Critique of the Battle of Britain by Sven Ortmann

The purpose of this paper is to adjust the understanding of the so-called Battle of Britain
(German air campaign against the UK in 1940) the common understanding is considered by
the author as being mislead by superficial observations and interpretations.

I - German conceptions of air power in 1939 and 1940

Germany had two conceptions for its use of air power one tactical and one strategic one.

The strategic one was close to the theory of Giulio Douhet; it emphasized terror bombing of
cities, especially capitals. Unlike the inter-war period theories, this concept did not base so
much on the mass murder by poison gas bombs, but more on its mere threat. Indeed, its
greatest success was in March 1939 when the Czechoslovak prime minister Emil Hcha
literally collapsed in face of the threat of a massive bombing raid against Prague. This was the
first great strategic victory of air power1 other than in the 1999 bombing war against the
Serbs, air power won without being applied and in conjunction with the geo-strategic
situation caused a total surrender instead of just a partial withdrawal.
The two other prime examples of German strategic air power applications Netherlands and
England achieved next to nothing despite actual air raids were flown 2. In the case of the
Netherlands, the Rotterdam raid was erroneously flown after the surrender of the Dutch forces
was assured by army accomplishments and in the case of the bombing campaign against
England, Churchill simply refused to accept defeat while Hitler (who was a poison gas victim
of the World War I) did not authorize the use of poison gas (which was necessary till 1943 to
fulfil inter-war prophecies about strategic air warfare effectiveness3). This conception was
largely the exploitation of opportunities by blackmailing. It was never an official German
military doctrine.

The other German conception for air power the real military doctrine as laid down as early
as 1936 and revised just before the French campaign - was a two-phase air campaign in
support of offensive army operations. In the first phase, the German air force (Luftwaffe)
would primarily attack the enemy air power in its own bases4 while in the second, it would
primarily support the army by reconnaissance, observation, close air support and interdiction
in addition to continued fighter sweeps.
The first phase had the purpose to achieve air superiority in order to improve the success and
to reduce the risks of the second phase. The Luftwaffe fought the air superiority battle only
twice before the Battle of Britain; over Poland and over France. Both campaigns were huge
successes and even today many believe that the first phases of the air campaigns were such
successes, too. Its not exactly like that. The story about the Polish air force being destroyed
on the first two days on the ground was a propaganda lie. The Polish air force had dispersed
and camouflaged its squadrons in time, continued its largely ineffectual operations throughout
the Poland campaign and fled with dozens of still intact combat aircraft to Romania at the end

1
Emphasis on power, not on warfare! For obvious reasons, todays democratic governments cannot exploit this facet of
air power.
2
Another example, the soviet bombing of Helsinki, was also fruitless. The destruction of Guernica, Spain, was also of little
consequence for that civil war. It wasnt a terror raid anyway, but just a raid against a bridge with accepted collateral
damage. Otherwise, the later success against Czechoslovakia could be considered as a fruit of the Guernica attack because
this highly publicized attack and the terror and (exaggerated) death toll is caused were well known to Europeans in 1939.
3
Except if the terror bombing campaign is directed against (unmotivated) Italians. Note: This time, its warfare!
4
Like Douhets first strategic air war phase for command in the air, too.
of the campaign. The Luftwaffes superiority over Poland was based on its huge numerical
and partial technological superiority in that theatre5.
The second application was the Battle for France seemingly an even greater success. But the
Luftwaffe faced an astonishingly high attrition rate throughout the campaign especially
against allied fighters6 and the effect on the French air force (Arme de lair) was not
comparable to the effect of the German tank divisions against the French static linear frontal
defence7. The army won the battle with support by the Luftwaffe, but the Luftwaffe didnt
defeat the French air force the French air force defeated itself.
The French had their Arme de lair dispersed, but unlike the Poles, they had enough territory
to disperse their aircraft even away from their homeland 8. In fact, the Arme de lair defeated
itself by never massing enough force to gain a decisive impact on German army operations.
The Arme de lair had the ability to disrupt the advances of the German fast divisions by
raiding their truck columns despite the fact that the French aviation industry wasnt able to
deliver enough complete combat aircraft9, but it didnt do it. Neither did it ever mass enough
force to be beaten by a German air superiority attack phase.

