Did the RN win the Battle of Britain?

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Yeah but I think we can agree that if Russia had fallen, then Britain was Hitler's obvious next choice - his goal was after-all to have Europe.
 
After the summer of 1940, the RAF and RN grew measurably stronger and more capable.

No matter how many landing boats the Germans had, untill they had 100% control of the sky's and the sea, could they invade.

And again, untill they had the LST's, LCI's, LCM's, LCT's and an equivalent to the DUKW, they werent going to be able to invade anywhere.

Whether there was a war with Russia or not. There were some serious logistical issues that had to be dealt with, and the Germans didnt show any capacity to be able to solve them within a few years.

Remember, when the Allies invaded in June 1944, they had already performed several large amphib invasions in the MTO and PTO, and so were well versed on what is needed and what should be advoided. The Germans didnt have those opportunities, so the idea they were going to invade with no experience and do everything right is a bit far fetched.
 
Since the Germans came so close to defeating the massive USSR, why shouldn't they be capable of defeating the no way near as massive British army
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For the same reason Napoleon couldn't. He too conquered much of Europe, he too had by far the strongest army of his day, he too had an inferior navy. (and he too came to grief in Russia after being repulsed by Britain, and suffered a defeat in a North African campaign)

The British didn't need to defeat the entire German army, they only had to defeat the portion the Germans could land and resupply in Britain.

Hitler had probably the perfect mix of forces for fighting in mainland Europe. He had precisely the wrong mix for attacking Britain. Incidentally, that was the wrong mix for fighting in Africa as well, and look at how that ended up. The British beat the German army, or rather the portion of it that the Germans could resupply in North Africa.

Germany was very good at tactics in WW2, but they proved poor at logistics, and it's excellent logistics you need to invade and support troops overseas.
 
Soren said:
Well I was talking a period of 364 - 728 days, so there lies the difference. (Remember I'm not talking about Op. Sea Lion here, the deadline would be different...)
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That puts the invasion between early autumn 1941 and early autumn 1942


It would not have been just the British army Hitler was facing, it would have been the US Army, Navy and Airforce as well.


As above, but there would have also have been the full might of the RN and the full might of the Commonwealth.


If the invasion had happened in 1941/42 the only good thing for the Wermacht would have been the ability for them to walk across the wrecked ships and corpses of the troops who had tried before.
 
Soren said:
Yeah but I think we can agree that if Russia had fallen, then Britain was Hitler's obvious next choice - his goal was after-all to have Europe.
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The problem with that is by the time Hitler would have defeated Russia his forces would have been hurting and depleated. Germany would not have been a position to invade England still. During the time it would have taken Germany to prepare for that invasion, England would be preparing to repell it.
 
While Germany spent that year or two developing and constructing it's landing vessels Great Britain would be preparing the defence. Within a year's time, Soren, Great Britain could have produced thousands more planes, trained thousands more soldiers and deployed thousands more guns. Germany would have more men but that means nothing because they could not have been able to land their numbers in a day, or even a month. The Allies only managed to land 133,000 men by sea.

Local air superiority was achievable for short spans of time, total air superiority was unachievable. The Luftwaffe did not have the range to have complete air superiority over the RAF. The RAF could rotate squadrons around the country to keep the numbers relatively high. All the while Germany would be losing pilots faster than they could replace them. And Britain was starting to out-produce Germany in aircraft production.

Even if local air superiority was achieved, that means nothing in the darkness. The Royal Navy could slip in the smaller vessels by night and wreak masses of havoc on any German crossing of the Channel.

The largest obstacle for Germany was creating an effective and continious supply line to any forces that did make it ashore. The Allies supplied their troops with pipelines and mulberry, the German invasion plan mentions capturing British ports. History shows us that capturing an intact port is practically impossible.

"Since the Germans came so close to defeating the massive USSR, why shouldn't they be capable of defeating the no way near as massive British army ??"

The ENGLISH CHANNEL. It's hard enough for any army to cross a river the size of Caen Canal, left alone a 26 mile stretch of water which is prone to bad temper and throwing a fit. Whereas Germany was fighting the Red Army and VVS in Russia, it would be fighting the RAF and Royal Navy then the British Army, RAF and Royal Navy while fighting Great Britain. The Royal Navy dwarved the Kriegsmarine, and the RAF proved to be a match for the Luftwaffe.


"How good were the defences compared to those of the maginot-line which was taken out by German paratroopers ?"

