Germany did not lose the Battle of Britain

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Then of course countries know if they send the aid without providing distribution of the materials the Myanmar Hunta will just make their own people pay for the aid... or die.

Is this any less worse than letting Eichman and his murders systematically exterminate people? The people will be just as dead, regardless of the method.

One could just as easily say that the North American obsession with having houses twice as large as those in the 1950s while we refuse to divert a small amount of our wealth to providing basic universal wellfare and primary education across the globe. Not only is it feasible to solve these problems but the inconvenience, to say the least, is much less than joining the resistance would have been for the average German. More people will die than in Burma, less (in the short term) than died in the Holocaust and they will all be just as dead. It still horrifying. So, whats your point?

What is important about the Holocaust is it shows us how easily we can do what is convenient and how easily a large part of the population (across Europe) was able to turn against a number of very small minorities and wipe them out. This is an instance that should be treated with special care, studied and taught carefully. It is also a legacy that is very much with us.

So, now that your done trolling and I'm done falling for it can we return to topic?

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by *Buzzsaw*

Fact: Hitler ordered Goring, the leader of the Luftwaffe, to lay the groundwork for a successful invasion by gaining air superiority over the English Channel and southern England. The means to this end was the defeat of the RAF.

I agree with the point. Although it is highly unlikely that Sea Lion could have ever taken place. Air superiority was just out of reach and naval superiority would have been even more difficult. Only a psychological or political victory could have actually worked (despite the dreams of the Nazi leadership).

If you can find a scenario where it could have come about, I'd be very happy for the "beachhead defense" Lysander fieldmods.

Originally Posted by Former_Older

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never.

This statement is clearly flawed. This isn't directed at you sir, but at the whole room as many may share you're opinion. I might even say it is naive and dangerous. For one thing one doesn't always know what the prerequisites for or impact of a victory may be. In the second Iraq war we recently achieved our goals and it did not bring victory, in Vietnam we achieved goals for body count numbers and those goals did not bring victory.

Lets take one example: If Germany had failed in the battle of France it is much more likely that the Allies could have made peace. If the Allies had done this than Nazi Germany could have continued trading with the United States, and, even if an embargo appeared, traded directly with smaller supplying countries. There would even have been a strong group of sympathisers for the fight against the Bolsheviks. Such a position would have moved Germany much closer to victory once the Great Patriotic War started.

So one can go from an apparent strategic failure to a strategic victory (if one doesn't understand or can't control for all of the factors this is always possible). There are certainly many other cases of tactic failures leading to strategic victories.

[brando]

Lets take one example: If Germany had failed in the battle of France it is much more likely that the Allies could have made peace. If the Allies had done this than Nazi Germany could have continued trading with the United States, and, even if an embargo appeared, traded directly with smaller supplying countries. There would even have been a strong group of sympathisers for the fight against the Bolsheviks. Such a position would have moved Germany much closer to victory once the Great Patriotic War started.

No offence, but I find this statement both highly unlikely and faintly ludicrous. The world had already been alarmed by Germany's move to Nazism in the 20s and 30s and, although there was some support for Adolf Hitler's social policies (full employment, national identity, anti-communism) among the upper classes, there was a much greater groundswell of support for Communism amongst the working classes in France & Great Britain. In hindsight we can see that both opinions were delusive as far as the reality was concerned, but it's hard to imagine that any assault on Russia would have been supported even by the Americans.

It's necessary to look at what was going on with regard to Hitler's other policies especially the eradication of Jewry and anyone else who didn't fit into his crazy notions of racial purity. If the German army had been beaten at the French border then more than peace would have ensued; the Allied nations would have fully mobilised and invaded Germany, and the conditions of the Versailles Treaty would have been enforced again. The sinister side of Nazism would have been revealed in that process and I cannot believe that America would have failed to act on those revelations.

B

[Vigilant]

Good link planespotter

Terrible name for the thread though Someone is kidding themselves

[unreasonable]

Agreeing with Mr former Older, I would just like to add that there is no guarantee that the USSR would have beaten the Germans if the UK had made peace and the US never entered the war. After all, the Germans did defeat the Russian Empire in the 1914-18 War, even with the UK and France still fighting in France. Horrible conditions then eventually caused Russian military morale to collapse and social revolution.

