You missed “counter argument” and “would”. It’s not about what did happen but what might have – every argument there is a counter etc.
Or they knew the training schools had no idea how desperate the shortage of pilots was and weren’t even running at capacity.
I have no idea what these 2 statements mean??????
he experienced Luftwaffe would therefore make mincemeat of the RAF pilots who in some cases had 9 hours in a plane before being sent up.
Is that cited from Blackadder or Wikipedia? If you check Wikipedia in about 5 minutes, you'll see it says the RAF had a very effective training scheme and this number is nonsense.
Or they knew the training schools had no idea how desperate the shortage of pilots was and weren’t even running at capacity.
The RAF never, at any point of the Battle of Britain, were in danger of being short of pilots. It's a myth. The records are very very clear here. for example: by July the RAF had in training (in reality conversion as most of them knew how to fly) well over 550 European pilots who'd escaped. 303 sqn (for instance) was one of three sqds entirely manned by Polish pilots, repeated in 71, 121, 133 (Americans) and 349 sqn (Belgian) was one of four... and so it went on.
You are going to have to come up with a better counter argument than that.
Nope, I don't have to at all. The opening statement on this thread is all about the fact that each battle of WW2 proceeded exactly as the forces arrayed at the outset of each battle predicts it would. The BoB is entirely consistent with that statement.
I think it’s pretty clear that the Bf109E-4/5 was a better aircraft that the SpitfireMk1 in the summer of 1940. On paper they were pretty similar, but in several crucial aspects the 109 was better;
Whichmis interesting that you claim that because the RAF tested captured 109s and found the HH and spit were better planes in battle. I let you read the actual reports rather than try to summarize here.
you check Wikipedia in about 5 minutes, you’ll see it says the RAF had a very effective training scheme and this number is nonsense.
Posted 6 minutes ago
Well if Wikipedia says so it must be true. You might want to try reading e.g. Sir Max Aitken or Len Deighton in the subject.
The RAF never, at any point of the Battle of Britain, were in danger of being short of pilots. It’s a myth. The records are very very clear here
That's just wrong.
The opening statement on this thread is all about the fact that each battle of WW2 proceeded exactly as the forces arrayed at the outset of each battle predicts it would. The BoB is entirely consistent with that statement.
Only if you believe the Brits should have won. There is plenty of factual information that says they shouldn't have. From reputable sources based on sound info and research
Nope, I don’t have to at all.
And yet you expected me to earlier. I oot.
I let you read the actual reports rather than try to summarize here.
because I am a massive nerd 🙂 I already have. It's were the detail about turning circles comes from. They concluded that without a decent armament and engine upgrade (the Mk5 and Mk9) the Spitfire wasn't going to be much use...
Interestingly, it also concludes that one of the issues with the Spitfire was that it was relatively easy to fly to it's limits, meaning the difference that a really good pilot could bring to bear vs a average or poor pilot wasn't much. whereas the difference a really good pilot in a Bf109 made was a massive influence. In the right hands the Bf109 was a monster.
There is plenty of factual information that says they shouldn’t have. From reputable sources based on sound info and research
No, there isn't, feel free to bring any of it (and I really do mean that) to the discussion. Nothing you've said so far bears scrutiny. It's mostly the sort of myth and the sort of research that was being written in the 1970's, which was pretty poor frankly. It has been dismissed by most historians who've read first hand or original sources, such as the "lack" of pilots for example
RAF pilots who in some cases had 9 hours in a plane before being sent up.
oh yeah, missed this one...Right, Baby RAF pilots had 3 training schools to get through before being sent anywhere near a fighter sqn. Basic training (which admittedly by the summer of '40 had been cut from 8 weeks to 7), had them flying in Miles Magisters, if they passed that they went to an intermediary unit which sorted them into either bomber/transport/coastal command and fighters, another 6 weeks of training, then finally a semi operational OCU where they spent another 8 weeks conversion training which for fighters was a min flying log of 40 hrs on type.
It's true to say that many replacement pilots heading to 11 group sqns often didn't have much combat flying experience, from an OCU they were often posted first to sqns in 12 and more commonly 10 group, but the idea that the RAF were sending up pilots with just 9 hours of total flying time is bunkum (and I suspect is a line from the 1960's film of the same name)
The spit wasn’t much good until they fixed the prop and could only stay with a 109 with US gas which somehow they got despite the neutrality pact. The carbs meant it couldn’t make negative g manouvres.
IIRC, it’s the carbs on the Spits Merlin that was the main issue, the Bf109 had a supercharger which helped its performance in climbs - no idea at all whether US fuel would have made a significant difference or not, but the blower certainly did.
