Pretty much, no.
Uh, let's not go there. It requires a very lengthy discussion on why it is impossible. Try reading Wages of Destruction if you can get your hands on it.
Battle of Britain - Fighter Command Withdrawal
- Thread starter Ian Hathaway
- Start date
Pretty much, no.
Uh, let's not go there. It requires a very lengthy discussion on why it is impossible. Try reading Wages of Destruction if you can get your hands on it.
Surely, they would have if they could have and they tried but they didn't.
Germany was being massively outproduced by the british at this point of the war. Not to mention the aircraft on order from the US or the French orders of aircraft that Britain "inherited". Meanwhile on the other side the luftwaffe had lost nearly a quarter of its effective combat strength during the battle of France and had still not fully replaced losses by August 1940. Plus the loss of trained aircrew that also had to be made good by the Luftwaffe.
The British and Germans were on a fairly level playing field in frontline fighter aircraft production, where the Brits triumphed was in the repair of aircraft. About 35% of British production figures are for planes returning to service after repair. So a monthly production figure in the order of 460 would be appox. 300 new and 160 returning to service. The Germans by July - Aug - Sept were producing approx 250 new Bf 109s each month the Brits just over 300 Hurricanes and Spitfires. However the Brits were losing more Hurricane and Spitfires than they were destroying Bf 109s.
I looked for references several times for fighter imports from the US and haven't found any yet ... will keep looking.
And lets not forget the RAF lost quite a bit in France as well. Extract taken from RAF Campaign Diaries ...
"18 Jun 1940 - The remnants of the RAF Hurricane squadrons in France evacuate their bases, having provided cover for the final Allied retreat from France; the last to leave are Nos. 1 and 73 Sqns, which had been the first to arrive in 1939. The fighting in France cost the RAF a total of 1,029 aircraft and over 1,500 personnel."
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Kongzilla
Banned
Couldn't they do a wartime economy. Would that allow them to produce more than they did. I mean in 1944 the Germans produced more aircraft than any other year.
Out source work to other nations as well. See if other people can help. Maybe if they captured the BEF they can move into Iran/Iraq and take the oil facilities slowing down British production so with a lot of the forces being moved to england in preparation for an invasion they would be easy prey.
Out source work to other nations as well. See if other people can help. Maybe if they captured the BEF they can move into Iran/Iraq and take the oil facilities slowing down British production so with a lot of the forces being moved to england in preparation for an invasion they would be easy prey.
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Ah, but here's the thing, the hurricane was easier to repair in many cases, if the wing was damaged, it was replaced, a process taking only about 3 hours under field conditions, and likewise, the Warren-Girder fuselage wean that most damage could be fixed in the field. The fabric fuselage had another advantage too, since cannon-shells would pass right through without triggering.
The airfield attacks were quite painful for the Luftwaffe, with attacking aircraft being rather vulnerable to fighters and ground AA, while the warnings of CH and the Observers meant that the surprise necessary to hit Fighter Command on the ground was very difficult to achieve. Not really knowing which airfields were FC bases didn't help, either.
The best weapon for it was probably the Stuka, but the Stuka was withdrawn from the battle on 18th August having suffered severe losses. If you're serious about hitting the airfields then you'll keep the Stuka force in the fight - and it'll be gutted in the next month. Wiki has a good quote for 18th August, which placed heavy emphasis on airfields:
"The laurels for the day’s action went to the defenders. The aim of the Luftwaffe was to wear down the Fighter Command without suffering excessive losses in the process, and in this it had failed. It cost the attackers five aircrew killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, for each British pilot casualty. In terms of aircraft, it had cost the Luftwaffe five bombers and fighters for every three Spitfires and Hurricanes destroyed in the air or on the ground. If the battle continued at this rate the Luftwaffe would wreck Fighter Command, but it would come close to wrecking itself in the process".
The best weapon for it was probably the Stuka, but the Stuka was withdrawn from the battle on 18th August having suffered severe losses. If you're serious about hitting the airfields then you'll keep the Stuka force in the fight - and it'll be gutted in the next month. Wiki has a good quote for 18th August, which placed heavy emphasis on airfields:
"The laurels for the day’s action went to the defenders. The aim of the Luftwaffe was to wear down the Fighter Command without suffering excessive losses in the process, and in this it had failed. It cost the attackers five aircrew killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, for each British pilot casualty. In terms of aircraft, it had cost the Luftwaffe five bombers and fighters for every three Spitfires and Hurricanes destroyed in the air or on the ground. If the battle continued at this rate the Luftwaffe would wreck Fighter Command, but it would come close to wrecking itself in the process".
