What if Germany had won the Battle of Britain and destroy the Real Air Force? What they would do next? Operation sea leon would take place?
What if Germany wins the Battle of Britain?
- Thread starter Luciano7477
- Start date
operation sea lion might take place, but it would fail miserably. The RN would stop the invasion, even if they would suffer horrendous casulties. and even if the germans landed the RN would be more than capable of cutting off german supply lines resulting in the loss of the german landing forces.
Plus it is quite unlikely that the RAF would be defeated as they had a home field advantage and the RAF also enjoyed the significant advantage of the radar removing any element of suprise the luftwaffe had.
Plus it is quite unlikely that the RAF would be defeated as they had a home field advantage and the RAF also enjoyed the significant advantage of the radar removing any element of suprise the luftwaffe had.
The problem is they can't destroy the RAF, at best they can force them to pull out of their bases in southern England for a little while and that is nowhere near enough to make Sealion practical. Please see the Sealion sticky and the numerous threads where the details of why Sealion won't work have been discussed previously.
Deleted member 1487
Assuming they achieved a Stephen Bungay strategy success then there is the question of how the British government reacts to losing air superiority over Southern England and having their production impaired by bombing of vital factories. Despite all the tough talk there was serious concern about their ability to continue fighting if that happened.
I mean the British at the , like many other people, seriously overestimated the potence of strategic bombing to an utterly hilarious degree. Their reaction to anticipated loss of production and their reaction to actual loss of production are going to be very different.
Sealion still fails because the Cliffs of Dover are hard to scale. Britain could use chemical weapons once the Germans land on the beach. Any paratrooper landing attempt would end badly for the Germans since they would be fighting on foreign land with difficult resupply while the British enjoy lots of supplies from home ground.
Deleted member 1487
I'm not sure what point you're making, because if the British overestimated the impact of losing air superiority your point above suggests that they'd panic and try to cut a deal.
As to the actual impact of bombing, per Bungay's plan in 'Most Dangerous Enemy' about how the British could have lost air superiority greater Luftwaffe bombing of production, especially at the point of critical need for the British given losses, would have been crippling.
My point was if they thought loss of production would eventually force them to sue for peace,then an quick realization its not that bad will banish such thoughts again.
Define "crippling". I do not see a realistic way forward to actually remove Fighter Command as a whole as effective and relevant asset for the British, to do this outside sothern england and for any useful amount of time. In the end I simply believe the Battle of Britain to be pointless, as even achieving the desired window of air superioty doesn't gain the germans anything worth the cost.
Deleted member 1487
Huh? I'd say having lost air superiority over your own country and not being able to replace your fighter losses is actually that bad.
As a whole no, but that isn't all that is needed to lose air superiority. Kind of hard to get the navy to move to fight an invasion when they specifically repositioned themselves outside the range of the Luftwaffe and now won't have significant support if they moved into the Channel. If FC has to abandon southern England this are really bad.
Really? Given what reguraly happened in WWII I consider temporarily loosing air superiority over part of your country, with little inpact on your economy because your enemy has a poor strategic bombing force even by the poor standards of 1940, and operationg temporarily under unsatisfactory replacement options to be very small potatoes.
Yeahl, war is hard and bad things happen. But you seem to have an extremly dim view of Britains resilience if you think that level of badness is anywhere near enough to make them surrender. I mean if it would Britain would reveal itself to be the biggest whimp of all significant powers which participated in the war (including things like France and Italy).
I think I just generally dismiss any thoughts and studies by civil and military leaderships about the impact of events and what things will "surely lead to our doom" because they just constantly end up way to pessimistic. The Soviets pre-war believed loosing Kharkov was the signal any war was completly lost. The Germans were constantly terrified of their population lynching them 1918 style by the slightest inconvinience. The Americans worried about Japanese actions on the West Coast and so on and on.
Deleted member 94680
All of these kinds of threads are built on a dim view of Britain’s resilience. The countless Sealion ones, the odd BoB one, or Battle of the Atlantic one, they’re all only floated as the assumption is Britain will meekly fold at the slightest opportunity.
Deleted member 1487
Considering we're talking about an ATL bombing strategy rather than the OTL one, what happened in OTL is a poor model to discuss this POD. IOTL the Luftwaffe didn't focus on bombing RAF fighter production other than intermittently, which BTW per Bungay did disrupt output, but didn't do anywhere near what it could have accomplished had the effort being more consistent and comprehensive. Since Bungay's 'what if' strategy about how the RAF could have lost in 1940 involves things that weren't really tried IOTL, including commando raids on Channel radar stations and ECM informed by info gained by those raids as well as better and expanded use of EprG 210, there would be more than a 'little' impact on the British war economy. By 1940 standards the Luftwaffe had the best strategic bombing force in the world. Bomber Command couldn't compete and the B17 and 24 weren't in significant service at the time. Given that when the He111 actually did bombing of factories they did quite well the issue wasn't the bombers, it was the strategy to employ them that was the problem.
