Could Germany have invaded Britain in 1942/1943 if...

sharlin

Banned
My revulsion for the Nazi fans was said so very well by Calbear.

People hate the Reich because it was Evil with a face. Stalin was an unspeakable bastard who deserved to burn in hell. Mao deserves to burn in an even hotter lava pit. Neither of them come close to the horror that was the Third Reich. Stalin, Mao, and most of the other despicable mass killers in human history killed for rather pointless political reasons and/or massive paranoia.

Hitler and the Reich killed based on being born in an ethnic group they disliked. What is actually surprising is that more revoltion isn't felt toward Imperial Japan, which committed enormous war crimes against people for the sin of not being Japanese.
 
Hitler and the SS look tame compared to Stalin and Beria in comparison sure they Nazis were completely bat shit but Stalin was completely fucking insane. How many did he kill 30-40- 50 million of his OWN people.
 
The difference between Mao/Stalin and Hitler is the motivation.

What Mao and Stalin did was awful but I can at least understand, although not empathise with, their actions. Both of them were motivated at least in part by a desire to improve their country, according to their ideology.

Hitler's ideology was that people should die based on their ethnicity, which was in turn based on utterly insane ramblings.
 
So let me get this straight. A new user posts a thread. The first response from long-standing members of this rather respectable board is to...insult the OP?

At least Sharlin, between his comments of disdain for the topic (and Nazi fans, something the OP, or anybody in the thread, has claimed to be), contributed significantly to thread with his views on the topic itself.

I don't see the point in users bandwagoning and going on to detract from the thread instead of contribute. Constructive criticism contributes. Calling the OP a liar, unoriginal, and entitled and other users disingenuous is beneath the civil standards discussions like this should have. The OP was never offensive or being intentionally obtuse. He wasn't trying to wank the Nazis. He was just being new, something everybody in this thread should sympathize with.

So seriously, topics like

Hitler and the SS look tame compared to Stalin and Beria in comparison sure they Nazis were completely bat shit but Stalin was completely fucking insane. How many did he kill 30-40- 50 million of his OWN people.

and

My revulsion for the Nazi fans was said so very well by Calbear.

are both very fine and dandy, but not when neither are remotely related to

Could Germany have invaded Britain in 1942/1943 if...


No but seriously guys. Lets not turn this into another "omgwhowasworst" thread because those are more overdone than Sealion threads you guys are rallying against.
 
If Germany decides not to go east and that Sealion is not going to happen, then the LW might start demanding the development of heavier and heavier bombers and more capable fighters in order to destroy the country's ability to rebuild.

But this wouldn't be something that would bear fruit until 1943 when the effects of no invasion and no USA DOW really start sinking in. With no invasion in the cards, the British would be able to devote naval assets elsewhere.

Meanwhile, in North Africa...?

The LW would mostly stick to OTL equipment. The thing they lacked the most (like anyone else at the time except the IJN) was a fighter that had the range to escort the bombers all the way and could engage other fighters. Since both sides developed their fighters quite fast OTL, it would be Bf109F and FW190 vs Spitfire V. This gives the Germans and edge until the Spitfire IX comes along.
 
The Luftwaffe lacked any kind of strategic direction or purpose that would allow it to execute a focused strategic campaign against Britain; in essence it had no figure like Arthur Harris to take singular control over operations. Instead it had a number of leaders, some intelligent and some not, who had very different ideas on how the air campaign should be carried out. The shift from the Battle of Britain to the Blitz was one example of a failure to maintain a singular strategic goal; the Luftwaffe was by no means materially defeated, but it did lose the will to maintain its campaign of air superiority operations. Likewise during the Blitz itself German efforts were diluted by attacks against shipping, industrial targets, civilians, transportation, etc. Without any method to accurately identify how much damage was being done, the Luftwaffe was fighting blind and attacked based off of the varied opinions of those in charge rather than material results.

As Britain received material aid from the US, and eventual US entry into the war, it became better able to counter the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe could have maintained a campaign in 1941 against Britain without destroying itself; it would have been costly and killed many skilled pilots, and achieved few results, but it still could have done it. By 1942-43 the costs had become so massive that Luftwaffe raids against Britain for the remainder of the war were self destructive.
 
