Can Nazi Germany Win the War Against the United Kingdom?

For as long as I've been on this board, no longer than that, I've heard the impossibility of operation Sealion. I respect that conclusion entirely; but given that an invasion is an absolute impossibility, is there any way for Germany to actually completely win the war in the west? By victory I simply mean a situation where the UK is brought to the table and forced to terms at least marginally favorable to Germany. Just to get the argument over semantics over with.
 
When we accept that America is already assisting us, and the USSR's tune is going to change eventually - that is, that Britain need only hang on - then no, with a PoD of September '39, I can't see any way for Germany to win in the west.

While America and Russia exist, total victory and the reversal of the German conquest of Europe is possible, so Britain has no reason to make peace of our own accord.

We accept that invasion is impossible, so what's left? The submarine effort didn't work IOTL, and any expansion of that effort means the contraction of another one. The BoB was basically unwinnable.

The most threatening thing is for the Nazis to never fight any BoB and concentrate on the Med - but North Africa is, in my opinion, a waste of time. In the highly unlikley event of our losing Egypt - the convoys keep going round the Cape like they are already, and we hang on. We'd lost France, what's Egypt?
 
not without a massive expansion of the U-Boat campaign and a long blockade and siege plus the elimination (somehow?) of the threat from the USA and USSR. Give Germany a few years with the resources of Occupied Europe and no distractions anywhere else and it might be able to fight the British empire to a standstill. An actual Versailles style peace is ASB without a very early POD.
 
is there any way for Germany to actually completely win the war in the west? By victory I simply mean a situation where the UK is brought to the table and forced to terms at least marginally favorable to Germany.

So which one do you mean? It's not too difficult to imagine a war weary Britain suffering from the U-boat attacks and without direct American intervention to give hope accepting status quo ante in the West, excepting possibly A-L. That is certainly a peace favorable to Germany, since it frees them up for the East and restores 1914 borders, but it is pretty much impossible to imagine the paranoid Nazis offering anything like those terms, since it'll have to be really freeing the conquered Western nations, not leaving puppets behind keeping the flow of resources back to Germany.

If on the other hand, you want terms where Britain accepts complete German hegemony over the Continent, you will need either successful invasion, or a submarine blockade several times more complete than the OTL one at its height.
 

Markus

Banned
For as long as I've been on this board, no longer than that, I've heard the impossibility of operation Sealion. I respect that conclusion entirely; but given that an invasion is an absolute impossibility, is there any way for Germany to actually completely win the war in the west? By victory I simply mean a situation where the UK is brought to the table and forced to terms at least marginally favorable to Germany. Just to get the argument over semantics over with.

I´ll put it the other way round and ask how could the UK have won the war? The answer is, not on it´s own but only if the USSR and the USA join the war, otherwise Germany wins by simply not loosing.
 
I´ll put it the other way round and ask how could the UK have won the war? The answer is, not on it´s own but only if the USSR and the USA join the war, otherwise Germany wins by simply not loosing.

There I disagree. Britain not winning does not imply Germany winning. Thanks to the disruption of German international trade that even a sporadically hostile Britain guarantees, Germany has the long run choice between economic collapse (and descending to the state of North Korea writ large) or becoming a vassal of the Soviet Union as the Sovs ramp up their extortion as their army is rebuilt following the purges. I would say neither qualifies as victory, in the long run, not even compared to what happened OTL.
 
You would need to define "winning" a war in the west for Nazi Germany might view being given a free hand in the east as "victory" in the west which is suggestive of a political as opposed to a military solution.
 

Markus

Banned
There I disagree. Britain not winning does not imply Germany winning. Thanks to the disruption of German international trade that even a sporadically hostile Britain guarantees, Germany has the long run choice between economic collapse (and descending to the state of North Korea writ large) or becoming a vassal of the Soviet Union as the Sovs ramp up their extortion as their army is rebuilt following the purges. I would say neither qualifies as victory, in the long run, not even compared to what happened OTL.

After the Fall of France Germany controlled western, northern, central and southern Europe fully and much of eastern Europe too. As long as the USSR does not enter the war, Germany has nothing to worry about, militarily and economically. I dare say especially economically, the once important Narvik became a backwater once the ore deposits in France fell in German hands.
 
