how did we win the battle of Britain?

Question

Ok What was the difference between our RAF and their Luftwaffe why was our RAF superior to ours and how did it come that we won the battle of britain
(use as much detail as possible pleaseee)
thankss :)

Answer 1

1. Hitler had deluded himself into believing that GB would eventually see 'the error of their ways' and join him in his crusade against the USSR. When they instead opposed his plans, he had prepared no plan to conquer GB, and was thus caught unprepared for the Battle For Britain.



2. While Nazi incompetence is a major causitory factor in Britains win, one cannot deny the bravery of the RAF and the British people in fighting what appeared to everyone in the world to be a lost cause.



3. The failure of the Luftwaffe in the Battle For Britain was not a case of Goerings incompetence, but an early example of Hitler adversely interfering in operational tactics to scratch an emotional itch. Goering, with his superior air force, had been pursuing the right strategy, targeting the RADAR installations, RAF airfields, and airplane manufacturing plants. This was having measurable effect, and, had it been continued, could have been expected to fatally reduce the operational effectiveness of the RAFs defenses. After a few British bombers "strayed off course" and dropped some ineffectual bombs on German civilian areas, Hitler ordered Goering to bomb London, thus giving the RAF the breathing room they desperately needed to repair the airfields and RADAR units and continue the maximum production of aircraft. Without this shift in tactics, the air battle, a close thing as it was, tilted marginally in Britains favor.



4. Even before Germany had lost most of its destroyers to the Royal Navy while taking Norway, it was never planned that the Kriegsmarine would have anything more than a marginal role in protecting German troops during a cross-Channel operation. This was envisioned in the last-minute, seat-of-the-pants planning for Sealion as the Luftwaffes responsibility. One cannot blame the Kriegsmarine for a lack of troop transports because they had never been instructed to acquire them. Hitler never suspected that Britain would force the issue to such an extreme. No serious planning for such an invasion was ever made before the surrender of France, and the last-minute planning was indeed amateurish. Considering Germanys limited ship building potential, it is unreasonable that they could be expected to suddenly have the equipment and resources to support such an unforeseen mission.



5. The only viable conclusion one can draw from 3 and 4 is that neither the Luftwaffe nor the Kriegsmarine can be faulted for not being prepared. Both services were well prepared to carry out the missions they had readied for. It was Hitlers political miscalculations that made the unexpected necessity of a cross-Channel invasion desirable, something the Kriegsmarine was never ordered to prepare for before the surrender on the Continent. And it was Hitler's interference in the Luftwaffe offensive that caused the failure to gain air supremacy. In the event, Goerings Luftwaffe almost managed it, despite the fact that owning the air over the Channel had not been its original mission.



The sensible conclusion is that the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine became scapegoats for their Fuehrers incompetent political projections and counterproductive battlefield interference. Goering and Raeder should not be made responsible for Hitlers bumbling incompetence. It was, in the end, Hitler's fight to lose, and he did, indeed, cause the loss single-handedly.

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Answer 2

There are several factors that allowed the RAF to "win" the Battle of Britain...



1) The RAF made smart use of their radar... they could detect the Luftwaffe bombers and fighters lifting off from their bases in France and the Netherlands. This allowed RAF fighter squadrons to remain on the ground until needed rather than conducting constant patrols out looking for the Luftwaffe. Fighter Command also developed good procedures for vectoring the RAF fighters once they lifted off to intercept the Luftwaffe.



2) The RAF was fighting OVER the UK and Channel... so if I pilot was able to bail out of a damaged aircraft (and MOST did) they landed in friendly territory and could be back in another aircraft in a matter of hours !! The Luftwaffe pilots who bailed out became POW's. So even if the shoot-down rate was equal... the Luftwaffe would run out of pilots !! Soon, the Germans lacked the trained pilots, the effective fighter planes, and the heavy bombers that would have been needed to defeat the RAF



3) Hitler and Luftwaffe leader Goering didn't plan their operation well... or more correctly, they SHIFTED their tactics at the WORST moments !! They had initially been using the bombers against RAF airfields, aircraft factories, and the Radar installations... if they had CONTINUED that strategy, they MAY have destroyed the RAF. BUT, when the RAF Bomber Command conducted their first bombing raid over Berlin, Hitler ordered the bombing of British cities.



Those are the BASIC reasons.

