Battle of Britain - Big Wing - opinions

[merlin]

There have been many BoB related discussions - many for example prefering that Trafford Leigh-Mallory was elsewhere rather than AOC 12 Group.
However whaat are your opinions regarding not how the Big Wing fared in OTL., but what do you think of how Bader wanted it to be used.
That is - what the LW were seen building up there aircraft over France - detected by radar (RDF), that the Big Wing would be scrambled climb to 15/18,000 ft. ready to met the enemy formation en masse. . The theory being that having lots of fighters together, the would shoot down lots of enemy aircraft!!
However, judging by OTL, it only meant over claiming (which Bader never accepted). Moreover it ran counter to the Dowding system' - i.e. the reserves into action first.
IMHO - the concept was born out of jealousy of 11 Group getting all the action.
But does anyone think it had any merit?

 

[Not James Stockdale]

What the British needed was a single theater-level air defense commander (like a JFACC) and battle staff (like a US CAOC) to coordinate fighter operations across the entire Channel-North Sea front. A functional GCI system would be able to emulate the Big Wing tactic in the aggregate by vectoring squadrons from different air bases to converge on German bomber streams at the same time. Leigh-Mallory's behavior surrounding the Big Wing tactic seems to indicate that RAF Fighter Command was an administrative organization, and I doubt the Air Staff would have liked centralizing tactical control under Dowding.

 

[Giant Man Eating Rabbits]

There have been many BoB related discussions - many for example prefering that Trafford Leigh-Mallory was elsewhere rather than AOC 12 Group.
However whaat are your opinions regarding not how the Big Wing fared in OTL., but what do you think of how Bader wanted it to be used.
That is - what the LW were seen building up there aircraft over France - detected by radar (RDF), that the Big Wing would be scrambled climb to 15/18,000 ft. ready to met the enemy formation en masse. . The theory being that having lots of fighters together, the would shoot down lots of enemy aircraft!!
However, judging by OTL, it only meant over claiming (which Bader never accepted). Moreover it ran counter to the Dowding system' - i.e. the reserves into action first.
IMHO - the concept was born out of jealousy of 11 Group getting all the action.
But does anyone think it had any merit?

Personally the whole premise of the "Big Wing" was on getting as many fighters into a said area and thus concentrating the wings firepower.

Unfortunately this takes time, and with the French (Calais to Normandy) & Low Countries coasts being so close it makes the entire point moot as time wasn't on the RAF's side. That's why the Luftwaffe's "Defense of The Reich" fighters were so effective against the USAAF 8th AF as the Luftwaffe had the time to not only see the raids developing but also have the time to plan the desired and most effective intercepts.

That couldn't happen in the BoB.

 

[Glenn239]

Could the RAF have benefited from a drop tank capability on their fighters during the BoB in order to facilitate Big Wing tactics? If these could extend patrol time by an hour or more, then it would be more feasible to assemble big wings ahead of anticipated raids.

 

[Garrison]

Personally the whole premise of the "Big Wing" was on getting as many fighters into a said area and thus concentrating the wings firepower.

Unfortunately this takes time, and with the French (Calais to Normandy) & Low Countries coasts being so close it makes the entire point moot as time wasn't on the RAF's side. That's why the Luftwaffe's "Defense of The Reich" fighters were so effective against the USAAF 8th AF as the Luftwaffe had the time to not only see the raids developing but also have the time to plan the desired and most effective intercepts.

That couldn't happen in the BoB.

I think you have nailed the key point. The big wings were only able to make any impact when the Luftwaffe stated venturing as far as London where there was time enough to launch and organize sufficient fighter squadrons.

Could the RAF have benefited from a drop tank capability on their fighters during the BoB in order to facilitate Big Wing tactics? If these could extend patrol time by an hour or more, then it would be more feasible to assemble big wings ahead of anticipated raids.

Pretty much the whole point of the RAF fighter control system was that they didn't have to exhaust their pilots flying continuous patrols, drop tanks would be more useful for the escorts and even then they wouldn't make much difference for the Luftwaffe given the other limitations of their fighter forces.

 

[naraic]

The Big Wing has theoretical merit

It's a great way to concentrate fire power.

The problem of course is that big wings didn't base together and forming up would take hours. This leaves the attackers free to attack with impunity.

Also people using a big wing used mixes of Spitfires and Hurricanes which meant the Spitfire was trapped at the speed of the Hurricane.