*winces* you're going to make me do it ain't you...


https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=234421 Best Axiswank thread EU. (Seriously it is a comedy goldmine. As you can tell, later on we gave up trying to educate the writer and just ended out having a laugh. Also it gave rise to the term NotNazi's.)

Oh and don't forget this drumroll of 'dafuq!?' moments:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=230089&highlight=Frisian+Islands

although then again the OP was basically a troll and trying to get people who like the WAllies to react angrilly and start arguing. Instead folks just picked everything he wrote apart.

YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF!
Wait. I just read the first few paragraphs of that . An attack on India über super effective double critical hits Britain . Wot da hell. I must write a parody of a troll story now!
 
No. What you actually did was deliberately ignore the sticky at the top of this forum and what you actually did was deliberately lie when you claimed this wasn't a Sealion thread.
Or s/he honestly missed it. As for it not being a Sea Lion thread I can kind of see what was meant by that if you considered Sea Lion to be merely the late 1940/early 1941 operation and not the overarching goal of invading the UK, so if it was a couple years later with very different conditions then not think of it as a continuation but completely distinct thing. But nice of you to jump to the worst possible assumption and accuse them of lying in their very first post.
 
Hitler and the SS look tame compared to Stalin and Beria in comparison sure they Nazis were completely bat shit but Stalin was completely fucking insane. How many did he kill 30-40- 50 million of his OWN people.

Actually if you count the number of civilians killed by Hitler's war machine and take into account some recent re-examination of documents which have pushed the death toll of the Holocaust up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 million people Hitler comes pretty close to tying with Stalin and Mao only wins in the body county category because he had a LOT more people he could kill.

And if you compare Stalin to Hitler Stalin was a cold-fish, evil, ruthless sonofabitch and the world would definitely be a better place if he died of smallpox as a child. That said his particular brand of evil wasn't much different from Ivan the Terrible, Qin Shihuangdi, or any other especially brutal iron-fisted dictator. At the end of the day Stalin was, essentially, a paranoid but mostly rational individual who killed for reasons not to dissimilar from other monsters like him in history: because he perceived his victims as potential threats to the regime. If you weren't seen as a threat then whatever, go on your way citizen, just don't stray beyond the straight and narrow.

Hitler was nuttier than squirrel diarrhea. He drowned Europe in the bloodiest, most destructive war in human history in defiance of all rational sense, realpolitick, and other little obstacles like reality. On top of that he earmarked whole swathes of people for enslavement and total extermination for the simple crime of being born in the wrong country, speaking the wrong language, or to the wrong religious group. If he had actually accomplished his insane vision then everything from the Urals to the Pyrenees would have been consumed in an orgy of destruction of the likes of which the world has, thank all the Holy Powers, never seen and hopefully will never see.

We saw the results of Stalin's madness: a brutal, repressive dictatorship that ultimately imploded on itself four decades later, disowned the man shortly after his death, and backed away from his worst practices for perfectly justified reasons. Say what you will about Soviet state socialism it did not have embedded in its DNA the same unquenchable desire to gorge itself on the blood of millions in the same way Nazi ideology and Mein Kampf demanded as an existential need. On top of that when it comes to Hitler there is a certain element of, "There but for the grace of God go I" that you don't get with Stalin. Many of Hitler's ideas like eugenics, racial hygiene, concentration camps, and the like were all inspired by earlier American and British practices and were in some way or another accepted practices in Western society right up until 1945 and the liberation of the first concentration camps.

Stalin happened because he was a ruthless monster who took control of a political system. Hitler, in many ways, was the manifestation par excellance of all of the worst aspects of Western industrialism turned up to 11.
 
The Luftwaffe lacked any kind of strategic direction or purpose that would allow it to execute a focused strategic campaign against Britain; in essence it had no figure like Arthur Harris to take singular control over operations. Instead it had a number of leaders, some intelligent and some not, who had very different ideas on how the air campaign should be carried out. The shift from the Battle of Britain to the Blitz was one example of a failure to maintain a singular strategic goal; the Luftwaffe was by no means materially defeated, but it did lose the will to maintain its campaign of air superiority operations. Likewise during the Blitz itself German efforts were diluted by attacks against shipping, industrial targets, civilians, transportation, etc. Without any method to accurately identify how much damage was being done, the Luftwaffe was fighting blind and attacked based off of the varied opinions of those in charge rather than material results.

