I am confused. According to various posts here the FAA and RAF would have done noticeably damage to a Germany invasion flotilla, but if Germany managed to somehow decimate the RAF and achieve air suppiority over the Channel the Royal Navy would still be able to control the Channel.
Unless I am missing something we seam to be saying a Heads you win and tails I lose.
Historically basically anytime an Airforce had control of the air over ships the aircraft prett much romped all over said ships. This holds pretty much true even in battles where both sides had aircraft involved. One sides aircraft would be out of position or low on fuel or ammo or what not and the other side would have a romp. Only when the two sides were reasonable even did the ships get off relatively safe. And in the middle of the ocean I can do a LOT more maneuvering then I can in the English Channel. Even with a destroyer you are going to have to be a lot more careful manuvering then in the open sea.
So why if somehow the Germans can secure control of the air would not not be able to generally protect there flotilla and inflict a lot of damage to the Royal Navy?
Yes I understand that as it turns out they could not get said control but we are asking for ways to make the dread sea mammal live a bit longer.
There is an argument here that the Germans of 1940 are not remotely the anti-ship bombers that the Americans or the Japanese are. I'm a little less up on the American and Japanese side of things so I won't press the point, but be aware that this comparison has been made before.
So if we reallocated out resources a bit differently /better, Get better leadership for the Luftwaffe (Say a certain General ODs or crashes his car or something ) This could lead to less troops getting away from Dunkirk and could see them being a bit better against ships. Which could also help at Dunkirk.
We keep attacking the RAF, while getting luck with a few bombs and damage production of fighters in England
While England makes a few worse calls.
The end result could be that for a time the Germans can dominate the Air over the Chanel and get some men and supplies ashore
Ultimately I think they still lose. As while you don’t need the Full D-Day equipment and supplies and manpower to make a landing in England before England finishes rearming itself and before the US turns England into the largest military supply base in history. You still need a better plan the Germany had in order to sustain the invasion. But I think with the right breaks on their side and with things going wrong for England that a probably managed war with the resources used right you could pull off a successful landing that put up a good fight before being driven back into the sea.
The bigger problem, though, is that while we may tinker around the edges all we like, there is a basic problem of scale here. Britain has naval superiority. Those maps from grade school where the black or red evil Nazi splotch in Europe gets bigger and bigger then smaller and smaller doesn't show the part that actually matters in defending Britain, which is that by and large, the ocean is Allied terrain at the beginning of the war and Allied terrain at the end of it. Except on the U-boat front, it continually gets worse for Germany, not better. They lost almost half their destroyers at Narvik.
The fact of British naval superiority messes with all kinds of what seem at first to be sensible comparisons. The British can do something genuinely foolhardy like flood the Channel with pleasure craft to evacuate Dunkirk purely and simply because they know perfectly well the Germans have no naval force capable of stopping them. That German air power would exact a large and growing toll on the Royal Navy if it chose to enter into the Channel in force is undeniable, but ask yourself: would you rather be in an aircraft taking aim at a destroyer that is actively firing back at you while zigzagging at 35 knots, or would you rather be in a barge creeping ahead at four knots, effectively defenceless, with an enemy destroyer's guns aimed at you?
The relevant comparisons in my mind, such as Crete and Exercise Tiger, show that effectively unchallenged naval forces can extremely rapidly and effectively disperse amphibious convoys, especially improvised ones. I am sure the British government will accept the sacrifice of a great many destroyers if the invasion fleet goes to the bottom with them.
As an aside to this I have a question, does Dunkirk and the fact that a lot of smaller ships and boats managed to get away relatively safely show that it was harder to hit smaller craft then bigger craft such as Aircraft carriers and battle ships? It has always seamed to me that aircraft were more successful the bigger the target ship was, This logically could be the result of the bigger ships being bigger targets and less maneuverable or it could be the result of more aircraft concentrating on the bigger ships or a combination of both.
On its own and leaving AA weapons out of the picture, a large target would obviously be easier to hit than a smaller target. Frankly if the Royal Navy's units are able to actually get in amongst a convoy it seems to me that, at least for that part of the battle, NEITHER air force will be of any use for fear of hitting its own ships. Which incidentally is another great way to limit your exposure to the Luftwaffe, if you're the RN. Of course, once you sink your cover, you're back to square one.