I wasn't aware the Maginot Line was taken out by paratroopers. I thought it was standard infantry of the 1st Armee. One of the assaulting divisions was 197th Infantry Division of which Maj. Gen. Von Mellenthin was Chief of Staff:

"They soon found that many of the French strongpoints were not proof against shells or bombs, and moreover, a large number of positions had not been sited for all-round defence and were easy to attack from the blind side with grenades and flamethrowers. Maginot Line lacked depth..."

So, apparently, the Maginot Line wasn't that good at all. And it's hardly comparable to the situation the German troops running up the beaches would have encountered.
 


But unlike attacking the Soviet Union with 3.3 million men ( which includes 10 divisions from Finland, 8 from Italy and 5 from Romania as well as Spanish, Slovak And Hungarian troops), Germany can only attack Britain in bite sized pieces of 100,000, without the element of suprise or air or naval superiority.

Achieving air superiority over the UK in 1941-1942, as a prerequisite to invasion, is a somewhat unrealistic notion. You have an RAF which, proportional to the LuftWaffe, has grown considerably in strength. Refighting the (daylight) BoB in 1941 against a Fighter Command of no less than 48-56 squadrons, who were just starting to feel the relief of major Lend Lease shipments, is going to be no less costly than fighting it in 1940 against a FC of 36-40 squadrons. Britain was still arming itself, still growing proportionally in strenght against German in 1941 and 1942 from the low point in 1940.

A night blitz against the UK is going to be equally costly, with the Beaufighter and Mosquito night fighters entering service, AI radar coming into its own and improved inland tracking from the new mobile and shortwave radars.

If the LuftWaffe can't gaurentee aerial superiority, then the Kreigsmarine can hardly secure the Channel, particularly given the advances made at Costal Command (strike Beaufighters, MAD gear Wellingtons, torpedo armed TB 1 Hampdens ) and the 50 additional (if admittedly ancient) 3 funnel destroyers the RN recieved from the US.

Shore, port and interior defences all along the English coast were feversihly reinforced until the end of Autumn 1941. By mid 1941 28,000 pillboxes and anti-tank bunkers had been constructed in the Britain, with more in other parts of the UK. 17,000 of those were in the area of South east Britain where Germany planned to invade, between Brighton and Folkstone, froming defencive lines around London. Any German force landing and then procceding to link up and move inland would of encountered three static lines of defences, held primarily by the TA and Home Guard, designed to slow an advance inland while the regular Army assembled for a counter attack in force.
 
Allot of my comments have been mis-understood and I simply don't have the time to discuss them, but I'll say this though; I might be wrong with some of my assumptions regarding the invasion, this is after'all one big "what if"...

I don't believe that building the LST's, LCI's, LCM's and LCT's was to pose the Germans any problems as they were rather simpel designs (The Germans tended to over-design) and could be build rather quickly. The transport-boats which needed to be built to land up to 150,000 troops could be finished within 6-7 months, the problem after that would be how to support the troops landed - and I know the LW would have no problem dropping supplies on beachhead, but that in itself wouldn't be enough, most of the supplies would have to come via the sea.

Now onto the defence of the invasion force;

The KM would ofcourse have to support the invasion force, and with the Tirpitz and Germany's excellent pocket-battleships the KM was a mighty force, esp. when combined with the very large U-boat force which was the best in the world. Sure the RN had more battleships, but the KM had its U-boats with which they could stop the RN battleships from ever entering the channel. - Mines could be placed at the Channel intrances by Mine-laying subs while the attack-subs would slow down the RN and attempt to lead it into the minefield.

But then there's the RAF, the British force which would prove the biggest obstical to a German invasion, its stations on Britain's South side would have to be eliminated (And almost were at one point), otherwise the RAF would have too good a coverage. But even if this was achieved the RAF would still be able to cover the south side beaches, true, but it would be facing a very large and determined LW.

Do I believe the Germans could've established a foothold on Britain ? Yes, but the odds of them pulling it off were against them alright - not that they werent used to this though...

Plan_D,

I'm going to get back to you about the FallschirmJaeger's.
 
I wouldn't underestimate the challenge in designing and building LST's, LCM's etc. They look simple and in the end were, but all went through a number of iterations before they were correct. You are relying on the Germans getting it right first time which is very unlikely.
The RN had a much greater capacity to lay mines than the Germans so do not overlook what damage they could have inflicted. As mentioned before, we could also sweep more mines than the germans so why don't you always go on about the German Minefields stoping the RN and not the other way around?.
The RN also had a number of smaller submarines better suited to this area so do not ignore what they could do.
The RN as admitted had more BB's by a massive amount and well eqiuiped for night fighting. The Germans wouldn't have lasted long and couldn't afford major damage to any of their capital ships. The RN would trade a sunk KGV or Nelson for a damaged Tirpitz as we had plenty more to use.

