Agree with you on that.
Leaves one to think of a workaround this problem, of somehow avoid such a doomed confrontaton (i.e.: mines, subs, torpedo-bombers, StKa, etc.)
There are obviously quite a few workarounds, you can even make the KM stronger than OTL. Germany's problem though is the same as it faced pre-WW1 and pre-WW2 - no matter what point you go back to all the way back to 1871 the RN is much, much stronger and any obvious German naval buildup can only be aimed at one opponent.
Something I always ... wonder about.
When this arguement is brought up against Entente armies invading/violating/raping Germany in 1919 or 1923/24, it's handwaved away as "sheeps walking to their slaughter against the mighty Entente-Armies.
But,
"Dad's Army" together with the barely rescued remnants of a beaten Expedition Corps are able to easily fight off war-proven Wehrmacht-veterans, morally boosted by vistories rendered ASB even in their time but already scored by them.
Germany in 1918 was a broken nation - her people were starving, she was short of materials and she was starting to run short of manpower while facing the British Empire (with the Empire's manpower barely used), the vast untapped strength of the United States (not a perfect army but with the sheer weight of numbers and industrial strength to make up for their lack of experience) and a French army thirsting for revenge. I don't think 1919 would have been a total walkover but it would have ended in an Allied victory.
In 1940 the German army wasn't *that* experienced - Hitler demobilised quite a few divisions after the French surrender for a start and the troops had only actually been in action for a few months at the very most. Many of them were young conscripts. What they achieved in Poland and France was truly remarkable (although with some fairly big caveats on Polish weakness and two decades of French mistakes and British penny pinching) and I'm taking nothing away from the Heer but it wasn't a truly battle hardened force of veterans like, for example, some of the later German armies or the Red Army/British 8th Army of 1945 (for example).
Dad's Army is always portrayed as a bit of a joke but you have to remember that many of them were veterans of World War 1. They actually are much more experienced as soldiers than the Heer. They are out of date tactically but you don't need them to launch sweeping mechanised assaults, you just need them to dig in at a selected point and shoot at Germans until they're either ordered to retreat to another position or they're dead. Any WW1 veteran can dig and shoot.
On top of that they have the advantage that their supply lines (assuming the RAF can keep the Luftwaffe from breaking them of course) are secure and they are defending their homes and families with Churchill's cry of 'the hour has come, kill the Hun' ringing in their ears and the knowledge of what Germans were reputed to have done both to POWs and civilians in occupied territories in both wars.
Agree with you on that regarding OTL. Lack of longrange escorts and "proper heavy bombers" on the germans side have already been mentiond here also (though I don't know, what the last category would be usefull for in an invasion/landing scenario).
However, there are several, possible changes, that could/would alleviate these problem : i.e. Fw 187, no cutting off radae R&D (first, that come to my mind).
There are, of course, changes you can make with the Luftwaffe just as there are with the KM. You have problems when you start changing things though - the Heer relies on CAS as a substitute for their slow moving artillery to support the mechanised forces on their quick advances so you need to build a large number of Stuka/He111/Do17/Ju-88 equivalents no matter what (assuming that whatever changes you might have made still leaves the Germans using combined arms/Blitzkrieg type tactics of course).
Lack to see the relevance here.
A landing/invasion of the Britain main island would not be attempted, if not every other european opponent has been silenced ... or "allianced" (Molotov-Ribbentrop).
At some point between 1871 and 1940 Germany has to start building her combat power and become Europe's No.1, because they need to be able to invade France and secure their northern ports before they can plan an invasion of the UK - as soon as Germany begins to look like Europe's top dog the UK will begin to support any German enemy, just as we did when we were supporting Russia, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and various German states against Napoleon's France and before that we supported the Netherlands against Spain.
Only so true. But ... (has also already proposed IIRC) therefore are airborne troops usefull to capture "proper" harbourS as a possible, at least partial workaround.
Airborne troops are only useful when the enemy's air force is completely suppressed and we're back to the problem of how we change it so the Luftwaffe is strong enough to do that without losing either naval or ground power.
True, if you stick to the channel coast proper only.
Also : see above.
Actually most of the British coastline is fairly bad for amphibious operations, either because of the coastline itself or the land behind it. There's a reason we haven't been successfully invaded for 1,000 years and it's not just the navy. We're an immensely difficult place to land an army.