Germany had no powerful fleet to launch an invasion. Germany had ZERO landing crafts. No serious ground preparations were made to invade England. How long did it take for British and Americans to prepare for D day? Close to 2 years. It's amazing considering overwhelming industrial, naval, air superiority of the allies. Why dou you think less powerful (industry-wise) Germans could have done all preparations in 2 months or less? Battle for Britain was fought by Germans not to occupy England but to force British government to come to terms. Hitler was very fond of British, he admired them. All what he's wanted was to have British as allies in the anti-communist crusade. It was not that delusional, considering Churchil's obsession with destruction of USSR and communism. It was delusional because Britain always fought (helped to) on the side of Europian underdogs not to let a single country to dominate continental Europe.
After USSR has invaded Finland in 1940, Britain seriously considered sending an expedicionary corp in Finland to fight red tide (=war with USSR). Poor Adolf was fooled, Brits did not hate commies as much as he thought after all.
Are you sure? This approximation must be incorrect. Really? They were going to land somewhere in Sussex (forget where, some marsh or summat) which would have paved the way to London. They had people working on an invasion of Britain since they joined the war. The actual German plans for invading GB is actually remarkably similar to the Allies D-Day plans. D-Day was June 1944. US joined in late 1941. So obviously it would've taken at most two years. Who said two months? The invasion plan was set into motion way before the Battle of Britain. Hitler wanted the complete surrender of Great Britain. That was the key objective of the Battle of Britain. Other objectives included gaining air superiority over the British Isles so that they could land troops without much aerial resistance. True, he may have admired them but more than liekly only for their empire. This could be why he wanted a surrender, to show the world that they have brought the largest empire in the (then) modern world to it's knees without even setting foot on their soil. It would have been a huge PR success for the Nazi regime. So that's why Churchill and Stalin looked so chummy in those photographs. I have revised my original suggestion. There were plenty of pivotal moments in WW2, but I now personally believe that the war was lost by the Axis due to Adolf Hitler's inability to lead an army and listen to his generals. He should have stuck to politics and let the military handle the war effort.
That was why they wanted complete air superiority before they tried to invade. Because, although much of the British army and large parts of the French army had been rescued nearly all equipment had been left behind, and there was hardly any modern weaponry to resist an invasion in Britain, whereas the Germans in France had powerful front-line units. If- even with complete air superiority a very big if, given that the Germans would have to get past last ditch attacks by the Royal Navy and would be using improvised landinh barges- if the German army could land in sufficient numbers they would have no difficulty in defeating any defending British units. As you say, the main idea was to achieve air superiority and force the British to come to terms without taking that gamble, but the threat of invasion was more real than you seem to think.
In the winter of 1939-40 Admiral Raeder ordered his staff to make a study of the many problems which would have to be settled if Hitler were to demand an invasion of England. On 21 May, 1940, Raeder told Hitler of the conclusions of the study, which suggested any plans for an invasion of the islands would be "impracticable." Records show that Hitler was not interested in invading England at that time. He was not convinced that there was any real advantage in attempting to overthrow the vast British Empire, but rather hoped that either Churchill would "see sense", or his government would fall. Hitler stayed on his special train, Tannenburg, from 25 June to 5 July with a group of consultants, waiting to see if the situation would clarify itself. With reports that Britian had taken over France's military contracts with the US, and with arms factories increasing production, it was obvious that Churchill had not "seen sense." On 16 July Hitler signed Directive No. 16-Seelowe, Operation Sea Lion. But if you read the opening statements of this order it is obvious that even at this point an invasion was not inevitable, as Hitler notes that... "Since England, in spite of her apparent hopeless situation, shows no signs of coming to terms, I have decided to prepare a landing operation, and if necessary carry it out. "The aim of this operation is to eliminate the British homeland as a base for the further prosecution of the war against Germany, and, if necessary, to occupy it completely." So even as Sea Lion came into existence, it still was not inevitable. And again, Admiral Raeder denounced it as too ambitious and impracticable. Lacking the necessary transports, his study the previous winter had concluded that even if he requisitioned every available private and commercial fishing vessel from the coastal and inland waterways he wold not be able to assure the landing of a first wave of 13 divisions (which Sea Lion called for), or even a reduced amount of that number (the compromise number was 9 divisons in the first wave). But Raeder noted that requisitioning the commercial fleets would have serious results on war production and civilian food supplies. It's no wonder that he quickly passed the buck onto Goring, placing responsibility for the success of the operation on the Luftwaffe. On top of that, there was no German battle fleet to give heavy gun support, and the Luftwaffe wouldn't be able to guarantee total air cover, so it was decided to give the landing troops the benefit of tank fire-power, by converting some Mark IIIs and IVs, which required special landing craft (experiments proved successful). And there were also some batteries along the French coast with ranges up to 37 miles, but the real responsibility fell on the Luftwaffe to win dominance of the skies over the English coast. * The above information was obtained from Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, pp. 244-246, Ed. Brigadier Peter Young, based on the original text of Lt. Col. Eddie Bauer, Swiss Army, retired.
