The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by blackmme

Good with me.

Guess what beer i'm drinking....

Regards Mike

Spitfire?

[blackmme]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

Spitfire?

cheers and have a good evening Stern.

Regards Mike

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

How did they cope with it?

Well....to sum it up, they never really coped with it, it hurt so bad they still feel it, and have had 'issues' with the Brits ever since.

[SNAFU]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Well....to sum it up, they never really coped with it, it hurt so bad they still feel it, and have had 'issues' with the Brits ever since.

Jepp, we really do, these crazies always drive on the wrong side of the road. But hey they have to pay 1,5€ for a can of beer, so thats understandable.

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by SNAFU

Jepp, we really do, these crazies always drive on the wrong side of the road. But hey they have to pay 1,5€ for a can of beer, so thats understandable.

this is a quote because I'm tired of typing loads....


Up to the late 1700's, everybody travelled on the left side of the road because it's the sensible option for feudal, violent societies of mostly right-handed people.

Jousting knights with their lances under their right arm naturally passed on each other's right, and if you passed a stranger on the road you walked on the left to ensure that your protective sword arm was between yourself and him.

Revolutionary France, however, overturned this practice as part of its sweeping social rethink. A change was carried out all over continental Europe by Napoleon.The reason it changed under Napoleon was because he was left handed his armies had to march on the right so he could keep his sword arm between him and any opponent.

From then on, any part of the world which was at some time part of the British Empire was thus left hand and any part colonised by the French was right hand.

In America, the French colonised the southern states (Louisiana for instance) and the Canadian east coast (Quebec). The Dutch colonised New York (or New Amsterdam). The Spanish and Portugese colonised the southern Americas. So The British were a minority in shaping the 'traffic'.

The drive-on-the-right policy was adopted by the USA, which was anxious to cast off all remaining links with its British colonial past

Once America drove on the right, left-side driving was ultimately doomed. If you wanted a good reliable vehicle, you bought American, for a period they only manufactured right-hand-drive cars.

From then on many countries changed out of necessity.

Today, the EC would like Britain to fall into line with the rest of Europe, but this is no longer possible. It would cost billions of pounds to change everything round.
The last European country to convert to driving on the right was Sweden in 1967. While everyone was getting used to the new system, they paid more attention and took more care, resulting in a reduction of the number of road accident casualties.

From September 2009 Samoa now drives on the left instead of the right.
The main reason for this is that they want to use right-hand-drive cars, for instance from Japan and New Zealand, which both drive on the left.

So there you go...the rest of you only do it because the French told you to........wonder what happened last time Germany was dictated to by the French......

OOOOHHHH! but the expensive beer thing hurts man! thats a low low blow

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by winny

So by that you're saying that if the LW achieved it's goals there wouldn't have been an invasion?

There was simply no invasion fleet ready within two weeks (remember

Long term effects of the Battle were that German High Command had to procede with the Russian Offensive before the UK was out of the war, the 2 fronted war was born. This pressured them into launching an attack 2 years (by Hilter's own reckoning) too early, which in turn led to the defeat in the East, surley even you can admit to that. Playing down the significance of the defence of Britian to make it fit your argument is silly.

That's all sounds very reasonable but the decision to move against Russia was not decided instead of carrying through the BoB campaign, but the other way around. If you read German papers (I suggest Klee's summary of sea lion, available at AAF Historical studies only), moving against Russia and postponing sea lion to 1941 was considered already in June-July 1940, before the air battle even begun.

This consideration was the effect of Soviet expansion in the East and the final straw in the decision was made in november 1940, after the Molotov visit to Berlin. There the Soviets suggested a "new order" in Eastern Europe which would effectively cut off Germany from all strategic resources. They hinted about annexing Rumania (oil), Bulgaria, Finnland (nickel) dividing up Turkey (chrome) and this put the two countries on an irreversible crash course much sooner than both would want. Maybe Stalin was just probing the Germans after their unexpected victory in the West, maybe they were serious, its difficult to tell, but the decision in Hitler's - who was actually quite desperate to avoid it during the Molotov meetings - mind that war with Russia was inevitable, and therefore he must strike first was made in November after these meetings. Barbarossa was finalized and authorized in the next month. All this had very little to with the BoB.

A draw would be neither side achieving it's goal. A win is one side achieving their goal. A defeat is not achieving your goal.

The German goal was to neutralize Britain, sought by various means (sea blockade, air campaign, the invasion bluff, diplomatic pressure etc.); this certainly failed in 1940. On the other hand I find Wilmott's analysis on the matter - Britain was not neutralized, but Germany was still an undisputable dominant position on the continent, which Britain could not hope to challange - that the BoB was from the military POV a campaign of small scale and limited significance, and change nothing about the strategic situation. It was however an important political/propaganda victory for the British, ie. that could encourage US involvement in the war (which was already taken as a foreign course by FDR regardless of Churchill, his problem was how to sell the idea to the US public and congress).

