considered civilian when it help or take part in any sort of war effort

@James Henderson And why do you bring this up?

@James Henderson I am asking again in plain english. why are you bringing this up?

Ireland was a neutral country, the home guard were terribly equiped in 1940. Most equipment had been left in Dunkirk. There were shore defences but they were nothing like the atlantic wall of 1944. That said german preparations were nothing like the allies in 1944 either. KM v RN with luftwaffe support at close range to the french coast - Calais - Dover could have been very difficult though - real blood bath.

;)

can you do an video on flame tanks?

rather unlikey maybe I find enough information when diving deeper into tanks.

Sherman croc, kv8(45mm and flamethrower)

what is there to say on a tactical or strategical or logistical level ? That is what MHV is about

How do? Hitler used England as a diversion for Germany's preparation of "Barberossa". Stalin was convinced Germany would attempt an invasion of England.

"Hesitate to say" is NOT the same as "definitely say"

@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 I never said anythig about "definitely". I just quote a man who honored the Polish contribution to the Battle of Britain who should know. Nothing more, nothing less.

+CPTANT as far as I know: pilots. Considering that the British captured a huge amount of peace-time personnel and only a handful personnel that was trained since the start of the war: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mX5OdCAFw1c.html

Also the lack of effective German long range fighter escort.

Consistently,given its position it could be hit with very little warning so eventually it was reduced to a 'splash and dash' stop for British Fighters .

Thanks! i from the Thanet area so i hear storys all the time about ww2 especially dunkirk

Manston's problem was a German Signal's officer on a Fighter Wing managed to work out what the Airfield's callsign was and its control frequencies. He listened in and as soon as he heard somebody was landing there he ordered his fighters on CAP to head over and strafe the place .

+PerfectDeath4 yeah, don't you see the text that specificially says so?

Military History nope, that would be why. =P

Its an interesting theory with some sound reasoning but the idea of reducing the time of the battle to a week (or less ?) is problematic given some of the projected times given to land even the first wave of the invasion force .

I was unclear. I agree with you that, assuming a seaborne operation was even possible, the actions of preping the invasion site, gaining a toehold, securing a the beachhead etc would take at least as long as the Normandy invasion if not longer due to German naval deficiencies. What I am suggesting is that the air war for the invasion corridor would be decisively concluded in very short order. Once the Germans showed their hand that they were attempting air superiority over an invasion corridor, the British would almost have to totally commit the RAF to preventing this. Again, this would not guarantee German victory, it merely decreases some the advantages the RAF had in the actual Battle of Britain.

Again all sound points but the Luftwaffe would still have to defend and destroy for quite a long period , while resisting pressure from the Wehrmacht to provide close support to make up for the lack of heavy equipment landed particularly artillery .

jgelt agent based modelling is now used to wargame such alternative scenarios (in general, that is) dozens of times to determine the most likely outcomes, and it could be tested in some sense. Interestingly it was done a few years back for a potential war with Germany in 1938 over Czechoslovakia, with the most likely outcome being a stalemate as the UK lacked aircraft with the range as Gamecocks and even some Heyford bombers were still in service - biplanes. The RAF changed hugely in equipment in just two years.

The RAF had the Gloster Gladiator, Hawker Fury and Hawker Hurricane in 1938, the Gamecock was in service in 1926. The Heyford was not in service as a bomber by 1938, it had been replaced by the Armstrong siddeley Whitworth in 1937, the Vickers wellington came into service in 1938. The Luftwaffe had the earlier slower version of the Bf 109 D, the Bf 110, Do 17 and He 111. The Ju 88 did not enter service until 1939. The Luftwaffe still had biplane fighters in service. The Luftwaffe changed a lot by 1940 too.

SaltyWaffles , also, many Brit airfields were literally fields, ~ very difficult to put them out of action.

You also have to consider that every German pilot who was forced to bail out of his machine over the UK was captured, whereas the RAF pilots were able to get back in another plane, often on the same day.

It was usually the new, unskilled pilot who was lost. Skilled pilots usually were not lost and German aviation schools were easily replacing their losses.

The Soviet Union defeated Germany and the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria in 1945. The US Navy defeated the Japanese Navy. The British defeated the Italians!

Michael Fay BS. USSR didn't defeat Germany, although not alone. Their intervention against Japan was after all Japan's defeats in Pacific and South East Asia which turned Japan Army in China into a militia with no armoured support or air support. Everything Japan had had been diverted from China!

