Alternate German strategy after the fall of France

I'd like to put Nazi ideology to one side and focus on the military options available to Germany after the Fall of France. The main objective is to get Britain to bow out. In my mind there are several ways this can be done.

1) Implement Operation Felix and seize Gibraltar. In doing so, get the Luftwaffe to at least partially knock out Force H. Once this is done, find a way to knock out the Suez Canal. The consensus in the Suez thread seems to be that the luftwaffe can't bomb the canal effectively so have the luftwaffe bomb the base facilities at Alexandria and try to sink a few ships. I'm aware that the luftwaffe had no previous experience sinking ships but Japanese training and tech can be sought in this regard. They were allies after all. With the Royal Navy vanquished from the Mediterranean, Uboats will be free to sink any shipping that passes through Suez effectively sealing of Suez and making the Mediterranean an Axis lake. After this, Malta and Cyprus will surrender once their food supplies run out.

2) Have the luftwaffe bomb Middle Eastern oil fields thereby rendering them inaccessible to the British.

3) Don't invade the Soviet Union. This ensures continued access to oil and other vital war resources.

4) Germany needs heavy bombers. Order aircraft from Japan.


Mitsubishi Ki-21:
Ki-21_97juubaku_b.jpg


Nakajima Ki-49

Nakajima_Ki-49.jpg


After significant numbers of these have been procured, begin a systematic bombing campaign against the RAF. Target airfields, aerodromes and aircraft factories. The goal should be to degrade the ability of the RAF to defend Britain thus giving the Luftwaffe air superiority at least over Southern England. Next switch to bombing factories and ports.

5) Prepare for Sealion. I do only mean prepare because as we all know, Sealion is ASB. However in the heat of the moment, with luftwaffe air superiority over southern England and the ensuing mass hysteria, the invasion will seem like a very real possibility and Britain might bow out of the war.

What do you guys think? Would this work out or do you have alternative suggestions?
 

Deleted member 1487

I'll let others address the rest, but the He111 had double the payload of the Ki-21 and 200 miles less range. It had the 400 less miles range and double the payload load of the Ki-49.

At 1400kg bombs the Ju88 was faster and with external tanks could have the same range.

The Japanese bombers were not a viable option and the only strategic bomber the Axis made worth a damn, the P.108, wasn't ready until 1942.
 
I'll let others address the rest, but the He111 had double the payload of the Ki-21 and 200 miles less range. It had the 400 less miles range and double the payload load of the Ki-49.

At 1400kg bombs the Ju88 was faster and with external tanks could have the same range.

The Japanese bombers were not a viable option and the only strategic bomber the Axis made worth a damn, the P.108, wasn't ready until 1942.

Japanese bombers had amazing range, and good speed
That came from light structure, no armor, and no self sealing tanks for the very large fuel load.

Then add in worse defensive armament and arcs of fire than a Fw200, the Luftwaffe would die gallantly in them.

As they IJA tried to fix the Ki-49 by fixing those flaws, that hurt performance

The biggest problem isn't the lack of Bombers, but having to deal with Franco. Hitler didn't have enough goods to win him over, his price was roo high, and invading Spain? Makes you wonder why he would want a replay of Napoleon's Spanish Ulcer
 
1) Implement Operation Felix and seize Gibraltar. In doing so, get the Luftwaffe to at least partially knock out Force H. Once this is done, find a way to knock out the Suez Canal. The consensus in the Suez thread seems to be that the luftwaffe can't bomb the canal effectively so have the luftwaffe bomb the base facilities at Alexandria and try to sink a few ships. I'm aware that the luftwaffe had no previous experience sinking ships but Japanese training and tech can be sought in this regard. They were allies after all. With the Royal Navy vanquished from the Mediterranean, Uboats will be free to sink any shipping that passes through Suez effectively sealing of Suez and making the Mediterranean an Axis lake. After this, Malta and Cyprus will surrender once their food supplies run out.

The British are not going to let Gibraltar go without a fight. I recall reading somewhere there soldiers ready to literally seal themselves into the Rock on a suicide mission to observe German occupiers until supplies ran out. Even if they manage to force the British out of the Med, Malta and Cyprus are a far cry from the Home Islands. And it will be tough to keep the Med an Axis lake with harassment from the Royal Navy, who will probably see retaking the sea as a Bismarck-esque imperative.