Going back a bit to a discussion about tanks, the German tanks were very good in lots of ways, but were often too complicated and susceptible to breaking down, Tigers had a drivetrain that was prone to failing at inopportune moments. There was even a Porsche designed petrol-electric hybrid, but it didn’t really make it into service. There was the Elephant, a massive thing, weighing over 80 tons, I think, but it was slow, difficult to manoeuvre, and easily bogged down if the weather turned wet. Used mainly as a movable siege weapon.
We didn’t have much that could match a Tiger 1, until some bright spark had a lightbulb moment and managed to persuade someone higher up the food chain that what was needed was a Sherman with a bigger gun, and managed to crowbar a 17lb-er cannon into the Sherman turret by turning it sideways to get the breech-block in. Plus a big counterweight on the back of the turret so it didn’t fall over! One fairly successful German tank wasn’t even German though; the Hetzer was built by Skoda, but worked so well it was introduced into the German army after the Czech Republic fell and the factory taken over.
Pity my regular drinking buddy isn’t available at the moment, he’s a tank obsessive, and knows all sorts of obscure stuff about most armoured fighting vehicles, I, on the other hand, barely remember anything much unfortunately.
You're slowly destroying your arguement that the Luftwaffe couldn't win the BoB, Nick. 😉
The early 1940 Spitfire and 109 E-3 were reckoned to be roughly matched with different strengths and weaknesses. The 109 E4/5 was the superior plane as you say but they only had a handful of E-4s in July 40 and no E-5s if you check production dates, the older E-3s had 180bhp less. Only 600 109s were lost in the period when 1000 Spitfires and Hurricanes were lost. When they didn't have to defend bombers the 109 E3s were a match and the ME 109s E4s had the upper hand, and the Germans had enough of them to possibly gain air superiority if that had been maintained as the only objective. So it was down to tactics rather than a foregone conclusion. If the ME 109s had just been given the task of gaining air superiority to allow bombing aimed at attacking the RAF and aircraft production the outcome was uncertain. As it was they were assigned to flying with bombers where they were vulnerable.
Happy to be corrected, not my speciality, I just had a look at wiki and a couple of war plane sites as my memory said that the Spit and 109 leap frogged each other in technology through the early part of the war before the Focke-Wulf 109 became the new adversary to beat.
@countzero Firefly was a beauty alright, and interesting that, rather like the Mustang, it was the happy result of a ‘bitsa’. But it was also compromised like a lot of these things, since it had no room for a coax MG. This made it very vulnerable to infantry attack. Not many tanks that could put the fear of god into Tiger crews until the Firefly came along though.
Bf109 had a supercharger which helped its performance in climbs
All high-performance aircraft back then had some form of supercharging. As I understand it, early Merlin engines had pretty basic superchargers, later ones had multi-speed, multi-stage superchargers which gave much better high-altitude performance. On top of that, U.S. refineries could produce high-octane fuel in massive quantities. That allowed engines to be run at high boost, which makes a massive difference.
Ed, apologies, you're absolutely right about the 109 variants, it was E-3/4 that saw service in Summer 1940 thanks for the correction, and you're right about Luftwaffe tactics, there were pretty poor. Fighter pilots were always complaining about the fact they had to stick with the bombers. But don't forget, they would've still had the same range and time over UK issue. That's not going to go away regardless of the tactics, and un-escorted bombers like the He111 and Do17 (the main offensive weapons) are sitting ducks for Spitfires and Hurricanes. The numbers of fighters lost hides the fact that shot down RAF planes can often be repaired or replaced with new, and RAF/Air Ministry were much better in this regard. But lost Luftwaffe planes (those that crash land in the UK) are lost for good (including the pilot, dead or captured), and even if they make it back to France, their repair facilities were not nearly as well coordinated, and they're just not replacing pilots and planes quickly enough. The Luftwaffe in 1940 cannot fight an attritional war with the RAF over the UK and win, as the Luftwaffe just isn't set up to do that.
But, enough about BoB, lets have more tanks, I know sod all about tanks, and that sounds much more interesting.
Tanks you say - revisionism you say - read Valeri Zamulin - Demolishing the Myth - there was no big tank battle at Prokhorovka - lots of fighting though. Lesson 1 - don't invade Russia.
Thanks for the recommendation old donald, I'll scuttle off to Amazon...
Lesson 1 – don’t invade Russia
haha, something hard learnt!
I'd just like to say that I'm really enjoying this discussion. Cheers.
their repair facilities were not nearly as well coordinated,
Part of the problem was that the German approach to aircraft manufacturer was more like hand crafted skilled artisan workman rather than the mass production we had. It was easy to swap parts to repair our a/c , but harder for the Germans.
But, enough about BoB, lets have more tanks, I know sod all about tanks, and that sounds much more interesting.
[ video] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChl-XKVVBAzoEVsnbOfpcqw [/video ]
Why does the youtube thing not work?