II - The situation after the French defeat

After the cease-fire in France, the German forces were partially surprised by the strategic
situation indeed, they were suddenly expected to be effective against the mauled British,
too. The UK had experienced severe aircraft and crew losses in France and most of the heavy
equipment of the British army was lost near and in Dunkirk. A Germany with air superiority,
naval superiority and a Division-sized marine infantry with associated landing boats would
have mopped up the British resistance in that summer.
But Germany faced another situation; the army wasnt prepared for more than river crossings,
half of the Luftwaffes bombers were ineffective against ships, the British Fighter Command
was weakened but operational and the German navy (Kriegsmarine) would be over-matched
by even a third of the Royal Navy. Both German and British forces were recovering, building
airfields or coastal defence systems and training for the anticipated invasion.

III Air superiority

The common opinion of post-war historians seems to be the same as Hitlers; for successful
actions against the UK, air superiority needs to be achieved. This is the key assumption and it
also became the key for the mission he gave to the German armed forces. Theres no doubt
that air superiority is a good thing for its owner, but lets look at the details:

Lets assume that Germany did not have air superiority yet at the beginning of the battle.
Would it have been purposeful to wage an air superiority campaign? Was it reasonable to
expect that this would improve the air superiority situation? A prime example for a
victorious campaign of this kind was the Six Days War of 1967, but there was no successful
5
Obsolescence was not typical for the Polish air force. It was in the mid-30s the first all-metal aircraft air force of the world
and it had in 1939 with the PZL-39 probably the finest light bomber of its time in its inventory, but it didnt replace its
fighters in time with a second-generation all-metal monoplane design and Poland simply hadnt enough industrial capacity
and overall financial/economic strength to keep its air force modern at all times.
6
The exact loss ratio is unknown, but it seems as if more German aircraft were lost in air combat than allied aircraft. That
shouldnt come as a surprise since many later famous aces were downed over France (and freed by the armistice) and the
level of German pilot training and experience was handicapped by only a few years of hasty force build-up.
7
In fact, the German air force was not quantitatively superior at all and suffered more losses than the allied air forces in the
campaign. The morale effects and the concentrated application of German air power at the critical points according to the
Schwerpunktprinzip (centre of gravity principle) for example at the Meuse river crossing proved very useful for the German
army.
8
Karl-Heinz Frieser, Blitzkrieg-Legende, 1996, pp. 52-59
9
Hundreds of fighters missed propellers and other critical equipment.
campaign of that kind known to the combatants in 1940. No matter what the propaganda told
the people, the Luftwaffe had to know better the air superiority campaigns over Poland and
France were failures, air combat over Scandinavia and Benelux too insignificant for any
evidence. Other than the Poles and French, the British were not forced to defend at all costs
all the time because their primary mission was to be able to repel an invasion. For this, they
could save their fighters by pulling them out of the hottest zones until the day of invasion,
executing some kind of elastic operational defence. This applies as long as they could assume
that their forward airfields would still be usable. Battle damage assessment in Poland alone
should have been sufficient to come to the conclusion that the British were not to be defeated
by the German short-range fighters as long as they didnt commit serious mistakes - almost no
matter how the loss ratios in air combat would look like.

Maybe the Luftwaffe already had air superiority? Aside from the misinterpretations of
German intelligence, post-war bean counters and others, its a simple matter of offensive
power and initiative. The Commonwealth Allies werent able to hit the German airpower very
hard on the ground, while the Luftwaffe had a much more powerful bomber force. With this
precondition, the Luftwaffe was able to exploit the advantages of initiative by massing its
aircraft at a Schwerpunkt over the sea for some time so much that hundreds of German
planes were confronted by only very few hostile squadrons of heavily outnumbered
interceptors.
If the interceptors werent able to achieve favourable loss ratios even at such disadvantageous
force ratios (they were), the Luftwaffe might win a long air campaign (operational level)
thats characterised as a campaign of attrition.
At the same time, it was almost impossible for the Luftwaffe to be defeated on the tactical
level as long as the air crews morale was firm (they could still make enough mistakes to
invite their own tactical defeat). This means that for a certain short time at a certain area
nearby, the Luftwaffe had air superiority whenever it wanted during those months. Targets
like ships (which were in comparison to aircraft almost immobile) could be attacked without
decisive impact of interceptors10. Even if the Fighter Command had concentrated all of its
interceptors in south-east England, it would hardly have been able to protect the Royal Navy
effectively. This is because the Luftwaffe had enough Do 17 bombers11 to increase the
internal friction on the RAF airfields in that area at the same time as it strikes at ships with its
Junkers bombers. Heinkel 111 bombers could be used for further diversionary attacks. This
makes it unlikely that the Fighter Command could have repelled massive bombing strikes
against ships. Historical evidence unavailable to the decision-makers in summer of 194012
supports this even more. A small distortion in this conclusion is the British performance over
Dunkirk and the channel, but in both cases didnt the Luftwaffe mass as much aircraft as
expectable for invasion screening, didnt distort British operations with raids on south-east
Englands airfields and was still able to release lots of ammunition in an aimed manner.

