Who? The Luftwaffe? They had pilots, lots of pilots.
Defeat of the Luftwaffe
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i was talking for RAF in BoB, but same is true for LW, was shorter of pilots, 29/06/40 906 ready SE fighters pilots, 28/09/40 676 ready SE F pilots
But with what exactly? Lines of river barges towed at 3-5 knots across the channel packed with men and equipment which would then have to stop off shore to enable the men to enter rowing boats to make a landing. Even with limited local air superiority we still had the Royal Navy. Even a handful of destroyers in amongst that flotilla would have wreaked havoc and there was far more available to the British than that.
All seaborne invasions,even in ancient times,required a huge investment in materiel (Look at the size of the 13th century Mongol fleets attacking Japan or Henry V's fleet landing unopposed at Chef de Caux in the Seine estuary) and the Wermacht simply hadn't done that. History is long and not everyone learns from it,Hitler certainly didn't.
Cheers
Steve
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- #264
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- #265
Read this study: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...f&AD=ADA421637
The Germans had a plan to deal with the Royal Navy, BUT, only if they had obtained air superiority. Air superiority would do much for the Germans. It would not only meant the Army would have direct support on the landings, but also that interdiction and attacks on the British harbours and merchant ships arriving with vital supplies would be possible. Attacks in aircraft factories and shipyard facilities would also certainly happen.
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Indeed, with the RAF's effectiveness broken the Luftwaffe should be able to focuss on doing what the u-boats could not: choke off the merchant marine trade and it should be able to do so with acceptable losses. It considerable effort would need to be maintained in ensuring the RAF doesn't get up again but this could again be done from a point of view of superiority and limited losses.
Gixxerman
Senior Airman
The trouble with so many claims that the BoB was a close run thing is it ignores two of the most central points.
Firstly No. 11 Group was not 'the RAF' and secondly at no stage did the RAF come close to losing men machines at an unsustainable rate, even when the airfields were the primary targets.
In fact if Stephen Bungay's figures are correct in his book 'The Most Dangerous Enemy' it was the Luftwaffe that was suffering losses that could be ill afforded......losses which would later be missed during the Russian campaign (and similarly there even during the early good days for the Germans they would suffer losses which eventually compounded to make for a calamitous situation).
Whilst airpower would undoubtedly have impeded the Royal Navy intervening in any invasion attempt that is a million miles away from being able to claim with any certainty that the RN's intervention would not have been grotesquely disastrous for those poor guys sent out in the English Channel in little more than crudely converted river barges.
My own view is that several thousand German soldiers, sailors and airmen lived when had that farcically poor attempt at invasion actually gone ahead they would otherwise not have.
Firstly No. 11 Group was not 'the RAF' and secondly at no stage did the RAF come close to losing men machines at an unsustainable rate, even when the airfields were the primary targets.
In fact if Stephen Bungay's figures are correct in his book 'The Most Dangerous Enemy' it was the Luftwaffe that was suffering losses that could be ill afforded......losses which would later be missed during the Russian campaign (and similarly there even during the early good days for the Germans they would suffer losses which eventually compounded to make for a calamitous situation).
Whilst airpower would undoubtedly have impeded the Royal Navy intervening in any invasion attempt that is a million miles away from being able to claim with any certainty that the RN's intervention would not have been grotesquely disastrous for those poor guys sent out in the English Channel in little more than crudely converted river barges.
My own view is that several thousand German soldiers, sailors and airmen lived when had that farcically poor attempt at invasion actually gone ahead they would otherwise not have.
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- #268
In fact, the LW was never close to defeat the RAF.
However, had it defeated, the situation would be different. The problem is, that for this happen, either the LW would need to be more stronger than historically, or the RAF more weeker. And this being part of the equation, all counterfactual interpretations parts must have the same consideration. Therefore, it's hard to discuss this in a realistic matter IMHO.
Exactly the same thing I say for those who considerate the Russian front more important, because, according to them, had Germany won there, it would be unlikely for the Allies won. The problem is that I can also use this logic for the Pacific, and make Japan's war machine like the propaganda decipted it: magnific, inflicting one blow after another in the Americans, until the point they sign peace. Then what would happen? What would be the consequences for Stalin of the IJA victorius in China in the Soviet borders?
However, had it defeated, the situation would be different. The problem is, that for this happen, either the LW would need to be more stronger than historically, or the RAF more weeker. And this being part of the equation, all counterfactual interpretations parts must have the same consideration. Therefore, it's hard to discuss this in a realistic matter IMHO.
