The traditional name for the North sea is "The German Sea" or "German Ocean" from wiki...…... Before the adoption of "North Sea," the names used in English were "German Sea" or "German Ocean", referred to the Latin names "Mare Gemanicum" and "Oceanus Germanicus",[103] and these persisted in use until the First World War
The airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war.
- Thread starter michael rauls
- Start date
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GregP
Major
The U.S.A. DID have another bomber that could have carried the A-bomb.
We had the B-32 Dominator. Had it not come along as a "back-up" in case the B-29 failed, we also had the much slower but capable B-19.
There was always another aircraft if something had failed.
As a "game changer," I'd submit the IL-2 and the La / Yak series of fighters that turned the tide on the Luftwaffe. The MiG-3 was relatively unimportant other than as a stepping stone for the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau to better things. The Soviet Union was a real game changer. Without them ,we'd have fought twice or more as many Germans. Not sure we'd have won that at the time with the real-life situation, without any missing aircraft.
We had the B-32 Dominator. Had it not come along as a "back-up" in case the B-29 failed, we also had the much slower but capable B-19.
There was always another aircraft if something had failed.
As a "game changer," I'd submit the IL-2 and the La / Yak series of fighters that turned the tide on the Luftwaffe. The MiG-3 was relatively unimportant other than as a stepping stone for the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau to better things. The Soviet Union was a real game changer. Without them ,we'd have fought twice or more as many Germans. Not sure we'd have won that at the time with the real-life situation, without any missing aircraft.
Elvis
Chief Master Sergeant
While your post is quite informative, I fail to see how it relates to my post on Radar's role in how The Battle of Britain turned out....
Kevin J
Banned
While your post is quite informative, I fail to see how it relates to my post on Radar's role in how The Battle of Britain turned out....
I'm just changing the topic of discussion, its quite common here.
buffnut453
Captain
No it's not! Most discussions on this forum stay rigorously on topic and never deviate into realms of...ooohhh SQUIRREL!!!
buffnut453
Captain
Not sure I agree. The more Hitler waited, the more time he allowed Stalin to rebuild his military (which had been decimated of good leadership in the previous decade). Hitler had a window of opportunity in 1941 that was closing as Britain, the Soviet Union and America re-armed. I suspect he'd have gone ahead with Barbarossa even if Britain had sued for peace in 1940.
Are we so certain Germany couldn't have invaded if they had achieved air superiority? The channel isn't wide. Stukas and Ju 88s were pretty good at sinking ships. Did He 111's carry torpedoes by then? British battleships didn't fare well against Japanese air power early in the war. The combination of swarms of Stukas and Germany's own small but very tough navy might have been sufficient to control the waterway long enough for an invasion.
I know the Germans had a shortage of transport ships but maybe they could have borrowed some from Italy and taken over the French merchant fleet. The invasion of Crete shows that they could pull off a pretty impressive paratroop drop to help control a beach-head. It's an interesting scenario to consider.
To me assuming they could have controlled the airspace over the Channel I suspect they could have invaded, it may have been too thin of a pipe to get enough troops over fast enough though perhaps to actually win the resulting land battle. Could falschirmjaeger have held out long enough to let them bring tanks and big guns over ?
Significance to the thread is if there was a realistic possibility of a conquest of England in 1940 or 41 then perhaps the Hurricane or the Spitfire really is the single most important aircraft of the war. Otherwise I think we'd have to look at something from 1942, perhaps the Yak-1, Il2 or the SBD.
I know the Germans had a shortage of transport ships but maybe they could have borrowed some from Italy and taken over the French merchant fleet. The invasion of Crete shows that they could pull off a pretty impressive paratroop drop to help control a beach-head. It's an interesting scenario to consider.
To me assuming they could have controlled the airspace over the Channel I suspect they could have invaded, it may have been too thin of a pipe to get enough troops over fast enough though perhaps to actually win the resulting land battle. Could falschirmjaeger have held out long enough to let them bring tanks and big guns over ?
Significance to the thread is if there was a realistic possibility of a conquest of England in 1940 or 41 then perhaps the Hurricane or the Spitfire really is the single most important aircraft of the war. Otherwise I think we'd have to look at something from 1942, perhaps the Yak-1, Il2 or the SBD.