+CRPS/RSD - Quest for the cure! I don't think so, most of the historical footage is out there on loads of channels and tv shows, so I couldn't show anything new anyeay. In my AMA someone asked me a similar question, which got me an idea for a new format that what really use historical footage, but right now I don't have time and many other ideas I want to explore.

+Alfa Won planned, but I have a huge backlog.

>Germans would have been given or lent 300 Zeros Considering that the Zero was introduced in july of 40 this comment is beyond stupid. Your whole comment is full of stupid "what ifs", you've wasted everyone's time that will ever have the misfortune of reading it and should feel ashamed of yourself.

@@RollerDelayed Hey buddy sorry to have wasted your time. I was going from memory, and I remember reading the story about the development of the Zero fighter, how the designer reworked the universally used engineering tables sensing they were too conservative, and that the military specs were created in 1936 (as I recall) and as the Japanese fleet had been outfitted with them by 1941, that they had probably gone into service around 1939. I also remember someone telling me that the first Zero prototype had been horse drawn pulled out from a hanger - not unreasonable as the automotive industry in Japan was quite small before WWII. But what I find interesting is what could have happened at the time or era given the state of technology and had it been applied. In this case, the technology of the Zero was current in the summer of 1940 - as prototypes of the zero had existed by then AND if the Germans had a fleet of such, would it have changed the outcome. Same is true with the Mosquito and the British and the battle of Arras. I agree it's fanciful thinking and sorry you didn't like it. Kindest regards, nonetheless.

They didn't have to. The German bombers took a long time to form up over France so to the radar operators it just looked like a cloud of aircraft. Once they picked up their escort they would break and head to their targets leaving Fighter Command little time to counter.

not really, or at least nothing I know of.

A functional drop tank for the Bf-109 would have reduced attrition as there were losses where fighters ran out of fuel and ditched in the English Channel, not all ditched pilots were successfully recovered any many died from exposure. The drop tank would have also improved the effectiveness of the 109's over the UK by increasing loiter time / operational radius. The order to make fighters fly close escort to the bombers also robbed the 109 of one of it's great strengths and the effect on the Bf-110's was disasterous.

The LW could have done better with accurate intelligence, but in retrospect it does not appear that the LW - even when over estimating RAF losses - ever even suggested to OKW to launch Sea Lion. So if the Brits weren't going to cave in - something that was totally unknown in 1940 - the Germans still had to deal with the Channel. No small matter for a military with a small navy and zero dedicated landing craft. Don't forget - as we found out in 43-45 when attackers lost a plane over enemy territory it was a complete write-off. The crew might survive but sit in a POW camp. A surviving defender shot down might be in a new plane the next day. When you figure that something like half of fighter pilots survived shoot downs - and many bomber crewmen too - that made it even harder. So if the Brits were willing to watch their cities mauled and hope for a brighter day, they remained a huge strategic problem for Hitler - as everyone found out in 1944.

The Germans switched targetting strategy to Cities and London specifically which was a tactical error IMHO. If they had maintained targetting RAF bases and hitting RAF planes on the ground the RAF would most probably have not been able to sustain a proper defence. Hitting cities relieved the RAF just enough. Remember at one point when the Brit's were just starting to turn the tide a little, Churchill asked during one critical day of fighting "How many squadrons do we have in reserve" the reply from Fighter Command was "None. They're all in the fight" RAF was not giving up but by crikeys they were close to being overrun.

He was hoping to cow us into surrender, just as deliberately bombing civilians forced the Dutch and Belgian governments to surrender earlier, and his switch to bombing London was perfectly logical.

Ian D The Germans wanted to destroy the RAF so that the Luftwaffe would have free reign over the channel, and as we know air power trumps sea power so the RN would have been attacked by the Luftwaffe. Whether the Luftwaffe could have caused enough damage to the RN is up for debate but even if the RN had been defeated in the Channel Hitler didn't have the logistical support to invade the UK. Only once the air battle was lost did the Germans bomb London and other cities whole-heartedly in an attempt to force a surrender- aka the Blitz. Before that raids on London were retaliation for a raid on Berlin that was in of itself a retaliation for a botched German raid that hit a London outskirt.

sfs2040 In truth, the Luftwaffe had already launched substantial raids on cities before 24 August and had dropped bombs on London (eg on night 18/19 Aug they bombed Wimbledon, Croydon and the Maldens). The scale of the raids and the damage they caused were pitiful compared to what came later, but they were thought horrendous at the time, causing some 300 civilian deaths in July and almost 1,000 in August. Laughably, for all the claims of damage to Berlin for that 25Aug raid, all but a few bombs dropped harmlessly into open countryside and the only damage in Berlin itself was the destruction of a shed used as a shit house.