This all offers the conclusion that to enable the Luftwaffe to decimate the Royal Navy while it
steams towards or in the channel, there was no air superiority campaign necessary.

10
The Channel battles are no evidence against this assertion because in case of an invasion, the Luftwaffe would have
committed much more planes while the Fighter Command wouldnt have been able to keep the force ratio in the air combat.
Further, the Royal Navy was forced to withdraw all big combat ships from the channel, indicating a defeat of the Royal Navy
in these encounters no matter how severe the losses were in the air.
11
Which were almost ineffective against ships due to their light bomb load and inability to dive. They were nevertheless
effective as low-level raiders against airfields.
12
Big wings of several interceptor squadrons were forming too slow to be used as an effective formation even over England
itself in 1940.
IV Rendering the Bomber Command ineffective?

In theory, its imaginable that the Battle of Britain was also fought to reduce the air threat for
the invasion force and German shipping.

This was futile because any intelligent opponent would simply pull back the bombers to
airfields out of the range of effective German fighters. Beyond that range, the loss ratio
between German bombers and British fighters was unacceptable at daylight while at night, the
difficult airfield targets could not be hit with reasonable precision. Post-war myths say that it
was a German mistake to not have followed the path of General Wever who had promoted
heavy 4-engined bombers until his death in 1934 but the German bombers of 1940 were
often able to reach far targets from France, Belgium and Norway. 13 Instead, they lacked
effective fighter support and were therefore too vulnerable, just as heavier bombers would
have been, too.14 Its therefore safe to conclude that it was no winning path to handle the
threat of British bombers in 1940 offensively (in a large scale). Their performance was
mediocre anyway and both the bomber forces leadership and crews were demoralised after
defeats by German fighter concentrations over French Meuse bridges15. The Germans had
good reason to assume that they could withstand British bomb attacks in case of an invasion
with tolerable losses despite the mediocre endurance of German standard fighters and the poor
performance of German heavy fighters against British (then hypothetically escorting) fighters.
The Bomber Command was simply not effective enough in 194016 to be decisively influential
against any invasion force of otherwise sufficient size.

As in the case of air superiority, there was no air campaign necessary and probably not even
possible that would improve he situation for the Luftwaffe in this aspect.

V Sinking the Home Fleet?

Much has been written about Hitler never being really serious about invading England.
A look at the Luftwaffes bomber fleet reveals that only the Ju87 short-range dive-bomber
and the Ju88 medium dive-capable bombers were real ship killers. He111 and Do17 were
quite ineffective against ships due to their inability to dive and their mediocre bomb sights
earlier tests revealed a 0,5% hit chance which meant that the Luftwaffe had to calculate a
whole wing of approx. 100 He111 to significantly damage a major ship like Renown or
Repulse. Battleships were even partially immune to their bombs.17

It was utter nonsense to risk the Ju 87 and Ju 88 in more than Channel anti-convoy actions
(which had the side-effect of anti-ship training) in such a situation. Any losses that incurred in