- Thread starter
- #268
michael rauls
Tech Sergeant
- 1,679
- Jul 15, 2016
Interesting possibilities to consider. I've always been of the opinion that Germany lacked the means to invade England air superiority or not but who knows for sure.
Thankfully we will never know.
I think one certainly couldn't go wrong picking the Hurricane/ Spitfire for doing the most to turn the tide of war and the possibilities you list are just that many more reasons why.
Shortround6
Major General
We have several rather long threads on this subject. but to answer a few of of questions, the Germans had 0.0% chance of pulling off a successful invasion in 1940.
The He 111s were not carrying torpedoes in service at this time, even the Italian SM 79 was only carrying in small numbers (like 5-6 aircraft). Germany's small but very tough navy was down to a couple of heavy cruisers, perhaps 3 light cruisers and about 8 destroyers in the fall of 1940 after the damage inflicted in the Norwegian campaign. Some of the other big units were repaired in the fall/winter but not in time for use in a cross channel invasion.
There was darn little french merchant fleet to grab, most had already fled if possible, a lost of the small stuff in the channel was either already gone or sunk at the docks. The Italians have to get by Gibraltar, not impossible but the losses will be pretty bad.
Again, look it up, they is no way they could have moved several thousand tons of supplies across the channel every day.
The SBD is the only contender at that is as much due to being in the right place at the right time as any intrinsic qualities of plane itself.
The Yak-1 and IL-2 only come into play because they didn't suck as bad the I-16 and SU-2.
What about landing craft? Without them, offloading could be disastrously slow. And what about embarkation? In the channel ports under British air and naval attack, or around the bend in the Bay of Biscay with a lengthy sea run under air and naval assault to deliver shiploads of seasick soldiers against determined defense?
And is it worth the cost in blood and treasure when the ultimate goal is elimination of the Red Menace? I doubt the Brits would have been so complaisant as the Vichy French were.
Cheers,
Wes
Shortround6
Major General
If you want to discuss the hypothetical invasion of England by germany in 1940/41 this is the thread.
If the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain
If the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain
Without propper landing craft the Germans would never have been able to get the troops and equipment necessary onto the land.
buffnut453
Captain
That thread came up with 350 reasons why an invasion would fail. It also branched out into the (inevitable?) discussion of how the Fw187 could have solved all the Luftwaffe's problems. Finally, there was a bizarre discussion about a Do17 being able to outrun and outmanoeuvre a Hurricane.
What it really didn't do was define what "defeat in the Battle of Britain" might have looked like, nor what the knock-on consequences would have been. To-date, aside from my own (oft-repeated) pet theory, I've seen no substantive suggestions for what might have happened.
Kevin J
Banned
My take on Operation Sea Lion is that its like having a customer who wants you to do something but you don't want the business. So the German Navy came up with Sea Lion, an invasion on a broad front. I've read it, what a laugh, its the ultimate suicide mission. In which case, we can scrub the Hurricane and Spitfire off the list in the BoB.
buffnut453
Captain
Why can we scrub the Hurricane and Spitfire off the list in the BoB? Is an invasion of the British Isles the only way Hitler could have achieved his objectives?
pinehilljoe
Senior Airman
- 712
- May 1, 2016
In With Wings Like Eagles, Michael Korda speculates that during the chaos of Dunkirk, if the Germans had pushed an airborne landing immediately, and secured a field and port, perhaps it could have been followed by reinforcements by sea. But its all speculation, dangerous for a historian to do.
buffnut453
Captain
Agree speculation is dangerous for a historian but we absolutely have to do it on this thread, otherwise how can we determine whether an event truly was a turning point? Surely, we have to look at the likely results of an unchanged trajectory in order to satisfactorily determine that something was, indeed, a turning point?
In the intelligence world, such "speculation" is called "Course of Action development" and results from analyzing the known facts and then determining at least 2 COAs: most likely and most dangerous. If we wanted to examine the full spectrum of possibilities, we could add a "least dangerous" COA to the list...but typically that does little to aid decision-making.
That would have required a massive operation put together "on the fly", something that probably would not have appealed to the methodical German military mind.
Cheers,
Wes
Kevin J
Banned
I'd say so, yes. Boots on the ground, which wasn't going to happen.
