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WWII ‘Vic’ RAF fighter Battle Formation
The Spitfire endures as one of the most iconic aircraft of World War II. Nevertheless, its initial skirmishes and battles yielded as many challenges as successes, with German forces soon outpacing pre-war RAF tactics and exploiting the Spitfire’s modest endurance to their advantage.
The standard RAF fighter Battle Formation at the time was the V-shaped ‘vic’ of three aircraft. A squadron of 12 Spitfires would be split into two flights, A and B, and these were in turn made up of two sections of three fighters. Notwithstanding the variety of formations flown as squadrons went into battle, once it was realised that enemy bombers could also have dedicated fighter escorts, all of them had a ‘weaver’ who would fly a reciprocal pattern, to-and-from, above and behind the formation on the lookout for a surprise attack. Rather than rely on singleton weaver, squadrons would put a section of three aircraft on the task. Often, though, it was the weaver who was picked off first, without having seen the attacker he was on the lookout for.
A ‘Row of Idiots’
As explained by Tony Holmes in his book Spitfire I Phoney War and Battle of France, when in full-strength Battle Formation, all 12 aircraft would be tightly grouped together in four sections of three fighters. Leading the ‘vic’ would be the squadron CO or senior flight commander, with succeeding ‘Vs’ following in close line astern. Once bombers had been spotted, it was the leader’s job to position his fighters a short distance behind the enemy formation and then lead the attack in section after section – each section would deliver its attack after the one ahead had pulled out of the way.
Upon engaging enemy bombers, the pilot, according to the Air Fighting Tactics manual, ‘stays until he has exhausted his ammunition, the target aircraft has been shot down, or he himself has been shot down or his engine put out of action.’
Such attacks would have worked well against German bombers had it not been for the presence of agile escort fighters sweeping the skies ahead of them. Luftwaffe tactics were far more flexible in nature, and centred on smaller formations of Bf 109s and, to a lesser degree, Bf 110s engaging other fighters. As RAF Fighter Command would soon find out to its cost, Fighting Area Attacks were useless against small, nimble formations of high-performance fighters such as the Bf 109E. Indeed, upon seeing British fighters flying into combat in tight, neat rows of three, German pilots, who invariably enjoyed a height advantage, quickly dubbed the ‘vics’ ‘Idiotenreihen’ (‘Rows of Idiots’).
Luftwaffe’s Schwarm
Those pilots that survived their initial encounters with the enemy soon came to realise that a successful combat formation had to be able to manoeuvre while maintaining cohesion. Pilots also needed to cover each other’s blind areas so as to prevent surprise attacks on the formation – hence the hasty addition of the ‘weaver’ to all formations larger than a section in strength. Finally, individual members of the formation had to be able to support each other should they come under attack.
The Luftwaffe’s four-strong Schwarm (based on the loose pair, or Rotte, which was at the heart of all German fighter formations) met all these criteria, but RAF Fighter Command’s tight vics’ did not. The Schwarm could turn as tightly as any individual aircraft within the formation, whereas the ‘vic’s’ rate of turn was limited by the need for it to pivot on the aircraft on the inside of the turn.
The futility of ‘Vic’ RAF fighter Battle Formation
When looking for the enemy, all the members of the looser Schwarm, flying about 200 yards apart and almost in line abreast but with the leader slightly ahead, enjoyed the freedom to search the skies (and cover blind areas astern of the formation) without the fear of running into a wingman. Conversely, in the ‘vic’, only the leader searched for the enemy, as his two wingmen had to concentrate on remaining in tight formation. This left them highly susceptible to attack from behind and below, and this blind spot was repeatedly exploited by Luftwaffe fighters in 1940.
Finally, if a Rotte or Schwarn was bounded from behind, a quick turn by the formation would see the attacker immediately come under threat himself. If the rear section of a Spitfire formation was bounced, the aircraft under attack (typically the ‘weaver’) had usually been shot down well before another pilot could attempt to fend off the enemy fighters.
The futility of these formations, and the Fighting Area Attacks, was brought home to the Spitfire squadrons in their first engagements over Dunkirk.
Spitfire I Phoney War and Battle of France is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo credit: Gareth Davies from York, United Kingdom via Wikipedia and Osprey
