THE AIR BATTLES

Evening Star, Issue 23680, 13 September 1940, Page 8

THE AIR BATTLES

BRITAIN'S FIGHTER DEFENCE VARIATION IN GERMAN TAGT'CS [By Sexex.] Now that some of the big air battles which were so long expected have been fought, it is ipossible to form an opinion on the subject of the air weapon and on the use of it by the belligerent Powers. That weapon has proved that all previously existing theories of warfare are outmoded, and that a countiy which is heavily outnumbered in the air to the point of being unable to fight back has no hope of offering successful resistance to attack.

At the same time there are very obvious limitations upon the air weapon. As military leaders argued, it is possible to develop land defences to the point where daylight attacks can be ringed with fire, the planes have their formations broken up, and the ensuing huddle become an easier prey to fighters. The fighters themselves have shown that they are able, by virtue of the excellent ground system of listening posts and sky watchers, to ascend in ample time to deal heavy blows at the enemy. And the continued reinforce- ' ment of the German fighter guards for bombing squadrons shows that the. destruction of Nazi bombers has caused the Nazi High Command concern. From the lighting several tilings have emerged. One of them is the wisdom of the British policy of fighter defence, a policy which was much criticised at the time, mainly by experienced airmen. The fighters can and do strike the hardest blows at the enemy. In the big air raid on London last week-end 78°of the 99 German planes shot down fell to fighters, though it should be added that the bag of the ground de- , fences, a total of 21, shows the enormous strength of the ground fire. _ A second thing of the highest importance on events was the decision of the Air Ministry to arm our fighters with eight guns. From the moment the war began this deadly armament, quite apart from the superior performance of our machines, placed our fighter pilots at an advantage over a foe who in many cases had half their guns. Air Chief-Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, chief of the Fighter Command, has continued to insist on quality in British machines. A British war plane has a fighting life pf 260 flying hours. German machines, according to recent statements attributed to R.A.F. leader*, are' built to last for only 50 flying hours (enough for half a dozen raids), and then must be dismantled. That is the price paid by the Nazis for mass production of aircraft. The British machine receives a threehour inspection after 60 flying hours, half a day is devoted to it after 120 flying hours, and when it has been in the air for 220 hours the ground staff dedicate* a whole day to it. Because a British machine is largely hand-made, built with the world's best metals, it can do long service with virtually 100 per cent, safety. The early German machines were of high performance and appeared good. The fighters did more than 400 miles an hour, the bombers over 300 miles. , But these ueie prototypes, and the war has revealed that the average performance of the German plane is not nearly so high, and that its safety is considerably lower. The flutter which troubles some fighters is held to be the result of poor construction rather than of poor design. Another feature of the war in the air haa been the variation in German tactics. The Nazis tried night raids of the “ armed reconnaissance ” type, did not appear satisfied with the success which attended these raids in the matter of locating targets, experimented with daylight mass air raids, were badly knocked about, and now seem to have hit on a combination of night and day bombing, which is itself varied, in the effort to discover a technique which will satisfy them. One favourite system is to send over machines in smaller formations. At the same time there appear to have been experiments with formations. The German “ triple arrow ” formation has not shown itself well adapted to close fighting, and there have been references to the use of a “ massed square.” Another aspect of the air fighting has been the way in which our fighters have concentrated on the enemy bombers and sought to destroy them first. With a tighter guard of two, three, and even four machines to every bomber, the figures show how disproportionate are the losses. At the beginning of the German attacks the H.A.F.’s daily bags included about 40 per cent, bombers, but later the proportion of bombers rose until it was about 60 per cent. With fighters in the majority, this means severe blows to the real raiding force. It also hoists the German losses in personnel because of the fact that many of the bombers carry large crews. The newest attacks launched on London are no doubt largely an answer to the methodical bombing of Berlin, and are partly dictated by considerations of politics. But they may also be due to the failure of the earlier raids to reach their targets. Loudon, as has often been pointed out, is the largest air target in the world, and the Nazis may have hope, and some grounds for the hope, of penetrating to it where smaller targets would be missed. The decision to bomb indiscriminately does not affect the fact that the Germans would rather plant their bombs on docks and factories if they could. The big week-end raid on London," with its 300 deaths, sounds like a heavy blow, but actually the death roll, regrettable as it is, amounted to only one in every 28.000 people. London is a tremendous place, a nation in itself, and such a loss, as we have been re- \ minded, is small when considered in relation to the whole course of the war. Looked at from another angle, it is probable that in killing these 300 people the Germans lost about 300 trained airmen. That is air warfare at a costly rate.