James Holland looks at the whole picture on both sides of the Battle of Britain, showing that it wasn't just one thing that tipped the balance in Britain's favor during Germany's campaign to knock Britain out of World War II. This was an eye-opener to me. It was neither just the courage of British fighter pilots nor the radar technology of the British. No, it was British coordination of all their technologies into a highly sophisticated defense system.
The German navy wanted to cripple Britain, but the British had the better navy, and the Germans had shockingly few submarines at this point--only 14!--not enough to do irreparable damage to British shipping.
While the Meserschmidt 109E was a superior plane to the British Spitfires and Hurricanes, Germany's air marshal, Hermann Goering, ordered the 109Es to fly slowly along side the German bombers, thereby squandering their tactical advantages of speed and maneuverability.
Holland points out that German engineers had come up with better designed radar devices just as they had come up with better planes and boats. In their search for quality, however, the Germans allowed themselves to fall behind British quantity and systematic application. The British combined the factory production of numerous planes with efficient deployment of pilots, better organization and--above all--coordination of the information collected by their radar and human observers. The British had the best integrated defense intelligence system in the world at the time while the Germans had nothing like it.
Add to this that the German's underestimated British strength while the British overestimated German strength. Overestimating your attacker just puts you more on your toes, while underestimating the one you are attacking makes you cocky. As Holland concludes, the German's added bad planning and amateurish strategy to their cockiness.
In the end, the Germans were unable to achieve their goal of disabling the Royal Air Force and controlling the skies over Britain. This was as much due to their failure as it was to the considerable efforts and achievements of the defending Brits.
