OSPREY PUBLISHING continues to expand their new series AIR VANGUARD, with the iconic Junkers Ju 87 Stuka as their 15th title.

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The comment about the Battle of Britain phase resulting in large losses is interesting.

Quote from review -> "The story identifies August 16 and 18 as the two days that ended the Stuka’s career over western Europe, the Battle of Britain attacks on RAF Tangmere and other RAF airfields. Even with fighter cover, the Stuka could not survive determined fighter opposition" It is possible this is a myth.

Helmut Mahlke in Memoirs of a Stuka Pilot makes the comment the RAF well over claimed (as heard on BBC broadcasts at the time) the actual Stuka losses. His view appeared to be that the Stuka did need good fighter escort and when it had it losses were minor.

So I would be interested in a real post war review of claims Vs actual losses to confirm or deny the RAF's real impact on Stuka operations over the UK and Channel.

The real reason for Stuka withdrawal from the Channel front was to be re-deployed to other theatres (North Africa, Eastern Med then Russia) which simply had a higher priority once Hitler's interest in Operation Sealion had waned.

Hi Carl; interesting observations. I do not recall if the author used 1940 claims or post-war claims. What was mentioned is that both attacks caused significant damage, one knocking out a Chain Home site.

I got the impression from Mahlke that the Germans did not really know what to hit in regard to the Home Chain system and so failed to do attack and keep attacking it and so blinding the RAF.

Mahlke's orders were to hit the hut rather than the towers. the towers and the power supplies should have been the targets.

Other Stuka groups may have had different orders than Mahlke.

Hi Carl; I do not know, and that is not addressed in this book. I do recall that a Home Chain was put out of action; I recall the towers were difficult to knock down without a direct hit on their structure; however, without cables routing power to and from, and equipment to view the signals, I suppose that would be enough to knock out a facility. I recall the movie Battle of Britain showed a radar facility getting knocked out. I forget which one although this book mentioned that the station on Isle of Wight kept RAF from being blind.

Home Chain was set up with some overlap. But it was so close to collapse after the BoB attacks.

German intelligence was poor and not believed by senior Luftwaffe staff. They did not cotton onto the importance of knocking out radar until their own was variously stolen, blown up by the Resistance or bombed or rocketed.