Dumbest show ever: Battle Field Detectives Battle of Britain

[Red Baaron]

I just finished watching a rerun of a 2005 Battle Field Detectives on NetFlix. I do believe I'm far dumber for having watched it.

Here's a few things I learned.

When the Stuka is making a dive bomb run, it has to be pulled out of the dive by an automatic pilot. The pilot is unconcious due to the G forces.

The fact that the gas mileage of the ME-109 is worse than the Spitfire is the reason so many of them either didn't make it back to France or barely did. I guess it had nothing to do with the fact that the British didn't have to go anywhere.

According to a flight simulator, the 109 had better performance in two of the three most important manuevers, climb, dive and turn.

According to another simulator, the Germans flew better formations than the British did.

Apparantly the 1:10 scale models made of film and balsa wood, then blown up by a scaled charge is an accurate representation of what really happened. It made the experiments of my childhood with black cat fireworks and 1:48 scale Monogram kits look like high tech scientific work!

If the Germans had just destroyed the radar sights, they would have won the battle.

The telephone was the biggest decideing factor in the Brits winning.

And finally, according to the computer model these geniuses worked up, if the Germans hadn't started bombing London and continued on their previous path, they would have been out of business due to attrition in 3 1/2 months anyhow.

Oh yes, the Hurricane was not even mentioned as having been a part of the deal.

[PbyCat-Guy]

You're right but I like to be optomistic and think that they made that show for people who don't know what was the Battle of Britain, and to further their interests so they conduct more research on the subject for themselves.

[WallyB]

I just finished watching a rerun of a 2005 Battle Field Detectives on NetFlix. I do believe I'm far dumber for having watched it.

Here's a few things I learned.

When the Stuka is making a dive bomb run, it has to be pulled out of the dive by an automatic pilot. The pilot is unconcious due to the G forces.

True if the statement is modified to say the pilot could black out.
It consisted of an Askania autopilot, which was used together with a Revi gunsight. The bomb release gear, elevator controls, and dive brakes were linked to this system. Before attacking the pilot would set the bomb release height. The deployment of the dive brakes automatically adjusted the elevator trim tab, and put the aircraft into a dive. When the plane was in dive the pilot could make only small corrections with the control surfaces to aim the bomb. When the bomb release height was reached and the bombs were dropped the autopilot adjusted the elevator trim tab again, so that the aircraft became tail heavy and pulled itself out of the dive. The use of the elevator was forbidden, except in case of emergency.

According to a flight simulator, the 109 had better performance in two of the three most important manuevers, climb, dive and turn.

The Me109 could climb faster, had considerably greater fire-power, and could dive faster. That made it the best air-to-air fighter of 1940.

See also: http://www.eaf51.org/newweb/Documenti/S ... st_ENG.pdf

According to another simulator, the Germans flew better formations than the British did.

Not much question that the early RAF "vic" formation was more vulnerable than the Luftwaffe "finger four". The RAF eventually adopted the latter which pretty much says it all.

If the Germans had just destroyed the radar sights, they would have won the battle.

Radar sites (CH, CHL) were vital to the defenders, but their effect on the outcome of the battle has been the subject of debate. On the one hand it allowed interception of raids which likely contributed to keeping RAF bases more or less operational throughout, but since without it there would have been far fewer dogfights, the attrition of pilots and planes would be considerably less. Either way the Luftwaffe could not have prevailed in 1940, which was the objective.

The telephone was the biggest decideing factor in the Brits winning.

It was an integral part of the defence system put together by Dowding and it's hard to dispute the above claim.

And finally, according to the computer model these geniuses worked up, if the Germans hadn't started bombing London and continued on their previous path, they would have been out of business due to attrition in 3 1/2 months anyhow.

This hypothesis is also put forward by others (see Holland, Hough/Richards Terraine et al) and, given escalating German losses from September onwards, it seems a reasonable supposition. But the RAF was suffering too, so who knows?

Oh yes, the Hurricane was not even mentioned as having been a part of the deal.