The Germans did try to upgrade aircraft production starting October 1940, Unfortunately (for the Nazi's) due to shortages of raw materials and the sheer bureaucratic inefficiency this effect was not really felt until 1942. And even then it still did not achieve the economies of scale that the americans and british could bring to the table. The Nazi's did outsource work especially to the french and benelux countries but again due to shortages of raw materials combined with low productivity and sabotage Western Europe contribution to the Luftwaffe was minimal (iirc the total contribution of occupied france between 40-44 was something pathetic like 712 fighters.) Also there is no chance of Germany capturing the middle east oilfields any time soon unless the royal navy can somehow be forced out of the eastern Mediterranean, even then the logistical challenges will be immense.
amphibulous
Banned
You need to read Tooze. But basically, there was a lot of momentum in German air production and they were trying very hard to get numbers up.
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I believe that you incorrectly interpret the data. British production figures are production figures for new aircraft. While numbers of replacement aircraft were 35% repaired, that is in addition to new production, not a part of it.
American imported fighter aircraft had no contribution to the battle so you can save your time.
amphibulous
Banned
Which by itself is meaningless, because the German bomber force is being attrited to hell, and the loss rate in fighter's isn't trending towards German air superiority - poor loiter time over England means that the Germans need more than 109 to counter each RAF fighter.
The loss of large numbers of obsolete twin engine bombers doesn't really affect the BoB. You seem to think that because Hurricanes were mentioned in the previous sentence all losses will have been for fighters - no! And the most modern fighter sent to France was the older twin bladed Hurricane - not the latest three bladed, let alone the Spitfire.
amphibulous
Banned
People forget that Europe was being blockaded! Many materials could only be brought in from the USSR - via a very limited rail link.
Deleted member 1487
Tooze had a flawed thesis. Overy's analysis is better, though using Tooze as a supplement is helpful.
German aircraft production was badly mismanaged and with more manpower, resources, and factory floor space the Germans produced less than the British aircraft industry. Things didn't get better until Udet killed himself, Milch took over and cleaned up the mess he left, and Speer took over the economy, which meant things were finally centralized and competing bureaucracies demolished. With the same amount of labor and raw materials aircraft production quadrupled by 1944. The problem was gross inefficiencies in production, even though German industry was fully leveraged into war production from at least 1938.
There was no problem with raw materials for aircraft production, but rather horrific mismanagement and inefficiencies caused by Udet. Overall there was very little direction and lots of hoarding of raw materials by factories for post war civilian orders. Some factories were producing goods off the books for sale on the black market and for stockpiling to meet the expected postwar demand, while others were using horrible machining methods that were wasting 1.5 tons of aluminum per engine! The problem didn't even begin to be solved until Udet committed suicide because he realized how badly he messed up, which let the professional Erhard Milch clean up the mess and quadruple aircraft production with the same manpower and raw material base from 1942-4.
Part of the problem with starting so late was that the Allies had started their bombing offensive, so the Germans could not have centralized factories of the scale the US or British achieved, as they would have been too easy a target. For those that were large scale they were used for types that Germany never used, like the He177 of which over 1200 units were produced and barely saw any service because of Udet's dive bombing order. Its not fair to talk about non-German production either, as they were mostly not used for combat models, but rather trainers and reconnaissance aircraft, so as to free up German factories for war models. France IIRC produced some 5k aircraft total for Germany, most were not combat models.
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Please don't try to tell me what I think, the statement I made was in reply to someone who was only looking at LW losses in France not RAF losses. I was mearly trying to point out that the RAF sustained losses as well not what type or the quality of aircraft.
If memory serves me correctly there were over 400 modern fighters lost in the French campaign although I will happily be corrected on that if I am wrong. You have to remember that even though it wasn't the greatest day fighter the Defiant was a modern fighter, not just the Hurricanes and Spitfires. Also I never mentioned the losses were all planes that were sent to France just lost in the battle of France as many Hurricanes and Spitfires took part flying from their Southern bases. And by early June it got so bad that there were only 311 Hurricanes and Spitfires in frontline service with only 36 in reserve.
amphibulous
Banned
And we know this because you say so. Such is the respect in which you are held!
(In case you are German: that was irony. Really. People are not going to agree that the one of the celebrated and respected scholarly books about WW2 ever written, one that is based on unprecedented command of sources that you have never seen, is wrong just because baldly assert it is.)
amphibulous
Banned
I wrote "***seem*** to think" - and that was what you words implied in context. And it's much politer than saying "You seem to be trying to twist the truth here/write very poorly."
Unfortunately as your comment was made on a direct quote from another source I cannot take credit for the "truth twisting" or poor writing ... I promise to do better next time though.