Not Dead Yet
[QUOTE=finestkind;10864609]Slightly disagree. I agree with Lookleft's post 23. The RAF was on it's last leg's with possibly a week left before annihilation. The switch to bombing London and not airfields was a mistake on the German's part and a saving for the RAF.[/QUOT
Although 11 Group was 'battered' it was never put out of action, and whilst raids could be intercepted Goering could not claim to have destroyed the RAF. Interception needed both Radar and the O corps and both these facilities were serviceable. The Luftwaffe had taken (by their standards) huge looses by September and these were not sustainable. The Germans big mistake was not understanding how we were able to make interceptions and not dealing with the Radar sites before the Airfields. 11 Group was akin to our front line trenches except it was never 'over run' and behind it 12 Group were far from being decimated. The Luftwaffe could not continue day light raids for very good reason and at that point Goering realised he was not going to destroy our Air force, and the invasion was off. Hitler no doubt considered that continual bombing of civilian targets would possibly bring about us suing for peace as it had done in Europe, but of course Churchill was never going to go down that route. Once we dispersed our ops rooms off airfield it removed a vulnerable part of our system, and putting an airfield out of action is quite difficult. Fast fwd to modern times and especially the middle east where we saw the first thing the IDF did was to take out the Arab radar sites which then gave them complete control of the air battle with a smaller force.