You can't have standing patrols (which would make forming up easier) with short range interceptors

In alternate history I have no problem with the RAF having a few squadrons of escort fighters in 1940. Then deciding to use them as a dedicated big wing which does standing patrols on days with good flying where heavy raids are suspected.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

The Big Wing has theoretical merit

It's a great way to concentrate fire power.

The problem of course is that big wings didn't base together and forming up would take hours. This leaves the attackers free to attack with impunity.

Also people using a big wing used mixes of Spitfires and Hurricanes which meant the Spitfire was trapped at the speed of the Hurricane.

You can't have standing patrols (which would make forming up easier) with short range interceptors

In alternate history I have no problem with the RAF having a few squadrons of escort fighters in 1940. Then deciding to use them as a dedicated big wing which does standing patrols on days with good flying where heavy raids are suspected.

I see value in being able to attack bombers on the return trip, and big wings - or something like that- could work for this.
The primary drawback is that this means they are allowed to attack first, and also happen to be lighter and faster when intercepted. But the ability to further stress pilots and aircraft and increase damage and finish off damaged aircraft is useful.
So maybe a few medium wings to interfere with return flights would do the job, as they can stress the flight crew just as a potential threat.

 

[merlin]

I think the other problem is having Bader & his squadron lead it. It was a major achievement after his accident, to be able to fly again, but reality was that he couldn't get to his aircraft as fast as the other pilots, therefore the Wing was slowed down while Bader's squadron caught up, and could take the lead. Maybe too, a reason why he was never rotated into 11 Group!

 

[tomo pauk]

But does anyone think it had any merit?

Stick the drop tanks on each fighter (Spitfire or Hurricane; other were fine for Luftwaffe pilots racking up the scores) that is in the No. 12 group, and at half the fighters from the No.10 group. That way the fighters can have the range and endurance to catch the LW units during their retreat, whose speed is dictated by the speed of the slowest members, ie. the bombers. Another advantage is that Bf 109s were very short ranged, and most likely without the ammo for their cannons during the RTB, so these will be ill able to help out the bombers.

 

[Llewwyy]

The one thing not mentioned is that sometimes the squadrons were vectored to the wrong position. Inconvenient if only one squadron but kind of wasteful if it is an entire wing. Part of that was the learning curve and radar had issues once the Germans crossed the coastline. The big wing usually were shooting down the bombers after they had dropped their bombs. The way Park did it, by hitting the bombers squadron at a time, hit and run, it broke up the formations and messed up the escorts ability to effectively defend the bombers.

 

[ivanotter]

Park was not against big wings. He pointed out (often) that the time to set it up was too long for 11 group.

If the targets were somewhere else, big wings could work. BUT - as park pointed out - it would be better to hit the bombers BEFORE they dropped the bombs, rather than later (where it might even be hard to find them over the North Sea).

The bigger problem (according to a few books) was that Dowding should have laid down the law - he didn't

 

[alspug]

The Big Wing is how you ideally want to deploy and fight in those times. The problem is that the single squadron was what they could get airborne and into position in time to begin the process of attriting the German bombers.

In a perfect world the RAF would be able to have fighters with sufficent endurance to be at altitude and ready to be vectored. This is what made the Fulmar so deadly. It was slow for a fighter but it had enough endurance to be launched without a raid detected and then carry out a bounce and retain enough fuel to wait for the Raid to finish.

The Hurricane and Spirfire had limited endurance and thus relied on a scramble launch to carry out the interception. The Big Wing sacrificed hitting before the bombs got dropped in order to focus enough aircraft to enable the escorts to be distracted while the bombers got hit hard.

Point defence is a losing game in most scenario's as any weighted attack will make it through versus attacking while the Raid is still loaded with bombs and forcing many aircraft to jettison bombloads to survive damage an unloaded aircraft would survive.

 

[Giant Man Eating Rabbits]

Park was not against big wings. He pointed out (often) that the time to set it up was too long for 11 group.

If the targets were somewhere else, big wings could work. BUT - as park pointed out - it would be better to hit the bombers BEFORE they dropped the bombs, rather than later (where it might even be hard to find them over the North Sea).

The bigger problem (according to a few books) was that Dowding should have laid down the law - he didn'

Agreed

I believe that's what he did when posted to Malta to turn things around.

He went after the incoming raids before they could drop their bombs with varying degrees of success.