[LAz]

Here... lets see how many planes they had and how many were shot down...


http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ba ... ritain.htm

At the start of the war, Germany had 4,000 aircraft compared to Britain's front-line strength of 1,660. By the time of the fall of France, the Luftwaffe (the German air force) had 3,000 planes based in north-west Europe alone including 1,400 bombers, 300 dive bombers, 800 single engine fighter planes and 240 twin engine fighter bombers. At the start of the battle, the Luftwaffe had 2,500 planes that were serviceable and in any normal day, the Luftwaffe could put up over 1,600 planes. The RAF had 1,200 planes on the eve of the battle which included 800 Spitfires and Hurricanes - but only 660 of these were serviceable. The rate of British plane production was good - the only weakness of the RAF was the fact that they lacked sufficient trained and experienced pilots. Trained pilots had been killed in the war in France and they had not been replaced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz

Casualties and losses
1,023 fighters
376 bombers
148 Coastal Command aircraft

300 is a decent number I would think? Aye?

[Smilin' Dave]

LAz, you do realise that the Luftwaffe couldn't effectively bomb the north of Britain? A strategy of attrition fails when the opposition has somewhere they can withdraw to, which is exactly what a large part of the RAF did. No amount of extra time or extra bombs will make up for the inability to actually hit the enemy.

Never mind that the extra time and resources would have cut into seemingly more worthwhile exercises.

[guzzipat]

Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:54 am
Posts: 317
Location: Nowheresville Ideology: Peronism
[ PM ] Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:24 pm[ Report ] I offered evidence, that the RAF fighter plane total decreased to only 300 er so. That vs hitler's thousands of aircraft is no match.

The strategy of trying to bomb the civilian population into submission had the opposite effect as it only stiffened their resolve to keep fighting the Germans.


Oh, but I would suggest that he did not bomb them into submission enough. He just barely scratched the surface of this tactic.

You argument was that Germany should have continued and intensified the bombing of civilians in order to cow them into surrender,
You have offered no evidence at all to support that. Nor have you offered anything to counter the considerable body of evidence that suggests that terror bombing is ineffective.
Are you now changing that argument and confining it to the effects on the RAF?
It is impossible to hold a sensible discusion if the point of it changes.

[LAz]

My primary point was that the RAF numbers had drastically decreased. With that in mind, they should have continued bombing, escalated the bombing which would lead to A) more terror in the civilians, and B) an even smaller number of RAF aircraft.

[Smilin' Dave]

So how many of those fighters were destroyed by bombing, as opposed to aerial combat LAz? Bombing had little effect on production. Loss of runways was an issue, but that clearly isn't your point. You also haven't dealt with the problem of the Luftwaffe lacking long ranged bombers to attack deep into Britain.

[guzzipat]

My primary point was that the RAF numbers had drastically decreased. With that in mind, they should have continued bombing, escalated the bombing which would lead to A) more terror in the civilians, and B) an even smaller number of RAF aircraft.

A. You have no evidence for and it is refuted by experience and all analysis. Every study into terror bombing suggests that rather than causing a drop in moral, it just hardens the civilian populations resolve. Not once have you addresed this, you just keep saying it would have worked.

B. Two factors you seem ignorant about, fighter production in Britain in 1940 was 4,283, compared to 3000 in Germany. That production figure averages at 357 fighters per month. Which makes your claim of the RAF being down to it's last 300 aircraft very questionable. I can find no reference to such a figure, it would have required a loss rate above 100% as more than 300 per month were produced.
You have also ignored the fact that the Luftwaffe was losing aircraft and crew much faster than the RAF.
There is another crucial factor you ignore, moral. There is considerable evidence that many more aircraft were returning damaged than the RAF shot down. This was due to the RAF using machine gun armed fighters, it is clear from German records that considerable numbers of bombers were returning with dead or shot up crew aboard. This did cause a considerable drop in the morale of aircrew and ground personel.
There was also the repeated claims from the German commanders that the RAF had been almost wiped out, only for the aircrew to face even more fighters, not declining defences. This was especially evident, when they tried an unescorted raid on the NE, assuming all reserves had gone South. The fighters stationed in the NE had a field day shooting down unescorted bombers.

Your claim that terror bombing would have worked flies against all evidence.
Your claims that transfering the attack to civilian targets would result in the defeat of the RAF, is ridiculous when every historian stresses the change of tactics, from attacking airfields to cities, as the decision that lost Germany the battle.

Either you know better than almost every other person who has studied the battle, or you don't know what you are talking about. My money is on the latter.

[Arthur2sheds_Jackson]

Oxy wrote:

I am more then certain that Stalin would have invaded Europe and Germany if operation Barbarrosa didnt interupt his plans.

You've mentioned this pet theory of yours a couple of times but without any evidence to support it, could you elaborate further?

You also have to remember that the Soviets had yet to develope the idea of deep penatration offensives and were using their tanks as infantry support rather than grouped break through units.


evidence of that

Anthony Beevor's book Stalingrad mentions this fact several times.

For me the decisive moment was the cracking of the enigma code at Bletchly Park.