The Furher hordes his planes

[GlobalHumanism]

TL/DR:
WI: BEF is destroyed & Battle of Britain is limited/butterflied?

Scenario:
Let's say Hitler's/Kleist's halt order at Dunkirk is ignored by various Panzer officers, leading to the complete encirclement, capture & annihilation of the BEF by May 26, 1940.
Hitler, always an admirer of the British, and seeking to placate to its war cabinet by not causing further damage to its now utterly destroyed armed forces, finds a continuace of a full cross-channel campaign to be no-longer necesary.

Results:
No/Very limited Battle of Britain, but no BEF.
And at least 1,900 extra fighter/bomber planes remain serviceable for the Luftwaffe in other campaign theatres.

How do all three effect the war going forward?

 

[Hammerbolt]

I do not understand. Are you saying that Hitler simply leaves the UK alone? You realise that the two countries are at war? Unless one is defeat, or a peace treaty signed, that's not going to change...

So, those "extra planes", usefull as they are, are not "servicable". They are very much stuck staring at the other side of the channel. Also, at this point, not only there are no other "campaign theatres", Hitler & Co actually started to wind down the war industry...

 

[GlobalHumanism]

I do not understand. Are you saying that Hitler simply leaves the UK alone? You realise that the two countries are at war? Unless one is defeat, or a peace treaty signed, that's not going to change...

So, those "extra planes", usefull as they are, are not "servicable". They are very much stuck staring at the other side of the channel. Also, at this point, not only there are no other "campaign theatres", Hitler & Co actually started to wind down the war industry...

Ah you ninja'd me.
Needed to amend my question a bit, but Im trying ask the effects of a far more limited or no Battle of Britain compared to the one that occured IOTL and using the reasoning of an annihilated BEF as the impetus for it.

 

[Hammerbolt]

Ah you ninja'd me.
Needed to amend my question a bit, but Im trying ask the effects of a far more limited or no Battle of Britain compared to the one that occured IOTL and using the reasoning of an annihilated BEF as the impetus for it.

Well... you still need to "get rid" of the UK, before saving those planes. Assume Germany destroys the BEF... but doesn't attack the UK. What's the UK going to do? Just sit and do nothing, specially after witnessing the destruction of the BEF? No, it will try to fight. And the only offensive weapon that it has is the RAF. Which brings the Luftwaffe back to the fray...

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Well... you still need to "get rid" of the UK, before saving those planes. Assume Germany destroys the BEF... but doesn't attack the UK. What's the UK going to do? Just sit and do nothing, specially after witnessing the destruction of the BEF? No, it will try to fight. And the only offensive weapon that it has is the RAF. Which brings the Luftwaffe back to the fray...

Sure. but other than maybe 250 - 500 (maybe less) German fighters running interceptor duty along the French coast that leaves approx. 1000+ medium and dive bmbers ready for operations in Greece, North Africa, Yugoslavia, USSR, etc.
That's huge for tactical operation planning as well as a boon for German production since it frees up production capacity (dedicated to recouping the losses from the Battle of Britain IOTL) for other things.

In addition Britain, with less damage to its own factories and civil centers can like wise focus on rebuilding the BEF but at the same time maybe pay less attention to advances in Rader and AA defences since bombing is no longer a major existential threat.

 

[Hammerbolt]

Sure. but other than maybe 250 - 500 (maybe less) German fighters running interceptor duty along the French coast that leaves approx. 1000+ medium and dive bmbers ready for operations in Greece, North Africa, Yugoslavia, USSR, etc.
That's huge for tactical operation planning as well as a boon for German production since it frees up production capacity (dedicated to recouping the losses from the Battle of Britain IOTL) for other things.

A few problems:
At this point (June/July 1940), the RAF was allready switching to night bombing, because of the losses incurred in the few day raids it had tried. So all the german interceptors were mostly useless, at the time. And you can't really stop an enemy by playing defensive (see air campaign over germany 1942-1944); if you don't attack it's airfields & factories, it will keep comming. So the Luftwaffe would have to attack the UK

Also, at this point (June/July 1940), there is no "Greece, North Africa, Yugoslavia, USSR", not is there any planning for it. Greece & Yugoslavia were italian messes, made too hard for Italy by the UK's involvement, forcing Germany to assist. No UK, Italy wins eventually without even Germany helping. North Africa's campaign was part of Italy's attack on the UK and an atempt to relieve preassure from Greece and reinforce the empire based in Etiopia. If the UK is out, all of this changes.