2) Have the luftwaffe bomb Middle Eastern oil fields thereby rendering them inaccessible to the British.

OTL the Germans had feelers to the regime that took Iraq before the Anglo-Iraq War. That would have been the time to do it, but the Germans didn't give the rebels the resources they needed.


3) Don't invade the Soviet Union. This ensures continued access to oil and other vital war resources.

At the risk of blowing you off, this cannot be done without putting aside Nazi ideology. This was the war Hitler wanted, and he wanted to get it.

4) Germany needs heavy bombers. Order aircraft from Japan.

The Axis' biggest problem was the lack of coordination and working together we will see in time with the Allies. I doubt Japan would be willing to get them. Besides, how would they get them there? Would the Japanese want to fly state of the art bombers over the Soviet Union?

5) Prepare for Sealion. I do only mean prepare because as we all know, Sealion is ASB. However in the heat of the moment, with luftwaffe air superiority over southern England and the ensuing mass hysteria, the invasion will seem like a very real possibility and Britain might bow out of the war.

THIS could be doable, but you need to get that air superiority, and the Germans never seemed to be able to get there. It also requires the British public to become panicked, but if they got through the Blitz...

What do you guys think? Would this work out or do you have alternative suggestions?

Churchill said it himself: the U-Boat was what kept him awake at night. If Doenitz had the fleet he wanted during the first Happy Time, and they kept up the pressure...
 
Spain would require a heavy toll, perhaps it is feasible if Axis victories elsewhere make it look like they will win the war. To do that means either taking out the UK and France in North Africa or doing better in the Balkans. USSR is retooling it's army with T-34s and SVT-40s, the latter alone will make a difference once available in quantity.

Germany could trade tech with the Japanese, and the results could be interesting. But it would take some time before Homare engines, oxygen-driven torpedoes, and 20+ kt submarines appear in the German arsenal. The Japanese had a few areas they could readily compete in but they would benefit more than Germany. Japan did have some designs that needed improvement to be viable (maybe a ki-19, ki-74 designs, or later ki-67 with better engines could be interesting, especially the 67 or 74)
 
How does this:
The consensus in the Suez thread seems to be that the luftwaffe can't bomb the canal effectively so have the luftwaffe bomb the base facilities at Alexandria and try to sink a few ships

lead to this...

With the Royal Navy vanquished from the Mediterranean, Uboats will be free to sink any shipping that passes through Suez effectively sealing of Suez and making the Mediterranean an Axis lake.

?
 
1) Implement Operation Felix and seize Gibraltar.
Require Spanish cooperation, which simply was not forthcoming.

2) Have the luftwaffe bomb Middle Eastern oil fields thereby rendering them inaccessible to the British.
Impossible given the range.

Germany needs heavy bombers. Order aircraft from Japan.
Germany did not have the resources and industrial strength to acquire a adequate number of heavy bombers without crippling their war effort in another and more important sector. Why would the even more resource poor Japan be able to? And how are you going to get them from Japan?

3) Don't invade the Soviet Union. This ensures continued access to oil and other vital war resources.
Those war resources aren't free and the exchange rate is not going to remain favorable to the Germans. Stalin's going to start raising the price on what you pay in exchange in 1942 once he feels the Red Army has been rebuilt enough. Attack him then? Good luck fighting the rebuilt and reformed Red Army.

5) Prepare for Sealion. I do only mean prepare because as we all know, Sealion is ASB. However in the heat of the moment, with luftwaffe air superiority over southern England and the ensuing mass hysteria, the invasion will seem like a very real possibility and Britain might bow out of the war.
Given that air superiority was never achieved despite maximum effort? And that the British know they could still oppose any invasion with the navy and army with a hope of success? Won't work.

Churchill said it himself: the U-Boat was what kept him awake at night. If Doenitz had the fleet he wanted during the first Happy Time, and they kept up the pressure...
They lose as the U-Boat campaign accelerates US entry into the war and their productive capabilities means that the Germans are never going to sink enough ships.
 
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1) Yeah, Spain as a non-starter. It would take months to reach Gibraltar, then month to set up the siege and all that at the end of horrible infrastructure and supply chain. And all that to capture the place that by that time will no longer be all that important.

2) The British did not depend on those fields, but the US and Latin American ones.