Suggestion - if you want to improve the Germans chances, why not include the Italian Fleet.
 
How are they going to get out of the Med with the British at Gibralter. Yes they could attempt to run past it but I suspect they would take severe losses if they were found. While it would give the Axis more ships the RN would probably be larger still and more comfortable operating in the waters of the channel than the Kreigsmarine or the Italian Navy.
 
Well hyperthetically speaking the Germans could trial out their landing craft and invasion support systems on Gibralta

Rather than doing the Channel dash from Southern French ports they could turn south towards Gibralta.

The Italian Fleet and French fleets could mobilise and add their support.

The end result of all this with the RN southern Atlantic fleet and Channel fleet being mobilised in response would be a second battle of trafalga.

Simon
 

The designing process would be over quickly, the problem was building them on time as you're probably going to need new and special tools for the manufacturing process - Still a deadline of 6-7 months sounds reasonable to me.

The RN had a much greater capacity to lay mines than the Germans so do not overlook what damage they could have inflicted.
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But where and when were the British going to lay them ??

As mentioned before, we could also sweep more mines than the germans so why don't you always go on about the German Minefields stoping the RN and not the other way around?.
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Oh I wasn't suggesting that the mines alone were to stop the RN from entering the Channel, the U-boats would play the biggest role in avoiding this - However the mines would prove beneficial if the U-boats could lead the RN into them, something which I believe would've been a rather easy task.

The RN also had a number of smaller submarines better suited to this area so do not ignore what they could do.
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Better suited ? How exactly ?

The RN as admitted had more BB's by a massive amount and well eqiuiped for night fighting.
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The Germans were equipped for night fighting as-well.

The Germans wouldn't have lasted long and couldn't afford major damage to any of their capital ships. The RN would trade a sunk KGV or Nelson for a damaged Tirpitz as we had plenty more to use.
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The RN would have to trade allot more even when trying to enter Channel itself, where the KM U-boats would waiting for them.

Suggestion - if you want to improve the Germans chances, why not include the Italian Fleet.
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That is infact a good suggestion Glider, as the Italian navy could assist the KM in keeping the RN out of the channel and also help resupply the landed troops - the more the maryer as they say.
 
Soren said:
The designing process would be over quickly, the problem was building them on time as you're probably going to need new and special tools for the manufacturing process - Still a deadline of 6-7 months sounds reasonable to me.
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Are you saying that the KM and German army will work together perfectly to come up with brand new amphibious designs and build them in mass production, emply them perfectly with no doctrine or tactics study and practice? I think you would be pressing your luck for everything to happen perfectly the first time. Not a way to launch a major amphib invasion.


Mine fields work both ways too. The KM would be channelized by their own fields

The RN would have to trade allot more even when trying to enter Channel itself, where the KM U-boats would waiting for them.
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What makes you think the U-Boats themselves wouldnt be hunted by RN subs

That is infact a good suggestion Glider, as the Italian navy could assist the KM in keeping the RN out of the channel and also help resupply the landed troops - the more the maryer as they say.
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Its "merrier". And dont you think the straights of Gibraltar would be a slight issue for the Italian navy?

There is also the issue of naval gunfire support. The KM and Italians (if you want to include them) would not be able to to enter the channel due to their own minefields. So what will the landing troops have for gunfire support? Luftawaffe? that sure isnt going to do the job. Luftwaffe is limited to daylight hours and good visibility. Plus there wouldnt be enough of them to handle the multitude of targets that would need to be engaged on d-day.

Now if you say they will be able to enter the channel because they know where their minefields are, it still means they will be exposed to British counter attacks with little room for maneuver.
 
This is amusing, round and round we go. Soren leading a one man charge. Soren I will give you this........you are stubborn.
 
i think he is placing far too much importance on minefeilds and U-boats, remember that for most of the war the channel was mined heavily along it's eastern entrance? so what? the KM still made it through at times and it was little more than a nusance to the RN, finding a minefeild is not hard and there would HAVE to be some safe passage into and out of the minefeilds/Channel for the KM to get in as you claim then can! not only would we use these safe routes but if we really wanted to be sneaky we had the ships to clear a safe route through the minefeilds with minesweepers! furthermore what makes you think we have to stop the Tirpitz in the Channel? not only can we attack with aircraft before she enters the channel but the North Sea Squadron can stop her before she even enters the channel!

as for the U-boats, no successful submarine operations have ever been completed in the channel and blocking them at the entrances to the channel is difficult for U-boats not only because they would be hunted but a submerged U-boat is extremely slow! not only this but when they surface at night which they have to do they will be pounced upon as we're all agreed the night belongs to the RN........
 
