[WarInEur] Re: Battle of Britain

[SGMINFO at aol.com]

One of the key features in the Battle of Britain was the intention of the  
Luftwaffe, and our considerable skill in defeating that intention.
 
The Luftwaffe wanted, at all times, full battle.
The RAF, other than at the keenest vital moments,
wanted to dodge this.
 
The unfolding battle was characterised by the Luftwaffe repeatedly groping  
about looking for something vital that would force the RAF up to get embroiled  
in a slugging match, where numbers wuld count, and the RAF would be 
overloaded  and broken and scattered.
 
Note the simularity with the Allied 1943 conundrum, where they too sought  
smething as a target that would force the Luftwaffe to come up and fight.
 
It was the German failure to find this in 1940 that doomed their offensive,  
and in 1944 the allied success in this, that reversed the tables.
 
Dowding's great genius lay in so disposing and directing his limited  
resources that opposition appeared as damaging as ever, without exposing the RAF  to 
ruinous losses. It was truly 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'. If  
his opponent could land one solid punch on him, the game might be up.
 
The 'great debate' in the summer of 1940 between Leigh-Mallory and  Park was 
precisely down this fault line. 
If his 'big wing' and battle tactics were followed, he could indeed inflict  
great losses on the enemy, but what put him at odds with Dowding was the fact  
that this also exposed large battle formations to great airbattles and  
potentially great losses, something that the RAF could not survive at this arly  
stage of operations.
 
The nearest his enemy got to guessing his game was the offensive against  the 
airfields and secondary attack against the Radar network.
 
Radar was vital, not so much because of the early warning it gave, but more  
vitally, it allowed us to pick and choose what to engage, and what was feint 
and  what was real. it allowed the 'impression' to be maintained that the RAF 
was a  lot more numerus and potentially effective than it was.
 
In contrast the abstract airwar does not simulate this quite so well, it  
only allows the RAF commander not to commit and keep his airforce in  being.
 
The various mods/incentives being proposed vis a vis the allied air  strength 
and tactics are all intended , one way or another, to encourage  this 
'battle' element, the one element that exposes the RAF to a numbers game,  which, 
faced by the German productive ascendency, tends to encourage the allied  
airforce to its doom. This will be ok, perhaps, with a less lethal system, but  
unsupportable losses that normally occur, can be expected to have but one  outcome, 
and at these rates, achievable before the onset of winter.
 
i.e. under sme of the propsed regimes, If the RAF does not fight, it loses  
political or economic power, such losses being unnacceptable to the allied  
player, who thus is encouraged to enter the fray, and play a game in which the  
German player has all the cards.
 
In the game, if the RAF stands back, and does not engage, it risks  invasion, 
but with an intact RAF, the German sealion option cannot be utilised  
properly, and the supply lines get slowly eroded and cut to ribbons. Either way,  the 
German commander seeks battle, and if you accept, you are playing his  game.
 
At least, that is my take on the problem...
 
 
-|steve|-



   
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