While Stalin and the Communists were much better at repressing their population than the Tzar it is possible that a German effort unencumbered by the need to deal with UK efforts in the channel and balkans would have had just enough impetus to take Moscow, which could have caused the Soviet regime to collapse. Especially if Hitler had harnessed eastern european anti-russian nationalist feeling: as opposed to just oppressing everyone.

I am not under-rating the morale or skill of the Red Army, but the great offensives it carried out in 1943-45 would have been impossible to sustain without western aid, especially in the thousands of US made trucks needed for logistical support, (the tanks, aircraft etc less important IMHO).

So if the Luftwaffe had gained air supremacy and forced a negotiated peace on the UK guaranteeing Hitler access to middle eastern oil, is is quite possible (note I am not claiming certain) that Hitler would have succeeded in the conquest of the USSR, with who knows what consequences.

So the BoB was a vital defeat for the Germans, along with Moscow 1941 and Stalingrad, because of its strategic implications.

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

Former_Older said:
"Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never."

This statement is clearly flawed. This isn't directed at you sir, but at the whole room as many may share you're opinion. I might even say it is naive and dangerous. For one thing one doesn't always know what the prerequisites for or impact of a victory may be. In the second Iraq war we recently achieved our goals and it did not bring victory, in Vietnam we achieved goals for body count numbers and those goals did not bring victory.

So one can go from an apparent strategic failure to a strategic victory (if one doesn't understand or can't control for all of the factors this is always possible). There are certainly many other cases of tactic failures leading to strategic victories.

Your use of "sir" combined with your general tone tells me something here. Please remember that I am replying to your comments and that I did not initiate this exchange; you desired to call me out on "dangerous and naive" comments, so this is not my doing, OK?

I said quite clearly "Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in victory", and I am quite clearly restricting ALL my statements on the matter to the topic of discussion, which is ONE battle, not all of WWII

I did not say "You must win every battle to win a war", which are the words you are attempting to cram down my throat. You are skewing my words to alter my meaning, and you are attempting to expand the subject FAR in excess of the topic my statements were made about. You desire to make me have said "Losing a Battle means you lose the war or a campaign", when you know I was specifically commenting on the issue at hand: The Battle of Britain. Not WWII as a whole or even Hitler's European campaign

You know quite well that we are talking about ONE battle, and my words are in reference to that ONE battle. I did not expand the discussion to include how a tactical failure today can or cannot lead to a strategic victory tomorrow- YOU have just introduced that aspect. I am commenting on the Battle of Britain, not the whole of WWII.

On one hand, it's quite insulting to everyone in the discussion since you decided to paint everyone with all the same brush, and on the other, it's quite a negative comment on me personally in regards to my intellect. Obviously you can see I'm a little aware of myself and what's going on so please consider your comments more carefully when you try to show me how dumb I am in the future, and think twice before you try to put words in my mouth

Far from being a "naive and dangerous" statement of mine, you have taken my words not only out of my intended context, but even out of the context of the discussion. I can't quite see how everyone else here knows exactly what was said but you don't, but I'll try to clarify for you:

I did not say:

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in winning a war. Never. [future tense]

I DID say:

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never. [present tense]


Is that clear as crystal yet? Are my statements now beyond distortion? I didn't say that once you lose a battle, the war is lost. That is a simplistic and wooden-headed statement you are trying to attribute to me and I'd appreciate it if you would stop putting words in my mouth

"Tactical" and "Strategic" victories and how they effect the course of the war is not the topic. I am not here talking about the outcome of the war as affected by the dynamic influence of a series of campaigns. So my statement stands regardless of how you intend to twist and pervert it. You can't take what I said hours ago, change the topic to what YOU want to talk about, and then tell me how wrong I am. If you want to discuss how losing a battle can result in winning a war I will not disagree with you, but that is not what I and everyone else here are discussing

Please explain to me how the failure of Germany to secure their goals during the Battle of Britain resulted in their Victory in the Battle of Britain

If you can do that, I'll agree with you


(I apologize for the edits- I just got a new PC with a new low-profile keyboard and I'm mis-typing a lot of things)

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

One could just as easily say that the North American obsession with having houses twice as large as those in the 1950s while we refuse to divert a small amount of our wealth to providing basic universal wellfare and primary education across the globe. Not only is it feasible to solve these problems but the inconvenience, to say the least, is much less than joining the resistance would have been for the average German. More people will die than in Burma, less (in the short term) than died in the Holocaust and they will all be just as dead. It still horrifying. So, whats your point?