Soren said:
The designing process would be over quickly, the problem was building them on time as you're probably going to need new and special tools for the manufacturing process - Still a deadline of 6-7 months sounds reasonable to me.
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The Germans did build a number of landing craft in WW2 they used them for transport duties in the Med. The first was launched in Dec 40



But where and when were the British going to lay them ??
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Mines?
Where they laid them in real life, in area's suitable for amphibious landings


U-Boats in this period were highly sucessful in attacking slow under-escorted convoys, against fast destroyers which were zig-zaging they had little chance.
Exactly how does a U-boat lead a destroyer into a minefield ?



better suited ? How exactly ?
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The U-Class submarines of the RN were small submarines designed to operate in the shallow waters of the North sea and Med. They were highly successful.



The Germans were equipped for night fighting as-well.
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But there were far less of them, and they would be spread out in a vain effort to try and cover all the possible routes of the RN



The RN would have to trade allot more even when trying to enter Channel itself, where the KM U-boats would waiting for them.
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In the Channel is too late, that's where the invasion fleet is. They have to stop them before they get into the Channel


That is in fact a good suggestion Glider, as the Italian navy could assist the KM in keeping the RN out of the channel and also help resupply the landed troops - the more the maryer as they say.
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Why would the Italians wish to leave their coastline and convoy routes undefended from the attentions of the Royal Navy's Med fleet ?
 

How long did it take the Germans to prepare for Op. Barbarossa ?

Tactics and doctrine was not a concern, cause every German soldier by then possessed this. Practice on seaborn invasions had already been done before, and was tought in the Hitler-Jugend as-well.

Mine fields work both ways too. The KM would be channelized by their own fields
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Channelized ? All they had to do was avoid going into the channel, the RN on the other hand would have to go through the mine-field in order to reach the invasion force.

What makes you think the U-Boats themselves wouldnt be hunted by RN subs
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RN subs would've found that a VERY hard task to carry out ! How were they to successfully engage the better equipped German subs ?

Its "merrier".
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Yeah thats right.

And dont you think the straights of Gibraltar would be a slight issue for the Italian navy?
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Ofcourse it would, but it would occupy a good part of the RN at the same time.

There is also the issue of naval gunfire support. The KM and Italians (if you want to include them) would not be able to to enter the channel due to their own minefields.
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Only the KM warships would have to be inside the channel, the Italian navy (if it ever made it there) would help guard the intrances to the channel or act as a chicane for the RN while it tries to enter it.


The KM warships would assist as-well as the LW.

Now if you say they will be able to enter the channel because they know where their minefields are, it still means they will be exposed to British counter attacks with little room for maneuver.
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You're forgetting that RN can't see their most dangerous enemy - the U-boats. The U-boats would simply be spread out to guard the intrances, waiting for the RN to pass them - this was a tactic which proved effective against the fast Allied Destroyers in the Atlantic.

Just a single U-boat could cause havoc against even a large fleet of warships - remember what happened to the HMS Barham ?
 
Soren said:
Tactics and doctrine was not a concern, cause every German soldier by then possessed this. Practice on seaborn invasions had already been done before, and was tought in the Hitler-Jugend as-well.
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In the history of the German army how many amphibious landings have they undertaken ?



RN subs would've found that a VERY hard task to carry out ! How were they to successfully engage the better equipped German subs ?
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In what way were the German subs better equipped ?




You're forgetting that RN can't see their most dangerous enemy - the U-boats. The U-boats would simply be spread out to guard the intrances, waiting for the RN to pass them
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So the RN would only have to pass one ot two U-boats in order to get to the invasion fleet
- this was a tactic which proved effective against the fast Allied Destroyers in the Atlantic.
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In the Atlantic it was the U-boats which were the hunted when destroyers were present.

Just a single U-boat could cause havoc against even a large fleet of warships - remember what happened to the HMS Barham ?
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Nonsense, the U-boat sank a single ship, that isn't going to stop a battlefleet intent on attacking the invasion fleet.
 
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