As Shane stated, the RAF and BC and CC will have some serious changes thrusted at them. Churchill will give them no choice but to bomb rail yards and staging points in the north of France to slow down the German's moving to the south. The German's will have no choice but to deploy fighters in her rear to guard these points and clash with Bomber command. That means that though they maybe attributed to the BoF, more BC planes and CC planes will be lost. AT the start of the BoB historically in July they had 560 bombers in BC and 500 planes in CC. This will be a lot less when the BoB in FFO starts in late August. The Defiant and Battles maybe slaughtered during this period but over the channel or French coast. The may not even make it to late August when they are pulled from frontline service. This maybe where the RAF gets more pilots btw as there was a serious historical push to transfer the pilots over to Hurricanes.

The German's meanwhile will have mostly fighters in the north and thus will have to devise tactics to do the enemy as much harm with no bombers. The best way is to close down the English channel and conduct fighter sweeps over it until Britain re-routes there ships. Each ship's mayday will force the RAF to respond and engage in a battle they are not equipped for. There fighters will take longer to get armour on them, not having the respite they had between the BoF and the BoB. Also as it is later, the German Me-109 will have drop tanks by the time bombers do show up in late August. So with the battle starting with the German fighters not tied to slower bombers they will meet the RAF fighters on and equal footing. This may quickly make the RAF have to chose what battles they can seriously fight. This maybe also a serious problem later when the German bombers show up as the German's will have air superiority over the channel and possibly parts of southern England. Not contested as much and the British radar operators needing those few weeks to identify the difference in the bombers to help vector the RAF fighters may mean more infastructure in southern england and the RAF's bases will be more damaged then historical.

I'm thinking it really comes down to LW fighter Optempo here.

If we can agree that for Phase 1 of the FFO BoB;-
a/ the Battle of the Channel is the German-Offensive effort. (Fighter)
b/ the German-Defensive effort will be against c/, RAF bombers trying to interdict German LoC's in France (fighter - night)
c/ The RAF - Offensive will be trying to interdict German LoC's to support the French (Bomber)
d/ the RAF - Defensive will be the Battle of the Channel (fighter)

It looks to me that of the four efforts involved Fighter Command is under the least stress of all. Compared to BC they have a muc better recovery rate for damamged aircraft/downed pilots, they are in roughtly the OTL position re the same in defending the channel convoys, and frankly they have one job to do and it is the one they are best set up to handle. So it comes down to howmuch pressure the LW can exert on them, the LW is driving that bus.

Bomber Command is in a very simple position too, their orders are going to be some vairation on 'make as much trouble as you can - and don't spare the horses' but in termsof actually performing that task, they have two principal options:-
1/ try it in daylight which offers the best damage per ton dropped ratio and get slaughtered, or
2/ go by night whith grately reduced effectivness but a far more sustainable casualty rate.
The compromise, escorted day bombing, is only marginally aplicable given the target set an fighter range.

AFAIK the OTL RAF light bombing campaign during the BoB/Invasion scare was mostly by night - the heavys were night owls after Williamshaven. This indicates the RAF was aware of 1/, and so logically opted for 2/. I suspect this was due partly to their experience in the BoF, and even more to do with the pressure on Fighter Command. The invasion ports/barge concentrations were close to ideal targets for escorted daylight bombing, but with the LW breahting down their necks FC would not have been too happy expending their precious strength protecting bombers.

Now in FFO the political imperitive is to relieve pressure on the French, and escorted day bombing is going to be more effective to that end than a night only bombing campaign. I believe such missions might be ordered by political directive, wit the likley hood increasing the lower LW pressure on FC is. But then the determinate would be the RAF's light/medium bomber strength, sort of a reverse OTL situation, the critical mission is now Bombing and would the bomber barons see the risk as worth the reward?

I can't see how they could avoid trying it (daylight escorted bombing) out once or twice, but given the range issue there's not much they can reach that is going to be directly valuable to French. Coastal shipping being the only avenue I can see here. The targets they really want to hit are over along the Rhine, not the Pas de Calais. So whatever the result, I can't see the daylight effort being a major factor.

On the other hand, if Fighter Command is sitting around with time on its hands and LW fighters making trouble, offensive fighter sweeps are far more likley IMHO. But I'm not sure the OTL model would be repeated, there we saw Fighter Command with a surplus of resources looking for trouble, here their margins are a lot tighter. So to me it looks like they may well try playing the LW at its own game, low level hit and runs on LW airfields, with a bit of 'armed recce' looking for targets of opertunity, but nothing like the big Circuses and Ruhbarbs of OTL.

From the LW's perspective, I think the least of their worries will be the RAF's night bomber offensive, they don't have the means to effectively counter it (and ADGE with nightfighters) and they are only going to put the resources into it that the Bomber's results justify. So a few SQN's doing Wild Sow and perhaps a bit of an observer net to try basic coordination is going to be about the limit. The other factor I see here, being again range, in this case on theother side of the fence. The RAF's desired target set deep into the continent, its going to be streatching the limits of the light/medium force and so they will want all the range they can get - forward baseing is the most obvious move here, and that puts field full of bombers more or less within Me109 range and more still within Me110 range. Given the choice between buzzing about all night to little effect hunting for the RAF bombers, or hitting those same aircraft on the ground with a dawn tip and run looks a lot more attractive. All which makes even more sense when the RAF's fighters are going to be useing most of the same fields, so hitting the airfields fulfills both the LW's defeseive mission and assists in their offensive one.

So the first list expands to
aa/ German-Offensive effort 1 - Battle of the Channel
bb/ German Offensive effort 2 - airfield strikes
cc/ German-Defensive effort 1 - night bomber defence
dd/ German-Defensive effort 2 - airfield strikes
ee/ RAF-Offensive effort 1 - night interdiction of German LoC's
ff/ RAF-Offensive effort 2 - airfield strikes, the more LW fighters they can tie up the few the French have to face
gg/ RAF-Defensive effort 1 - airfield strikes
ff/ RAF-Defensive effort 2 - airfield bombing (night)

This is starting to flesh things out nicely, ff/ gives the the short ranged bombers (Battles) something worthwhile to do, and we get a nice tit for tat mess developing. Both sides have sufficent depth to rotate their resources into and out of the contested zone, the LW can project into the safe area to a limited extent with Me110 (by day), just as the RAF can with Battle (by night), which to me looks like a wash, the Battles will be safe but not very effective, the Me110's will be effective but vulnerable.

To win one side nes to wheel up sufficent firepower to rally hit the airfields HARD (as per the OTL BoB), but both sides have far more important things for the bomber capacity to be doing, and they are both unwilling to commit all their fighter strength. So the result is inconclusive. Both sides have to fololw roughly the same path, maintain defensive forces to cover their bases, improve AAA, shuffle units to try and dodge the counter strikes. Result a dynamic stalemate. But to quantify this situatio it still comes back to LW sortie rates are they are the core around which everything else revolves.

Phase 2 is where things have to take a swing one way or the other. To move beyond Phase 1, one side has to change step and for this they need a good reason - suggestions?

shane

Rule .303
Shoot straight, you bastards.

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