Exactly the same thing I say for those who considerate the Russian front more important, because, according to them, had Germany won there, it would be unlikely for the Allies won. The problem is that I can also use this logic for the Pacific, and make Japan's war machine like the propaganda decipted it: magnific, inflicting one blow after another in the Americans, until the point they sign peace. Then what would happen? What would be the consequences for Stalin of the IJA victorius in China in the Soviet borders?
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parsifal
Colonel
If the Brits had lost air superiority over SE England or indeed, in the channel or along the french Coast after 1941, there there are any number of possibilities, and none of them good for the British.
You and i probabaly have diametrically oppsed views on the importance of the battle, and who won it, but we at least have common ground about the impacts on shipping. Even without air superiority but with the ability to achieve air parity, the Germans were able to inflict heavy losses on British coastal trade around the british Isles. This situation continued, at least until December 1941. However, after reaching a peak of efficiency prior to May 1941, the effedctivenes of the German anti-shipping operations, of all descriptions fell away markedly gtom May, as the british started to make life difficult all along the Coast. The primary anti-shipping weapons in the Coastal waters were the air launched mines and S-Bootes. S-Bootes began to fall away in effectiveness once their bases came under sustained air attackj by the RAF, whilst the attrition suffered by the specialist minelaying groups was steady, and eventually caused an abandonment of the campaign.
If Germany had somehow been able to maintain air parity, instead of being reduced to a strategy of air denial in 41-3 (in which they extracted a heavy toll, but were unsuccessful in their objectives) Britain almost certainly would have been forced to its knees by middle to late 1941.
I have already documented each and every loss in British and Euopean coastal waters (not including ostfront operations) throughout 1941.
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/polls/3-fighters-30447-7.html
Go to about Post 80 and read on from there....
I am aware of the German planning for Sealion,they had a plan for dealing with the USSR too.
"No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy"-Helmuth Graf von Moltke
The Germans were playing a game closer to Clausewitz's original doctrine ""Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln", war is a mere continuation of politics by other means. Force terms favourable to Germany on Britain at the negotiating table without undertaking a dangerous and technically near impossible seaborne invasion.
Seperating the political aims of the nazis from their military objectives is foolhardy. Military history is simply one aspect of a larger picture. Neither Hitler nor any of the military and political leadership had any desire to invade Britain, at worse they just wanted her off their backs,at best she was a potential racial ally. I believe that after the euphoria of defeating mainland Europe's pre-eminent military power (France) in weeks the Germans became exasperated by Britain's stance. It's why Hitler's "Last Appeal To Reason" speech in the Reichstag was dropped as a leaflet over Britain in July 1940.
I'll say it once more,Germany's real objectives lay in the East not across the English Channel. This was a regime driven by racism and a paranoid fear of Bolshevism envisaged as a huge,communist,Slavic horde (reminiscent in their propaganda of the Mongols). These base qualities drove much of nazi policy.
As for the weather Dowding reckoned that he had only to remain undefeated until November. With hindsight we can now see that the jig was up for the Luftwaffe well before then and that Dowding had achieved his stated objective with time to spare.
Cheers
Steve
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- #271
But like you said, they didn't wanted Britain in the war. When they failed to defeat the USSR, Britain meant a deadlock for the Nazis.
Gixxerman
Senior Airman
Indeed, it is quite amazing to see the 'asiatic hoardes' cast up so often as a driving motivator in nazi ideology, I'd say to the point of obsession.
Some things never change eh?
Talk about a 'race memory'.
Sadly this is where they blinded themselves to reality.
They may not have wanted a war with Britain (and I am pretty sure it is perfectly clear that they did not) but their ideas of 'a free hand in Europe and the east' was never going to be acceptable to the British (or the USA for that matter).
Determined as they were and deaf to all council to the contrary we ended up lumbered with the only possible conclusion, war.
Global war at that.
One I just cannot see how anyone on the axis side (barring hubris nonsense about 'will' and political personality) could possibly imagine they could win.
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- #273
After Hitler ignored the Allied warnings and proceed with the invasion if Poland, there was no more back. The USSR needed to be invaded, because the British naval blockade would kill Germany sooner or later, and Roosevelt was willing to support the British, which the peak was the Lend-Lease act. The Soviet Union, gived the enormous size of it's armed forces, would quiet possibly intervene "in the interestes of peace and to save human lifes" in the starving and chaotic Europe under the blockade sooner or later.