13
Ju 88 and He 111 had enough range the only long-range escort fighter, the Bf 110 Zerstrer (destroyer), was simply
unsatisfactory. That would have been different if thorough and fair comparison testing coupled with politics-free acquisition
management would have given the Germans the much superior Fw 187 as heavy long-range fighter or even the He 100 with
its much superior (in comparison to the Bf 109) aerodynamics (and therefore superior fuel efficiency) as standard fighter.
Indeed, Germany didnt even introduce the long-known external drop tanks for its fighters in time.
In 1935, a reasonable combination of specifications was only possible by using four engines, especially if the
mission is to bomb England from German airbases. In 1940, engine power had increased so much that two engines of 1940
were roughly comparable to four engines as available to Germany in 1935.
14
As demonstrated by the relatively powerful U.S.-made 4-engine B-17 bombers in 1943.
15
47 of 109 British bombers were shot down near the pontoon bridge at Sedan on May, 14 th without scoring hits. This and
other disasters in 1940-1942 convinced the British air force to minimize bombing raids at daylight until the German air force
almost stopped flying due to lack of fuel in late 1944.
16
Almost no dive-bombers, obsolete torpedo bombers and lots of light and medium level bombers.
17
The He111 could penetrate armoured battleship decks if it employed heavy (500kg) bombs, but the quantity of bombs and
therefore the quantity of hits would be reduced in comparison to the lighter bombs. The normal bomb loads were composed
of much lighter bombs, down to 50 kg bombs which were only comparable to 15 cm artillery shells.
some kind of air superiority campaign were difficult to replace and justifiable only with a
huge impact on the British strength (production or forces). Similar reasoning is applicable
concerning the ability of the Luftwaffe to give tactical air support for ground operations -
which was desirable once the Home Fleet was defeated.

Some French and Italian aircraft were able to carry torpedoes, but this capability was marginal
in the primarily army-oriented Luftwaffe. There was no time to modify planes and retrain
crews. Its interesting that the Italians did not send such badly needed torpedo bombers18 and
it's also interesting that this was not emphasized by historians.

The Luftwaffe did obviously not (professionally) prepare for anti-warship combat. It wasted
those bombers that were deadly against warships in air combat over England and it wasnt
reinforced by the Italians with other potential ship-killer bombers.
We didnt even need to look at the meteorological problems or pessimistic German
predictions to come to the conclusion that the Luftwaffe was ill-prepared for stopping the
British Home Fleet!

VI - Strategic air campaign

Once the illusion that the campaign was probably somehow rationally oriented at preparing
for invasion is gone, it becomes less complex to analyse whats left as a rational option -
strategic air war.
It was possible to threaten and then probably execute a strategic terror bombing campaign in
worst case including poison gas. The objective would be to force the opposing government
into accepting a peace proposal.
Threatening was ineffective because Churchill was simply too stubborn and casualty-
insensitive. As history showed, even the execution of a terror bombing campaign with
explosive and incendiary munitions would not bomb him to negotiations. He did never agree
to interrupt this conflict. Only a massive poison gas bombing campaign might probably have
changed that, but this campaign would also have destroyed the trust of the German people in
their political leadership19 and therefore have made any other military adventures (like an
invasion of the Soviet Union) impossible for years. Not to speak about the significance of
U.S. intervention if the campaign fails. Actual terror bombing was therefore something that
could be attempted as a last resort, but it was eventually not successful and had no successful
predecessor.
Another possibility was to support a naval campaign against British shipping with air force
assets; both against ships at sea and in harbours. Germany would easily have blocked the
channel harbours for years in a one-on-one conflict, but even blocking Londons harbour
would have been quite costly. The Luftwaffe correctly considered the prospects of this
strategy as not promising20, mostly due to geographical problems and its own limitations.

18
The Italians sent some light bombers and some biplane fighters, but this did neither represent their anti-ship spear tip nor
their best fighter forces.
19
The German propaganda had used an erroneous bombing of a German school by German bombers as French terror
bombing. Such examples of propaganda were bad preparations for own terror bombing and excessive use of lethality might
have had severe effects on German public morale. Hitler as a former propaganda soldier and with the Dolchstolegende myth
(that the German army wasnt defeated in 1918 by the enemies but by socialist uprisings and strikes in the homeland) in mind
was very careful about homeland morale. He emphasized the importance of propaganda and didnt switch to total war until in
1943 the public seemed to be ready for it.
20
Karl-Heinz Vlker, Dokumente und Dokumentarfotos zur Geschichte der Deutschen Luftwaffe, Stuttgart 1968, pp. 460-
466
The third option was to wage a direct air war against the British economy. History tells us
enough about the limited chances of such a campaign during that war.21 Britain was not
engaged in a huge land war as Germany later was and it was supported by unassailable
industrial, raw material and agricultural resources of its former and actual colonies. Even a
total breakdown of British industrial production would not have meant strategic victory in
itself it would still have depended on a British readiness for peace because Germany
couldnt in any event convert such an operational victory into strategic victory on its own.
That would have required a broken British will to fight achievable most easily by German
ground forces in Britain.
VII - The actual battle

The Germans defeated themselves by not having the appropriate equipment (better fighters,
guided bombs, aerial torpedoes) for the defeat of the British navy in face of the British air
force threat. Furthermore, their army was neither prepared nor able to prepare in time for such
an amphibious operation, making any hypothetical Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine successes
largely worthless.
The German air force began with some skirmishes over Dunkirk and the English Channel
with limited effect on the British Expeditionary Forces and British shipping & trade. It
launched a failed air superiority campaign and proceeded with a half-hearted night terror
bombing campaign and finally again skirmishes that merely irritated the British shipping.

