BoB Pilots "couldn't shoot straight"!

[FantomZorbin]

See today's Telegraph ... Dr. Andrew Cumming wouldn't be about to publish a book would he? :rolleyes:

[Sedbergh]

Something of a media-inspired dramatisation I should think, but not inaccurate.

From what I've read over the last 40 years, no doubt there were a few BoB pilots who could shoot very well, a lot who were fairly ok and a few who were rubbish. Same pattern throughout the war, in all the airforces.

And the BoB pilots were not helped by the official training (Area attacks, tight formations, tactics, gun harmonisation policy, tiny 303 bullets etc etc).

And poor b******s like Geoff Wellum who'd never even seen a Spit before being posted to his squadron! What chance did they have of hitting anything? Staying alive would have been step one.

Dying on Combat Flight Sim a few times is scary enough thanks. All honour to the guys who had to do it for real.

But if the Me 109's had had drop tanks - now there's a scary thought.

[robin]

Not again!!

Why does this author think he has found out something new. It's been known for such a long time.

But it does not detract from the heroism of the young lads in 1940, and what they did for us

[norman atkinson]

According to a recent-ish post war source, the RAF lost 915 aircraft whilst the Luftwaffe lost 1733 from RT Bickers' Battle of Britain.

[Archimedes]

Entertainingly, the Torygraph can't spell straight, since the historian in question is, I think, called Anthony Cumming, not Andrew...

He has a forthcoming article in the Institute for Historical Research journal explaining that the RN won the Battle and that the warship was the ultimate guarantor of British freedom. Which, without wishing to be critical, suggests that his research into the Battle may not only be less original than he thinks, but less detailed and less analytical... He was awarded a PhD last year entitled 'A Re-appraisal of the roles of the Home Fleet and Fighter Command', so if we're lucky [sic] a book might result. I don't want to slaughter him without doing him the courtesy of reading his article, but it would appear that he has rather missed the point. Mercifully, Churchill, Dowding and the RN didn't...

[Robert Cooper]

Jesus, not this old crap again!! :*

[Sedbergh]

Wonder if he checked RN ship losses to aircraft (and subs) during the Crete evacuation, the Malta run, the Malaya invasion etc etc where there was no RAF air cover?

[norman atkinson]

It was only a few days ago that I attended a lecture on 'Dreadnoughts' by a guy who was ex RN etc. He got to the number of hits with one ton shells in an engagement. Each shell which missed was probably as expensive as a Spitfire which, if I recall 'Wings for Victory' savings campaigns cost £5000!

My Sten gun- 'cos I was just a gash RAF corporal cost all of 7/6.

Spitfire pilots- if I recall- got 16/6 (if they had a thin blue ring)

Bollocks to this 'Duck pond admiral'

[Blacksheep]

And poor b******s like Geoff Wellum who'd never even seen a Spit before being posted to his squadron! What chance did they have of hitting anything? Staying alive would have been step one.Step one was learning to fly a Spitfire. Staying alive was step two. But once he'd managed steps one and two he certainly did get the hang of step three - shooting... :ok:

As to staying alive , GW's descriptions of desperately outflying an Me109 that had got on his tail while he watched his He111 victim go down is breathtaking - as is his account of a Convoy patrol with a cloudbase of 500 feet in ten tenths and heavy rain and with his radio U/s. He still managed to chase a Ju88 half way to Holland and then find his way back to Manston.

Never mind staying alive, they had no business sending anyone up in that weather, but those young men simply did their duty without asking questions.
So many more had identical experiences but never lived to tell the tail. :(

Whether they could shoot straight or not is irrelevant. They were bloody heroes, the lot of them.

[SKI]

Deflection shooting thats the secret!

[henry crun]

It certainly is SKI, and those who have not tried it don't have the foggiest idea of how difficult it is.

[Mac the Knife]

"....how difficult it is."

Most wildfowlers seem to manage....

:ok:

[Gainesy]

I know a few who can't. Four days in Scotland last year and a friend came back empty handed, (if comprehensively hungover). Told him its cheaper to miss 'em in Norfolk.

On the BoB shooting standards, we won, so what?

[S'land]

Gainesy:

" On the BoB shooting standards, we won, so what?"


Well said. :D

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!]

