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The Turning Point of World War II
The battle of Britain
Germany occupied all of Europe from Neimen to the Pyrenees, from North Cape to Sicily. This achievement had bested one, a century and a half old. Then came the grievous mistake. Germany had already defeated the world’s greatest military power in six weeks. Now Germany looked to attack Britain. Given the English Channel was the best anti tank ditch in the world. The attack would be primarily comprised of Aircraft; the Luftwaffe was Germany’s best superiority.
Never had a nation tried to defeat another from the air in all of history. No one knew what to expect. In two hundred and fifty years the British had always relied on their navy, and the British Royal Navy had never let them down. The big questions for England was could her navy hold the channel, and could the RAF hold the skies over the navy.
Hitler knew his objective and ordered planning for Operation Sea Lion while the battle in France was still in progress. There were new problems to be considered involving amphibious warfare. The Wehrmacht was a land animal. While it excelled in France and crossed rivers well, the channel was a different story.
The Germany Navy, under Admiral Von Tripitz, had never conducted and amphibious landing except for Norway. There was much debate about the course of action, and eventually a plan took shape. Dutch and French ports began to fill with barges. The Germany army and navy had taken their share of abuse in both France and Norway, so preparations progressed slowly. For Germany to invade they must dominate the channel. Before that could be done the Luftwaffe must dominate the air over the channel. Both sides realized after Norway it would be suicidal to put a navy in the channel without air superiority.
The Germans were getting set around the end of June, moving aircraft into airfields along the coastline of the English Channel. The Messerschmitt Bf109e was one of the world’s greatest fighters, marginally better than the British Hurricane. It was, however, marginally inferior to the new Spitfire. The German twin-engine long range ME110 would be no match for the Spitfire. The German bombers Heinkel, and Dornier would suffer a lack of range.
The British were making defensive preparations as well. The British army was in no way able to contend with a German landing and the British had lost a large number of pilots in Europe. To this point the British eventually had to tell France enough was enough, they had to preserve enough aircraft to defend Britain. Fifty-nine squadrons were preserved at the expense of no air support in the final days of the German campaign in France. The British did have one advantage over the Germans they had a radar net.
First came the Channel Battle that lasted about six weeks. During this time the Germans hit the east coast shipping lanes, ports and docking facilities. The real goal was to draw the RAF out and destroy it, but the British didn’t initially protect their eastern shore as the Germans had anticipated. Soon the British found themselves in a bind, and committed minimal support to defend the eastern shoreline. The losses were heavy and Organization was a problem on both sides. The Germans would send in high-level bombers and fighter escorts, the British would send the Spitfires at the escorts and the Hurricanes at the bombers once the fighters were tied up. The British radar net was clumsy and the British pilots lacked experience. One mistake both sides made was to over estimate the amount of damage inflicted on the other. Near the end of July, Germany thought the RAF was on the verge of being wiped out. The British increased their factory output to the point were they couldn’t find pilots to fly the planes. In actuality there were no more than 3000 pilots who took part in the entire battle for the RAF. A Czech pilot, by the name of Josef Franstisek, had the best rating.
The main assault began on August 12th "the Eagle Attack". The attack began with the targeting of radar stations. The RAF was to be the main target of this phase, both airfields and air factories. On day two of the attack, half of the attack was cancelled due to bad weather - So half an attack was launched!? Eventually the skies cleared in the afternoon and the Luftwaffe came out in force. The Germans launched fifteen hundred sorties to the British seven hundred that day. Two days latter the Germans launched another big attack, hampered by bad weather and mix-ups. The key mistake came somewhere in this attack. The Germans decided that hitting the radar stations wasn’t paying off and discontinued them. The Germans began to shift their attacks, unable to account for the damage they where inflicting.
If I had to put it to a day, August 15th 1940 was the day it all started to change. The Germans stopped targeting radar stations.
On August 25th a lost bomber crew that had been dispatched to target the London airfields, dropped its payload in the heart of London. The British response was to target Berlin, and this escalated the campaign to the bombing of civilian targets for the remainder of the war.
On September 7th, the "London Blitz" began. About a thousand bombers attacked London that afternoon. Imagine a fleet of bombers twenty miles wide, forty miles long and two miles thick. The destruction they inflicted was horrendous. This total carnage was what spurred on the British morale, in a weird twist of fate. The term of the day was coined "business as usual", and the British carried on more resolved than before. The German attack on London achieved British objectives surprisingly and failed in German objectives. The RAF got some breathing room; this rebound of the RAF forced the Germans to switch from daylight bombing to night raids. It also Swayed the American opinion of the war, creating a perceived conflict between good and evil. The Bombing of London continued through November.
After the Germans gave the RAF breathing room there was a steady decrease in German missions over England. During this time period the British had succeeded in breaking the German codes. It is rumored that Churchill had foreknowledge of the attack on Coventry and did nothing to prevent it. For the long term it would be better not to reveal that England had broken the codes.
There was no real point at which the attacks stopped they just diminished. The German barges and soldiers that were allocated to Attack England were reassigned or dispersed. As early as mid October Hitler was turning his attention to the eastern front. Now the moral of the story here are the losses the Germans suffered. The Germans suffered around 1400 aircraft versus the British 790.
Germany would be just a mere few miles from Moscow, not much further in the course of the war. What would have happened if Germany had attacked Russia, instead of England? One thing for sure they would have had 1400 more aircraft. The British were not ready to invade, they had no army and the mindset was on Defense. Japan on the other side of the world was running out of resources. Had both Germany and Japan turned on Russia, and broken their treaties, I fear this article would not be written in English.
The moral of the story here is what not to do as Axis. Don’t waste that German aircraft, you cant afford to buy any, if maybe one or two in the course of the game. Having a large German air force makes a big difference in how Germany performs in the game.
/s/
Solar
‘Never in the Field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’
Winston Churchill
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