RAF Cat.2 during BoB

[Shikhov]

Thanks to all - to Nick Beale, Graham Boak, Kurfurst, Peter Cornwell.
As I mentioned Christer Bergstrom article should me refresh my BoB looks.
http://www.1jma.dk/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3371
I' m agreed in terms Cat.2 corresponding LW 60% and less damage category. But seems strange that every british author claim his own FC losses figure, never repeated. For example 755 H/S - Franks, 915 - Richards, 932 Wood/Dempster, 1140 Cat.3 fighters Derek Woods...
In fact I have many other figures.
Even BoB period - very srange matter.
Sure air campaign agaist GB generally lasted since Dunkirk evacuation till end of May 1941 - one whole year. But in invasion context - much shorter since August 11 till September 17. This is only period in regard Sea Lion.
Sept.17 P/M Churchill clearly advised about German don't start Invasion in 1940. This fact was confirmed by photorecon Sept.23.
Following night bombing not aim to win Britain but seems impressed so that BC returned to German in same method within 4 years. And soon after official date of BoB won Dowding and Park retired not as winner.
P.S. Generally I can agreed to Kurfurst in regard air supremacy not established in South Britain in mid of September and Hitler don't start Invasion in other reason - he don't really want this. Comparision between FC against Jagdwaffe quite correct? but for clear picture should include other RAF branch as BC, CC and FAA.

[Franek Grabowski]

Well, I believe it is an effect of lack of knowledge about basic British documents and procedures. There were several independent ways to inform Air Ministry about available aircraft and losses, filed at a different time, so no wonder if one summarise data from daily reports, operations record books and aircraft cards, he will get completely different figures.
Another issue is damage categories. As mentioned previously, the system was quite different rather than the German one, so comparisons are quite hard. Anyway, damage was asessed initialy by available technical officer and could change when the aircraft reached repair unit. Also, categories were dependant on units' capabilities, ie. even slight damage could have been considered Cat. 2 due to eg. shortage of groundcrew in the unit.
This is mixed with obvious errors in the documents, eg. I have a case of a Hurricane still flying for about a month despite being lost over the Channel - obvious error in the serial number, but where?
In the effect we can talk about approximates only, and figures like 47.67% or 38.62%, well they prove the respective author just has no slightest idea about the problem. I do not find too much sense following the issue any further, as I believe the general figures available are accurate enough for statistics purposes and establishing a detailed and accurate list of losses is beyond researchers' capabilities. We know the final outcome anyway.

Finally, I have noticed one particular sentence in the mentioed thread.

The 12 OCH site seems to give more or less free reign to right extremists and neo Nazis with no other interest than to pick a fight. I?ve told the webmaster of that site that unless he starts banning such destructive people, the serious people will be scared off.

Gents, are you right extremists or neo Nazis, as apparently you are not scared off, are not you? ;>

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Yes, but what have the relative losses in single-engined fighters got to do with anything? I repeat, the Battle was not won by accumulating score points. The RAF needed to prevent the Luftwaffe attaining its objectives and it needed to do that until the weather was such that a seaborne invasion was impracticable (and in England that's probably going to be September/October). The British needed above all to kill bombers but to do that they had to get past the German fighters and sometines that meant fighting them.

Merely a point of historical interest, as one could say, after reading a through study on the illegitimate sons of, say, Luis XIV - who cares? They're all dead already! Yet it's still interesting for those interested in history.. OTOH, I am not much fixated in writing down the word 'won', this is not aiming at getting anybody to 'win' based on the kill count, but the kill count is part of the story as well. As I said, the BoB is the 20th century British national saga, it didn't become all that on it's own, it was made to be one with labourous work of historians and propagandists, who were sometimes being the both at the same time, and as such, it developed it's numerous myths. What I am aiming at is to seperate the myth from the real events and get an accurate look at it.