I followed a link on prune once to a web site they displayed the gunnery training manual. Apparentlt, the trick was to deflect *behind* the target :confused:

I think this was because it was made by Bomber command and was really talking about firing in a direction other than straight ahead. Aiming behind the target was to compensate for the gunner's forward speed.

[Mike7777777]

I googled whatshisname's PhD

http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=18359

on the grounds that it might make interesting reading. Some of the other offerings defy belief:

Development of an objective method of recording medieval wall plaster in Dorset churchesStill, as long as it's not my tax money.... :ugh:

Perhaps the point is, did the RAF win the BoB? Yes, because Goering didn't come back for more. So the role of the RN was secondary. But if the Luftwaffe had won, then what? Germany never had the capability to launch a large scale amphibious assault on the UK, even with complete air superiority. But why invade when Doenitz and a few more U-boats could have achieved victory by starvation?

I genuinely believe that Hitler had no idea what to do when Guderian reached the Channel in 7 days.

[jabberwok]

Most wildfowlers seem to manage....

Maybe - but I'd like to see their kill rates if the ducks were firing back.. :E

[MReyn24050]

But why invade when Doenitz and a few more U-boats could have achieved victory by starvation?
But they didn't did they? Thanks to the bravery and courage of both the Merchant Navy and Royal Navy, but also not forgetting that of the RAF Coastal Command.

[52049er]

I thought this 'new' idea had been accepted for a while. The LW alone could never have done enough to allow the Germans to launch an invasion in 1940. The only tactic they had that began to work was the effect of attacking the airfields themselves - and even had that been 100% effective the RAF would simply have moved its squadrons north, out of the 109's range, and operated from there.

The German army never had anything like the support it needed from a navy that had just got a severe kicking in Norway. Putting thousands of troops on barges used to trading on the canals of europe (many unpowered) would have been catastrophic. All the RN would have needed was one warship to get in amongst them and the crack invasion troops, who incidentally had, er, no amphibious training above river crossing) would have been destroyed. Remember, even in a relatively long campaign like Crete the Navy managed to keep the majority of its ships afloat. In a german invasion the ships would only need to make one, possibly suicidal, sortie. The LW didnt even have a stock of anti-capital-ship AP bombs.

They had no plan for resupply once the troops were ashore, and no bomber force capable of a long term strategic campaign - the RAF and USAAF didn't win the war even with 100 times the destructive power of the LW.

You will find no greater admirer of the Few than me. However, 'failure' in Aug/Sep (a retreat to Leicestershire by the RAF, the South coast towns more heavily bombed than before - neither exactly a war loser) would not have led to an invasion. What success did do however (and they did succeed in stopping the LW daylight bombing campaign) was immeasurable in both morale at home, and support from abroad.

[Archimedes]

The idea that the RN was significant has been accepted since at least 1974 when the BoB was wargamed at Sandhurst for a reason I forget.

The key point is that while the LW was poorly equipped for sinking capital ships, it was far better to ensure that they didn't have the chance to say 'Ah-ha! Now to see what the Stuka can do against ships!' and get some practice in. Those arguing that the Luftwaffe would never have sunk any ships seem to forget that Channel convoys (admittedly not capital ships) ran into serious bother, and that air attack accounted for a number of destroyers. Reduce the RN's non-capital ship capability and life might get interesting. It might not, but again - better that the Luftwaffe failed to get the opportunity to see whether or not it could overcome the RN, IMO...

[Mike7777777]

But why invade when Doenitz and a few more U-boats could have achieved victory by starvation?
But they didn't did they? Thanks to the bravery and courage of both the Merchant Navy and Royal Navy, but also not forgetting that of the RAF Coastal Command.Hitler had minimal understanding of the effectiveness of the U-boat, his war was primarily a land war against the Soviet Union. I hate to shatter illusions, but bravery and courage is meaningless when the enemy submarines can run at night on the surface undetectable by convoy escorts, surface or airborne.

Die Glückliche Zeit

And what a shock it must have been for the U-boat crews when the British fitted effective radar to surface escorts. But not as big a shock as when a searchlight complete with Wellington appeared from the darkness as if from nowhere.

The LW didnt even have a stock of anti-capital-ship AP bombs. Were air launched torpedoes available for the Luftwaffe in 1940? I can find no evidence.

The Battle of the Atlantic was primarily about tonnage; if the U-boats can sink more tonnage then the Allies can build then it's the end for the UK, which is one reason why it was game over for AH as early as 1941.

