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

[MD_Titus]

but the question remains - can we get to 100 pages?

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

but the question remains - can we get to 100 pages?

lets see,

Would the Battle of Britain been over in 1 week, if the RAF had had 50's

[MB_Avro_UK]

What's a 50 ??

[bongodriver]

.50 calibre guns

[IvanK]

Careful chaps I fear the rise of the 50Cal debate

[ATAG_Dutch]

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.

[Sternjaeger II]

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.

[MD_Titus]

you missed hitting the radar, thus leaving the massive 321s open to interception.

did they have gigants in 1940?

this was in fact the thing about the battle, the only time the luftwaffe actually kicked a hole in the radar net was a chance raid by epgrp 210, which took out a generator. however the luftwaffe never realised what they did, and utterly failed to exploit it.

drop tanks would have allowed the fighters more time over london, but that was at a stage when the battle was already shifting in the UK's favour - hitting london took the pressure off the airfields. a fair chunk of those hit had in fact not been active fighter command fields, but the pressure was off the ones that were. it would have allowed the fighters to cover the bombers for longer, but they would've been stripped away by the methods park used (and which 8th airforce would face over europe later in the war), in that he sent many smaller formations to intercept bombers along the course of their ingress and egress. this also relates to the myth of the big wing's success and how it was not the way to deal with the battle of britain.

so, stages 1 and 2 of your plan are what they tried to do, although they didn't know about the shadow spit factory elsewhere in the country and only hit southampton iirc.

simply carrying out the plan they had, but actually targeting only active fighter command fields and radar stations, as well as aircraft factories, and not being goaded into bombing london. that could have gained them the ability to surprise RAF fighters on the deck more often, get raids in and hit targets without being intercepted as effectively, and possibly led to local air superiority over the south coast of england, idea being that fighter command pulls out of the most affected airfields. then sending paratroops to capture the southern bases that have been bombed out of use, and resupplying the landing force that way... that could've ended badly.

it relies on intelligence the germans didn't have on quite what chainhome was and how it could be knocked out - not hitting the masts themselves, but going for buildings around them

[Al Schlageter]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

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.

The 321 glider didn't make its first flight til Feb 1941 so would be hard for them to be used in Sept 1940.

The 7th Flieger Division and the German 22nd Air Landing Division had taken losses during the preceding campaign battle of France), and were now understrength.

Do you know how much supplies are required by a Division when in combat? I don't think so.

The Channel was already mined by the Germans and the British.