As Britain received material aid from the US, and eventual US entry into the war, it became better able to counter the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe could have maintained a campaign in 1941 against Britain without destroying itself; it would have been costly and killed many skilled pilots, and achieved few results, but it still could have done it. By 1942-43 the costs had become so massive that Luftwaffe raids against Britain for the remainder of the war were self destructive.

Agree about the lack of strategic direction with the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.

However, I struggle to see how the Luftwaffe could have continued the BoB into 1941 without pretty much ceasing to exist. The quality/leadership of the Luftwaffe was quickly getting itself killed or captured over Britain. Losses of especially Bf-109's were bigger then the replacements built whilst OTOH Fighter Command was actually growing during the BoB. Further the Luftwaffe hardly had any reserves, unlike the French or British f.ex.

According to "The most dangerous enemy" several of the high ranking leaders of the Luftwaffe calculated that they needed killratio's of 5:1 in order to win the BoB.

And the KM never contemplated that. The Z plan viewed for the twin goals of superiority over the Soviet Baltic (mostly) and Northern Fleets while retaining a commerce raiding capability. That's why the GZ was such a strange design, being meant, like the soviet Kiev class carriers of the 70s, to support bastion defence or assist Surface Action Groups.
In fact, the Z Plan KM looks a lot like the 70/80s soviet navy, with much the same goals and limitations when facing the Western navies.

Do you have any sources for this?
 

Flubber

Banned
Or s/he honestly missed it.


If they honestly missed it, if they honestly didn't know about the issues surrounding Sealion on this forum, then why did they bother to write:

[This is not a sea lion thread!!

Why did they add that proviso if they truly didn't know?

But nice of you to jump to the worst possible assumption and accuse them of lying in their very first post.

Just as it's nice for you to play the White Knight and provide them with an excuse: "I really didn't know about Sealion even though I specifically mentioned it in my post. Cross my heart and hope to die."
 
I am not taking this thread as an idea that Hitlerand the nazis were nice folk.

As a Brit it is terrifying but also fascinating.

I think that such an invasion would fail in due course

I do not see aircraft carriers on the Nazi side playing any major role
 
Agree about the lack of strategic direction with the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.

However, I struggle to see how the Luftwaffe could have continued the BoB into 1941 without pretty much ceasing to exist. The quality/leadership of the Luftwaffe was quickly getting itself killed or captured over Britain. Losses of especially Bf-109's were bigger then the replacements built whilst OTOH Fighter Command was actually growing during the BoB. Further the Luftwaffe hardly had any reserves, unlike the French or British f.ex.

According to "The most dangerous enemy" several of the high ranking leaders of the Luftwaffe calculated that they needed killratio's of 5:1 in order to win the BoB.



Do you have any sources for this?

War with the USSR was built into the Nazi DNA. Compare build plans for the soviet Baltic and Northern Fleets with the Z Plan and there is a neat balance. Project naval fleets for 1942 and see what the KM could actually do. It just makes sense.
 
Why did they add that proviso if they truly didn't know?

Are you a mind reader? If so, apply to be a moderator so you can use your ability to measure intention with a 100% accuracy to moderate instead of dumping in threads you don't like.

Just as it's nice for you to play the White Knight and provide them with an excuse: "I really didn't know about Sealion even though I specifically mentioned it in my post. Cross my heart and hope to die."


You are completely right. The civil thing to do is to shit in the yard until the neighbors that just moved in leave.

Back on topic, is there any peace offer the Germans could offer that Churchill or the British public would accept to end the war? There really doesn't seem to be much of a way to change the situation on the ground. Without a US invasion or Russian war, the Germans aren't going to invade the island and the British won't liberate Europe.
 
Wow ok so that was my first post on this forum, and I am amazed at how hostile, aggressive and frankly offensive some people are. I presented a "what if" scenario with not entirely outrageous parameters and some people just went crazy! What's that about?!

I personally don't believe that Germany would have prevailed in my scenario and I certainly don't wish they had! What I was expecting was a rational discussion as to what might have happened.... Is that too much to ask?! Apparently so.

