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Since I am forced to do this the hard way....
Daylight air attacks will take place only over the English Channel. Main air battle will be at night with the intent to close Port of London and Liverpool to British shipping.
There will be NO daylight attacks over England then. There is no production line for the Fw 187. It Generally takes 6 months to a year to go from the 5TH production model to the 500th. and it takes a number of months to go from the initial order to the 5th production model. You would be lucky to have ONE Jagdgeschwader operational until winter/spring.Purchase Order #1.
Procure 100 Fw-187 long range fighter aircraft per month. As soon as we have two operational and full strength Jagdgeschwader the Luftwaffe can consider daylight bomber raids over England. Otherwise there will be no daylight attacks over England.
Purchase Order #2.
Procure 40 long range Fw-200 maritime attack aircraft per month rather then the historical 4. When the Luftwaffe have two operational and full strength Kampfgeschwader they will make a serious dent in British shipping. One Fw-200 KG will operate from Norway. The other Fw200 KG will operate from Cherbourg Peninsula.
Purchase Order #3.
Procure 5,000 aerial mines per month for use against British seaports.
Purchase Order #4.
Procure 1,000 F5B aerial torpedoes per month for use against British shipping.
Purchase Order #5.
Procure 2,000 300 liter drop tanks per month. They will extend combat radius and loiter time of our aircraft.
The war was lost in the USSR not in England.
Forced to fight? The Germans invaded the USSR!
The objective of the nazis and the reason they went to war was expansion of the Reich in the East. The timing of the attack,initially on Poland (East) was based on economic grounds. This is not the topic of this thread but it had been expressed time and again,both by Hitler and other nazi ideologues from the earliest days of the movement.
Germany was always going to attack the Soviet Union. She was "forced to fight" on two fronts because she had failed to remove Britain from the conflict.
Cheers
Steve
As the title says, you are in charge of the Luftwaffe right after the Fall of France, but before the Battle of Britain.
You will have no interference from anyone with your conduct of the air war against Britain; how do you fight the British?
I agree, but to be fair it was only Hitlers and parts of the Nazis goal to go East and fight the UDSSR.
From a rational viewpoint there was no single reason to invade the UDSSR.
Also I agree to all your statements in this thread, very good summary.
As regards attacking the USSR I would suggest that Germany's difficult economic situation,particularly regarding her supply of oil, led to the decision to strike East. The second phase of the invasion,leading to the Crimean campign and ultimately to Stalingrad was driven by economic not military considerations.
For example the Luftwaffe alone had drawn 25% of its oil supply in 1941 from reserves which had fallen from 613,000 tons in 1940 to a mere 254,000 tons.The KM's famous Channel dash consumed 20,000 tons of fuel and on April 1st 1942 the Navy's reserve was only 150,000 tons. Ciano noted in his diary on 8th February 1942 that the Italian Navy was practically immobilised by a lack of fuel. In January 1942 the Italian Navy received only 13,500 tons of the 40,000 tons promised.
I believe that part of the developing conflict between the nazi leadership (particularly Hitler) and the commanders of the Eastern Forces was caused by economic criteria,primarily the need for oil and to a lesser extent Manganese and other vital materials,overiding military and strategic political objectives.Few OKW and OKH officers expressed much doubt about the Caucasian campaign (Fall Blau) nor challenged its feasibility at the time,but they certainly did after things went wrong.
Moscow apparently could wait.
Now of course we all know that it would end with the disaster at Stalingrad.
Thanks Don. My views are not exactly radical,I think it is a fairly mainstream view now that we have the benefit of 70 years of hindsight
As regards attacking the USSR I would suggest that Germany's difficult economic situation,particularly regarding her supply of oil, led to the decision to strike East. The second phase of the invasion,leading to the Crimean campign and ultimately to Stalingrad was driven by economic not military considerations.
For example the Luftwaffe alone had drawn 25% of its oil supply in 1941 from reserves which had fallen from 613,000 tons in 1940 to a mere 254,000 tons.The KM's famous Channel dash consumed 20,000 tons of fuel and on April 1st 1942 the Navy's reserve was only 150,000 tons. Ciano noted in his diary on 8th February 1942 that the Italian Navy was practically immobilised by a lack of fuel. In January 1942 the Italian Navy received only 13,500 tons of the 40,000 tons promised.
I believe that part of the developing conflict between the nazi leadership (particularly Hitler) and the commanders of the Eastern Forces was caused by economic criteria,primarily the need for oil and to a lesser extent Manganese and other vital materials,overiding military and strategic political objectives.Few OKW and OKH officers expressed much doubt about the Caucasian campaign (Fall Blau) nor challenged its feasibility at the time,but they certainly did after things went wrong.
Moscow apparently could wait. It is barely mentioned in "War Directive No.41".
"All available forces are to be assembled for the main operation in the Southern sector,with the objective of destroying the enemy forward of the Don,in order to secure the oil regions of the Caucasus and the passes through the Caucasian range itself."
Now of course we all know that it would end with the disaster at Stalingrad.
Apologies for the diversion,this doesn't have much to do with getting Britain out of the war in 1940
Cheers
Steve
Germany also captured some 2 million tons of fuel with the Fall of France, so I'm not sure when in 1940 your numbers are taken, nor your 1941 numbers; if anything I think the 600k figure is prior to the Battle of France and the 200k figure after Barbarossa, i.e. in December 1941.
Playing the evil Nazi / "Butcher" Harris here:
-Mining all the harbors with the help of the Kriegsmarine to cause famine.
- Using mustard gas/tabun/soman (if available) against cities.
- Using biological weapons, like tularemia, anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism against the population.
The Luftwaffe figures are from 2 seperate and contemporary German sources. I'm not typing the rather long names full of abbreviations here,so you can choose not to believe me if you wish.
The KM figures are from the minutes of a Fuehrer conference on naval affairs. I doubt that they were giving Hitler the wrong figures.
The Italian figures are from the same source with the comment,as indicated,from Ciano's diary.
The quantity of aviation fuel captured in France was 250,000 tons according to Tugendhat and Hamilton. That was a nice windfall,representing 5 months domestic (German) production.
I don't have a figure for oil as a whole but Germany undoubtedly,as you say,came out of the French campaign with more oil than she went in with
Perspective is required. In the last full year of peace Germany consumed 7,500,000 tons of oil. About a third was produced domestically. The other 5,000,000 tons was imported mostly from Venezuela,Iran and the United States. With the exception of the 461,000 tons from Romania this supply was cut off in September 1939.
Germany imported only 2,075,000 tons in 1940,most came from Romania,1,000,000 tons. A significant 619,600 tons came from the USSR,but that would obviously soon stop. The rest came from other continental European countries.
It must be remembered that after the fall of France,Norway,Denmark,The Low Countries etc Germany had to provide oil to all the occupied territories as well as its own domestic and military consumption. This put a strain on her reserves,not helped in June 1940 when Mussolini declared war on Britain. Italy had virtually no domestic production and the supply from Albania was blocked. She too,like all the occupied territories from Scandinavia to the Spanish border was totally dependent on Germany for oil.
In March 1941 (three months before Barbarossa) General der Infanterie Georg Thomas,head of the War Economy and Armaments Office warned both Goring and Keitel that Germany's reserve stocks of oil would be exhausted by late October 1941. The rest as they say,is history.
Cheers
Steve
Ah, I thought you were talking about overall fuel, not just Avgas. Yes, your numbers are right on target for Avgas. My 2 million figure was for all types of fuels, most of which were not usable for aircraft.