I think we can say with certain that if Hitler's idea of war with Britain was serious, Germany would have a much greater naval capability in 1939. Perhaps this can be used as a definitive indicator that Hitler always wanted to invade the USSR.
I think we can say with certain that if Hitler's idea of war with Britain was serious, Germany would have a much greater naval capability in 1939. Perhaps this can be used as a definitive indicator that Hitler always wanted to invade the USSR.
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Gixxerman
Senior Airman
But this does not accord with what was happening just prior to the nazi invasion of Russia.
In fact everything I have read on the subject (barring some petty squabbling at a more local level) shows that the Russians did everything they could to accomodate Germany via their pact.
IIRC the trains with Russian supplies were still rolling west towards Germany on that fateful day - and Stalin had given strict orders that they do so and that the German demands in supplies be met in full.
It also seems difficult to me at least to reconcile the idea of a Russia itching for war a leap westward with the known instant reaction of Stalin to the news of the German invasion and his refusal to believe the warnings leading up to June 22nd.
If Stalin really was looking for any excuse to invade western Europe - and had been building up an invasion force in the Russian west as some claim - then why did he not at least attempt to order his numerically superior forces to move west the instant he heard war had come?
I think the 1936 naval agreement illustrates his desire to placate the British.
But he was very misguided in what he imagined British interests were and how Britain would react to them being threatened.
I think anyone reading Mein Kampf (published let us not forget in 1925) would be a fool to imagine Hitler was not serious about his plan to invade Russia.
No wonder they moved factories etc etc when it became apparent in the mid 1930's that they were also developing the means as well as having the aspiration.
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The icebreaker strategy as expounded by Soviet intelligenc analyst Suvorov was one of allowing the Germans and French/British to exhaust themselves by feeding the Germans enough to keep going so that they exhaust the each other, the Germans did too well however by defeating france. The full blown attacks on Finland comming only 2 weeks after the signing of the German-Soviet co-operation pact took Hitler the wrong way. Hitler expected a realignment of Borders but not to this degree.
For various reasons the Soviet mobilisation of 1941 was a failure, there may have been thousands of T-34 or KV-1 but the buildup had come to late and a very large number of MiG-3, Yak-1 and LaGG 3 comming of the production (already in their 2nd issues) but the improved versions of these aircraft were barely out of the factors (due to mismanagment of the MiG 1 and LAGG 1) but not fully integrated into squadron service (mainly I-16) . The MiG 1, LaGG 1 and Yak 1a had been too defective. An attack on Western Europe had to be postponed untill 1942.
Those who believe that Stalin was not a shrewd, forward driven, agressive man have not studied him. Those who think that he was not capable of extreme behavior have not studied him. There were barely 4000 people in Nazi concentration camps by the time of Barbarossa by which time Stalin had killed millions. Some folks in in many cases in my opinion are deliberalty deceiving themselves in order to maintain passionate shiboleths of the origin of WW2, the treatly of Versalaies, the holocaust etc etc. They can't handle the truth as Colonel Nathan R. Jessep says. The prime cause was a desire to fully and functuionaly return Danzig to the Reich and to deal with a dangerous Soviet Union before it became impossible to do so exactly as Hitler said.
The Soviets may have been fastidious of meeting their obligations under the treaty but so were the Germans. Maybe dictors are firm in promises of that kind. Both the Bismark and the Prinz Eugen had their very sophisticated triaxial FLAK directors removed in order to supply the Soviet Union with this very advanced technology. The treay of Versailies had induced the German Navy to found "Krisselgeraete" (gyro-apparatus) a company that along with Anschutz had exeptional abillity in the area of guidance and control in order to compensate for the restrictions to the Germany Navy.
Hitler may have had more than one reason to attack the Soviet Union but the two most important ones are actively ignored by the denialists.
For various reasons the Soviet mobilisation of 1941 was a failure, there may have been thousands of T-34 or KV-1 but the buildup had come to late and a very large number of MiG-3, Yak-1 and LaGG 3 comming of the production (already in their 2nd issues) but the improved versions of these aircraft were barely out of the factors (due to mismanagment of the MiG 1 and LAGG 1) but not fully integrated into squadron service (mainly I-16) . The MiG 1, LaGG 1 and Yak 1a had been too defective. An attack on Western Europe had to be postponed untill 1942.