There was a way to win--simply keep up the pressure and bluff the Brits about Sea Lion. This presupposes that Halifax becomes PM rather than Churchill. With Halifax the Brits probably would have agreed to terms that allowed them to keep their Empire (which was what Hitler wanted them to do).

But let's say Churchill is PM and the Brits fight on alone. No German invasion of the Soviet Union (or, improbably, a very swift conquest of the Soviets). Compromises with the Japanese and no Pearl Harbor. The Brits might lose a huge chunk of their Empire but not the portions that the Nazis need sea power to take. If the Brits don't have to worry about convoys to the Soviet Union and bombing raids over Germany and interminable seesaw battles in North Africa, then they will concentrate their totally mobilized resources on (a) winning the war against the U-boats, (b) developing night fighters to stop any further blitzes; and (c) developing the A-bomb (they knew how to do it but gave the info to the U.S. figuring it could concentrate greater resources on the problem).

The British scientists were really formidable in the area of radar and in the long run were capable of greater feats than the Germans. I think they would have defeated even the electroboats (especially if one assumes the U.S. would do aggressive convoy protection even without being an official noncombatant). Also one should not count out Canada as the probable location of a Brit a-bomb project and as the country that, by the end of the war, had the world's fourth largest navy.

If the Brits were seriously developing the a-bomb, the U.S., even as a noncombatant nation, would put money and resources into the project. It would get done maybe by 1946-47. Of course if the Germans weren't fighting the Soviets (or had speedily defeated them) then they would have the resources to move on this. But their political and economic system was so screwed up that they would probably move slowly. The very fact they start moving on it, though, would scare the bejesus out of the U.S., and they would join with the Brits and Canadians to rush it to completion.
 

Kharn

Banned
IF Germany never goes forward with BoB and that instead becomes the Battle of Germany, they can slowly bleed the British dry. Mostly because many of the things that were in Britain favor would be in Germany's favor and they would lose far less trained personnel. And they could fight longer. And a host of other things. If they think they can spare the experience and start training new pilots with the experienced ones and so forth, you could see the British eventually just giving up the bombing campaign. In order to finish it up, you would need an America not nearly so friendly to Britain and the USSR to drastically reduce both of their effectiveness against the Reich and no declaration of war from the Reich and maybe even them disowning the Japanese after Pearl.

So no Roosevelt, definitely, and at least no Goering. With this, the Reich could face a considerably more drawn out Eastern campaign with the Soviets having to split their industrial might to things other than direct war arms and having to decide who to feed at certain points. Their Armies will be less coordinated, have less air cover, somewhat fewer tanks, and the time between renewed offensives will take longer at first.

This means that Kursk could go differently and that the Nazis might try a few counter-attacks here and there before settling for fortifying the Eastern front as much as possible with many more Panthers and 88 cannons everywhere. Hell, with the air wars over Germany becoming more and more favorable, Britain might bow out by 44 and free up considerable resources and Air Power.

sorry bout that, got carried away.
 
After the Fall of France Germany controlled western, northern, central and southern Europe fully and much of eastern Europe too. As long as the USSR does not enter the war, Germany has nothing to worry about, militarily and economically. I dare say especially economically, the once important Narvik became a backwater once the ore deposits in France fell in German hands.

Not true. German occupied Europe remains critically short of chromium and nickel, meaning the steel industry cannot be maintained without Soviet imports. They can't get natural rubber, or petroleum in sufficient quantities without relying on the Soviet Union. Even coal, while Germany was a major exporter, German occupied Europe was not. Much of it had depended on British coal before the war, and either Soviet coal is obtained, or Germany shuts down most of the economy of Europe outside of Germany itself. This is only made worse by both synthetic fuels and rubber using up large quantities of coal. If Germany's historical programs of expansion of both to make up the shortage of the former and impossibility of acquiring the latter, the coal shortage would only get worse. Not to mention food and whole range of agricultural products, for which German occupied Europe was also a net importer.

Either international trade is restored, or Germany has to get all of the above from the Soviet Union which gives Stalin the means to demand vassalship. Or Germany tries autarky, which leads to North Korea.
 

Commissar

Banned
Paul Lakowski on Axis History Forum wrote of one way of defeating UK.

Just scroll down a bit.

I agree about the usage of strategic bombers...maritime role is paramount. I was reading that the allies produced 15000 -25000 bombers per year so the loss of a few thousand was a drop in the bucket. Even still they could never muster more than 5000 bombers on any given day since a large number of damaged bombers were just left about while they tried to repair them.

