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

Then the p38 lightning i think

The P38 didn't quite prove superior to its opponents while escorting bombers. The high speed attacks it made on Japanese fighters are fine for free hunt missions but P38 having to stick with a bomber force and escort it would have to dogfight, which was not its strong suit.
 
Well, the Germans could have invaded the UK in 1942/43, the problem is(for the Germans anyway) that, of the initial force sent across the channel, only a small fraction would have actually managed to finish the journey.

Let's say about 10 divisions are slated for the invasion and disembark on the continental side of the Channel. Of that, the vast majority(let's say 8-9 divisions of manpower) are killed enroute either as a result of the poorly suited craft, poorly formulated plan, lack of proper cooperation between the different branches of the Wermacht, or direct enemy action. This force will not be a single coherent unit, but rather be comprised of the survivors of the total force, so you're looking at enough men from ten different divisions that have been scrapped together to form one or two whole or partial divisions. This force will have no intact command structure, but rather an ad hoc one set up by whatever officers make it across. It's even possible that they don't have anyone above the rank of captain or even lieutenant as a result of the massive numbers of casualties. This force will in all likelihood have an incredibly lousy composition, so we're looking at a division or two with very few actual front line infantry or armor, but a ton of support and artillery elements or something else equally unsuited for the purpose of securing and breaking out of a beachhead.


So, now you've got a severely understrengthed force arriving on the British channel coast, they are tired, half-drowned, disorganized, their order of battle has been completely shot to hell, and the equipment and supplies that they have access to are probably completely unsuited to whatever forces did manage to make it to shore. Air support will be limited at best as the Germans will never manage to attain anything even resembling air superiority over the British isles. The Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine will have made huge sacrifices in opening the window for the invasion force to land. A window which will remain open for a week or two at best, and quite possibly less than a day in any realistic scenario, thus leading to this invasion force being almost completely cut off from resupply or reinforcement incredibly quickly. This is of course assuming that the force in question isn't completely overrun well before said window is closed anyway.

Rather than serve to drive the British to the negotiating table, such an invasion would only serve to embolden and strengthen the resolve of the British people as well as strengthen the alliance between the British and Americans as American troops stationed on the British island will undoubtedly be involved in the action in some way. Likewise, it will only serve to further weaken the case of the isolationists in America as a cross-channel invasion will only show that the Germans are interested in far more than just continental Europe.

In the end, such an invasion will actually shorten the war if anything, as the Germans will have just wasted ten perfectly good divisions, and the KM and LW will have been thoroughly mauled by the fanatical response of the Royal Navy and RAF in defending their homeland.

Mind you, this is probably an optimistic scenario from a German standpoint.

As the saying goes, the only winning move is not to play.
 
The P38 didn't quite prove superior to its opponents while escorting bombers. The high speed attacks it made on Japanese fighters are fine for free hunt missions but P38 having to stick with a bomber force and escort it would have to dogfight, which was not its strong suit.

P-38 defensive mode: The P-38 was not inferior to its opponents, at a greater range from its base. Dogfighting in German fighters was not their strong suit. Sticking with the bombers was never effective without free rovers to break up mass attacks being formed.
 
Part of the problem over Germany was in strategic direction; fighters were supposed to escort bombers, and bombers were to attack ground targets and defend themselves. Destroying the Luftwaffe was an intermediary objective. 1944 saw a shift in strategy, with the purpose of bombing raids being primarily to draw the Luftwaffe into battle, and the secondary objective was to destroy targets (Though most targets were vital to the aircraft industry or fuel, creating a no win situation). Fighters were released from escort specifically to engage the Luftwaffe. The effect was that by fall 1944 the Luftwaffe virtually ceased to exist as a threat.
 
P-38 defensive mode: The P-38 was not inferior to its opponents, at a greater range from its base. Dogfighting in German fighters was not their strong suit. Sticking with the bombers was never effective without free rovers to break up mass attacks being formed.

Failed to succeed as a escort fighter in Europe at a time escort fighters were badly needed. Much has been written in defence as the P38 after WW2, but during it the USAF would rather use the P47 and the P51. IMO the P38 is a great interceptor that lacked targets to intercept. A WW2 F106 if you'd like.
 
