Battle of Britain

battle_name=Battle of Britain

RAF tactics

The weight of the battle fell upon the RAF's 11 Group. Keith Park's tactics were to dispatch individual squadrons to intercept raids. The intention was to subject attackers to continual attacks by relatively small numbers of aircraft and try to break up the tight formations of bombers. Once formations had fallen apart, straggling bombers could be picked off one by one. Where multiple squadrons reached a raid the procedure was for the slower Hurricanes to tackle the bombers while the more agile Spitfires held up the fighter escort. However, this ideal was not always achieved and sometimes the Spitfires and Hurricanes reversed roles.

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In the early phases of the battle the RAF was hamstrung by its reliance on obsolete fighting drills. These restricted their squadrons to tight formations of three aircraft (or 'vics') and by-the-book attacks. The German pilots dubbed the vics "Idiotenreihen" ("rows of idiots") because they left squadrons vulnerable to attack. They employed the looser and more flexible four-ship 'finger four' developed in the Spanish Civil War. Eventually RAF pilots began to adopt the German formation with some success.

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The fact that 'sweeps' by German fighters not escorting bombers were often ignored by fighter command seems to reinforce the idea that Dowding sought always to preserve his fighter force to fight another day. Another way in which the RAF conserved its strength is by ordering its pilots to pretend to be shot down when facing long odds. They were to enter a spin and then regain control before they hit the ground. If the Germans had watched the planes they shot at to be sure they crashed, then they would have been shot by one of the downed airman's allies, so they could not afford to pay too close attention to most of the "casualties". Due to this tactic, the Luftwaffe reported shooting down more than twice as many pilots as were in the RAF.

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During the battle, some commanders, notably Trafford Leigh-Mallory of 12 Group, proposed that squadrons should be formed into Big Wings to attack the enemy en masse, a method pioneered by the legless pilot Douglas Bader. Proponents of this tactic claimed that interceptions in large numbers caused greater enemy losses while reducing their own casualties. Opponents pointed out that the big wings would take too long to form up, and that the strategy ran a greater risk of fighters being caught on the ground refueling. The big wing idea also caused pilots to overclaim their kills, due to the confusion of a more intense battle-zone. This led to the media belief that the big wings were far more effective than they actually were. Post-war analysis agrees that Dowding and Park's approach was best for 11 Group. However, the controversy affected Park's career after the battle and contributed to Dowding's eventual dismissal from Fighter Command.

Related Topics:
Big Wing - Douglas Bader

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