Even if the Luftwaffe had gained air superiority the Kriegsmarine could never have sustained an invasion across the channel in the face of the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Royal Navy.

By the end of August the RN had 3 battleships, a carrier, 8 cruisers and 76 destroyers specifically stationed ready to destroy any invasion fleet. The most distant heavy units were based on the Firth of Forth and could have reached the Dover Straits within 20hrs.

Despite this commitment to home defence greater naval resources still were retained in the north at Scapa Flow and further afield in the Mediterranean.

There can be no doubt, that even in the face of heavy attacks by the Luftwaffe, the RN would have intervened decisively.

Actually all the Royal Navy would have to have done was run destroyers at full speed up and down the Channel and swamp the river barges the Germans were going to use for the crossing. They were never designed for the open sea.

What's the source for this bit? I'm looking for a good read, might be a good one if there's more like that in it.

Summarised here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...f_World_War_II

There are a number of books on Operation Sealion.
Two I have read, both fairly concise:

• Cox, Richard (1977). Operation Sea Lion. Presidio Press. ISBN 0-89141-015-5
• Macksey, Kenneth (1980). Invasion: The German Invasion of England, July 1940. MacMillan Publishing Co. ISBN 0-02-578030-1

I guess the same as Patriotic modern day US kids would say about WW2, how the US stayed neutral and supplied Britain with just about everything... oh wait, that was different.

I fail to see what is wrong with a neutral country doing business with a warring country just like it did so before the war... its a silly notion about that they were in doing business with THEM and not US. Yeah I guess the Swedes should have realized how morally wrong it was to trade with the loosing side, and should have just waited until the war would end. Who cares if Swedish firms and mines loose their major and only possible business partner, right?

This is so silly that its beyond comprehension, really. It ranks in sillyness with "why did not the US bomb railway lines to Auschwitz" etc.

Brown Brothers Harriman and ITT both had to be stopped from trading with the Nazis in 1942. Sometimes it's hard to stop that sugar from flowing in, yano?

Especially when they don't kill as many.

You almost make it seem like there's a real choice! Was it Goebbels who said tell them they've been attacked?

I couldn't agree more. Would be nice to see a people united though, looks like that part is not doable for most countries.

There was a surprisingly popular movement in the United States to back Germany or at least not help Britain.

The British Admiralty had reverted to the practices of stopping neutral US Flagged ships, detaining cargo and crew at will.

The United States had already fought and won several wars against England for similar behavior in the past.

The Republican Party was platform-committed to staying out and fought getting involved to the point of sending aid. How much of that was because FDR wanted to send aid and was not set against getting involved. But then in 1941 he had information about the possibility of a German atomic bomb that few others in the USA knew of or took seriously.

There was an American Nazi Party operating in the USA with big rallies, etc. The most prominent US member I know of was Charles Lindbergh.

Some of the trading with German corporations (when your 'assets' include what was seized from 'undesirables', right down to the gold in tooth fillings, you can make very sweet deals) that made certain men very rich was behind a lot of the Nazi-backing then. The way that the Nazis dealt with unions was very dear to the hearts of US industrialists.

Most all that changed on Dec 7, 1941. The ones making the big money had to be stopped by law in 1942. Lucky for many that the synthesis of aspirin had been traded for prior to war being declared.

BTW, I've seen documentaries that claim Stalin was the big winner of WWII.