3) Even if ideologically possible (and it was not), it would have put the German economy and war effort at the mercy of Stalin.

4) German problem was not so much lack of bombers, but the lack of fighters with range adequate to protect the bombers in order to make daylight bombing of Britain possible with acceptable rate of loss.

5) The Germans prepared for Sea Lion the best they could. The trouble for them is the British are aware of the advantage they have over the Germans and no amount of preparation the Germans are able to make will make them think otherwise.

One alternative route would be to go through Turkey. Yes it is the end of vulnerable single rail line. Yes bad terrain. But it is still damn sight better than any other alternative route to Middle East. It would still take a year or two, but...
 
The problem with the OP plan is that it relies most heavily of all on the one commodity the Germans don't have which is time. Even with Soviet supplies for which they were holding back most of their payments the Germans were running short of...well just about every commodity with which you make war. Oil alone was being consumed in excess of supplies at about 225,000 tonnes a year at this point.

The Germans have a narrow window during which they can successfully hope to invade the USSR which starts on June 22 1941 when the seasonal rains have cleared and the flooding dies down...at that point the clock is ticking and it is ticking fast. The British will not be easily taken down quickly. Sealion is not an option, the U-waffe needs time, Gibraltar won't fall without a fight and even then the British still have access to the Med and the Italians cannot exactly be relied on to take Egypt themselves so that means sending German troops and sending enough to do the job consumes precious stocks of oil and rubber among other things.

Now we now know with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight that some resources like oil could eventually be produced in sufficient quantities for Germany to stagger along but they had no foreknowledge of this and it did not remotely apply to all the goods they needed.

Plus on top of economics is ideology the Bolshevik Jewish Beast is the real enemy and on top of that is strategy while the Germans are burning up resources in the Med fighting exactly the kind of long range amphibious war that plays to British strengths and their weakness the USSR is quietly getting stronger and richer and most likely slowly putting an ever greater squeeze on Germany knowing full wel the Third Reich has sunk its fist into the British tar baby and pouring unlimited fresh tar is the USA.
 
I'd like to put Nazi ideology to one side and focus on the military options available to Germany after the Fall of France. The main objective is to get Britain to bow out. In my mind there are several ways this can be done.

1) Implement Operation Felix and seize Gibraltar. In doing so, get the Luftwaffe to at least partially knock out Force H. Once this is done, find a way to knock out the Suez Canal. The consensus in the Suez thread seems to be that the Luftwaffe can't bomb the canal effectively so have the Luftwaffe bomb the base facilities at Alexandria and try to sink a few ships. I'm aware that the Luftwaffe had no previous experience sinking ships but Japanese training and tech can be sought in this regard. They were allies after all. With the Royal Navy vanquished from the Mediterranean, U-boats will be free to sink any shipping that passes through Suez effectively sealing of Suez and making the Mediterranean an Axis lake. After this, Malta and Cyprus will surrender once their food supplies run out.
For Germany, there is no need to go into the med, and every reason not to, so no here.



2) Have the Luftwaffe bomb Middle Eastern oil fields thereby rendering them inaccessible to the British.
See number 1 above.



3) Don't invade the Soviet Union. This ensures continued access to oil and other vital war resources.
This is THE single most important change that could have helped Germany in 1940.



4)Germany needs heavy bombers. Order aircraft from Japan.
Germany needs to focus on destroying the shipping going into and out of the home islands. Diverting forces to fight in the MED us both harmful to this effort by taking away forces that could be better used elsewhere, and if it somehow succeeded, the UK’s being forced out (which isn’t going to happen) would then free up all the merchant shipping that was otherwise not going to be used to keep the UK in the war, now can be, making things even worse, (rather than better) for Germany. What Germany needed to do, was build a long ranged, land based, naval aviation force, to strike not where the UK has massed single engine fighters, but where her merchant shipping could not be covered by land based fighters. To build such a force, you need a POD years before the fall of France, and then you still need to account for the changes to Luftwaffe forces, and the cost of training such a force in mission types that historically the Germans neglected.



5)Prepare for Sealion. I do only mean prepare because as we all know, Sealion is ASB. However in the heat of the moment, with Luftwaffe air superiority over southern England and the ensuing mass hysteria, the invasion will seem like a very real possibility and Britain might bow out of the war.

What do you guys think? Would this work out or do you have alternative suggestions?
No comment here.:)
 
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