So... all comes down to: you can't save the planes without stopping the war with the UK.

 

[pdf27]

Scenario:
Let's say Hitler's/Kleist's halt order at Dunkirk is ignored by various Panzer officers, leading to the complete encirclement, capture & annihilation of the BEF by May 26, 1940.
Hitler, always an admirer of the British, and seeking to placate to its war cabinet by not causing further damage to its now utterly destroyed armed forces, finds a continuace of a full cross-channel campaign to be no-longer necesary.

Results:
No/Very limited Battle of Britain, but no BEF.
And at least 1,900 extra fighter/bomber planes remain serviceable for the Luftwaffe in other campaign theatres.

How do all three effect the war going forward?

I'm going to have to take multiple issues with this scenario - the halt order was to a large extent a recognition of reality: the BEF had a continuous front with reserves and plenty of anti-tank weaponry available in the pocket, while the Panzers were strung out and short on fuel and spare parts. I think one thing we can be confident of is that no halt order does not mean the wholesale capture of the BEF: certainly more will be killed or captured, but the core will get out and having fought a major battle against the Panzers will do a lot for national morale.
The other issue is that the rescued BEF didn't do a hell of a lot of fighting before Overlord, so the effect on the UK prior to 1944 is pretty small - they were planning to fight on even after losing the lot, and Churchill hadn't been PM long enough to get blamed for the disaster. No Battle of Britain in this scenario will act to reduce the psychological shock of Dunkirk, possibly even below OTL levels: "see, Herr Hitler is too scared of the Royal Navy and RAF to do anything against us".

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Also, at this point (June/July 1940), there is no "Greece, North Africa, Yugoslavia, USSR", not is there any planning for it. Greece & Yugoslavia were italian messes, made too hard for Italy by the UK's involvement, forcing Germany to assist. No UK, Italy wins eventually without even Germany helping. North Africa's campaign was part of Italy's attack on the UK and an atempt to relieve preassure from Greece and reinforce the empire based in Etiopia. If the UK is out, all of this changes.

So... all comes down to: you can't save the planes without stopping the war with the UK.

The only point of contention I can argue with confidence is that the USSR was always on Hitler's mind.(IIRC planning for Barbarossa stared in the fall of 1940)
No/Reduced Battle of Britain doesn't butterfly that away nor does it butterfly the Italian campaigns in all the above named theatres. The Germans would still get invovled but with more planes at their disposal.
And to your earlier point, while ill defer to your knowledge about the lack of interceptor capability of the Luftwaffe against RAF night bombing, that still doesn't mean Hitler would commit to a full air campaign across the channel to solve it.
In fact it might just mean the construction of more capable AA defenses along the coast and in the interior (far cheaper than sending dive bombers into southern England)

 

[Archibald]

1900 aircraft is certainly a respectable number but
- Goering is still head of Luftwaffe (bad)
- a lot of these aicrafts will be obsolete soon (109E, He 111, although transport and training might disagree)
- long term planning of the Luftwaffe is still messed up
- More aircrafts doesn't change Overlord and Bagration by 1944

 

[Hammerbolt]

The only point of contention I can argue with confidence is that the USSR was always on Hitler's mind.(IIRC planning for Barbarossa stared in the fall of 1940)
No/Reduced Battle of Britain doesn't butterfly that away nor does it butterfly the Italian campaigns in all the above named theatres. The Germans would still get invovled but with more planes at their disposal.
And to your earlier point, while ill defer to your knowledge about the lack of interceptor capability of the Luftwaffe against RAF night bombing, that still doesn't mean Hitler would commit to a full air campaign across the channel to solve it.
In fact it might just mean the construction of more capable AA defenses along the coast and in the interior (far cheaper than sending dive bombers into southern England)

While it's true that "USSR was always on Hitler's mind", this was very much a political/ideological thing. Yes, the invasion planing started in late 1940, but it was always with the need to keep the UK busy. And, again, you're forgetting that the UK is still in the war. So, it will interfere with italian/german plans wherever it can, which means getting involved in Greece. Which, btw, brings Malta to the fight, that phenomenal aircraft carrier planted in the middle of the Med. As for Germany just sitting passively behind enlarged AAA, that's out of the question. Specially in air warface, ofense is the best defence. AAA can be avoided/overflown/blown up; you have to kill the enemy planes on the ground or, better yet, before they are built. And that's not even counting with the whole nazi ideology: there's no way Hitler & Co would simply not attack.

Another point: no battle of Britain also means that the RAF saves over 1700 planes. They are most definetly not going to sit iddly...