Given the situation in 1940 it isn't a matter of British resilience that was at issue, it was the political realities of being alone against the Axis and France having quit the war, while the US has said it wouldn't help until September. This was literally the lowest point in the war for Britain and even after the May Cabinet Crisis Churchill and Halifax were still talking about negotiations with Hitler once they saw how the German attacks against the Home Isles went. IOTL Britain won the BoB in large part due to German mistakes, mistakes that we are proposing don't happen ITTL, so they were never fully tested against a worst case scenario in 1940.
And I never said surrender. Stop making shit up, I really hate when people strawman. It would be a negotiation to end hostilities, which IOTL the British never engaged in, but did actively discuss in this period before it was clear they were winning/had won the air campaign. If anything you're overestimating the will to fight on with Soviet or Nazi levels of fatalism regardless of setbacks.
You have a bizarre concept of 'slightest opportunity' if you think Britain losing the BoB in 1940 fits that term.
Deleted member 94680
A flippant choice of phrase maybe, but the idea is the same. OTL surrender was never seriously floated by anyone with anything nearing mass support, yet time and again ATL it seems assured that something changing will cause Britain to fold.
How does losing the BoB cause Britain to lose the War? Fighter Command being destroyed leads to what? OTL it was meant to be the next phase of the Nazi’s plan. But here, before this is even enacted, Churchill is turfed out, the Parliament that overwhelmingly agreed with his course of action 180s and Britain surrenders? Bit unlikely, no?
Deleted member 1487
Again, who is talking about surrender. We're talking about a negotiated peace that though would be a defeat wouldn't be a surrender.
FC pulling out of Southern England leaves the nation prostrate before aerial attacks on industry and population centers, while creating mass panic that an invasion was imminent, a serious issue given how invasion fever in 1940. Propaganda myths aside about the British public being willing to take anything and more like the French in June 1940 (and British public repeatedly fleeing London and creating all sorts of havoc with internal logistics) you could well see a mass exodus from the south, which would screw the ability to resist or have a functional war economy.
Again never said surrender, said negotiated peace deal to prevent worse terms after an invasion or the collapse of the war economy due to public panic.
Deleted member 94680
Still as unlikely as surrender, given Britain’s position pre-BoB.
‘Prostrate’? Over-egging the pudding somewhat, but ok, the South of England is vulnerable but not the rest of the UK. Mass panic like during the Blitz? Or is this a different case? Where in the Luftwaffe’s capability do you seriously think they could reduce British economy to the point it could be realistically described as “non functional”?
A fair distinction, but to negotiate peace to prevent worse terms after an invasion no one that mattered in British politics thought likely? Not sure the logic follows.
However, we’re back to the point you seem to think Britain was merely waiting for an opportunity to leave the War, whereas contemporary evidence would suggest otherwise.
British strategic bombing against Germany was several times worse than anything Germany might have done in 1940. If Germans endured it, with war production actually increasing in this period, I see no reason why Britain would act differently if German raids against RAF fighters were more successful.
Germany didn't try for negotiating peace in early 1944 when the Allies gained Air Superiority over much of Germany, and Air Supremacy over France, did they?
Moving the figher bases to the Midlands and more bombs falling on SE England won't lead to peace talks.
It leads to Germans attempting Sea Lion.
The Luftwaffe managed to deal massive damage to the RAF in August, between the 3. and the 24. the latter's losses exceeded the production of new planes. However 1.) It was not nearly enough to break the RAF and 2.) german casualties were even higher.
By November 1940, the RAF fielded roughly 1.800 pilots, a 40% increase compared to July. The number of total aircraft had increased from 1.365 on July 20. to 1.728 on November 23.
Compare that to the Luftwaffe:
According to Stephen Bungay, the Luftwaffe's fighter and bomber strengh decline by 30% and 25% respectively between August and December. Between July and September, the number of Luftwaffe pilots available fell by 136. The training organisation of the Luftwaffe was failing to replace losses.
So with that in mind, I honestly don't know how the Luftwaffe could ever have won the Battle of Britain. Berlin's basic assumption was wrong, namely that Germany would be able to outproduce Britain in terms of total aircraft.
By November 1940, the RAF fielded roughly 1.800 pilots, a 40% increase compared to July. The number of total aircraft had increased from 1.365 on July 20. to 1.728 on November 23.
Compare that to the Luftwaffe:
According to Stephen Bungay, the Luftwaffe's fighter and bomber strengh decline by 30% and 25% respectively between August and December. Between July and September, the number of Luftwaffe pilots available fell by 136. The training organisation of the Luftwaffe was failing to replace losses.
So with that in mind, I honestly don't know how the Luftwaffe could ever have won the Battle of Britain. Berlin's basic assumption was wrong, namely that Germany would be able to outproduce Britain in terms of total aircraft.
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