Now as for the German objectives, and the alleged invasion threat, which is the cornerstone of the saga, which goes, as always with these stories, how a few flamboyant boys defended their country against Great Odds and the Great Danger. I am sure we're in disagreement with regards how seriously that invasion was ever planned, with all the conclusions coming from that, as personally I find the points laid out by Ian Kershaw in the 2nd volume of his Hitler biography ('Nemesis') rather convincing in regards of 'Seelowe'. But that's an entirely different matter. Back to the original question : 'Yes, but what have the relative losses in single-engined fighters got to do with anything?' Well if the fighter losses haven't got to do with anything, then why mention them at all in many-many books in a slanted way? If it's not important, then don't bring it up losses at all, and if it's important - at least compare apples to apples.

Regards,

KF

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

I am sure we're in disagreement with regards how seriously that invasion was ever planned ... Well if the fighter losses haven't got to do with anything, then why mention them at all in many-many books in a slanted way? If it's not important, then don't bring it up losses at all, and if it's important - at least compare apples to apples.

First: I doubt we are in much disagreement about how seriously the invasion was planned. I think that it might have been attempted if it looked like a victory could have been had cheaply but otherwise it was a German disaster waiting to happen. If it had been purely a bluff, it was a hell of an expensive one - taking several thousand canal barges and tugs out of the West European transport system, converting them to would-be landing craft and lossing a lot to bombing is a big economic price, not least for German war production. The threat was entirely real to the British at the time however (until Ultra intelligence defused it in late September).

Second: comparing Fighter Command vs. Jagdwaffe performance is NOT comparing apples with apples. Fighter Command was not established or trained to shoot down fighters, it was there to defend Britain against bombers and the measure of its success is Germany's accelerating abandonment of large scale daylight bombing from mid-September. Enemy fighters were in effect a distraction from Fighter Command's central purpose. The Jagdwaffe WAS trying above all to shoot down fighters.

Third: yeah, we have a national saga about the Battle of Britain but there is now no shortage of careful historical analysis. It began with the availability of the Luftwaffe's loss reports in the 1960s (which informed Francis Mason's "Battle over Britain" for example) and has gone on ever since through Alfred Price's books, "Battle of Britain Then & Now", "Most Dangerous Enemy" and so on. One of the British myths that has been very effectively deflated in the process is that of a ruthlessly efficient, near-invincible Luftwaffe.

[Juha]

Hello,
It's probably better to comment as little as possible to Christer's article in the thread Shikhov gave. I would only say that IMHO it's OK to take account also FC's Cat. 2 damaged planes and those BC, CC and FAA planes lost or damaged during operations against invasion fleet and against LW's a/fs when trying to analyze Jagdfliegers' claim accuracy, but then one ought to remove those lost by non-combat reasons and also those shot down by Bf 110 pilots and by airgunners because there were many of those after all. Also to claim that Cat.2 is the comparable to LW's 60 -81% sounds odd to me because to my understanding most of the Cat. 2 cases flew again and most of the 60 - 81% cases didn't. There were of course exceptions but that's normal, there are only a few absolute truths in our field of research.

Then my question, In the thread Christer indicates that he used the orginal 1969 print of Mason's Battle over Britain in his study. Quote: "In the old 630-page ?Battle over Britain? by Francis K. Mason" and later he claims "the aircraft losses mentioned in my (and Mason?s) lists are all losses above 50 % - i.e. corresponding to all RAF losses above Cat. 1." which gives an impression that Mason's opinion was same as Christer's on the definition on RAF's Cat. 2. That runs to contrary to my impression on the Mason's definition given on page 129, note 2 in the 1969 print on LW damage system and to the fact that in daily loss tables Mason noted Cat.2 as damaged and Cat. 3 as destroyed. Also in his article in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aviation Vol. 4 (1979) Mason's numbers show that to him LW's 60% damage is more or less same as the dividing line between RAF's Cat.2 and Cat. 3. So, do anyone have the newer print, c. 1980 IIRC, of Mason's Battle over Britain? IIRC it was a reprint with some new colour profiles but textually more or less same than the 1969 edition but I can be wrong. So what was the dividing line between damaged and destroyed a/c by Mason in the newer version of his Battle over Britain book?


