Fought in the skies over the south east of England the struggle between the Luftwaffe and Fighter Command or the Royal Air Force is determined over the thirty five days between 12th August 1940 and 15th September 1940.
Luftwaffe formations are made up of
Opposing them are two types of Royal Air Force fighter,
The Luftwaffe attacks in two waves each day and after aircraft have undertaken combat, the bombers that get through bombard their targets.
The three dimensional counters represent different numbers of aircraft, according to how vulnerable they are in combat, something that allows all counters, which are marked, graphically to show how they behave in combat and what their bombardment capacity is, to have no numbers on them.
The Luftwaffe bombers have to be protected as they make their way to their targets….the sector stations and airfields of No11Group, without which R.A.F Fighter Command can not operate. Whether the Luftwaffe fighter formations do this best by flying independently or in close escort will be determined by the Luftwaffe commander but beyond the coastal sectors the Bf109e fighters can not operate anyway and here the bombers are beset by fighters from No12 Group as well as the defensive measures adopted by the targets they are attacking.
Nevertheless if enough bombs can be dropped on enough sector stations and airfields the Luftwaffe, who can deploy 165 counters against the 36 R.A.F. counters, will win !
If the Royal Air Force can prevent a significant number of bombers getting through and destroying its airfields it will survive and whilst the R.A.F. can not ‘win’ the battle its survival will prevent an invasion ever being tried, allowing Britain to live on…..and fight another day.