Nazi Germany focuses solely on Britain after conquering France

CalBear

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There are a number of issues with these sorts of scenarios.

Hitler wanted two things out of the war (the elimination of the untermench was not an actual war aim, but a by-product of goal #1 being put into effect) :

1. Living space for the German people, or more properly, the vastly increased German population that Hitler envisioned
2. The complete elimination of the Bolsheviks and Communism in Europe

An on-going war with the British aimed at their destruction was never an aim. If anything Hitler didn't really want to fight the British at all. The French, yes, he needed their resources for the big fight against the Soviets, but the British were at best a secondary concern. This is possibly best illustrated by the fact that there was virtually no planning done to invade Great Britain until France was teetering toward defeat. The Heer had no plan, the KM had no plan, the Luftwaffe had no plan (not that Goring admitted that to Hitler), and OKW had no plan. All one needs do is look at See Lowe and it is obvious that the planners were making stuff up as the went.

The Reich had, at most, a 60 day window following the Fall of France to establish a defensible bridgehead in Britain before the British managed to rearm their formations, even then the chances were minimal. By mid September the number of daylight hours four hours less than in July, by the end of October it is below 10 hours. That simply isn't enough time to conduct anything close to an actual landing while weather gets progressively worse as the seasons change. After that you're beached until May, maybe later. Worse, unlike the Wallies IOTL, the Reich has very limited access to weather data in the Atlantic (there was a constant, very deadly, cat & mouse game in the North Atlantic and Denmark Strait where KM weather ships would try to transmit and not die in the process while the RCAF and later the USN would hunt them mercilessly). Without that data on a regular basis it is more or less impossible circa 1940 to accurately predict the weather over the channel more than half a day in advance.

By the start of 1941 the British were in a position to defend Britain nearly indefinitely. The U-boat attack never came close to starving out the British Isles (unlike the later U.S. air-sea blockade of Japan that had managed to begin that process by late summer of 1945) and was entirely unsuccessful in preventing both raw materials and finished goods to Britain (a scenario that would be even worse of the British and later the U.S. were not trying to supply the Soviets via the Murmansk route). As well as reconstituted British formations there was also the 1st Canadian Division fully equipped, and the RAF was receiving aircraft as a rate that ensured at least parity with the Luftwaffe. Once the Japanese attacked in the Pacific, it was over. As America's co-belligerent the UK was going to get massive support (to, of course, prepare to fight the Common enemy, the empire of Japan) including massive convoys escorted by USN warships that are untouchable unless Hitler decides to go to war with the U.S. (as was the case IOTL).

A quick comment regarding North Africa. The Wehrmacht was simply incapable of supporting a major offensive in Africa. It doesn't matter how many more trucks and tanks are available if they wind up sitting on the dock on the wrong side of the Med/The Axis lacked sufficient sealift to support a force much larger than OTL Africa Corps, and the number of useful ports are limited in both capacity and logistical transport toward the battlefield to support a major force. Africa was always a Fool's Errand for the Reich


tl;dr: Hitler didn't WANT to ignore the USSR & invading the UK was functionally impossible
 
I think relying on the Abwehr to take out Churchill and hope someone who's overdosed on lead paint takes over as Prime Minister is a safer bet. ._.
 
It's not that you're wrong, really. Certainly, more lorries could be sent, particularly if there's no war with the Soviet Union.

The problem is the scale of what's required. It's really difficult to improve the logistical situation of an army 1100 miles from its major supply base. It takes a vast number of lorries, because each one has to carry not only its cargo, but its own fuel as well. And it's so far that a round trip would take, in the terrible North African roads, probably almost a week? At that distance, doubling the number of lorries increases the size of the force sustainable at the sharp end by a much smaller amount. And the half life of a lorry in those conditions is so poor that you need a constant flow of replacements just to keep up with attrition, all of which have to pass through. the limited port capacity of Tripoli, while paying Malta's tolls... it's a hell of diminishing returns.

For example, the Germans calculated that supplying a motorised division 300 miles from its supply base with the 350 tonnes per day it required would take 1200 lorries. For multiple divisions three times as far away, we're probably getting into tens of thousands of lorries...

If they capture Malta they can sail direct to Tobruk. Could they have used Mersa Matruh as a port? Would be a shorter supply route
 
If they capture Malta they can sail direct to Tobruk. Could they have used Mersa Matruh as a port? Would be a shorter supply route
They did anyway, but shipping losses quadrupled according to Van Creveld, although I don't know whether Malta was actually the cause.

But the real problem was that Mersa and Tobruk lacked port capacity.
 
It's not that you're wrong, really. Certainly, more lorries could be sent, particularly if there's no war with the Soviet Union.