A succesful German landing in the UK in 1940 would have resulted in the total surrender of the UK. Great Britain simply did not have the Military (army) strength to defeat a German assault. The Germans however 'first' had to land in the UK. The Germans had been very successful in Europe but the one super weapon the British possesed had not been involved. The Royal Navy in 1940 was still the supreme maritime force on the planet and all of it's power and might was concentrated in home waters. The Royal Navy would have decended upon any German invasion force and destroyed it wholemeal. This is why the Battle of Britain was fought, the Germans hoped to repulse the Royal Navy by airpower over the invasion area. Without domination of the air any invasion of the UK was doomed, the might and the overwhelming power of the Royal Navy made this a cast iron certainty. So let there be no misunderstanding, the Battle of Britain was the most important battle of the 2nd World War (even more so than the battle of the atlantic). Without this British victory none of the other 'victories' in World War II would have been achievable. Before any of you Americans even begin to mention the pacific war, remember, had Britain fallen you would have had to ensure that your Atlantic Fleet was of sufficient strength to counter German power and that you would NOT have been able to provide the resources required by the Pacific fleet ( which I readily acknowledge was absolutely magnificent). The Battle of Britain is the battle that saved the whole of mankind. NEVER IN THE FIELD OF HUMAN CONFLICT WAS SO MUCH OWED BY SO MANY TO SO FEW Winston S Churchill
The British would not have had to send a force to Greece and it is very likely that the war in the western desert would have been over before Rommel and the Africa Corps could have established themselves. This would have resulted in a British Empire army mid 1941, experienced, combat ready, confident flush with victory, with nothing to do, but a damn sight nearer to Malaya and Singapore than to the UK. Dare I suggest that the most humiliating diaster in British military history (Singapore surrender 1942) might have been avoided.
There was nothing really magnificent about the Pacific Fleet for the first two years of the war, since it was vastly inferior in both numbers and weaponry. What was magnificent was the navy's codebreaking abilities, and coupled with some extremely gutsy naval leadership and within the ranks, and some very inept Japanese decision-making, meant the Pacific Fleet held its own until American industrial capacity and attrition within the Japanese navy overwhelmed Japan's capabilities. And as an American I would never downplay the significance of the British winning the Battle of Britain, but I'm not so sure I agree with your assumption of whether the US' Atlantic Fleet could counter German power in the Atlantic. For that to have happened it would have to be assumed that a successful German invasion of Britain would have also seen either the capture or destruction of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet, and quite frankly, I see neither of those being a real possibility. It is more likely to assume that the Royal Navy would have evacuated British leadership to the US, where they would have conducted the Royal Navy's operations in coordinated operations with the Atlantic Fleet. What would have been a serious problem for the Allies was that the loss of the British Isles would have meant the loss of a forward base for conducting long range bombing operations over Germany.