Answer 3

I agree with Louis that the most important advantage was radar. It allowed the British to concentrate their available aircraft against incoming targets, or to move or better defend the potential target sites. The Germans were flying relatively blind, not sure of the intensity of resistance they would face on each mission. The home filed advantage was also important. Planes were expensive, but could be replaced by the British as long as materials could be kept coming. The Germans had many other demands on their aircraft, and were spread thinner. And pilots shot down were lost to the Germans, and new pilots trained, while surviving British pilots could be sent back up. It also cost the german war effort much more in fuel to operate over British territory, and they could not remain for extended times. Other factors include two major mistakes made by Germany. First and most important, was Hitler's decision to switch targets. Early in the battle British airfields and aircraft were being destroyed faster than they could be replaced. Despite their own losses, the Luftwaffe was well on its way to eliminating the British air force. This was critical if there was to be any chance for an invasion to take place. Because of Hitler's irrational anger at the bombing of Berlin, now the Luftwaffe was wasting its efforts and resources hitting targets of little or no military value. While the attacks might be demoralizing, they actually allowed the British to start rebuilding their air power until the balance swung decisively their way. The second mistake was in the types of planes built. This falls on Goering as well as Hitler. Both looked at the air force as a tactical rather than strategic military arm. it was built around supporting ground operations, inflicting damage to enemy lines and transport points so the army could take advantage of the disruptions. Glaringly missing were heavy bombers. The bombers built by the Germans had neither the range nor the payload to do as an effective job as was needed. While this mistake would cost them even more dearly in the USSR, it played its part in the Battle of Britain. The German bombers were lighter and couldn't take the punishment the heavy bombers used by the Allies later in the war could handle. So the Germans lost more planes and did less damage than was needed to win the battle. And finally, Winston Churchill hit on the final reason. So few with so little held out against the hurricane of destruction that came their way nightly. The ground crews kept the planes flying, and absorbed the hits when the bombers got through. The pilots kept going up, whether outnumbered or not. If shot down, if they survived they went up once more. They were worn down physically and mentally, exhausted by the unending grind, but they did not give up. It's unlikely that Hitler noticed the irony of how the triumph of the will of the English defenders helped destroy his 1000 year Reich.

Answer 4

The Germans made several serious mistakes which contributed to their defeat.



Overconfident after their victories in France and the Low Countries, the Luftwaffe thought that Britain would be a pushover. They soon got a bloody nose which convinced them otherwise.



Goering ordered the German escort fighters to stick close to the bombers to improve the morale of the crews, but reducing the fighter's mobility and hampering their ability to fight. Due to limited fuel capacity, the German fighters were also restricted in how long they could stay over southern England. The Hurricane and Spitfire didn't have much better range, but it didn't matter as they were fighting over home ground.



Perhaps the worst error was for Hitler, enraged by British bombing of Germany, to order the Luftwaffe to switch it's attacks from RAF airfields to London and other cities. At that stage, Fighter Command was badly battered - This change gave them a vital respite allowing them to recover, repair their airfields, and prepare to continue the fight against the Germans.

Answer 5

before the war you guys figured out the need for central command stations in bomb proof bunkers and phones lines in trenches so that everyone could keep in communication



fighting a "home game" a RAF pilot shot down was rescued and patched up....or in many cases given a bicycle so he could return to his base and be aback at it. A German shot down was a POW....or fish food in the Channel



and then there was radar.......up and running just in time for the Battle this brand new tool let the RAF have a decent idea of where each German raid was going and thus



keep the Spitfires and Hurricanes on the ground longer, saving fuel



and also vectoring in fighters on the incoming raids, rather than flying around looking for the enemy by eye



even so the RAF was being worn down.....the Germans figured out to go after the RAF fighter fields, and even if you were shooting down 2:1 you still would eventually run out of planes and pilots.......



when the RAF sent a daylight bomber raid to Berlin. It did little damage but freaked Hitler out,,,,,,he ordered retaliation raids on London and took pressure off the RAF fighter fields just when it was most needed

Answer 6

It is more that Hitler lost it - with no disrepect to the RAF.



The RAF were undoubtedly superior because of the spitfire which was better in dog fights - but there were also advantages like radar and the Trenchard defence plan - the ring of airfields around the south east which were carefully co-ordinated (by Fighter Command) were intended to defend London.



As the battle progressed the damage to the airfields was so severe that had Hitler (or more accurately Goering) sustained the attack it is doubtful whether they could have lasted much longer.



In the end the Luftwaffe got diverted into bombing London (they had already started bombing Birmingham and Liverpool before the RAF attacked Berlin btw) - which meant that the bases had time to recover. This is seen as the major tactical error since Germany (fortunately) never got the air superiority they needed to mount a successful invasion.

Answer 7

Another reason, in addition to the two good foregoing answers, is the fact that the UK had a far more developed form of radar which enabled incoming aircraft to be located well before they were seen by such as the Royal Observer Corps (which maintained a look out on coasts etc). This enabled ground controllers to 'scramble' RAF squadrons at the right time and in the right place to intercept the Luftwaffe aircraft.

Answer 8

Economics plays it's part as well, the Hurricane (in many peoples opinion a superior fighter) was over half of the RAF's front line fighter - much cheaper to build, cheaper and easier to maintain and could take a lot of damage and still be repairable. The spitfire and all of the german fighters were stressd metal skins over a tension frame- fragile, expensive and slow and costly to repair.

A german fighter, on average, was built to a much higher specification - not much use when it is not going to wear out.

Germany could not afford the factories and machine tools to win the battle - to win you must have resources when the enemy is exhausted.

Answer 9

I should add that ME-109 had rather limited combat radius. It could only linger over England for a few minutes, and than had to hightail it back to France, or risk ditching.



Areal combat is particularly fuel intensive. When you turn hard, you loose a lot of speed, and then have to firewall the throttle to gain it back quickly.



One tactic the RAF used was to get the 109 make a few hard turns or go into a power dive, and then Jerry would be out of gas, and had to return to base.