Yes, and wothout strategic bombing, they'd have rolled out even more - and the V-2 would have arrived on the scene 3-4 months earlier....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Actually it was a blessing Adolf loved those V-weapons so much. If he had put all the money into other weapons and vehicles used in the front line, the war would have lasted longer.

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The fact that German industrial productivity rose in 1943 isn't a sign of the futility of terror/strategic bombing. It's a sign of Germany's utter lack of economic planning from 1939-1942.

Think about this; until about the middle in the war, most of Germany's workers were still working on a single shift. The quality and quantity of consumer goods dropped by a very marginal amount until late in the war (which meant that military gear was being ignored). And, despite pleas and tears from Speer, women remained Germany's largest untapped labor force. Let's not forget about Germany's remarkable lack of centralization in the early war.

Speer's reforms did a lot. But he tirelessly complained about the effects of bombing on centralization and productivity.

We really should thank Adolf for the creation of the V2.

Yes, radar was a big factor for the RAF. It allowed them to vector their fighters to the proper place efficiently.
Another thing is the loss of crews for the German side. Any German pilot or crewman surviving being shot down over England is sure to be captured while for the British, pilots who survive being shot down can be back on their bases for action again the next day.

could anyone give credence to saburo sakai's stand that, had the germans used zeros, they would have won the battle?

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but I had not realized this problem until I read Robinson´s "Invasion 1940".

Also from

Spitfire on my tail || kuro5hin.org

Steinhilper was the communications officer for his gruppe, and has some interesting insights into the Luftwaffe´s radio communications. Bombers and fighters used incompatible systems and could not communicate with each other at all during a flight. The radios they did use were crude and unreliable. It's generally accepted that the radio problems were a significant handicap for the Luftwaffe.


Also it is certain for German fighters it was never possible to talk to ground control, or the fighters and bombers to communicate with Air Sea Rescue Units.

Radio discipline was often sadly lacking. During combat, so many German pilots were talking that "the frequency would be swamped and all that could be heard was a high-pitched whistling as the receivers became overwhelmed."

Two years passed before the Luftwaffe´s air-to-air and ground-to-air radio communications finally caught up with the rest of the war. " Operationally speaking", Heinz Knoke told in his diary in June 1942, " it will now be possible for our fighters to be located and directed by ground control at all times." Something that Fighter Command was doing competently in 1940.

Also some fault is put on the "Spaniards", the Luftwaffe pilots who had served in Condor legion.:

Steinhilper came to the conclusion that, because the Condor Legion was clandestine, it had avoided using radio in case the transmissions betrayed its existence. Pilots communicated by hand signals or wing-wagging. Back in Germany the Spaniards disliked the whole idea of radio: It smacked of direction from the ground;they preferred the freedom of sky. After a Luftwaffe exercise which included an experiment with ground-to-air radio, Adolf Galland blamed Stenhilper´s unit for "bothering" his men : "...it would be best to throw out all these damned radios! We don´t need them. We didn´t need them in Spain and without them we could fly higher and faster!"

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The radio for RAF did not work perfectly though at all times:

RAF entered the war with the TR9D set. It had a limited range. When Sergeant Pilot Ginger Lacey took his hurricane to France, he found that above 15,000 feet his HF radio could receive only BBC;he made his first attack on an Me109 with the music of Jack Teagarden and his orchestra in his earphones.

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Actually wondered if anyone had read before that the "Spaniards" or the Condor legion pilots might have caused problems to the Luftwaffe´s "efficiency" by their behaviour?

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