TIA
Juha

[Juha]

Hello Shikhov
Just for info, Mason's oppinion was according to his article Battle of Britain in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aviation Vol. 4 (1979) that FC lost during BoB 922 a/c destroyed, 298 damaged, 406 pilots + crew members Killed, 13 MIA+PoW and 295 wounded
LW numbers were 1767, 570, 1449, 1914 and 530.

But there are newer studies on the subject, for ex. Battle of Britain Then and Now Mk V.

How many of FC losses were by Bf 109s varied day by day, just out of curiousity checked A. Price's The Hardest Day -book on 180840 combats, my rough calculation from the RAF loss table in the book produced a following result (it incl. both damaged and destroyed FC planes)
Shot down or dam. by Bf 109s 22
Shot down or dam. by other LW planes 15
Reason Unclear 12
Lost or or dam. in accidents (incl. one own goal) 4
On ground 18
The day was untypical at least because of high number of ground losses and because of the very high intensivity of combat, but maybe otherwise normal. There were also a number of ground losses of other commands' planes which I have left out.

HTH
Juha

[Shikhov]

Hello Juha! Thanks for info.
But seems I have too many unclear points re BoB to prepare my article in real future.
But counted some interesting figures. I’ve counted around 160 Hurricanes and Spitfires were lost not to Bf109 action, but some 50 due to Bf110 included. Interestingly disproportion between H & S losses due to different german planes. Around 1 : 4 (Sp : Hu) lost to Do17, He111, Bf110. Around 1 : 1 due to Bf109 and Ju88. Accident losses also around 1 : 1.

I’d like to ask about FC claims. Completely unclear point for me.
I’ve fond four different figures and possible J. Foreman’s “FC Claims.” vol.1 consist another one. Regretfully I have lack of this book.
1) 2375 (MA) issued in 1941, but 250 AAA included
2) 2698 (D.Richards) appeared in 1953, but AAA included or not ?
3) 2752,3 summarized claims by every squadron took part.
4) day-by-day counting (www.raf.mod.uk) abt 2410 confirmed claims, around 180 AAA included.

Also not all clear re ground losses. More than 120 planes of all types destroyed on the ground in August only. But FC lost at least one in July, may be some additional in September. How many fighters Fighter Command lost?
P.S. according to Fighter Pilot Association participants list I counted 560 flying personnel losses, not usually mentioned 515 or 544.

All comments would be highly appreciated.

[Juha]

Hello Shikhov

firstly, a word of caution. The way how the FC losses divided to different causes on Aug. 18 might be typical (except for the ground losses) to an actionpacked day during the early part of the BoB but from late Aug. onwards the impact of Bf 110s diminished and IMHO the Bf 109s share of FC's losses should became greater. And on quiet days the importance of accidents should be greater, because usually the weather on quiet days wasn't too good.

On ground losses, according to M. J. F. Bowyer's Aircraft for the Few pp. 246 - 47, 1.7. - 15.10.40 CC lost 16 a/c (of which 2 were Blenheim IV(f) fighters) due bombing , BC 21a/c and FC 39 (20 Hurri, 11 Spit, 4 Lysanders and 2 Blenheim I(f)s plus 2 Beaufighters during the bombing of Filton).

HTH
Juha

ADDITION: Because also Training Command and FAA suffered ground losses, the latter for ex. lost a number of planes during the Stuka attack against Ford on 18.8. incl. Seals, the number of 120 for all British ground losses in August is altogether possible.

[Juha]

CORRECTION
Due the attack on 18.8.40 against FAA's Ford drome FAA lost 5 SHARKs not Seals, 5 Swordfish and 2 Albacores. Sorry, memory slip.

Juha

[Graham Boak]

Given that it is often said to have been FC policy for the Hurricanes to go for the bombers whilst the Spitfires took care of the fighters, I suggest that this explains why more Hurricanes than Spitfires were shot down by bombers. It may also be true that there were more proportionally more Hurricane units than Spitfire units in the more distant areas, but that would require checking. I think it is true: presumably it is at least true in the greater proportion of Hurricanes to Spitfires.

The equal proportions of losses due to fighters does perhaps suggest that claims of the Hurricane being an easy kill are just fatuous, but that would have to take allowance of factors mentioned above.

Ah, the joys of statistics.