The Battle of Britain and Barbarossa

1. The Battle of Britain and Barbarossa Blitzkrieg Falters

2. Battle of Britain • Austria • Czechoslovakia • Poland • Denmark • Norway • Belgium • Holland • France Hitler’s Blitzkrieg seemed unstoppable. By The Fall of 1940 he controlled: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battleofbritain.htm

3. Battle of Britain • The Battle began on July 10, 1940. • The Germans needed to control the English Channel to launch a ground invasion of Britain. • The Luftwaffe (the German air force) had 3,000 planes; 1,600 available daily against Britain. • The Royal Air Force (RAF), had 1,200 planes on the eve of the battle, but only 660 of these were serviceable. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battleofbritain.htm

4. Battle of Britain • The British had a couple advantages over the Luftwaffe. RADAR, which gave advance warning of incoming enemy aircraft. And the ability to fight close to home, and not from long range. • By the end of July the RAF had shot down 268 German planes compared to a loss of 150. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battleofbritain.htm

5. Battle of Britain • Germany could not sustain these heavy losses and eventually attempted to knock out the RAF on the ground rather than in the air. • Hitler lost the majority of his dive bombers so he opted to cancel the daylight raids of airfields and dogfights. • This decision proved fatal to the German objective. It is now believed that fighter command, although they shot down more German planes than they lost, were nonetheless outmanned and maybe only 24 hours away from defeat. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battleofbritain.htm