Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[jimbob]

Henri - focus!

The Luftwaffe had NO way to provide fighter cover for their bombers if they tried to attack Britain in 1938. Without fighter protection, the bombers were vulnerable to any of the British fighter aircraft available in 1938.

A realistic threat analysis of German military capabilities, whether in 1938 or even up to June 1941 clearly reveals that the German military had no chance of landing in Great Britain, sustaining any landing, or defeating Great Britain militarily. And all the quotes you dredge up from people who want to pump the war winning contribution of their arm of service up won't change the facts that the German military could not:

a. Achieve air supremacy over any potential landing area in Britain;
b. Achieve naval supremacy in the Channel;
c. Get anything other than a single division of paratroops into southern England; and
d. Resupply those forces once deployed.

Wing Commander Green is talking tosh.

a) or even get air superiority

b) forget about naval supremacy, or even naval superiority, they were nowhere near parity. Not even in submarines, in 1938.

An invasion would have to get past the Royal Navy and then it would have to capture at least one major port intact.
we have gone over this several times.

And even if they dd get past the Royal Navy once, and did capture a major port intact, they would *still* have to keep getting past the Royal Navy to bring in supplies, until, say Scarpa Flow was captured.

I doubt that even unopposed, the Germans had the logistics to supply an army fighting its way through Britain.

The Allies paid a lot of attention to this, and even then it was a close thing at the start.

 

[dudalb]

First, you will never find a Canadian who will argue that Dieppe was not a fiasco.

Second, Dieppe was NEVER intended to be anything other than a large scale raid. The purpose was to:

a. Test the amphibious techniques used for landings;
b. Give the Canadians something to do so they felt useful; and
c. Let Lord Mountbatten feel useful.

What it actually accomplished was to demonstrate:

a. You need better intel than a single flyover and someone's prewar holiday pics for operational planning;
b. Landings need to be practised on the same type of beaches where you will be landing - vehicles behave differently on pebbles then they do on sand;
c. Don't skimp on either the naval firepower, or the aircover, if you want success; and
d. There needs to be a better reason to commit a division of soldiers to an operation than "well, they need to be seen to be doing SOMETHING or morale will start to slip."
e. Practice getting off the beach under fire.

Too Bad the US Navy and Marines did not take the lessons of Dieppe on Amphbious Operations into account before Tarawa....

 

[Andy_Ross]

If Henri needs an example of what happened to unescorted bombers he could try reading about the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission from WWII. The USAAF shared the same delusion that powerful bomber formations could fight their way through unescorted, they learned better, can Henri?

As already mentioned Luftflotte 5 attacked the north of England on On 15 August 1940.
It was only escorted by Me 110 as the 109s didn't have the range. It was so badly mauled by the RAF it never came back.

 

[dudalb]

And although the Spitfire gets all the publicity, the Hurricane was just as important in the battle of Britian. There were two Hurris for every Spit in Fighter Command. Although it was not as good as the ME 109, the gap between the Hurry and the ME 109 was not so great that a skilled pilot could not overcome them.
I read the standard tactic in the Battle of Britain was for the Spits to go after the Fighter escorts, allowing the Hurricanes to go after the bombers.
And the Battle of Britian was the end for the myth of the invincibility of the Stuka. When there was effective aerial opposition, the Stuka proved to be very vulnerable. The Stukas were often slaughtered over England.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Stukas were withdrawn altogether, even from attacks on shipping in the Channel.

 

[HansMustermann]

Oh, the economy of Germany in the 30's was essentially one big artificially engineered crisis, as the expense on rearmament was stalling the economy. Essentially you can make stuff you can export (so you can then import other stuff you need), or you can make lots of tanks and airplanes, or somewhere in between, but you have a finite industrial capacity for it. Having millions in the army instead of working in the factories also didn't exactly help.

Germany was even starting to have a major protein intake problem, and the life expectancy was dropping compared to the countries around it. Denmark or even the USSR would have been more than happy to export food to Germany (Stalin was starving his people to export all the food he can), but, you know, you have to export SOMETHING to pay for such imports. E.g., you could produce industrial machinery to export to Russia, and Stalin would happily buy as many as you can sell him, but then you're not producing as many tanks and airplanes.

The Nazi solution, of course, was to plan to kill millions of Poles and Ukrainians and take THEIR food.


THAT said, though, I don't think the German economy would have outright collapsed in '38. It would have been more like a long slow decline into obsolescence (kinda like what the post-war USSR did with their economy by overspending on the army) than an instant collapse.

And the propaganda machine was doing a good enough job of telling the population that the ACTUAL reason they can't buy any meat is because the Jews buy it all, and crap like that. So you probably wouldn't get revolts or anything any time soon.

 

[Tolls]

Well, the German economy was not intended to last as it stood.
It only had to keep going until Hitler's war kicked off.

 

[Henri McPhee]

The vague expression "the Internet" isn't very helpful in defining a source. Your informant doesn't even seem to know the name of the country participating in the Battle of Britain, which isn't a good sign. If it was being fought by "England" why is it the Battle of Britain?

That quote was from a Daily Telegraph article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...f-Britain-the-spitfire-envy-of-the-enemy.html

You people can't just deny that there was an air blitz on Britain. There is hard documentary evidence, and even film evidence. Holland surrendered after Rotterdam was bombed by Hitler. The Czechs surrendered, after Hitler threatened to bomb Prague, and Warsaw was heavily bombed. Though London was never fire stormed, Coventry suffered a bit of damage. Ireland never declared war on Germany. Hitler could have invaded Britain in 1938, or forced a surrender, in the same way as he occupied the Channel islands, if the RAF, with its Gloster Gladiators, was not operational. Churchill should have been asked with what?
Chamberlain provided another year to get organised.

