WI Hitler kept pounding the airfields of Britain?

Just Leo
"Just as German fighters lacked the range and endurance to properly accomplish their mission, so British fighters lacked effective range to loiter or patrol, and required timely ground control information so as to shoot and scoot."

Agree with your comments about the 'Big Wing', re: the Sector Stations Lw damage was due to 'lucky' hits on electrical cabling - which soon got repaired.
But the above quote has reversed the 'conditions' because the RAF had ground control interception guidance - they didn't need the range for wasteful patroling!
 
Regarding the French air force and a much stiffer fight, there are explanations for it.

The French thought they would face a long war - their entire doctrine was based around it. A brutal grinding of the German mechanised forces in a decisive battle in Belgium and then a slow and steady advance to the Rhine, bleeding the Germans white in the process.

A part of this plan was to ensure that their air force kept flying. The Germans flew 3-4 sorties a day with their crews and exhausted them - if the campaign had been much longer, it is quite possible that large parts of the Luftwaffe would face nervous breakdowns or stress-related blackouts or cataconic apathy (even in the air!).

The French flew 1 mission per pilot and day usually, and were forced to retreat and abandon airfields, which threw their organisation into disarray. They also had a huge bottleneck in production and repair in the form of propellers, which they had problems getting at all.

So, the answer to why the French did not put up more of a fight in the air is that they were preparing for a long war and wanted to spare their air force for that.

History shows that they were right, and that the German "dash" or "push" aereal doctrine in the end killed all their pilots and degraded their pilot training until the Luftwaffe could no longer compete. Unfortunately for the French, the French campaign lasted 6 weeks, not 6 years.
 
IIRC it was Goering who took the decision, not Hitler.

Anyway it was South England group ( I think the 11th, do not remember clearly ) the one who was completely exhausted, the other 3, while smaller were completely untouched by the Germans ( which themselves discovered when their bombers attacking from Norway were massacred by fresh air groups ).

This was Dowding tactic, and refused several times to rotate them ( IIRC at the end he did it, but being pressured from above ) and one of the reasons was because if the Germans were crazy enough to try Seelowe, they would find themselves with 3 entire air groups crushing them to death.

Dowding was one tough son of a ...
 
Last edited:
Anyway it was South England group ( I think the 11th, do not remember clearly ) the one who was completely exhausted, the other 3, while smaller were completely untouched by the Germans ( which themselves discovered when their bombers attacking from Norway were massacred by fresh air groups ).
This was Dowding tactic, and refused several times to rotate them ( IIRC at the end he did it, but being pressured from above ) and one of the reasons was because if the Germans were crazy enough to try Seelowe, they would find themselves with 3 entire air groups crushing them to death.
Dowding was one tough son of a ...

The RAF had 10 Group in the South-West, 11 Group in the South-East (with the most airfields and Squadrons), 12 Group in the Midlands, and 13 Group in Scotland. It was part of Fighter Command (& Dowding) policy to withdraw Squadrons to the North for rest and replenishment of new pilots, while other Squadrons took their place. Only trouble was that it was found that the new ones coming in weren't as good as the ones going away despite the fatigue they had.
Sometimes instead the Squadrons stayed but pilots rotated away for a rest. An advantage the RAF had the the Lw did not.
While Churchill lameted at the lack of 'reserves' on a visit to 11 Group - he missed the fact that the rest of Fighter Command was the reserve!
Dowding a tough son of a ... - well no - he was the one who insisted on bullet proof glass for the fighters, initially to much derision. He wanted to avoid unnecessay casualities if he could - he was not liked by Trenchard because of such an attitude in WW1.
Perhaps if he was 'tougher' he would have sorted Leigh-Mallory out!!
 
Top