[Load Toad]

I would recommend reading The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of BritainStephen Bungay. Which looks at the Battle and some of the truths behind the legends and myths. In my opinion the result is a book which only increases my respect and admiration for the people that fought in the battle.

http://www.amazon.com/Most-Dangerous-Enemy-History-Britain/dp/1854108018/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7113688-0262217?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194317637&sr=1-1

[52049er]

Yep - couldn't agree more about Bungay's book. For too long we have underestimated the RAF of 1940 - it was not an amateurish gentlemens club whose members strolled out to derring do in the skies.

In truth it was an extremely efficient air defence force, staffed by dedicated professionals and flown by well trained and well led pilots. The RDF network was a world leader, its aircraft perfectly suited for short range defence (even their biggest weakness, 303mg's, merely meant that many LW aircraft managed to return to base carrying hundreds of badly injured crew with all the resulting effects on morale).

The contrast with the almost shambolic Luftwaffe is almost as surprising as the fact that the roles have been almost completely reversed in the minds of the public. The LW were led by soldiers rather than fliers, with no idea how to run a long term aerial campaign, with aircraft ill-suited for the task (Bf109 no range, Bf110 a failure, biggest bomber - He111 capable of carrying a meagre load and defended by hand held guns better suited to 1917, most common bomber - the Ju87 - a strategic and personal disaster for crews).

Lets not do these men and women the disservice of underestimating their achievements.

[Blacksheep]

...the crack invasion troops......would have been airborne. After Dunkirk, we had no effective army to resist. It is as well to recall that:

1. The (successful) invasion of Crete was accomplished by airborne assault in the face of British naval control of the surrounding sea.
2. The Luftwaffe did account for huge numbers of our ships. Almost a third of naval losses in fact.

[norman atkinson]

Blacksheep is more than correct!

Crete fell with the RAF unable to defend its own airfields by its own people. It gave rise to two events. One was the formation of the RAF Regiment and the second was the squarebashing of recruits which ensured that we all had some knowledge of how to use a rifle with some chance of hitting the target. Recruits were kept back from being posted away to units to learn their -- 6 weeks trade training. Like how to know what 87 and 100 octane were!!!!

Am I right? It's a long time since I was in blue but the 'infantry training' continued with RAF Regiment Corporals being posted to units to continue the training and onto Sten guns.

Going back further, My Squadron- 31 Goldstars had a Ghurka Defence whilst in Burma with the Forgotten 14th Army. Our Association still gives two pensions to 'our little Ghurka brothers' as a Thank You.

Let me turn to the Heinkel 111 impression. I faced a HE 111 several/many times. One dropped 8 HE's- one with a timer and breadbaskets of incendiaries. Oh, and was machine gunning! The second 111 dropped only two bombs. One hit and completely destroyed a factory whilst the second fell in a stone quarry. The bomb load was a mere couple of sea mines!

I recall HMS Manchester as she did her gunnery trials off the Tyne.
Manchester was torpedoed and subsequently scuttled in the Med.

For those who mumble 'all our yesterdays , old man' The footage of Coventry proves the effectiveness of the HE111.

[TheDesertFerret]

The RN didn't prevent Prinz Eugen, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst from sailing up the channel.

Are we so sure the same Navy would've been more effective against an invasion fleet?

[52049er]

No mumbling from me about yesterdays - having never faced anyone wanting to do more than punch me I have only respect!

On a theoretical note and to answer some interesting points...

Crete - its an interesting comparison. Worth bearing in mind that

1) It was a very close run thing. The Allies had Ultra decrypts telling them exactly what was coming - but couldn't/wouldn't act on them in case it let the secret of Bletchleys success out of the bag. On the day of the invasion, thousands of troops were still guarding beaches the high command knew would not be attacked. They would have made the difference - can you imagine the British not using that sort of info for an invasion of the UK?

2) It was a very close run thing. Despite 1) above, the Germans still decided never to use airborne troops in this way again after they were decimated by exactly the sort of disorganised army that had left Dunkirk.

3) The allies that nearly beat the best the Germans had to offer were not fighting for their homeland - indeed the Kiwis were about as far away as they could be

4) How would the LW get the troops to the UK? Remember the RAF could not be defeated by the LW, only forced to move a bit North. The Germans may no have had control of the seas around Crete, they sure had control of the skies...