British morale was tested in several aspects, but proved to be firm enough to withstand this
pressure. The quality and quantity of German offensive air power deteriorated during the
battle and no progress regarding invasion preconditions was achieved by the Luftwaffe.

VIII Some wrong myths about the Battle of Britain

The Germans did NOT lack heavy bombers they would have been irrelevant for the
outcome of the battle because it was neither heaviness nor range or bomb load of the
bombers that critically limited the German chances.

The British did NOT face defeat during the German campaign against the Fighter Commands
airfields in the early phase of the Battle of Britain. The Germans would only have reduced
their overall chances against the Royal Navy with this campaign element even with a (better
than historical) 1:1,5 loss ratio. A defeat of the British Fighter Command would have been a
Pyrrhic victory for the Luftwaffe in any realistic case.

The UK was NOT in a real danger of a successful invasion. This was probably impossible to
assess from the British point of view then and they had to act as if the threat was realistic
anyway in order to prevent the threat from becoming realistic.

The terror bombing campaign was NOT a predictably hopeless diversion of German offensive
power it tested the stability and will of Churchills government and its even today not
known for sure whether the use of poison gas would have brought Churchill or his will down.
It would have invited the U.S. into the war, would have caused severe cracks in German
society and homeland support and finally would have been a huge crime of genocidal scope.

21
The western allies concentrated on this but failed to achieve decisive success against a Germany that was involved in a
huge multi-year struggle on the Eastern front. The allies only succeeded when in early summer of 1944 most of the fuel
production capacity was destroyed after a year of intense experimentation by the USAAF. The UK experienced much better
conditions and did neither have significant indigenous natural nor synthetic fuel production which therefore couldnt be
destroyed.
Yet, with the knowledge of later times, we know that the latter aspect would have easily been
in range of that German political leadership.

IX - Conclusions

The Battle of Britain was a Battle at the culmination point of success22. German self-
confidence was huge after many astonishing victories and both this and political pressure
made it impossible for the egomaniac23-driven and seemingly avant-garde Luftwaffe to just
sit next to the British on the continent and watch as the German navy tries to strangle the UK
with submarines24.
Instead, Hitler25 ordered invasion preparations including an air campaign to win air
superiority, seemingly without proper analysis. The best for his completely sick and criminal
intentions would have been to save the Luftwaffe for the invasion of the USSR and not to
provoke a vengeance bombing campaign. The later high-praised anti-Fighter Command phase
of the battle was uninspired, stubborn in accordance to the supposedly proven doctrine and it
ignored the possible reaction of evasion. The British called the bluff, achieved good loss
ratios in a battle of attrition and the Luftwaffe bled for nothing.

Many battles in human history were fought without a clear reasoning about their purpose,
with an inappropriate execution of doctrine or despite even a victory could change little in
favour of the attacker. The Battle of Britain was such a battle and therefore an example of
poor military expertise at the level of German high command26.

Its disappointing that myths still crowd-out the strategic basics of this battle in history books
instead of revealing how ill-aimed ALL campaign elements were.

22
Considering the minds, not so much the logistics and other hardware aspects.
23
Hermann Gring. He was already an egomaniac back in World War I when he was an unsympathetic fighter ace that took
over Richthofens fighter unit. He was commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.
24
An uncritical operation in itself because it could at best have made the British offensive power insignificant. It requires
boots on the ground to conquer a country and it requires the breakdown of the enemys will to fight to really subdue a
nation. This couldnt be expected by what is essentially a total economic embargo, as history tells us again and again.
25
Also known as the big asshole, impotent black-haired shrunken German and that lance corporal.
26
Meant are primarily OKL, OKW and political leadership. Astonishingly, the share of the blame for the big asshole is often
ignored by historians which prefer to concentrate on Dunkirk and the diversionary orders before the battle of Moscow as
examples of early failures instead. Some historians criticize the change to night attacks as political misjudgements without
grasping the futility of the counter-Fighter Command tactic.