The issue with fuelling is as commented earlier in the thread. 109s were fuel injected and the Merlin engine was carburettor. The Germans found they could leave an engagement with a bunt manoeuvre - push the stick hard forward and simply dive away. The British aircraft couldn’t do that as the carb float would rise up and briefly cut the power. Pilots got around it by half rolling into the dive by which time the enemy was gone. They developed a revised float design but not until after the Battle.
Ref flying aircraft to their limits I’ve seen it written that the RAF had more faith in the structural strength of both their main fighters whereas the Me109 was known to pull the wings off in highest speed dives. Not sure of evidence for this.
Ref training and flying hours Geoff Wellum (First Light) joined his operational squadron (92) flying Spitfires, with zero hours on Type...
But, enough about BoB, lets have more tanks, I know sod all about tanks, and that sounds much more interesting.
for a modern 6.5ft tankers take on tanks He comes at it from the end users perspective.... what's it like to live with as a crew, ease of maintenance (mostly track tension), is the rear deck a nice place to sleep, how easy is it to get in and out off, the driving position...
Ref training and flying hours Geoff Wellum (First Light) joined his operational squadron (92) flying Spitfires, with zero hours on Type…
In August 1939. He clocked up his hours and received combat training from his squadron until he finally flew in a combat mission in June 1939. Even then he wasn't in a "front line" squadron. He wasn't in the front line until September 1939. So over a year later.
but harder for the Germans
Oh for sure, plus Willy Messerschmidt while a pretty good designer was pretty bad at actually running an aircraft factory., it's pretty well known he really wasn't interested, but he was a Nazi favourite...And of course later in the war, the whole slave labour thing really slowed up production, everything had to be double checked for sabotage
I’ve seen it written that the RAF had more faith in the structural strength of both their main fighters
The Air ministry comparison flights reports of WW2 make for fascinating reading. I'd highly recommend grabbing a copy if you can. the notes on wing loading and the difference it made to the handling characteristics of the various planes, really makes the different design philosophies of the Germans and British clear.
On a side note, it's very interesting that when after the BoB the RAF started doing fighter sweeps into France and the Low Countries, in late '40 and early '41 they started to have (very quickly) the same sort of losses and effect that the Luftwaffe suffered in the previous months, ie they started losing a bunch of airplanes and pilots for not much impact.
Oh my goodness, look at all those Tank videos!
Nerd fest 🙂
Mobility, firepower, protection - pick 2 you can’t have all 3 😂. Did you know that army’s longest serving tank, the CVR(T), isn’t really a tank at all but a reconnaissance vehicle? And by the standards of most tanks it’s tiny (8 tonnes or so). But it is fast, manoeuvrable, and reasonably well armed for it’s size.
"In August 1939. He clocked up his hours and received combat training from his squadron until he finally flew in a combat mission in June 1939. Even then he wasn’t in a “front line” squadron. He wasn’t in the front line until September 1939. So over a year later."
gobuchul, I have enjoyed your contributions but you may want to check your dates on this one - Britain was at war with Germany from 11:00 on 03 September 1939.
From Wellum's wikipedia page
"Aged eighteen, Wellum signed up on a short-service commission with the Royal Air Force in August 1939. The first aircraft he flew was the Tiger Moth at Desford airfield in Leicestershire. Wellum's first solo flight was on 1 September 1939. Two days later Britain declared war on Germany.<sup id="cite_ref-The_Times_4-0" class="reference">[4]</sup> After successfully completing the course he then went on to fly the North American Harvard at RAF Little Rissington with 6FTS.
In May 1940, before his flight training was complete,<sup id="cite_ref-The_Times_4-1" class="reference">[4]</sup> Wellum was posted to 92 Squadron, which was a combat squadron flying Spitfires"
Interesting book - "We march against England" - by Osprey - argues had Germany delayed Sealion (and not invaded Russia) the UK would have been in trouble. One other point that's not been raised is the UK dominance in small ships - destroyers and smaller - would still have caused the German invasion force huge difficulties even in the the 1942 invasion scenario.
the RAF had more faith in the structural strength of both their main fighters whereas the Me109 was known to pull the wings off in highest speed dives. Not sure of evidence for this.
Evidence was probably buried.
Ooooo, that's dry! 🙂 I too am enjoying this thread greatly. 🙂
some of what the raf thought of the me109e
We have all concentrated on an invasion across the Channel.
There was another option. Paratroopers from Norwegian bases on to an airfield in the north of Scotland to secure an initial base then funnel in troops and material from there while U-boats and bombers played havoc with the fleet in Scapa Flow and secured harbours.
This would have allowed Germany to cut off the North Sea, and have a land base on the UK mainland which would have enhanced their aerial attacks if nothing else.
Churchill's solution to this is rumoured to have been to abandon Scotland to the Germans.
