From Peter Dye, Royal Air Force Museum
Kate Ravilious’s article “Patterns of war” is correct to highlight the influence of Frederick Lanchester’s ideas on military thinking (31 July, p 34). However, it confuses a number of aspects regarding the Battle of Britain.
The “big wing” strategy involving large formations of aircraft was certainly not the favoured strategy in the earlier phase of the battle. The paper you cite (Naval Research Logistics, DOI: 10.1002/nav20328) comes to no definitive conclusion over the strategy’s effectiveness, other than to observe that there is no evidence that a greater concentration of RAF numbers led to greater fighting strength. It does, however, note that Lanchester’s key insight- that loss rates are proportional to enemy numbers- was broadly correct for the RAF but less so for the Luftwaffe.
Fortunately, the RAF had prepared for the attrition that war would bring by planning for high rates of aircraft production and a comprehensive pilot-training programme, underpinned by an extensive logistic organisation with significant repair capability. As a result, the RAF got steadily stronger as the battle progressed- unlike the Luftwaffe, which became steadily weaker.
London, UK