Failed to succeed as a escort fighter in Europe at a time escort fighters were badly needed. Much has been written in defence as the P38 after WW2, but during it the USAF would rather use the P47 and the P51. IMO the P38 is a great interceptor that lacked targets to intercept. A WW2 F106 if you'd like.

During the eighth air force build-up, the Mediterranean theater took all the P-38s they could get. They did not ask for P-47s or P-51s. This left insufficient numbers available for the job. I suppose it was in a post-war interview that Johannes Steinhoff stated that the P-38 was the most dangerous opponent, but what does he know. He wasn't talking about the toughest intercepters, but fighters.
 

Bill Door

Banned
I've always wondered what impact having an unsunk French fleet would have had. What about a Franco-German invasion?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I've always wondered what impact having an unsunk French fleet would have had. What about a Franco-German invasion?

Not a lot. Does not give you the transports and landing craft. Now a French fleet in the Oran added to the Italians is a big gain, but it does not give you a Sealion.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
...



I thought the US' P-51 Mustang was the first fighter able to escort long-range bombers, and that didn't come around until late war.



...

Generally speaking, it was. The A6M could cover a stunning amount of distance, but it required the pilots to to be exceptionally careful with the throttles. As a practical matter the A6M had a combat radius of around 600 miles with full ammo and a drop tank, although a really good pilot could add a solid 150 miles to that. The IJN found that pilots lost a lot of combat effectiveness after about 3 1/2 hours, so even when the aircraft could handle longer flights (usually by throttling back and cruising at around 140 mph) the pilots were questionable. The Mustang was a bit better on range, but the real difference was it could do the range cruising at 300 mph which allowed the pilots to make it with less time in the air since the pilots didn't really fly tight on the bombers all the way in and back (USAAF pilots were also generally eating better than an IJN pilot at Rabaul, which aided endurance).

The thing is, you don't NEED the 1,600 range of the Mustang or A6M not even the 1.300 miles the Lightning offered. Berlin was a 1,200 mile round trip from the bases in the UK. From Occupied Frenchs bases to the Irish Sea and back is around 650 (Abbeville France to Birmingham is a 640 mile round trip Cherbourg to Dublin is around 630). What you need is the range of a P-47 or a Tempest, even a P-40 level of range will get you there. What won't is the bF-109's 500 mile combat radius or the FW-190's 530.

The reality is that the Luftwaffe never had the long range single seat fighter even as a concept. Their single engine aircraft were pure tactical, battlefield weapons, without any level of strategic effort put into the design. They had never envisioned needing the extra capacity, everyone, on all sides, believed that twin engine heavy fighters would be able to handle escort missions, everyone was wrong. By the time they they figured it out it was far too late for the Luftwaffe.

The U.S. was sort of lucky in this regard. The USAAF was supposed to be an extension of shore artillery (the B-17, famously, was supposed to be an anti-shipping platform, sort of missed the mark on that one) so range was always in the back of everyone's mind. The U.S. is also a really big piece of territory (Calais is closer to Moscow than San Francisco is to Dallas and Paris is several hundred miles closer to Sverdlovsk, which is on the far side of the Urals, than LA is to New York) so aircraft with short legs didn't make much sense. This gave the Americans a huge advantage when the time came.
 
During the eighth air force build-up, the Mediterranean theater took all the P-38s they could get. They did not ask for P-47s or P-51s. This left insufficient numbers available for the job. I suppose it was in a post-war interview that Johannes Steinhoff stated that the P-38 was the most dangerous opponent, but what does he know. He wasn't talking about the toughest intercepters, but fighters.

Yes, but british historians will quote people saying that they feared late mark sptifires the most, and Bill Gunston will quote someone saying the Yak3 or the La7 was the best, etc.
How many Germans aces were KIA by P38s?
Its clear you regard the P38 as a valid solution to take the fight to the LW over Europe, and given you usal careful reasoning and well documented research I dont doubt you'll have solid arguments. But it doesn't really have the combat record to back it up in the way the Zero did in the first months of the war (and over China) or the P51 had, on the escort fighter mission.
http://www.ausairpower.net/P-38-Analysis.html and etc...
 
