The Battle of Britain could have easily been won by the Germans if not for tactical ineptitude, a new study reveals.
University of York researchers have created a computer model, called the weighted bootstrap, which re-imagines the 1940 battle under different circumstances.
It identifies two enormous blunders by notorious Nazi commander Hermann Goering – a trained fighter pilot – who led the assault that crippled the Nazi effort and helped Britain win.
The maths has now proven that if Germany had launched an attack immediately after Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Battle of Britain’ speech on June 18, rather than three weeks later on July 10, and targeted airfields rather than cities and populated areas, the Nazis would probably have been victorious, paving the way for a naval and land invasion.
This would have crippled the British response by decimating the number of fighter pilots and destroying vital radar systems used to track German planes.
The mathematical study backs up the long-held belief of historians that Hitler’s failure to strike earlier and carry out more targeted attacks cost the Germans the Battle of Britain.
Fighter pilots took up the call to arms in the British spitfires (pictured) and hurricanes, with replacement pilots and planes in shortage due to the severe loss of life. But the British ultimately defeated the Germans
British heroes in Spitfires and Hurricanes defeated the German Messerschmidt planes (pictured) at the Battle of Britain, helped enormously by the tactical failings of Herman Goering
The real statistical chances of a Luftwaffe victory in July 1940 are a mystery, as there will never be enough data to create an accurate model.
But the study suggests that an earlier start and a focused targeting of airfields would have shifted the battle significantly in the Germans’ favour.
For example, had the likelihood of a British victory in the actual battle been 50 per cent, these two tactical changes would have reduced it to less than 10 per cent.
If the real probability of British victory was 98 per cent, the same changes would have reduced this to just 34 per cent.
The Battle of Britain featured a reluctant Hitler drawn into a duel he seldom showed interest in.
The Fuhrer expressed little emotion towards the British Isles, as the Reich was already taking heavy losses on the Eastern front in a war with Russia’s Red Army.
Hitler pushed for a deal with the British and tried to intimidate the nation into submission.
But Churchill’s inspired speech on June 18 announcing ‘the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin’ motivated the county and solidified resolve.
Fighter pilots took up the call to arms in the British spitfires and hurricanes, with pilots and planes soon in short supply due to the severe loss of life.
But, according to the latest research, Allied bravery would have been in vain if the Germans had responded with an immediate attack, which would have led to a Nazi victory.
The researchers tries to keep their predictions within the realms of realism, only making adjustments to the timeline that would have been feasible in real life.
Dr Jamie Wood from the Department of Mathematics at the University of York, said: ‘The Luftwaffe would only have been able to make the necessary bases in France available to launch an air attack on Britain in June at the earliest, so our alternative campaign brings forward the air campaign by three weeks.’
He added: ‘We found that the key variable is the number of fighter pilots that the British had available.
‘If the Germans did find a way to degrade that number more repeatedly, the less the fighter command would be able to put up a viable defence.
‘So what they need to do is to increase the number of battles, to increase the number of pilots being used – and there were fewer trained fighter pilots in the earlier weeks of the battle.
‘We can see the airfields that the Germans were targeting and, looking at the impact of those attacks, they were creating the right kind of degradation of the British forces to lay the groundwork for an invasion.’
As it was, the first attack was not launched until July 10, a delay which may have spared Britain from German occupation, according to the study.
On July 16, Hitler issued the famous directive number 16, stating his intention to wage battle with Britain’s ‘hopeless military situation’.
He added: ‘I have decided to begin to prepare for and, if necessary, to carry out an invasion of England.’
This tentative announcement spoke of his reluctance to turn the English Channel into a battleground, as his navy was depleted following a campaign against Norway where it lost two cruisers and 10 destroyers.
Hitler feared the naval might of 1940s Britain, and the war instead took to the skies.
But Churchill’s inspired speech on June 18 announcing ‘the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin’ motivated the county and solidified resolve. Had the Germans launched an attack immediately afterwards, they likely would have won the battle
The study suggests that if Germany had launched an attack in June following Winston Churchill’s (pictured) famous Battle of Britain’ speech and targeted airfields, the Nazis would have probably been victorious, paving the way for a naval and land invasion
Pictured, a colourised image showing Hermann Wilhelm Goering in France in 1941. Goring was commander in chief of the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. His blunders allowed Britain and the RAF to emerge victorious
Goering opted to airdrop leaflets over Britain entitled ‘A Last Appeal to Reason’ on August 1.
These were resolutely ignored, and the nation dug in for further bombardment as the Blitz devastated the nation.
Despite their scattershot approach, the Luftwaffe came close to overwhelming the RAF on a number of occasions.
One of the most significant successes for the German air force was the attack on visible and vital radar masts at key airfields on 12 August.
The Germans did not realise how crucial and advanced the radar systems were and how central to the RAF they had become.
Had Goering continued with this tactic, he would have almost undoubtedly destroyed the radar system and led the Nazi regime in a historic defeat of Britain.
Instead, the decorated Nazi henchman entrusted with the German military campaign flitted between several different tactics.
He relented his attacks on the airfields and this allowed the English, Polish, Canadian, Czech and New Zealand pilots to regroup and saved the invaluable equipment from destruction.
Dr Wood added: ‘In the model, every time we create a coherent strategy for the Germans, the results are better from their perspective.
‘We don’t want to downplay the British strategy. It was bang on. They did exactly what they had to do.
‘The problem was that the RAF had a critical shortage of trained monoplane fighter pilots, which the Germans didn’t exploit.’
As the battle waged through the summer of 1940, Churchill gave one of the most famous speeches of his premiership.
On 20 August, speaking in the House of Commons, he said: ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’
The hero pilots of the Battle of Britain became known as ‘the Few’.
After throwing away the initial advantage, Germany never recovered the edge over the RAF and, on September 15, now known as Battle of Britain Day, the RAF destroyed a huge formation of Luftwaffe over London and forced Hitler to abandon the battle and shelve his plans for invasion.
The researchers made their calculations using a mathematical model which investigates the probability of victory if all ‘what-ifs’ had occurred.
It works in a similar way to a lottery machine, with each day of the battle represented by a single ball.
Balls are drawn, read and replaced to create an alternate timeline.
This is repeated thousands of times in different orders to see what the most probable outcome would be.