What is important about the Holocaust is it shows us how easily we can do what is convenient and how easily a large part of the population (across Europe) was able to turn against a number of very small minorities and wipe them out. This is an instance that should be treated with special care, studied and taught carefully. It is also a legacy that is very much with us.

So, now that your done trolling and I'm done falling for it can we return to topic?

Me trolling... More of the US sharing the wealth. LOL Eastern European and Soviet countries have gotten a belly full of Communism over the past 60 years. The European Union has turned Europe into one of the most prosperous regions in the world. The Euro is trading at all time highs... so maybe instead of Europeans coming to America to buy our real estate cheap they should buy up the real estate in the less prosperous regions of Europe and the ex-Soviet block countries. There are plenty of bargains there and they would be helping their fellows. The thing is... they want their investments protected and they know their investment in American real estate is protected by a legal system that will preserve their interests.

Until Europeans trust and protect each other's interests they'll keep complaining about what the US should be doing. LOL

As an American I expect to see the European Union collapse. Not because it isn't a viable concept, but because there hasn't been any lasting peace in Europe for 2,000+ years. In America, it doesn't bother us for our government to spend and vitalize areas like Montana, and Wyoming that are huge geographic areas with miniscule populations and their tax contributions are for the most part pretty well worthless in the scheme of running America. Europeans won't tolerate that kind of thing.

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What I was saying is... The Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Romanians, etc stood by and let the Axis armies build and run extermination camps. The people knew what was going on, are they guiltless?

Are we, the countries of the World guiltless when we know 100,000+ people will probably die in Myanmar? That is a reality. At what point do countries and organizations go beyond chit chat to do what should done?

Lame excuses about national soverignty will not save those people, Only food, medical and aid will do what is needed. The Myanmar Hunta is fearful the world might just kick their butts outta power, if they allow outside help into the country.

So... the world is going to respect the Sovereignty of the Hunta and as far as the people of Myanmar are concerned... "time to die".

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[Roy]

Originally Posted by Former_Older

Revisionist history is often incapable of supporting itself. This is but another example of that

Did Germany lose the Battle of Britain?

Yes. Unless my memory has completely failed me, the criteria for launching Operation Sea Lion had two main facets:

1) elimination of the Royal Navy as a threat to the operation
2) elimination of the Royal Air Force as a threat to the operation

I don't have to cite History for evidence that Operation Sea Lion did not occur. We all know this. But completely apart from the invasion of England, it is very easy to explain why Germany lost the Battle of Britian:

It was the first time they faltered in Europe. They quite obviously tried to win the aerial fight over Britain in 1940

They failed. They lost the Battle. No amount of cutesy revision will sponge that away. making soft excuses like "it barely registered in the German consciousness" is nothing more than a way to introduce a gray area into the argument; it admits defeat by association and admission of something less than what was attempted. I'm sorry, but those are the facts. You can't call a defeat a victory by skewing the events 70 years later, so that it can be looked at in a 'certain point of view'. Germany demonstrably failed to achieve their goals in the Battle of Britain

Failing to achieve your goals in battle never results in your victory. Never.

if you can explain to me just how Germany's goals were achieved in the Battle of Britain, then I will agree with your standpoint. Until then, I will simply tell you that the entire reason Hitler sent planes over England in the summer of 1940 was not so that his young men and Churchill's young men could have a little football match- Germany's goals were not met, and not meeting your goals in battle is the definition of "defeat"

Agree completely!

[Roy]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

This statement is clearly flawed. This isn't directed at you sir, but at the whole room as many may share you're opinion. I might even say it is naive and dangerous. For one thing one doesn't always know what the prerequisites for or impact of a victory may be. In the second Iraq war we recently achieved our goals and it did not bring victory, in Vietnam we achieved goals for body count numbers and those goals did not bring victory.

Achieving goals and not being victorious is one thing. NOT achieving goals and being victorious is something completely different. Both examples you provided (that are quite the opposite of what Former_Older said) could lead to several pages of discussion about who won/lost depending on the point of view, but that's another topic.

While there may be cases where you can fail certain goals and still be victorius (extreme example: if winning a war implies being victorious and the goal is to have less than X casualties in said war, you can fail that goal and still "win") it is not the case for Former Older's post!

[virre89]

Well get over it more or less they lost it,
Losing air superiority they wouldn't find it very smart going in with ground forces since they'd be pretty much raped before they could settle inland and get camps n stuff up.