Based on that , even a optimistic 2000-3000 He-177 production, its unlikely to allow more than 400-600 bombers on any given day. Now given the bomber loss rate demonstrated in 1944 , it would not be productive to waste such a small bomber force on trying to ID and hammer UK industries. A better strategy would be to hit shipping instead.

According to Churchills war diaries the UK relied on 15 million tons of supplies shipped to it each year in peace time and another 16 million more in war time. About 1/3 of this total was fuel, so britain was extremely vulnerable to blockading. From what I can gather the UK merchant fleet was about 4000 ships before the war to which I guess the common wealth could supply 1000 and Norway added another 1000 when she was overrun. Thats 6000 not counting the USA which could add another 4000-6000 mid war. The UBoat campaign while it was quite effective in the beginning of the war at best matched the yearly shipyard building rate of 1.25 million tons. So no matter how many UBoats you add they would never have been able to stop this force.

YOu can envisage an entire strategy to defeat the western allies based on blockading the UK as a launch point for any invasion etc. In addition to the supplies needed for common wealth troops , the USA would also have to ship 64 million tons over two years in the build up to Normandy. Thats a shipping requirement of roughly

30million tons in 1941
40 million tons in 1942
50 million tons in 1943
70million tons in 1944

So one could theorise that if 30million tons get through, only strategic defence is possible while if 40 million tons can be mustered an invasion like in North Africa can be pulled off and 50 million tons = Italy scale invasion , while it requires the 70 million to pull of a DDay level invasion.

The strategy should then be to remove 10-20 million tons delivery per year or more than 10 times what was sunk! It should be noted that a damaged ship is out of operation for months if not years awaiting repairs and thus it may not be nessesary to sink the ship. It may be that damaging the ships is sufficent to remove them from the delivery bridge.

Historically the Germans also relied on 150-200 maritime bombers/patrol planes on any given day, across all theaters . So going to the 600 figure could atleast tripple the destruction rate from the sky. Any one got any figures for the yearly rate at which allied shipping was attacked by Luftwaffe planes?

More Condor bombers in the recon role and coordinating role [Uboats surface ships and Luftwaffe] could be vital in this role, but until a long range decent bomber firing ASMs , appears, this sink/damage rate could never be achieved by warships alone. Had the prewar german guided missile programs been give their due , they could have resulted in a "X-1 Fritx X" ASM by 1941 to allow high altitude Condors to not only Co-ordinate intercepts but contribute to the shooting.


From what I can determine the Germans produced about 1400 x FritzX ASM and ~ 12,000 Hs-293 ASMs. But at most 1/4 of these missiles were ever used? One case sited 500 sorties with Hs-293 equipped planes resulted in 500 missile being fired and 50% hit rate on 83 ships [20%] damaged of which some were sunk. Given a high enough priority these ASM could have been produced at a rate of 20-30000 per year netting 2000-3000 ships damaged/sunk per year....provided of course you develope manufacture and field sufficent numbers of maritime bombers.


I wonder how much time could have been shaved on the He-177 production start, if the bomber had been built as a standard 4 engined bomber with no divebombing , from the start?

The Do-217 is another ideal platform for high altitude recon/strike role closer to home.

Perhaps this is more of what you are looking for?
 

Markus

Banned
So there might be some economic challanges for the Germans, which are dwarfed by the military challanges the UK faces. But if the USSR and the USA don´t join the war and better do so sooner than later, the best the UK can do is put pressure on the axis economy. That is not going to win them the war. Especially not since their own economy was also under pressure.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
The UK would not, on it's own, be able to DEFEAT the Reich. Stop them at the Channel Coast of France, and even defeat them in Africa, absolutely & probably respectively. Win the Battle of the Atlantic? Maybe (Ultra was a key, but so was enough shipping and escorts).

That does not mean the Reich wins. You wind up with some version of OTL Cold War with both sides looking to ensure the other doesn't gain enough strength to win.
 
So there might be some economic challanges for the Germans, which are dwarfed by the military challanges the UK faces. But if the USSR and the USA don´t join the war and better do so sooner than later, the best the UK can do is put pressure on the axis economy. That is not going to win them the war. Especially not since their own economy was also under pressure.

