Don't forget Britain will respond differently with a worse Battle of the Atlantic. Simply telling Bomber Command that they must divert planes from their ineffectual night time bombing in 1940-1942 to supporting ASW operations, and the British ASW effort is much improved. Or boosting production of relatively cheap and quickly built escort carriers or minsweepers whether through their own production or through Lend Lease.
...
So there is plenty of slack for the British to pick up if needed. I suspect more sleepless nights for a lot of people and a reduction of the war effort in other areas, but nothing that really changes the conduct of the war.
Very good points. It really wasn't necessary, either, for
Luftwaffe to create a special command, just agree to more co-operation with
BdU (which is a big enough change itself

).
OTOH, it's a pretty big change to get Bomber Command to give up
anything...

but just the a/c lost in the futile & stupid bombing of the sub pens in Lorient (IIRC) would
totally transform the Battle of the Atlantic: 100 Stirlings on ASW patrol would make Biscay a positive hell for U-boats. Give Coastal Command ASV.I & Leigh Light in '40-1 (technically possible...if politically pretty unlikely


), you drastically ramp up U-boat losses, perhaps enough you could advance D-Day into '43. (Cancel the stupid Italian campaign


after Husky, it becomes certain.

) Even 3 squadrons in Gander would have cut losses
way down, too, but TTL,
BdU might never get boats that far west


due to lack of numbers.
I also especially like the idea of oilers converted to *CVEs; flying just 4 TSR Stringbags each, they could provide all the A/S cover a convoy would need, & do it even in 1940. (You'd need to solve the problem of def against FW.200s, still...

)
I'd like to see the impact of
Luftwaffe intruders on Coastal Command bases, too. (Yes, this makes the Germans even smarter.

)
They won't give up on bombing German cities, probably hoping to divert German resources away from the SW campaign.
Nor AFAIK is anybody suggesting it. And it was politically impractical anyhow; Winston had to be
seen to be doing something for his gov't to survive, & bombing would do that. (IMO, switching to mining rivers & bombing canals & railyards made way more sense,


but nobody in the Air Ministry or Bomber Command seems to have read the statistics supporting that.

Too busy trying to "make the rubble bounce".


)
What changes are priorities. If more resources are used fighting the Luftwaffe and subs, then fewer bombers and capital ships. Fewer tanks, infantry, artillery, which all impacts north Africa. Remember too that Lend-Lease didn't kick in until March 1941, so until then Britain is all cash and carry. There is no credit.
This is actually an argument
against bombing cities, not for it.

A/S, & attacks on transport, had drastically lower losses in a/c, so less need to replace, not to mention lower crew losses, which benefits Navy & Army in giving them access to better-qualified men, who don't get snapped up by RAF. Also, notice, very small diversions to Coastal Command have very large impacts on the A/S war. I should also add, the chance of changing bombing priorities having the slightest impact on tanks, let alone capital ships, is zero.
Ultimately the Germans don't have to starve Britain into submission, they just need to topple Churchill's government. ... Even sinkings are not the end all of the campaign, because it comes down to disruption of deliveries. Can deliveries be disrupted enough to prevent factories from working at capacity?
Good points. Look at the state of affairs in around March 1943. The Brits became convinced the losses were prohibitive, even tho, in reality, they were winning. Make that true in 1940 or 1941, before Barbarossa...
...suddenly the Germans can drop 20,000 unsweepable mines...
They weren't unsweepable. The idea of the magnetic mine wasn't new; it appeared in WW1, & actually inspired the Duplex exploder of RN torpedoes, & the magnetic feature of the godawful USN Mk 6 exploder. Wooden-hull minesweepers existed, & could be built in sufficient numbers (notably in Nova Scotia {Canada} & Newfoundland {not then Canada,


recall...}, as they were OTL

).
Something else to ponder: the Germans made their magnetic mines too sensitive.


If they'd adjusted the sensitivity the other direction, they'd have made they even harder to sweep.
I'd love to see a Brit response more in line with what Middlebrook suggested in
Convoy: a concerted attack on U-boats right at the start of the war. He suggests the Brits could have crippled
BdU at the very outset.


