Luftwaffe's Failure to Win the Battle of Britain Essay

Luftwaffe's Failure to Win the Battle of Britain - Essay Example Britain planned for German invasion called operation sea lion and this plan was to establish German air superiority over southern England and the English Channel, and aimed at attacking RAF and anything attached to it (Turner, 2010, p.38) resulting to the first world’s strategic bombing campaign and battle in the air, the battle of Britain. During the opening phase of the battle of Britain, the German planned to gain air superiority and this resulted to an attack by the Luftwaffe on the RAF fighter airfields named Eagle Day (Wyatt, 1940). Luftwaffe decided to attack British domestic shipping in the English Channel to draw out the RAF and suppress their fighting strength and even though the Germans made daily strikes against ship convoys, after sometime, Luftwaffe lost about 248 fighters and bombers to RAF’s 148 fighters lost and this encouraged RAF to fight on and win the battle (Wyatt, 1940). This essay presents an account for the for the Luftwaffe’s failure to win the battle of Britain. Â   About twenty years ago, Europe lay at Hitler’s feet and Britain faced its darkest hour as it was outnumbered and friendless as the German force continued its advance and this made them to see their defeat as being inevitable and their victory became legendary. RAF focused on shooting down all German planes from northern as well as eastern France (Clayton & Craig, 2011, p.18). RAF had the high-performance Hawker Hurricane and Super marine Spitfire fighters whereas the Luftwaffe's principal fighter planes were the Messerschmitt Bf109, the Messerschmitt Bf110, and numerous bombers Wyatt, 1940). The Luftwaffe failed to win the battle because they failed to destroy the air defences of Britain to enable them launch an invasion- Operation Sea Lion, and they as well failed to bomb Britain into surrender since RAF had a well-established and effective spitfire and hurricanes controlled by advanced radar system and this prevented Luftwaffe from emerging v ictorious. Luftwaffe focused on using air campaign to threaten Britain and this campaign was aimed weakening RAF in order to make Britain vulnerable to attack from the air, and to fulfil the basic precondition of invasion by establishing air superiority over the invasion of the South East England (Bungay, 2010, p.27). At the beginning of the battle, Luftwaffe focused on attacking shipping in the English Channel as well as coastal towns but later on, Goering changed his focus to completely destroy RAF, by attacking airfields and their radar bases. When the battle commenced RAF had less than 500 aircraft that were not capable of reaching German territory and therefore, the British preparations was based on avoiding defeat and conquest (Overy,2010, p.6-7). Many factors can explain the Luftwaffe’s failure to win the battle of Britain and many scholars have contributed largely in providing an explanation of the air battle and how the air campaign was developed. Firstly, German pla nes were constructed and designed for short distance tactical tricks and local air superiority, they lacked heavy bombers (Wyatt, 1940), and they lacked quality fighters with the fuel endurance to act as escorts to the bombers they had. Germany lacked long-range bombers and was not able to field its first strategic bomber during the battle (Correll, 2008). On the contrary, Britain had a much more experienced and better equipped fighting force and generally, RAF was strong and massively outnumbered German forces. Accordingly, more and better British fighters were available and ready to help RAF during the battle