HistorianJustin Historian: The Luftwaffe was just as good as any other combatant at sinking ships, if not better through their use of guided weapons. Germany's main failing with using aircraft against ships was its lack of aircraft carriers; they did look to build an aircraft carrier and carrier-capable aircraft but never got round to it. Look at, for example, the sinking of the Lancastria, British losses around Dunkirk and merchant ship sinkings for the small number of aircraft deployed.

Germany had a poor record of sinking destroyers using aircraft and destroyers would be the main type of ship used in the Chanel, Germany had lost too many in Norway.

Never intended to invade. Hahahaa.... just sacrificed the creme of their airforce, assembled 30 divisions in North Eastern France and stripped their inland waterways of over 2000 barges for conversion to troop transports "for a laugh" I suppose?

@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The barges were unsuitable for crossing the English Channel. The Battle of Britain happened because the RAF was bombing German cities.

@@MarkHarrison733 Of course the barges were unsuitable.... didn't stop the nazis from massing then in the channel ports and their planning of Seelöwe though. As for second sentence, just more delusional BS not worth a reply "Mark".

The Luftwaffe couldn't target British shipping without fear of being jumped by the RAF. Their Bombers would be able to reach the ports, but their Fighters wouldn't have the range. It would have been a one-sided slaughter in favour of the RAF. Additionally, the U-Boats were getting crushed in British waters and were forced to head deeper into the Atlantic to avoid British ASW Destroyers and Planes, which brought the U-Boats into conflict with the less prepared USN (There was an undeclared war in the Atlantic between the USN and Kriegsmarine because they were both shooting at each other while the US was still considered neutral in the war).

@@youraveragescotsman7119 Well, they could have only targeted areas where they could have fighter cover. That would at least do some damage, without bleeding he Luftwaffe dry of pilots.

@@nebojsag.5871 So... The ports that weren't being used at all because the Luftwaffe could bomb them? The Brits used ports that were all out of range of Luftwaffe Fighter cover. The ones close to the coast weren't used anymore due to potential attacks from the Luftwaffe.

@@youraveragescotsman7119 Well OK then. Though it would probably have been better for the Luftwaffe to be an ""aiforce in beeing" and to conserve fuel that could be used to expand submarine operations.

Put simply the Germans used bad tactics. Bombing London was the fatal error as it gave time for the RAF to restock aircraft and repair airfields therefore resulting in more casualties for the Luftwaffe.

+Tom Somerfield Repair airfields? Name one airfield destroyed by the Luftwaffe? The British air force (RAF) could have withdrawn north if the pressure got too much. The attack on London came AFTER the time period for invasion had passed

No airfield was destroyed, Marty, as you imply; I think Biggin Hill was out of action for a short time, but that's as far as it went. But there was often damage to be cleared up at the front-line airfields, and I suspect that's what Tom's referring to - although I can't read his mind. Best regards.

GRH GRH the Japanese had conquered British assets in East Asia including Burma and Singapore so they would have gone to war anywya

If he believed that he was incredibly naive the English/British position for the last 500 years or so has to been to oppose any single dominant force on the continent .

IT could be argued that Britain maximized it's effectiveness with limited time, support and resources. But nah, lets just put it down to luck shall we?

Ralphie. Britain were more professional and they used radar and the control system to very good effect. The Luftwaffe underestimated the RAF and that cost them. The Luftwaffe tried to destroy radar and failed, they tried to destroy production and failed, they tried to destroy airfields and failed. Despite having a numerical advantage the Luftwaffe could not win. Germany had several problems, no planning for more than a short war, low production, not enough training of new pilots and the biggest problem was no real idea of how to conduct a war. When things went well the Germans were fine but if anything went wrong they were not able to adapt. Britain had setbacks and they made the most of things and worked through adversity.

Barrie Rodcliffe Ralph Bernard is vile. He hates Britain and makes up one story after another, regardless of the facts to try to belittle Britain. I am able to supply evidence to back up what I have stated.

Interesting, the Germans only brought Panzers to the east on the eve of barbarossa so that may be a possibility but it seems like a bit of a stretch.

and no plans prepared and studied long before the opportunity for itarose; France fell, and Britain not negotiating for peace..only then were planners occupied with a Sealion plan.

Certainly if the submaine campaign had been given priority early Britain would have been in serious trouble (probably starved)

Germany or Hitler. It would have in retrospect have been better to finish Britain of first. Churchill thought 1940 to be his most anxious year.

The Maltese were dropping dead of hunger!