Those who believe that Stalin was not a shrewd, forward driven, agressive man have not studied him. Those who think that he was not capable of extreme behavior have not studied him. There were barely 4000 people in Nazi concentration camps by the time of Barbarossa by which time Stalin had killed millions. Some folks in in many cases in my opinion are deliberalty deceiving themselves in order to maintain passionate shiboleths of the origin of WW2, the treatly of Versalaies, the holocaust etc etc. They can't handle the truth as Colonel Nathan R. Jessep says. The prime cause was a desire to fully and functuionaly return Danzig to the Reich and to deal with a dangerous Soviet Union before it became impossible to do so exactly as Hitler said.
The Soviets may have been fastidious of meeting their obligations under the treaty but so were the Germans. Maybe dictors are firm in promises of that kind. Both the Bismark and the Prinz Eugen had their very sophisticated triaxial FLAK directors removed in order to supply the Soviet Union with this very advanced technology. The treay of Versailies had induced the German Navy to found "Krisselgeraete" (gyro-apparatus) a company that along with Anschutz had exeptional abillity in the area of guidance and control in order to compensate for the restrictions to the Germany Navy.
Hitler may have had more than one reason to attack the Soviet Union but the two most important ones are actively ignored by the denialists.
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- #276
About this, I would like to point out that the world well aware that Nazi Germany was not Imperial Germany, and it didn't had the resources, credit and naval power to sustain a prolongued war. When Stalin signed the commercial treaty, he was promptly financing the Nazi agressions, which makes one think if at least the pillar of Surov's arguments is so wrong like most historians say.
Interesting is that the Allies had a plan just to deal with this: Operation Pike. If the French managed to stabilize the front, and Stalin tried to pursue this objective, he would likely be attacked in his oil lifeline. And in short time the French would be with great quantity of modern equipment, like the D520 fighter, as well as a new doctrines. Both Britain and France would also have US support. The Communists would not necessarily have an easy life...
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Gixxerman
Senior Airman
That is as maybe but it in itself proves nothing.
Every military has plans and scenarios for various options possibilities - even contemporary allies verses each other.
It's just what military planners do, they must.
I'd like to see the level of proof you have for this.
It is not mutually exclusive to see Stalin as another monster.
But you keep making big claims that his intent was the occupation of all of Europe, including western Europe.
I'd like to see the level of proof you have for this rather than you just continually assert it.
Much as the occupation of eastern Europe was a crime, in several instances it was perfectly foreseeable understandable given that several of those eastern European countries had allied themselves with the nazi state and given what Russia had just suffered.
Throw in the common ideas about 'buffer zones' and 'spheres of influence' and it is not exactly difficult to work out why what happened happened in E. Europe.
You don't have to want to occupy all of Europe including western Europe to want to do that.
.....and this is not justification for it either.
Even if that is true.....well, boy oh boy didn't they soon change all of that, huh?
What is this, compare the relative excesses of your chosen multi-million murdering monster?
No.
It's just that some will use any relative comparison to claim one multi-million murderer is 'better' than another multi-million murderer.
Personally i find both loathesome.....and each have attributes unique to themselves to find disgusting vile.
No.
That's the circular logic deployed to excuse the nazi war of extermination.
That's all.
If Danzig was what it was really about then there would have been no invasion of Russia Germany would have been all about defending the territories recovered.
The fact that there was absolutely none of that and that all the planning was devoted to an invasion proves exactly what they were about.
The fact that after the German attack they found Russian numbers so massive was a shock to the Germans (as Hadler makes clear in what he wrote).....and the claims about Russian intent are plainly a belated revisionist excuse, as Hitler's ridiculous boasting about 'one only had to kick in the door for the whole rotten edifice to come tumbling down' proves.
I don't 'deny' anything, and I'm certainly no fan of Stalin or the communist system.
The fact is Hitler wanted Russian territory and was prepared to use any method to get it - and go to any length to ensure it stayed German, including the deliberate, systematic industrial slaughter of the indigenous peoples.
Not for what they said or did but for what they were and it is here on this point that the unique evil of nazism is laid bare.
Thank God no-one else acted towards Germans in the same way as the nazis acted to so many others, huh?
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pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
Say thank you Siegfried
It's sort of revealing you'd use a quote from a ficional character played by Jack Nicholson, in" A Few Good Men".
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