It is more likely to assume that the Royal Navy would have evacuated British leadership to the US, No, they had plans for the British navy,and royal family to come to Canada, and the RN would be based in Halifax.
OK. The point is, British leadership would have been removed to North America, and the Royal Navy would have remained intact and under British leadership.
Might I ask what the fucking point is in you coming in here and writing one line, without reason, without explanation, without anything other than an unsubstantiated pile of words? Obviously Aghart hasn't read a damn thing prior to his post either, but at least he gave some backup for his point of view. All there is in here is a bunch of kids saying "it's this - no it's this.." without even understanding what the hell they're talking about. I wouldn't be surprised if Stalingrad and D-Day are the ones mentioned more often because they're the ones that the fucking movies have been made out of.
I agree, a little out of control. These are all just opinions, and even eminent historians can't agree about this necessarily. I based my opinion on a PBS documentary series called Battleground, that covered the battle of Stalingrad in some detail. While I'd known that the Russian front was fierce and bloody, until I saw that series in 1995, I hadn't known how bad it was. Enemy At The Gates really gave you a distorted impression of the battle. The German movie Stalingrad is much better at conveying the misery and tragedy. http://20th-century-history-books.com/0140284583.html
Personally, I don't think Germany could have pulled off an invasion of Britain even if it had won the battle of Britain, and I think both the Germans and British knew it. What the Germans knew: 1) They simply didn't have the transports necessary, even if they had procurred every capable barge and fishing vessel from the inland waterways. The most they could have brought over in the first wave was 9-10 divisions, with very little firepower (armor and artillery) to support it. 2) Even assuming they could have gotten that first wave of troops landed, it would have been next to impossible to have established a beachhead and then to have opened a supply line. Without heavy firepower and supplies within 24-48 hours the initial landing force would have been pushed back into the sea. 3) They didn't have the necessary warships to support the transports. 4) They didn't have the naval planes to seriously block the Royal Navy. They didn't have torpedo planes, and most of their bombers were level bombers, releasing from high altitude, which were proven in both the Atlantic and Pacific to be very ineffective against warships. They had the one dive bomber, the Stuka, but it had no range, meaning it couldn't have harassed British warships coming south from Scapa Flow, and by late 1940 it was vulnerable to British fighters, particularly the Hurricane. What the British knew: 1) If the British had decided they couldn't win the air battle over Britain, they had plans to pull all surviving air groups to air bases in northern England, out of range of German fighters, where they could have been used to strike any German invasion force. 2) The Royal Navy would have been sitting in the middle of the English Channel if an invasion became imminent. While certainly it would have taken some losses, it nevertheless would have wreaked havoc on a slow invasion force. U-boats, while effective against unprotected convoys, were less effective against protected convoys, and even less effective against warships, and were especially vulnerable in the confines of the Channel. 3) Canada would have sent several divisions to Britian. Also, Britain would have had some nasty surprises for an invasion force, such as flaming oil spills in the Channel, not to mention that the British planned to use poison gas if necessary.
Spyke according to conventional thought the Brits didn't have a hope against a German Army(assuming the Germans be able to invade the Island). Supplies would run out because unlike the resistance in Continental Europe, there was no other "base" left.
Well, the key point to what you just said is "assuming the Germans be able to invade the Island." My whole post was concerned with why I believed the Germans couldn't successfully invade the island.
to be honest i think the battle of britian if it had been lost then the troops would have been pulled out of the eastern and african fronts germany would have gained the largest fleet of them all, america would have had no steping stone to start there d-day atack. that is just my opinion however and please corect me if i got any of the facts wrong
ashpwner, No the British would have sent their fleet to Canada or America, they would have never let it fall into the hands of the Germans, if that became a certainty they would have scuttled their own ships, that I believe from all the histories I have read.
ok but i still think that the u.k played one of tha major roles in ww2 one of i am not discredating any other country and i think austalia dosent get a mention and canada hardly wich is kinda sad what are ur views on if the british had fallen tho?