Last edited:
Generally speaking, it was. The A6M could cover a stunning amount of distance, but it required the pilots to to be exceptionally careful with the throttles. As a practical matter the A6M had a combat radius of around 600 miles with full ammo and a drop tank, although a really good pilot could add a solid 150 miles to that. The IJN found that pilots lost a lot of combat effectiveness after about 3 1/2 hours, so even when the aircraft could handle longer flights (usually by throttling back and cruising at around 140 mph) the pilots were questionable. The Mustang was a bit better on range, but the real difference was it could do the range cruising at 300 mph which allowed the pilots to make it with less time in the air since the pilots didn't really fly tight on the bombers all the way in and back (USAAF pilots were also generally eating better than an IJN pilot at Rabaul, which aided endurance).

The thing is, you don't NEED the 1,600 range of the Mustang or A6M not even the 1.300 miles the Lightning offered. Berlin was a 1,200 mile round trip from the bases in the UK. From Occupied Frenchs bases to the Irish Sea and back is around 650 (Abbeville France to Birmingham is a 640 mile round trip Cherbourg to Dublin is around 630). What you need is the range of a P-47 or a Tempest, even a P-40 level of range will get you there. What won't is the bF-109's 500 mile combat radius or the FW-190's 530.

The reality is that the Luftwaffe never had the long range single seat fighter even as a concept. Their single engine aircraft were pure tactical, battlefield weapons, without any level of strategic effort put into the design. They had never envisioned needing the extra capacity, everyone, on all sides, believed that twin engine heavy fighters would be able to handle escort missions, everyone was wrong. By the time they they figured it out it was far too late for the Luftwaffe.

The U.S. was sort of lucky in this regard. The USAAF was supposed to be an extension of shore artillery (the B-17, famously, was supposed to be an anti-shipping platform, sort of missed the mark on that one) so range was always in the back of everyone's mind. The U.S. is also a really big piece of territory (Calais is closer to Moscow than San Francisco is to Dallas and Paris is several hundred miles closer to Sverdlovsk, which is on the far side of the Urals, than LA is to New York) so aircraft with short legs didn't make much sense. This gave the Americans a huge advantage when the time came.

To be fair, the LW aircraft were perfectly suited to the wars they had been built for, namely against Poland, France and Russia. The LW had never considered engaging Britain in a strategic air campaign, nor fighting in the Med.
 
And promptly lost it...
I don't think the GZ is a true carrier either. The correct term, in my view, would be "large aviation cruiser" . No other carrier built as such (I'm excluding the conventions from BC/BB) had such a serious anti surface gun battery. And if you disregard the Kievs, the follow on Kuzetnovs were equally defensive in nature, its aircraft being limited to air to air weapons by take of weight weight constraints and lots of space taken up by Surface to surface missiles.

I don't think GZ was developed as a defensive vessel, rather that it's odd nature was a result of German incompetence in carrier design. It wasn't just limited to carriers even, most German naval designs were bad to abismal, a few noted exeption besides. As Richard Worth stated in "Fleets of WW II" the seed lays in the Versailles treaty. The abolishment of the HSF led to a catastrophic loss in regards to the capability it could retain, and Anglo-German Naval Agreement in '35 did not give them enough time to replace it.
 
Yes, but british historians will quote people saying that they feared late mark sptifires the most, and Bill Gunston will quote someone saying the Yak3 or the La7 was the best, etc.
How many Germans aces were KIA by P38s?
Its clear you regard the P38 as a valid solution to take the fight to the LW over Europe, and given you usal careful reasoning and well documented research I dont doubt you'll have solid arguments. But it doesn't really have the combat record to back it up in the way the Zero did in the first months of the war (and over China) or the P51 had, on the escort fighter mission.
http://www.ausairpower.net/P-38-Analysis.html and etc...

