Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

AIR SUPERIORITY
in France and Belgium, the RAF knew where the airfields were, but in mid-
1940 it still had a very limited number of aircraft available for photographic
reconnaissance work. The development of the unarmed Photographic
Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) Spitfires and similar aircraft was only just
beginning, but would soon become a vital means of gathering information.
In the meantime, the RAF was not as well off as the Germans, who already
had begun to cover much of Europe with special high-flying aircraft fitted,
ironically, with modified RAF cameras.72
Antiaircraft Command
Closely allied with the RAF in the defense of the United Kingdom was
Antiaircraft Command, led by Sir Frederick Pile, the only British general
to hold the same top operational command throughout the Second World
War. Dowding, Pile’s close friend and associate, expressed his opinion later
that one of the most enduring lessons of the Battle of Britain was that the
anti-aircraft organization set up before the war and perfected up until mid-
1940 had worked well in partnership with the RAE Because of the excellent
aircraft-recognition training in Anti-Aircraft Command, there were very
few incidents of friendly fire on RAF aircraft.
The effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire in daylight demonstrated the
effects of experience. In July it took 344 rounds to knock down an enemy
aircraft, but in August only 232 were needed. When the Germans started
night operations in September and the batteries had to resort to barrages,
it took 1,798 rounds per aircraft destroyed.
During the Battle of Britain, special attention was paid to the relationship
of gunfire to the activities of the fighters, both in locating enemy aircraft
by burst from the guns and in breaking up formations so that the
Hurricanes could get among them. A point often overlooked is that it was
estimated that ten percent of the aircraft brought down during the course
of the struggle were the victims of light antiaircraft machinegun fire. This
kind of defense was particularly important when so many attacks by roaming
German aircraft took place below the heights at which heavy guns could
be brought to bear effe~tively.’~
Although the First World War had shown that both ground and air
defenses could become effective against enemy raiders, for years after the
war they were neglected. It was not until the Munich crisis of September
1938 that the public suddenly became nervous about antiaircraft defense,
and the Air Staff agreed to a vast increase in its scale. But merely making
the money available did not solve the problem. The Ideal Scheme, drawn
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