The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

and the Luftwaffe General Staff, it was Schmid, a colonel, rather than
Martini, a general, who was given the task.
His subsequent report, presented on 16 July, was riddled with
misconceptions and wrong diagnoses. Although his estimation of
operational fighter strength – 675 – was not far off the mark, he
considerably underestimated how many new aircraft were being produced a
month and claimed that British output would decrease because of damage
by German air attacks. Time would tell on that score, but during July 385
Spitfires and Hurricanes had been built and that did not include the number
that had been repaired – certainly, Schmid had not the first idea about the
Civilian Repair Organization. He reckoned that a shortage of planes rather
than pilots was the RAF’s biggest headache, when in fact the opposite was
the case. He also made no mention whatsoever of radar, or any other aspect
of Dowding’s defensive system. As far as aircraft were concerned, he
pronounced that both the Spitfire and the Hurricane were inferior to the Me
109 – that was true, although the tone suggested there was a massive gulf,
which was not the case with regard to the Spitfire. He also said that the Me
110 was superior to the Hurricane but inferior to skilfully handled Spitfires.
The Me 110 was one of Göring’s pet projects, so clearly it would not pay to
belittle it. However, while the 110 was fast and had impressive firepower, it
was nothing like as manoeuvrable as a Spitfire or Hurricane; a twin-engine
aircraft could not possibly be.
Interestingly, there is no suggestion that Schmid knew that the RAF was
split into different commands. However, perhaps his biggest misjudgement
was his verdict on Fighter Command’s structure and organization, which he
claimed was rigid and inflexible, when that was precisely what it was not.
In fact, it was ironic how much Schmid had perceived Fighter Command’s
weaknesses as strengths and its strengths as weaknesses. ‘The Luftwaffe is
clearly superior to the RAF,’ he concluded, ‘as regards strength, equipment,
training, command and location of bases.’
So the Luftwaffe, then, should have no great trouble overwhelming
Fighter Command. Neither Göring, nor Milch, nor Jeschonnek saw any
reason to doubt Beppo Schmid’s report, and it was on this appreciation and
armed with Study Blue that the plans for the all-out assault on Britain were
to be made. What was striking about both sides’ intelligence, however, was
that while Tommy Elmhirst and his team at the Air Ministry had somewhat
overestimated Luftwaffe strength, Beppo Schmid had underestimated that