The problem is the scale of what's required. It's really difficult to improve the logistical situation of an army 1100 miles from its major supply base. It takes a vast number of lorries, because each one has to carry not only its cargo, but its own fuel as well. And it's so far that a round trip would take, in the terrible North African roads, probably almost a week? At that distance, doubling the number of lorries increases the size of the force sustainable at the sharp end by a much smaller amount. And the half life of a lorry in those conditions is so poor that you need a constant flow of replacements just to keep up with attrition, all of which have to pass through. the limited port capacity of Tripoli, while paying Malta's tolls... it's a hell of diminishing returns.

For example, the Germans calculated that supplying a motorised division 300 miles from its supply base with the 350 tonnes per day it required would take 1200 lorries. For multiple divisions three times as far away, we're probably getting into tens of thousands of lorries...
The solution is to build a railway, which is what the British did. On the Axis side, the Italians were not prepared to make the effort and Rommel was not prepared to wait for one.
 
Beyond automotive transport there was a limit in the capacity of the Italian cargo fleet OTL that was not reached in raw numbers, tho the Itlains were seeing problems develop in operating matters. This cargo capacity was also a sinking asset (sorry) as the Brits were capable of sinking them faster than Italian industry could build cargo ships. OTL the Italians dodged that one by reducing sorties as risk avoidance. But, if the Italians push harder and increase cargo ship sorties losses would increase & the Brits have a opportunity to run down the gross and actual capacity. Nothing certain there, but when you look at the numbers the trend OTL is visible.

To change the subject slightly. With the USSR not at war the Brits are not expending cargo ships supplying the USSR. Actually the reverse is likely to be true. The Brits were purchasing from the USSR, and negotiating more. That included inquiries about weapons for Commonwealth forces in the Middleast and Eastern Africa. Weather or not that happens there would be a net gain for Brit cargo ships available for the North Atlantic routes. The gain goes beyond gross tonnage. The slowest ships were more likely to be assigned to the short N Atlantic run, & the faster to the longer routes, particularly the S Atlantic-Indian Ocean route. With less headed that way faster and less vulnerable ships are available for the N Atlantic route. If this occurs it cuts losses to German submarines in the Atlantic by some degree.

As far as I can tell, the British produced over twice as many fighters, and had a much greater capacity to train pilots. Luftwaffe expansion did occur, but it just takes time for the factories to be built, and lack of raw materials was always a problem. The Luftwaffe's chances of attaining air superiority in the face of superior numbers, superior industrial capacity and the state of the art air defence system is zero even if they did have a clear idea of how to go about doing it, which in 1940 they didn't.

1940: 2515 Hurricanes, 1252 Spitfires
1941: 3167 Hurricanes, 2518 Spitfires
1942: 3067 Hurricanes, 4143 Spitfires

1940: 1667 Bf 109s
1941: 2764 Bf 109s, 228 Fw 190s
1942: 2657 Bf 109s, 1850 Fw 190s

This favors Britain in the long run. In the Mediterranean there is a problem. The Brits have to send their aircraft and ground support by ship around Africa, or across Africa if the establish a Saharan air route as OTL. The Italians and Germans have a much shorter route. While the transport problem interfere with sending fuel and ground support to African airbases the Axis do have the use of air bases across the northern European littoral. OTL the Germans committed a operational strength of some 3,000 aircraft to the eastern front in 1941, & kept between that and 2,500 there in 1942. While not all those would be moved to the MTO quite a few could. That promises problems for the Commonwealth in keeping Malta active, and defending Egypt or the Levant from Axis air attack. Brit leaders are going to have to figure out how to solve that problem.
 
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The UK itself, no, it takes way too long to build up a navy to conquer the UK. And the US would have provoked a war if it really looked like Britain was going to be invaded.

the more interesting thing is if the Germans went after Turkey and invaded British Middle-East, while giving Stalin what he wanted over the Dardanelles and the Balkans to keep him on the German side.
attacking turkey would be hard work hundreds of miles of slog. Bit like N attacking Spain
 
ITTL, if the Germans are throwing enough troops in North Africa, it's only natural their supply train could be made longer as well.
And where else would those troops be used anyway?
to do this properly they would need to seize Malta and do something about their general inadequate shipping otherwise how can they improve their supply lines?, There aren't the roads or even many ports.
 
how am I wrong here?
Because you are ignoring literally EVERYTHING other than bodies on the ground. And I mean that word quite literally. If you double the number of men in North Africa you double the supplies needed. Okay that’s not true. You more than double it since you also need the supplies to fuel the trucks (get to those later).

But here’s the thing, that’s not all that matters. The ports of North Africa don’t HAVE the capacity to move that many supplies. They were straining OTL already. You know what happens when you dump a bunch of men in a desert and can’t get them enough water? They die.

