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The Battle of Berlin was a British bombing campaign on Berlin from November 1943 to March 1944. The campaign period was not limited to attacks solely on Berlin, other German cities were attacked to prevent the concentration of defences in Berlin, and Bomber Command had other responsibilities and operations to conduct. The campaign was launched by Arthur "Bomber" Harris, AOC of RAF Bomber Command in November 1943. Harris believed this could be the blow which broke German resistance: "It will cost us between 400 and 500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war."[5] By this time he could deploy over 800 long-range bombers on any given night, equipped with new and more sophisticated navigational devices such as H2S radar. Between November 1943 and March 1944 Bomber Command made 16 massed attacks on Berlin.It is generally accepted that the Battle of Berlin was a failure for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as it was not the knockout blow that Harris had predicted and during the battle, the RAF lost 1,047 bombers, with a further 1,682 damaged, and well over 7,000 aircrew, culminating in the raid on Nuremberg on 30 March 1944, when 94 bombers were shot down and 71 damaged, out of 795 aircraft.[6][7][8][9][10]There were many other raids on Berlin by the RAF and the USAAF Eighth Air Force in the strategic bombing campaign of 1940–1945 and this is reflected in the RAF battle honour which is for bombardment of Berlin by aircraft of Bomber Command 1940–1945.[11]Prior to the battle of Berlin, Berlin had been subject to a large raid on 23/24 August of 700+ aircraft. A raid half that size, losing 7% of the aircraft, had taken place in September.