the raw numbers

[Furio]

Are you saying that Battle of Britain was fought for nothing, and that a Luftwaffe victory wouldn’t have changed anything on the war outcome?

[csThor]

I don't want to speculate what a defeat would have caused for the RAF, but I am absolutely convinced that Hitler would never have ordered Sea Lion to be started, because the Kriegsmarine had repeatedly and resolutely protested against any ideas of the Heer for a landing operation. The ships available would - perhaps, the KM leadership was sceptical even of that (!) - have been enough for landing a small unit (something around a division or so) in the Pas de Calais area, but the KM was absolutely convinced it wouldn't be able to supply even such small a force over an extended timeframe, let alone transport the tanks and heavy weapons across the channel. The Heer instead planned for a Channel crossing 250 kilometers wide, with two full Army Groups!

There are several indicators for the bluff character of the whole affair - namely the total lack of coordination between the Wehrmacht's branches and within the branches themselves, the total lack of communication between Hitler and the commanding officers of Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine plus the steady (and sometimes quite fierce) arguments between OKW, OKH and OKM about the operation as a whole. If you add that Hitler revealed his true focus (the USSR) even before the Luftwaffe had begun to bomb Britain in earnest the impression of being nothing but bluff and bluster increases even more.

[Furio]

Originally Posted by csThor

If you add that Hitler revealed his true focus (the USSR) even before the Luftwaffe had begun to bomb Britain in earnest the impression of being nothing but bluff and bluster increases even more.

To me, this means that your answer is “yes”, the Battle of Britain was fought for nothing. I disagree.
With skies cleared of RAF fighters, all UK cities would have been at the mercy of German bombers, even in daylight. I don’t dare to say that Churchill would have surrendered, but certainly he would have been forced to negotiate a compromise. And yes, this would have changed the course of the war.
My opinion, of course.

[robtek]

There just wouldn´t have been enough planes and pilots to put pressure to England when Barbarossa started!
The raf fighter command would have been revived when the pressure was gone.

[Furio]

Respectfully, I disagree.
An eventual Luftwaffe victory couldn’t come after the end of 1940, six months before Barbarossa. At that point, United Kingdom would have been without any reasonable mean to continue fighting: no fighters for the RAF, no tanks and guns for the army, already lost in France.
A compromise would have been inevitable.
In my opinion.

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Furio

Respectfully, I disagree.
An eventual Luftwaffe victory couldn’t come after the end of 1940, six months before Barbarossa. At that point, United Kingdom would have been without any reasonable mean to continue fighting: no fighters for the RAF, no tanks and guns for the army, already lost in France.
A compromise would have been inevitable.
In my opinion.

You are willfully ignoring the existence of the British navy. It was the largest in the world at the time, bigger than Germany's by a much greater ratio than it was at the time of the Battle of Jutland. The Axis needed to utterly destroy Fighter Command, so that their bombers could interdict the British Navy from sinking whatever they sent across the channel. The Germans couldn't get across the Channel except by boat, and the British Navy would easily have sunk those, and any ships trying to defend them, except perhaps for the intervention of airpower.

The Bismark ran for the open sea, destroying the Hood on the way, but the Hood group was one of many searching for her, to have taken on the entire British Fleet would have been utterly suicidal. The Tirpitz lurked in fjords for the entire war, there was nothing better to do with her.

There was never any question of a surrender without an invasion. The Axis did bomb cities, as later did the allies, and in neither case was anything like a surrender forthcoming.

[Furio]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

You are willfully ignoring the existence of the British navy.

There was never any question of a surrender without an invasion.

I’m willfully ignoring nothing.
Royal Navy couldn’t defend British cities from Luftwaffe bombing.

And I’m not talking of surrender without invasion.
My opinion, and actually it’s not only mine, is that losing the Battle of Britain alone would have forced United Kingdom to accept a compromise with Germany.
Hitler would have conceded it gladly and without heavy conditions, just to have a free hand against Russia.