Oh, and you know those trucks I mentioned? Yeah...they don’t exist. Anywhere. The Germans were a primarily horse-driven army. The trucks in North Africa OTL were captured from Britain primarily.
 
!. Severe limits on automotive capacity to supply field armies beyond 600-700 km.

2. Absolute limits on port capacity. & related limits on Italian/Axis engineering ability to improve the ports.

3. Ability of the Brits to interdict the supply deliver and attrition the automotive transport, the Ships, and the Italian railways.
 
Revisitng this.


As far as I can tell, the British produced over twice as many fighters, and had a much greater capacity to train pilots. Luftwaffe expansion did occur, but it just takes time for the factories to be built, and lack of raw materials was always a problem. The Luftwaffe's chances of attaining air superiority in the face of superior numbers, superior industrial capacity and the state of the art air defence system is zero even if they did have a clear idea of how to go about doing it, which in 1940 they didn't.

1940: 2515 Hurricanes, 1252 Spitfires
1941: 3167 Hurricanes, 2518 Spitfires
1942: 3067 Hurricanes, 4143 Spitfires

1940: 1667 Bf 109s
1941: 2764 Bf 109s, 228 Fw 190s
1942: 2657 Bf 109s, 1850 Fw 190s

One of the ugly little details of the Meditrranean air war was the Brits had a favorable loss rate. While the Germans kept up a favorable loss ratio in fighter on fighter losses it was only a narrow portion of the picture. Both sides suffered heavy operational losses early on, some times exceeding combat losses. While both tried to improve maintiance and reduce accidents through pilot training, the Brits or Commonwealth were far more successful. By early 1942 their operational loss rate had declined substantially. For the Germans and Italians less so. OTL in the 1942-43 air battles in the Med Theatre heavily favored the Allies. While the Germans won some spectacular tactical victories operationally & strategically they were losing badly. While the Germans had roughly half their air strength on the eastern Front in 1943 68% of their losses were in the west. Rising losses from accidents and mechanical failures were contributing to that back into latter 1942.
 
The solution is to build a railway, which is what the British did. On the Axis side, the Italians were not prepared to make the effort and Rommel was not prepared to wait for one.

They needed a canal...

But on a serious note a railway would have required shipping in large quantities of materials and supporting them, which given the existing constraints on shipping sounds like it would have been at the price of having fewer soldiers in the field. A railroad would need to have been built pre-war, and even if it existed would have been vulnerable to air attack and sabotage.
 
They needed a canal...

But on a serious note a railway would have required shipping in large quantities of materials and supporting them, which given the existing constraints on shipping sounds like it would have been at the price of having fewer soldiers in the field.
Given that most of the troops, ie the infantry, were virtually ineffective, having less of them is not going to affect the Axis ability to prosecute the war. Less of them would free up capability to build a railway.

A railroad would need to have been built pre-war, and even if it existed would have been vulnerable to air attack and sabotage.
Or alternatively It could be built during the war as the British did and without any serious air attacks or sabotage.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Can't the Nazis keep their aerial attacks on Britain? Granted, Britain obtained aerial superiority OTL and kicked back the Nazis thanks to that, but given the scenario here where Nazi Germany won't be expending resources fighting the USSR, can't Hitler focus on creating a better air force and superior planes to the Spitfire and keep bombing the UK into submission?
1) Conventional bombers have never being able to knock even a medium power out of a war on its own: the US and UK put 1,000+ bombers per raid over Germany and firebombed the crap out of German cities and couldn't bring the war to an end. Their impact on German production was dubious. It is doubtful Britain would fold to Aireal bombardments.

2) Airplanes are capital intensive compare to land armies: Britain has lots of industries and raw material, British weakness is manpower, airplanes cost far more in labour and capital than tanks and guns on a per unit basis. Even if Germany just don't build up the army and builds airplanes: they actually wouldn't have as many airplanes as you might think, certainly nearly as many as the UK/US built otl.

3) The US can easily support the UK in this scenario simply by delivering fighters and "volunteer" pilots in a war of aerial attrition, political cost to this is low even if the US doesn't enter the war directly.

4) Massive defensive advantages in fighting air wars as per Battle of Britain, downed British pilots are recovered, downed German pilots ends up in PoW camps. This means as the war goes on on average German pilot quality drops while British rises.

An extended air war over Britain benefits the UK a lot more than Germany.
 
Wouldn't britain call on the raj to raise more troops, if they introduced conscription they could easily outnumber the germans, the only issue would be supplies which can be fixed to an extent by american aid. If britain needs men desperately they just call on more indian bodies, wasn't the indian military a mostly volunteers?
 
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