Unfortunately this is par for the course. Queries about how the Nazis could do different/better is taken as proof of supporting the Nazis in real life. Although for some reason supporting Great Britain doesn't automatically mean one favors running the biggest drug cartel in history, starving millions of Indians to death, or gasing Kurds.

And I find this morbid fascination with the destruction of Great Britain highly offensive. I would put it in the same category with those who post Confederate victory threads in pre 1900. They may spin a gloss of intellectual curiosity but there's all too often an unhealthy fascination with a thoroughly unpleasant regime underlying it.

It's because Great Britain did incredibly well IOTL. It went from a second-rate kingdom on the fringes of Europe to ruling a quarter of the globe. Seeing it wrecked or sharply reduced is a significant departure from OTL, which makes it much more interesting than the OTL Anglo-wank dialed up to eleven.

Plus there is the Perfidious Albion angle to consider, and also (to use a WW1 example) the hypocrisy of getting after German u-boat violations of maritime law when the history of the Royal Navy is a history of said institution wiping its butt with maritime law.
 
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Agree about the lack of strategic direction with the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.

However, I struggle to see how the Luftwaffe could have continued the BoB into 1941 without pretty much ceasing to exist. The quality/leadership of the Luftwaffe was quickly getting itself killed or captured over Britain. Losses of especially Bf-109's were bigger then the replacements built whilst OTOH Fighter Command was actually growing during the BoB. Further the Luftwaffe hardly had any reserves, unlike the French or British f.ex.

My claim was in regards to operations during the Blitz, not the Battle of Britain; the Luftwaffe could never win a campaign of air superiority missions. But it could maintain a night bombing campaign against British industry and cities without being crippled by attrition. The actual results will be negligible and not worth the losses, but it could still do it for another year at least. Aircraft loss rates for the Luftwaffe between December 1940 and June 1941 on all fronts amounted to 40% of its structure; large and dangerous in the long run, but still replaceable.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Hitler and the SS look tame compared to Stalin and Beria in comparison sure they Nazis were completely bat shit but Stalin was completely fucking insane. How many did he kill 30-40- 50 million of his OWN people.

Really?

Hitler and his merry band of sociopaths constructed a series of camps with the SOLE PURPOSE of exterminating people based on the ethnic origin. They didn't chose certain adults, they didn't even choose entire classes of adults, they didn't chose foreigners, or traitors to the religious or political belief system in place at the time.

They simply said "Jew - exterminate. Gypsy - Exterminate" "Slav (with dark hair) - Exterminate" "Slav (with blond hair/blue eyes) - enslave adults and older children, work to death; send younger children to be raised as Aryans in Germany".

They industrialized MURDER. They killed ELEVEN MILLION HUMAN BEINGS, including men who had earned the medals for valor fighting alongside Hitler and in the air beside Goring in WW I for the crime of BEING BORN.

Hitler and his supporters intended to massacre every Jew in Europe, every Gypsy, every Pole. They intended to depopulate the entire General Government region and replace the population with German settlers (one reason for the baby snatching mentioned above is that they didn't have enough Germans to complete the task so the managed to construct this fantasy world where the "Aryan" looking children were actually from "Germanic" stock and weren't actually Slavs at all).

The leadership of the Third Reich was literally evil. The Reich took 11,000,000 people and turned them into air pollution for no reason at all. Did it in an industrialized manner, the better to avoid damaging the moral of their troops. Used trains to ship the victims to the death camps even when the country was being overrun. The killed 400,000 Hungarian Jews in less than three months (May to July 1944) in a race against time to ensure they were all killed before the Red Army could put a stop to it (BTW: That is Stalin's Red Army). They killed this population that had been protected previously by the Hungarian government in such vast numbers and so quickly that the crematoriums of Auschwitz couldn't keep up with the work load.

Even Mao and Stalin had some sort of political motivation for their crimes, as detestable as both men and the movements they created and expanded were, at least they had a reason, even if the reason didn't and couldn't begin to justify what they did, it was a reason that could be articulated and understood. Both of these monsters deserve to burn in Hell, along with their helpers, but even they deserve a better fate than Hitler and his goons.

I have to assume that you simply have not read up on the Reich's actual plans and what the regime actually did. I recommend you do so and quickly.
 
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