Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutch_851
Or, would the Second World War have ended had the German nation actually attempted to invade Britain in September 1940?
My money's on 'Yes'.
Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm, Bomber Command, Coastal Command, all thrown into the mix. And that's if they didn't make it to the shores. If they did make it, Then you would have the army too, and every civilian armed with a bread knife or better.
Speculations are cordially invited.  |
uhmm I dunno, personally I would have avoided the invasion by sea initially, I would have used Fallschirmjaeger units with gliders and Me321s to transport troops and tanks. They could have poured in thousands of men in a day, establishing bridgeheads and carried on the invasion.
It would still have been necessary to gain air superiority though, and concentrate attacks on RAF bases and aircraft factories.
But before all this, the introduction of external fuel tanks for the fighters would have been of paramount importance.
So, the technological needs were:
1) droptanks for the Luftwaffe
2) development of gliders and glider systems
strategy:
1) converge bombers on airfields and aircraft factories
2) establish air superiority
3) arrange massive para-drops
4) capture airfields and/or prepare improvised land strips
5) combined attacks of bombers and u-boote towards the RN
6) mine channel
7) ask for support from the Italian Navy
all in all it would have been too much of a logistic strain and effort in 1940/41, but still feasible, had they decided to avoid the invasion of Russia.
Occupying Great Britain would have left only two frontlines to defend: southern Italy and the East, but had GB actually fallen, the US would have never intervened in the ETO and would have instead tried to find a truce with Germany (at least until the atomic bomb was ready..).
Fortunately the German high command was very narrow sighted and led by an impulsive psychopath, but it still remains that
under a military point of view, the Reich's one was a formidable armed force which was appallingly wasted.