Hurricanes fought the bombers, Spitfire fought the fighters. Generally. Both were important but I can see why an amateur TV show would concentrate on the Spitfire.

I haven't seen the show so can comment on the presentation (although I can imagine what it was like ), but I don't think the conclusions were necessarily far off the mark.

[Red Baaron]

I haven't seen the show so can comment on the presentation (although I can imagine what it was like ), but I don't think the conclusions were necessarily far off the mark.

Watch the show and THEN tell me if you don't think they were off the mark. Presentation is everything.

[GARY HILTON]

Battle of Britton? I thought that was the Battle of Eastern Aggression.

[PinecastleAAF]

Did they mention how the Merlin was the difference maker?

[David J Burke]

Wally -without CHL we would have been siting at bases relying on the Observer Corps to give us reliable information. Whilst that would have been ok - having the radar warning meant the fighters were not siting ducks on the ground waiting for the Luftwaffe.

[andyman64]

everyone knows the Merlin won the war!

[WallyB]

Wally -without CHL we would have been siting at bases relying on the Observer Corps to give us reliable information. Whilst that would have been ok - having the radar warning meant the fighters were not siting ducks on the ground waiting for the Luftwaffe.

Agreed, but without it a different strategy could have been employed. Disperse the fighters to satellite fields and/or pull them back to Group 12 then hit the raids on egress. Leigh-Mallory and Bader advocated this (so-called "Big Wing" theory) claiming it was better to down 10 raiders on their way home than 1 on the way in.

While this might have been workable, it's doubtful British pride would have tolerated it.

[SaxMan]

I wasn't that crazy about the Battlefield Detectives episode on Pearl Harbor either. Their "simulation" on what if the U.S. Fleet had been warned and went to sea had one serious flaw -- they didn't account for the American ships shooting back and taking evasive maneuvers.

Back to Battle of Britain - Len Deighton in "Fighter" has a graph of turning circles in a vertical bank at 300 mph and 10,000 feet, and contrary to popular opinion, the Me109 could turn tighter than the Spit or Hurricane in those conditions. The Me109 had a radius of 750 feet, the Hurricane 800 feet and the Spitfire 880 feet. Such tight turns required enormous skill on behalf of the pilot.

The 109 also had fuel injection, which definitely gave them an adventage over the carburators used on the Merlins at the time. If you went directly into a dive with a carburated engine, the negative Gs would cut off the fuel flow and the engine would skip. Pilots would roll into a dive to prevent this, but the 109 had no such issue with its fuel injection system. It wasn't until the Spit IX that the Merlin finally got fuel injection.

[expat]

Wasnt most of the fighting above 10000ft though ? That would have an effect on the turning circles ?

[Mike]

It wasn't until the Spit IX that the Merlin finally got fuel injection.

I'm not sure where you're getting that little nugget of information from, but I were you I'd drop that particular book on the nearest bonfire!

[JFS61]

And finally, according to the computer model these geniuses worked up, if the Germans hadn't started bombing London and continued on their previous path, they would have been out of business due to attrition in 3 1/2 months anyhow.

I remember at one time it was said that if the Blitz had not started when it did, attacks on the RAF's infrastructure would have rendered it ineffective as a fighting force of any consequence with a week and a half to a fortnight (at the latest).

[SaxMan]

It wasn't until the Spit IX that the Merlin finally got fuel injection.

I'm not sure where you're getting that little nugget of information from, but I were you I'd drop that particular book on the nearest bonfire!

That was from Robert Johnson's autobiography when he test flew the Spit V and the Spit IX. I just assumed that VI, VII, and VIII were lesser variants...did the Spit get fuel injection earlier than the IX?

[SaxMan]

Wasnt most of the fighting above 10000ft though ? That would have an effect on the turning circles ?

They certainly started higher, but dogfights generally wound their way down to lower altitudes. I agree that I'd like to see the same measurements up at 20,000 feet. The other thing the remember with turning circles is the skill of the pilot to push the plane to the edges of its flight envelope and/or how easy or hard the plane would be to actually get to the envelope.