Enjoyed that. You illustrated well the dangers of the rhubarbs that followed BoB where flights of RAF fighters were sent over to France to keep pressure on Germany, but then faced the same probs getting back over 'the ditch' that Luftwaffe pilots faced during BoB. Senseless waste of pilots throughout 1941 at a rate of at least 3:1 that achieved little.

H

Not exactly senseless, it did tie up LW resources that might have been better used on the Ostfront. (Remember there was a lot of political pressure for the western allies to do something! Plus, every 1 LW pilot they did knock out was one less experienced pilot they had to face later when the bombing campaign took a serious turn.

I guess it happens to all air forces on the offensive: more losses than the defenders, also because the attackers bailing out end up in captivity. The same happened in WWI on the Western front.

Certainly the Rhubarb raids didn't accomplish any immediate tactical or strategic objectives, but I agree that they weren't senseless. Lots of things in war is done without accomplishing immediate objectives, but in the end they contribute to wear the enemy down or make him spread out his forces too thinly...

Not my words, just paraphrasing historian Patrick Bishop, "Al Deere later described them (rhubarbs) as 'useless and hated'. At best they 'served only as a means of letting off steam in that they enabled pilots to fire their guns in anger, more often than not against some unidentified target.' Deere confessed that on the rhubarbs in which he was engaged he could not 'truthfully say that the vehicles and the train which I attacked were strictly military targets.'

Jan to June, prior to Barbarossa, the RAF lost 51 pilots, the Luftwaffe 20. As you point out the offensive was stepped up after the invasion of Russia, and July to Dec the RAF lost 411 aircraft and destroyed only 154.

"...nor could the Russians be said to have benefitted. The activity persuaded the Luftwaffe to keep a force of fighters in France and the low countries. But it consisted at any time of about 260 single engine aircraft which would have had little effect on the fortunes of the the war in the east".

Al Deere would certainly have hated them, it was his skin (and that of his pilot colleagues) on the line.

260 fighters could well have made a difference on the Eastern Front, given how close-run a thing the Battle of Moscow was... - Anyway, those losses would either have been 400 RAF pilots or 400 Soviet pilots, and I'm sure the RAF pilots took more Germans with them than the Russians would have done at that period.

Then there is the whole question of AAA, where the RAF surely tied up a lot in France and Germany. AFAIK the German 88mm guns were interchangeable as FlaK or Artillery (or was that only later in the war?) so all those guns would have made a big difference. Certainly the Russians thought so, as they were constantly pining for a second front...

Proud to announce 500+ subscribers on my youtube channel...

Getting a bit over 1000 views on my CoD movies per day, so there must be some interest out there... - Seems from the comments I get that a lot are watching the vids until they can get the hardware to run it one day. I remember doing the same for Il-2 Classic in its day, 10 years ago... Only back then it took half an hour to download a five minute movie.

It is getting to be a bit of a chore to approve every comment, so I am thinking that I might make commenting free. Do anybody have any experience as to whether that would be a really bad idea? There aren't that many really inane spamming comments, but maybe they'd pick up if people can post freely... - Well, I'll just have to see I guess.

All its going to do is take your first Pro-Nazi vs Jewish nationalist to tangle, and you'll see crazy crazy hate in your comments. Most things dealing with the WW2 era attract both like flies. I'd personally be careful opening up the comments, hate to ruin what's a great channel for us flight simmers, with a Youtube ban, or even just constant hate-filled trolling.

That stuff makes the 1c forums look like kindergarten play.

Hmmmm, yeah, I guess you are right... There are a lot of insipid comments, that's true... And worse.

Ya, I'd really hate for idiots to ruin your great channel, keep up the excellent work!

Ah, just realised I can actually delete postings by visitors to my channel. Maybe I'll go down that road...