5) ...which follows onto the fact that even with air supremacy they still only sank 1/3 of the RN ships. Only 1 would scupper an army in barges in the channel.

All IMHO of course ;)

[52049er]

Edited to say - the post I was replying to has dissapeared! Ah well, I'll leave this anyway......

Yep - they had Ultra decrypts
From the IWM
Some 10,000 Greeks, 6,500 Australians, 7,700 New Zealanders and 17,000 British troops formed 'Creforce' under the command of the New Zealand Brigadier Bernard Freyberg, VC. Even as the exhausted and ill-equipped defenders settled into rough camps in the island's villages and olive groves � many lacking blankets or even mess kit � Freyberg knew that he faced attack. British intercepts of German signals gave him 'Ultra' intelligence on the locations, strengths and timings of the coming attack.
And (not that I'd ever take it at face value but it says interesting stuff about the German casualties) from Wiki.
The Battle of Crete was unique in three respects: it was the first-ever mainly airborne invasion; it was the first time the Allies made significant use of intelligence from the deciphered German Enigma code; and it was the first time invading German troops encountered mass resistance from a civilian population. In light of the heavy casualties suffered by the parachutists, Adolf Hitler forbade further large scale airborne operations. However, the Allies were impressed by the potential of paratroopers, and started to build their own airborne divisions.

[norman atkinson]

I removed my bit because there is little to be gained when Crete was invaded- a year before Enigma was captured.

It was a case of Shakespeare's Chiming Clocks in Rome.
a terminological inexactitude!

[Fly-by-Wife]

I removed my bit because there is little to be gained when Crete was invaded- a year before Enigma was captured.

It was a case of Shakespeare's Chiming Clocks in Rome.
a terminological inexactitude!

Sorry Norman, but that is totally wrong!

Enigma decrypts were available to the Allies during this period. The Poles had cracked Enigma as far back as 1933, and had shared their information with Britain and France later in the '30s.

The first "Bombe" had been built in Bletchley in summer 1940, and regular decrypts were available from this time, adding to the rather more "sporadic" decrypts that had been available up to this point.

There are many good books on Ultra / Enigma (I can recommend the one by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore).

FBW

[norman atkinson]

It is quite correct to mention that the Brits could break the Nazi Codes and Messages. Unfortunately, the speed of decoding was manual and painfully slow. I doubt that most important signals could be identified- just like that. Capturing 'Enigma' changed all that.

Returning to Crete, the British losses were horrendous at sea and it suggests that our air cover was hopeless following the carrier damage and losses. Whatever the damage inflicted on invading parachutists, I cannot imagine the local Cretans being able to muster much with pitchporks and wild fowling artefacts against troops battle trained from the Kondor Legions in Spain. I recall that my branch of the Look, Duck and Vanish- the forerunner to the Home Guard had one 12 bore . Double barrelled, of course. I was map making for them. We, did know where to get explosives and detonators from the local railway and coal mines--- but??? Our Dad's Army had, survived the trenches of the Somme. Most of the Cretans who were battle trained had gone into Ancient History.
Moving back to Greece itself, Tito's partisans were supplied by air and sea. My cousin was Tito's Signals Officer.

Moving back to Dunkirk, we, the Brits- Reservists had no chance.
The average weapon was their Dad's Lee Enfield with a handful of clips.
The weaponry of the RAF in 1949 was the same lot of rifles and a few 9mm Stens.

I recall the questions of my OC Admin who asked about the reply to a possible Russian Invasion- 'Corporal, will the men fight?' I was blunt ''Sir, for the first time since the age of 9 these boys have something to answer back'
They had been starved, bombed, shot at, been homeless and so on.

How long we would have lasted with 10 rounds apiece is pretty clear.

In a year or so, the 8 year olds at the outbreak of war were fighting in Malaya and then Korea- with their Dad's rifles!

Sorry, old lad, but it is near to the 11th of the 11th of the 11th- and it still hurts.

[Mike7777777]

Interesting comments as always!

As mentioned above, Crete was the end for large-scale airborne assaults by the Germans. The German invasion of Crete was intended to be a combined operation, but the RN sank most of the first convoy, the second convoy was ordered to retire.

Perhaps the measure of the ineffectiveness of the Luftwaffe against larger vessels is that it failed to sink one RN capital ship. Throughout the entire war.