Don't know why you are mixing up the comparisons. German economic challenges are effectively unsolvable as long as Britain is at war (and Germany does not conquer the USSR). British economic challenges depend on how well they do in the Battle of the Atlantic, and are essentially solved if they win.

As for military challenges, that faced by Britain in winning the war on its own are huge, but no more so than that faced by Germany in winning the war, which would require either invasion or total submarine blockade. Again, my entire point was that Britain failing to win does not equal Germany winning. A military stalemate with the Atlantic reasonably open to British trade but no hope of Britain actually retaking the Continent is not winning by default for Germany, but rather a choice between becoming a Soviet vassal or economic collapse.

In other words, Britain only has to not lose to ensure Germany loses, which puts the burden of achieving victory on Germany. Well that, or Germany offers a reasonable peace that is acceptable to Britain, which as mentioned above, means mostly Status Quo Ante in the West.
 
What's the effect on The UK if FDR doesn't run and the American President between 1941-1945 is much more of an isolationist? Someone like Bob Taft for instance. That is, what happens to the United Kingdom if you remove Lend Lease and the possibility of American intervention in the near term from the equation?
 

Markus

Banned
Don't know why you are mixing up the comparisons. German economic challenges are effectively unsolvable as long as Britain is at war (and Germany does not conquer the USSR). British economic challenges depend on how well they do in the Battle of the Atlantic, and are essentially solved if they win.

I´m sceptical about the scope of the problems the Axis might face. Without a war with the USSR, the Axis consumes a lot less resources. The demand for oil was rather low anyway, as coal was the main fuel. Just from memory I can tell you that Belguim and Frence had a lot of it too.

With regard to the UK. They had not lost the BoA by Dec.7th, 1941 but not won it either. They had run out of foreign exchange already and grew more and more dependant on LL.


As for military challenges, that faced by Britain in winning the war on its own are huge, but no more so than that faced by Germany in winning the war, which would require either invasion or total submarine blockade. Again, my entire point was that Britain failing to win does not equal Germany winning. A military stalemate with the Atlantic reasonably open to British trade but no hope of Britain actually retaking the Continent is not winning by default for Germany, but rather a choice between becoming a Soviet vassal or economic collapse.

In other words, Britain only has to not lose to ensure Germany loses, which puts the burden of achieving victory on Germany. Well that, or Germany offers a reasonable peace that is acceptable to Britain, which as mentioned above, means mostly Status Quo Ante in the West.


You can say the same in reverse. Germany not defeating the UK does not mean the UK is winning as the UK lacks the means to put effective military pressure on Germany. It´s hopes depend on the actions of others. If these other do not act like IOTL there go the UK´s chances of winning.
 
You can say the same in reverse. Germany not defeating the UK does not mean the UK is winning as the UK lacks the means to put effective military pressure on Germany. It´s hopes depend on the actions of others. If these other do not act like IOTL there go the UK´s chances of winning.

Indeed, but as pointed out, Britain not losing means Germany loses, while Germany not losing does not necessarily imply Britain loses. A stalemate favors Britain unless Germany successfully invades the USSR.

The demand for oil was rather low anyway, as coal was the main fuel. Just from memory I can tell you that Belguim and Frence had a lot of it too.

Yes they did...and the combined production of Belgium and France was about 1/3 that of the Ruhr. Germany had plenty of coal. The problem was that France and Italy imported a great deal of coal from Britain and the U.S. prewar, and Germany had to make up that shortfall or lose their respective resource bases, for instance, the French alumium industry which needed that coal for the electricity. Germany had to provide this additional coal despite the synthetic fuel and rubber programs demanding much more coal now that natural supplies overseas have been cut off. It also couldn't short it's prewar trade of coal to Sweden in exchange for the high quality Swedish iron ore, or to Romania for oil, or to Turkey for cotton and chromium.

Germany was not exactly swimming in resources before Barbarossa you know. It could keep going on prewar stocks for a while longer but they wouldn't last forever, and the Soviets were becoming steadily more vocal in demanding payment for the resource infusions of the MR Pact.
 
All of western europe is an energy deficit - ie it requires significant imports of food and energy resources to function at a modern level (regardless of the amount of coal, and this includes britain). Conquering western europe put more strain on the german economy for very little gain.

Does the british economy have a point failure weakness? Is it oil, the same as the germans? If so, then this is the basis for a different strategic plan for the BoA/BoB as germany cannot win a total tonnage war.
 
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