It's not that clear. I do consider it dangerous, and a good dog fighter, but it could be evaded by diving from altitude. Steinhoff shot down P-38s, and was shot down by P-38s. Joachim Muncheburg was killed by his 46th victory Spitfire, when he collided with it. However, if you wish to compare the relative merits of fighter aircraft at ranges beyond 500 miles from their base (escort fighters), your list of possible bests, or those of the prolific British aircraft historians, shrinks to nothing. The Mustang, in my opinion, was better because it was available in larger numbers, easy and cheap to build, and easier to fly to advantage, with a warmer cockpit, but it wasn't the answer until 1944. My initial response was aroused because it was stated that the P-38 couldn't dogfight. Ultimate P-38s of 1944/45 with dive flaps and boosted ailerons could dogfight with the best of them, partly due to the manoeuver-flap setting.
 
It's not that clear. I do consider it dangerous, and a good dog fighter, but it could be evaded by diving from altitude. Steinhoff shot down P-38s, and was shot down by P-38s. Joachim Muncheburg was killed by his 46th victory Spitfire, when he collided with it. However, if you wish to compare the relative merits of fighter aircraft at ranges beyond 500 miles from their base (escort fighters), your list of possible bests, or those of the prolific British aircraft historians, shrinks to nothing. The Mustang, in my opinion, was better because it was available in larger numbers, easy and cheap to build, and easier to fly to advantage, with a warmer cockpit, but it wasn't the answer until 1944. My initial response was aroused because it was stated that the P-38 couldn't dogfight. Ultimate P-38s of 1944/45 with dive flaps and boosted ailerons could dogfight with the best of them, partly due to the manoeuver-flap setting.

I never said it couldn't dogfight, just that it wasn't its strong suit. (And I was talking of earlier versions) The trouble with the 500+ range is that it rarely works both ways. Defending LW fighters didn't really need range. But I'll look. In 1942 its probably just a two fighter group. The P38 and the Zero.
 
Last edited:
The Hellcat? I just found a quoted 1500ml max range with one drop tank so a 500miles combat range should be possible. And it was avaible in1943.
 
Do you think the claimed 560 miles combat range for the Heinkel He100D-1 was for real or just Heinkel salesmanship?
 

katchen

Banned
For Germany to invade Great Britain in 1940, 1941 or 1942 it would have needed to have planned for invading Great Britain in the course of a major war. Which it hadn't.
There's no earthly reason why the Nazis couldn't have built long range bombers with the range and bomb load to destroy RAF bases and Royal Navy capital ships and the range to reach Scapa Flow. They didn't, because they had limited resources and doing so would divert those resources from the main event, which was combat support aircraft for the fight against the USSR. And because the decision to develop those aircraft --and even longer range aircraft that could reach the United States or Siberia would have needed to have been taken in the mid 1930s.
For that matter, the Germans might have been able to tunnel under the English Channel in the course of a year or two, branching out and emerging in multiple places in Kent to create a bridgehead in England. That too would require forethought and resources diverted from the USSR war.
The fact of the matter is that Hitler was totally surprised, dismayed and nonplussed at continued British resistance after the fall of France. That was simply not supposed to happen. Not with the Cliveden Set sympathetic to the Nazi Cause in the UK. Not with the Nazis offering the UK liberal terms including keeping the British Empire if only it would stay out of the European continent and Russia which was none of Great Britain's business anyway. The Conservative Government was supposed to fall and a new British Government was supposed to negotiate an armistice wih Germany. Instead, Germany got Churchill and what was apparently mindless defiance--after the Germans even allowed the British Expeditionary Force to go home minus it's equipment at Dunkirk instead of cutting it off from evacuation by sea, which the Germans could have done.
So it was a situation that the Germans were ill equipped to deal with. The Germans were rather like a wolf who had treed a chimpanzee. The chimp could not go down to the ground. But the chimp can travel from tree to tree, out of the wolf's element until it assembles the rest of it's troup and tears the wolf apart. :D
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
The Hellcat? I just found a quoted 1500ml max range with one drop tank so a 500miles combat range should be possible. And it was avaible in1943.

Once you add the F6F you can also pull in the F4U (for my money the BEST all around performer of the war, although the Spitfire gets my nod as the best airframe simply due to flexibility and upgrade capacity). 500+ mile combat radius on internal fuel with another 250 or so on tap with extra tanks (flying from a ground strip, couldn't get into the air from a deck with that much load)
 
Top