"To the three services: the Royal Navy, the Royal Advertising Federation, and the Evacuees"

The Luftwaffe was essentially a ground attack force, primary function to support the Wehrmacht, it did this rather well.

[norman atkinson]

Mike, HMS Manchester was not sunk by air attack- we scuttled it!
She was quite a 'dreadnought', sailed out of the Tyne on gunnery trials, if I recall- as a 7 year old. Probably it was a birthday treat-- on the day that R J Mitchell died!

[Mike7777777]

2. The Luftwaffe did account for huge numbers of our ships. Almost a third of naval losses in fact.

How many capital ships? Clue: less than one.

The RN didn't prevent Prinz Eugen, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst from sailing up the channel.

A high speed dash by heavily armed vessels, the exact opposite of the Wehrmacht trundling over the Channel in converted barges. The RN heavy units could not reach the German ships in the time available. Perhaps the real question should be: why didn't the RAF or Coastal Command strike successfully against the German force?

[norman atkinson]

Mike,
RAF Bombs would have just bounced off.

Think about it- Bismark was only crippled because a torpedo hit the rudder which was not within the real armour protection.

Tirpitz- well read the history of 617 Squadron. We hadn't anything which would do. These battle wagons were far heavier than the Geneva Convention allowed.

[Jetex Jim]

This site
http://www.avoca.ndirect.co.uk/enigma/enigma9.htm

contains this interesting quote regarding BOB/enigma

The actual order to start massive bombing given by Reichsmarschall Goering was intercepted, decrypted and immediately passed to Dowding and Churchill. It read: " Within a short period of time you will wipe the British Air Force from the sky. Heil Hitler" but bad weather delayed the German attack for several days. In the first wave the Germans made 1,786 sorties against airfields and defence positions, losing 75 aircraft. As the intensity of bombing was continuously increasing, Fighter Command was able to engage the enemy in the most effective way. Dowding's methods were highly criticised by his subordinates, who did not have access to Ultra information. This eventually resulted in him being sacked at the end of 1940 and in retirement by 1942. What irony! He was sacked, because he knew much more than his critics.

[Fly-by-Wife]

It is quite correct to mention that the Brits could break the Nazi Codes and Messages. Unfortunately, the speed of decoding was manual and painfully slow. I doubt that most important signals could be identified- just like that.

Norman, perhaps YOU doubt that important signals could be usefully decoded.

I prefer to believe the views of the experts and historians. Maybe if you actually read any of the histories about Ultra / Enigma you will begin to understand. Much of the value of ULTRA was not gained from individual signals (although many such were broken in time to be of value), but in fact from the painstaking cross-referencing of a myriad specks of information.

Capturing 'Enigma' changed all that

What on earth does that mean? Enigma machines of varying types (and there were many, both over the years and in different branches of the German services) were available to the Allies long before the start of the war. The enigma machine was originally a commercially available product, for goodness sake!

The machine itself was relatively easy to replicate. The problem was discovering the rotor and plugboard settings, which changed daily (or even more frequently). That was the challenge, not getting hold of the machine.

Please read a little about the subject before making such meaningless pronouncements.

FBW

[norman atkinson]

I was on something very close to what you are talking about.
Even now, what went on is not being admitted.

The important thing is whether the staffing levels at Bletchley Park are correct. If they were so low, I am right. If they weren't, I apologise.

What has to be remembered is that things happened- in very unusual and small places- not just Bletchley Park.

[tornadoken]

#3, Robin: Not again!! A.Cumming's DT item is repeated in current BBC History mag. Popular History spreads interest, snares youngblood that may dig anew and amaze us fogies that may not know it all. On any well-aired subj a fresh slant is needed, if an author is to sell. Pieces in the mag include one on Spitfire's emergence via Westland Whirlwind, Lord Nuffield, suppliers' "moaning" about V-S' poor drawings, and fabrication dispersal inc. to a basket-weaver, all traced "for the first time properly" (my shelf has 4 books on this).
.
Another re-hashes last year's de-bunking of the knightly joust. "Couldn't shoot straight" is the shoutline for the cannon: m.g. issue. It's right, in that 19-year-olds after 2 pops at a trundling drogue must then tangle for real. Conscript PBI had the same wake-up after a dozen rounds at the butts, then into a maelstrom. On both sides. So: how did they do it? The PM gave the answer, there and then: "so much owed..." Some tenets of faith and pride deflect the debunker. Please: less pooh, more phew!