[bongodriver]

The German goal was to neutralize Britain, sought by various means (sea blockade, air campaign, the invasion bluff, diplomatic pressure etc.); this certainly failed in 1940. On the other hand I find Wilmott's analysis on the matter - Britain was not neutralized, but Germany was still an undisputable dominant position on the continent, which Britain could not hope to challange - that the BoB was from the military POV a campaign of small scale and limited significance, and change nothing about the strategic situation. It was however an important political/propaganda victory for the British, ie. that could encourage US involvement in the war (which was already taken as a foreign course by FDR regardless of Churchill, his problem was how to sell the idea to the US public and congress).

Now this is perfectly reasonable, us Brits only view it as victory in the sense we saved our bacon from the immediate threat, which as quoted does equate to a defeat of the Germans immediate objectives (for the first time since the start of the war) nobody ever claimed at the time that the war was won at that moment, but we can look back now and say it was pretty much the 'key' turning point, so why can't us Brits just feel a little satisfied that that fight for our lives eventually led to the victory over the Nazi's......you know...the bit we fought on our own (i.e. no USA)

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

There was simply no invasion fleet ready within two weeks (remember



That's all sounds very reasonable but the decision to move against Russia was not decided instead of carrying through the BoB campaign, but the other way around. If you read German papers (I suggest Klee's summary of sea lion, available at AAF Historical studies only), moving against Russia and postponing sea lion to 1941 was considered already in June-July 1940, before the air battle even begun.

This consideration was the effect of Soviet expansion in the East and the final straw in the decision was made in november 1940, after the Molotov visit to Berlin. There the Soviets suggested a "new order" in Eastern Europe which would effectively cut off Germany from all strategic resources. They hinted about annexing Rumania (oil), Bulgaria, Finnland (nickel) dividing up Turkey (chrome) and this put the two countries on an irreversible crash course much sooner than both would want. Maybe Stalin was just probing the Germans after their unexpected victory in the West, maybe they were serious, its difficult to tell, but the decision in Hitler's - who was actually quite desperate to avoid it during the Molotov meetings - mind that war with Russia was inevitable, and therefore he must strike first was made in November after these meetings. Barbarossa was finalized and authorized in the next month. All this had very little to with the BoB.



The German goal was to neutralize Britain, sought by various means (sea blockade, air campaign, the invasion bluff, diplomatic pressure etc.); this certainly failed in 1940. On the other hand I find Wilmott's analysis on the matter - Britain was not neutralized, but Germany was still an undisputable dominant position on the continent, which Britain could not hope to challange - that the BoB was from the military POV a campaign of small scale and limited significance, and change nothing about the strategic situation. It was however an important political/propaganda victory for the British, ie. that could encourage US involvement in the war (which was already taken as a foreign course by FDR regardless of Churchill, his problem was how to sell the idea to the US public and congress).

I keep seeing references to the outcome of the BoB being "insignificant". While I agree that it may have seemed that way to the Germans at the time, I would argue that from the West's point of view it could be seen as one of the most significant outcomes of the war. By failing to suppress the Brits the Germans were powerless to prevent the massive build up of the Allied heavy bomber force which caused such massive destruction to Germany, its cities and industry. It also enabled the build up and launch of the D-Day invasion fleet, without which victory (if possible) would have been a very Russian affair.

Without Britain holding out against Germany, the US may very well have focused its efforts on Japan alone. After all, from what other friendly territory could they have established such a huge fighting force and launched such effective strikes on the continent?

While I have a healthy respect for the ordinary German fighting man and the technology he had at his disposal, there can be no denying that the BoB was an embarrassing failure for Germany which tried very hard to beat the Brits into submission and came away with a bloody nose and not a great deal to show for it's not insignificant losses. It seems it is still quite a sore point.

Just my take on it.

BTW: Great job Bongodriver, I see you've had a bit of a mini-BoB on your hands here over the past few days. From what I've read, I suspect your prime antagonist is still in high school.

[Icebear]

Less than one year after the "Battle of Britain" Germany attacked Russia on June/21/1941 with 3 million soldiers, 3350 tanks, 7300 artillery guns and about 2000 aircrafts! IMO the Brits were just lucky that Hitler was an old lag and a hopeless ingenuous idiot who simply understimated the risk of a war on two frontlines and the importance of the "USS Great Britain". Fighting the WWI he should have been aware of this.

On the other hand; thank god that the Brits were lucky !

P.S.: But it seems they spend all their luck at that time cause as far as I know they still have no chance to win a penalty shootout against Germany

[bongodriver]

P.S.: But it seems they spend all their luck at that time cause as far as I know they still have no chance to win a penalty shootout against Germany

Not just Germany.....England sucks at football full stop, I make emphasis on England so I dont offend the other UK member states, terribly touchy subject in this nation..