Would Luftwaffe having control of the skies allow germany to win?

Even if it doesn't allow for an invasion could simply bombing every british city into rubble be enough to force a surrender?
Even Bomber Command circa 1945 wasn't powerful enough to do that. Unless you give the Germans nuclear weapons too, it isn't happening - ant that isn't implied by "control of the skies".

Also, with german air superiority wouldn't it be impossible to carry out vegetarian because the british can't deliver them by air?
Given the technology of the time and how little anthrax-laced cattle-cake is needed to trash the German agricultural economy, air superiority isn't enough to keep them away - the Luftwaffe was able to launch raids of that type on the UK almost to the end of the war, albeit with high casualties. For that sort of raid, they'd be accepted. Superiority does not equal a monopoly...
 
With the combined might of the RAF Fighter Command, Britain falied to achieve air superiority over Dunkirk because the bases were in Britain and Dunkirk is across the Channel. By the same token, the Luftwaffe failed to achieve air superiority over Dunkirk because their fighter bases hadn't been moved closer, and were under similar range constraints. The RAF was a short range defensive force by plan, tailor-made to defend Britain, and backed by a warning network designed by Dowding to achieve a victory by defense in the BoB. The counter to this would have to be an effective strategic long-range Luftwaffe, with heavy bombers and long-range fighters. The Bf-109 had an endurance of about one hour. The bombers were all medium bombers with poor defensive armament, intended for tactical, not strategic roles. To imagine a victory for the Luftwaffe in the BoB, something is missing. Beyond that, the Luftwaffe wasn't all that ineffectual in the anti-shipping role, but again, hadn't created effective weapons nor undergone effective training for the purpose, and wasn't that great either. Most noteworthy was the lack of an effective air-launched torpedo.
 
Even if it doesn't allow for an invasion could simply bombing every british city into rubble be enough to force a surrender?

Also, with german air superiority wouldn't it be impossible to carry out vegetarian because the british can't deliver them by air?

No, because the RAF operated at night by 1941.

The Luftwaffe wasn't capable of bombing every British city into rubble. They could damage areas but certainly nothing like what the UK and US did to them. You don't start a game of 'see who can kill the most civilians' with a nation than can put 1,000 bombers over one of your cities.
 

Archibald

Banned
There was a very good TL about this - it was called "A better show" by member Michele. The Luftwaffe put a better show, but that didn't saved a doomed, botched Sea Lion ops.
 
Surrender because of civilian losses? That was Douhet's theory - aircraft bombs could terrorize countries into surrender. And the theory adopted by many air commanders and airplane salesmen. But it never happened.

Britain lost less than 100,000 civilians during the whole war.

US and Britain probably killed 1 million German civilians and US probably killed more than 1 million Japanese civilians with "strategic" bombing.

But nobody surrendered.

Certainly US bombing effective at disrupting Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht activities in France in 1944.

And bombing of oil refineries eventually strangled German Armed forces mobility.

Nobody surrenderd because of civilian casualties until (arguably) ABomb. But Japan had many reasons to surrender by August 1945 - US had cut off food and oil - people were starving in Japan. Their soldiers were starving in South Pacific. The fleet had only enough oil for a one way trip to Okinawa.

Douhet's theory was basically a failure.

Terror bombing tended to re-invigorate civilian support for governments in Britain, Germany, even North Vietnam.
 
Surrender because of civilian losses? That was Douhet's theory - aircraft bombs could terrorize countries into surrender. And the theory adopted by many air commanders and airplane salesmen. But it never happened.

Britain lost less than 100,000 civilians during the whole war.

US and Britain probably killed 1 million German civilians and US probably killed more than 1 million Japanese civilians with "strategic" bombing.

But nobody surrendered.

Certainly US bombing effective at disrupting Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht activities in France in 1944.

And bombing of oil refineries eventually strangled German Armed forces mobility.

Nobody surrenderd because of civilian casualties until (arguably) ABomb. But Japan had many reasons to surrender by August 1945 - US had cut off food and oil - people were starving in Japan. Their soldiers were starving in South Pacific. The fleet had only enough oil for a one way trip to Okinawa.

Douhet's theory was basically a failure.

Terror bombing tended to re-invigorate civilian support for governments in Britain, Germany, even North Vietnam.

There is actually a single example of a pure airwar forcing an opponent to give in: the 1998 Kosovo Air War against Serbia. It still is the only "war" won without boots on the ground.
 
Simply bombing cities into rubble is not enough to defeat a nation ..... because it requires far more millions of tons of bombs than any nation can produce.

During WW2, WALLY bombing only slowed the Axis mitary-industrial comes when it hit key transportation bottlenecks: bridges, railroads, canals and harbours. It was only during the late summer of 1944 that the Wehrmacht started abandoning tanks after they ran out of fuel and ammo .... because German logistics could not move fuel, ammo, spare parts, etc. forward to fighting units.

OP LW could not simply bomb British cities into submission.
Instead, LW would need to wreck port facilities, railroads, canals, etc. to starve Britain into surrendering. But LW would still need plenty of help (U-boats) torpedoing every UK-bound convoy to further reduce the amount of incoming cargo cargo.
 
Maybe. The problem is that by 1942 the UK already had plans for Operation Vegetarian in place, and it's very hard to see them not going ahead with it if the Germans use poison gas. Tabun also isn't quite as dangerous as it's cracked up to be - gas masks (which everybody had at the time) don't provide total protection like they do for some other gases, but they do provide pretty good protection (you need a higher concentration to kill by skin absorption than you do by inhalation) - and they already have experience with dealing with Mustard Gas which is rather similar. It's nasty stuff, but not the wonder-weapon many people would have you believe.


I had thought it was in 1944 that the British had anthrax ready, in the form of Operation Vegetarian. I'd also read there were plans to drop anthrax directly on German soil in 1945, but neither of these came to fruition.
 
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