Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

Col. Robert Dilger & Pierre M. Sprey • 133Ignoring relative casualties is the final distortion. RAF single-seat fighter casualtiesoccurred at a rate of about 0.5 crew members per aircraft lost. The Luftwaffe bombercasualty rate is unknown. However, later in the war, the U.S. Army Air Force/RAFbomber casualties were generally about 80 to 85 percent of the crew in each bomberloss. Thus, the British lost approximately 30 pilots with their loss of 60 fighters, whilethe Germans may have lost about 960 crew members in the loss of up to 240 bombers.The Luftwaffe was potentially losing crew members at a rate 32 times greater than theRAF in the Dunkirk scenario, and the Luftwaffe was loosing expensive bombers at a400 percent greater rate than the RAF was losing fighters. In cost terms, the Luftwaffelosses were 1,600 percent greater, and their crew casualties were 3,200 percent greater.All of this was almost certainly distorted, obscured or missing in the combat datapresented by the air staffs to their senior leadership. As we shall see, this practice didnot end with Dunkirk or even World War II.In addition, historians of the Dunkirk battle seldom mention that British shippingtook a fearful beating. Britain lost 6 destroyers, and 23 other warships weredamaged. 16 In addition, 230 lesser ships and boats were lost. This Luftwaffe successwas accomplished mostly by Stukas. Author Peter C. Smith states categorically, “Divebombers ... were proved to be the quintessential weapon for destroying ships. ...Bycontrast ... no major warship was ever sunk. ...[by multi-engine, high altitude bombers].”17 The Luftwaffe leadership was completely silent on this great disparity. As sooften happens, the Air Staff allowed the bombers to amass most of the combat creditearned by Stukas. It must be understood that Field Marshall Goering surely approvedof this deception. If Goering had actually gathered, analyzed, and presented bombdamage assessment data by aircraft type, his bomber program advocacy to Hitlerwould have floundered.The Battle of BritainThe Battle of Britain began with a huge imbalance of forces: 2,600 Luftwaffe aircraftversus 741 RAF fighters. Less than 300 of the RAF fighters were Spitfires. Only thesewere a good match against 800 German ME-109s. See Table 3.Table 3. Aircraft Committed to the Battle of Britain 15RAFLuftwaffeBombers Not applicable 1.134Fighters 741 (279 Spitfires) 1,109 (809 ME-109s)Stukas Not Available 316Total 741 2,559