per month (the true figure was 496) and that figure would decrease, indicating that the RAF could not sustain a long battle of attrition. Schmid also claimed the command at all levels was rigid and inflexible, with fighters being tied to home bases. In his list of omissions, Schmid failed to mention the RAF maintenance and organisation operations, which put back damaged aircraft with rapid effect. He anticipated a short battle. Crucially, Schmid failed to mention radar at all. The lack of sustained and concentrated attacks on radar left it free to help direct the deployment of RAF units at opportune moments. Its continued warnings of incoming raids were a crucial benefit to Fighter Command. The Luftwaffe also had poor intelligence on the type of RAF airfields. It made repeated errors, often misidentifying airfields as Fighter Command bases, which turned out to belong to RAF Coastal Command and RAF Bomber Command. On Adlertag, most of the targets on the Luftwaffes list—if destroyed—would not have impaired Fighter Command in the slightest. Targets and order of battle The following targets were chosen for attack on 13 August 1940: RAF preparations Detection The keystone of the British defence was the complex infrastructure of detection, command, and control that ran the battle. This was the "Dowding System", after its chief architect, Air Chief Marshal Sir H.C.T. "Stuffy" Dowding, the commander-in-chief of RAF Fighter Command. Dowding modernised a system created up from 1917 by Major General E B Ashmore. The core of Dowding's system was implemented by Dowding himself: the use of Radio Direction Finding (RDF or radar) was at his behest, and its use, supplemented by information by the Royal Observer Corps (ROC), was crucial to the RAF's ability to efficiently intercept incoming enemy aircraft. The technology was named RDF with misleading intent – the vague description would disguise the full nature of the system to the enemy if its existence ever became known. The first indications of incoming air raids were received by the Chain Home Radio Direction Finding (RDF) facilities, which were located along the coastlines of Britain. In most circumstances, RDF could pick up formations of Luftwaffe aircraft as they organised over their own airfields in northern France and Belgium. Once the raiding aircraft moved inland, the formations were also plotted by the ROC. The information from RDF and the Observer Corps were sent through to the main operations room of