It was pretty close, even in September 1940, and even if the British public and internet posters were relying on the British navy, in the same way as the French relied on the French navy.

 

[Dave Rogers]

That quote was from a Daily Telegraph article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...f-Britain-the-spitfire-envy-of-the-enemy.html

Which has major errors of fact in it. For example:

Yet few realise that when the much-anticipated new fighter plane flew for the first time in 1934, she was a complete and utter failure. [...] The plane’s cooling system failed repeatedly and the Air Ministry, deeply unimpressed, turned down Mitchell’s design and began to look elsewhere.

(1) That was a totally different design, and:
(2) The cooling system fault was endemic to every Goshawk-powered design.

You people can't just deny that there was an air blitz on Britain.

Nobody is denying that. When you start lying about your opponents' position, you might as well concede the debate.

Hitler could have invaded Britain in 1938, or forced a surrender, in the same way as he occupied the Channel islands, if the RAF, with its Gloster Gladiators, was not operational.

Rubbish. The Channel Islands were demilitarised and left undefended after evacuating about a quarter of the population. Are you suggesting Britain would have been left undefended?

It was pretty close, even in September 1940, and even if the British public and internet posters were relying on the British navy, in the same way as the French relied on the French navy.

Yes, how on Earth did the French navy fail to stop the German army in the Ardennes?

Dave

 

[Tolls]

Yes, how on Earth did the French navy fail to stop the German army in the Ardennes?

Dave

I think I mentioned this in another thread, but these things often read like Bluto from Animal House.

 

[ddt]

You people can't just deny that there was an air blitz on Britain.

Who is denying that?

Holland surrendered after Rotterdam was bombed by Hitler.

The country's called The Netherlands. And the situations are not comparable.
(1) On day one of Fall Gelb, the Luftwaffe had destroyed most Dutch fighters on their air fields.
(2) German paratroopers managed to get hold of the Moerdijk bridges over the Hollands Diep, and thus the army could advance on Rotterdam. In fact, at the time of the bombing, Rotterdam was frontline with the Germans on the south bank of the Maas and the Dutch on the north bank.

If the latter hadn't happened, the Dutch army could have deployed its most formidable weapon: the Water Line. To spell it completely out for you: on that map, the greyish blue lines are existing rivers, and the blue areas would be inundated. I dare you to explain how you cross that with Tigers. We can play "what if", if that had happened and the Germans had threatened to bomb Rotterdam.

Hitler could have invaded Britain in 1938, or forced a surrender,

No, your claim was: defeat Britain within a week. We're still waiting for your battle plan how he would accomplish this.

The Netherlands took five days, and that was after destroying the air force and capturing a couple of bridges into the heartland. How do you envisage that the Luftwaffe would destroy the British fighters, be they Gladiators or Hurricanes or Spitfires. And how do you envisage the German army to get into England? Last time I looked, the English Channel was a bit wider than the Hollands Diep and moreover, there's (still) no bridge spanning it.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

So is Henri actually a troll?

 

[Dave Rogers]

To spell it completely out for you: on that map, the greyish blue lines are existing rivers, and the blue areas would be inundated. I dare you to explain how you cross that with Tigers.

I think I can state with some authority that Germany would have had no problem getting every Tiger operational in 1940 across the Water Line

Dave

 

[Klimax]

So is Henri actually a troll?

Or Chamberlain revisionist.

 

[fagin]

Henri waffling...

It was pretty close, even in September 1940, and even if the British public and internet posters were relying on the British navy, in the same way as the French relied on the French navy.

To nitpick a bit, there were no internet posters in 1940.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, the German economy was not intended to last as it stood.
It only had to keep going until Hitler's war kicked off.

Yes, but then it was supposed to get WORSE.

I think that one thing you don't see people acknowledge a lot, is the fundamental implication of the whole Lebensraum and Generalplan Ost and the like: a modern european country, in the middle of the 20'th century, was aiming to get LESS URBAN, MORE AGRARIAN. Because that's what the whole "living space" was for. Millions of Poles and Ukrainians were supposed to die, to make room for... German peasant settlers.

One cannot understate the insanity of the whole Nazi position. At a time when almost all countries were trying to get MORE urban and industrialized, at a time when Stalin was starving his peasants to build a MORE urban and industrialized economy, the Nazis thought that what they REALLY need is more Germans working in agriculture, if they could only get more land for that.

 

[Tolls]

Oh yes, it was all bollocks.
It was some weird, almost feudal, throwback.

There's a few books that cover the madness, though.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

You people can't just deny that there was an air blitz on Britain.

No one is. You seem to be imagining things.

Holland surrendered after Rotterdam was bombed by Hitler.

Which they probably wouldn't have been able to do if Chamberlain hadn't betrayed the Czechs

The Czechs surrendered, after Hitler threatened to bomb Prague,

And after Chamberlain had rendered their borders indefensible.

Thatsthepoint.jpg

and Warsaw was heavily bombed.

Which they probably wouldn't have been able to do if Chamberlain hadn't betrayed the Czechs

Though London was never fire stormed, Coventry suffered a bit of damage.

Which they wouldn't have been able to do if Chamberlain hadn't betrayed the Czechs, and by doing enabled the Germans to gain the neccesary arms, foreign exchange and experience to defeat the low countries and France.

Ireland never declared war on Germany.

And this is relevant how?

Hitler could have invaded Britain in 1938, or forced a surrender, in the same way as he occupied the Channel islands, if the RAF, with its Gloster Gladiators, was not operational. Churchill should have been asked with what?

The RAF didn't magically pop into existance in 1939. The UK mainland is not the channel islands and once again, the Germans had no fighters capable of reaching the British mainland in 1938. A point you so studiously ignore.

Chamberlain provided another year to get organised.

Chamberlain quite disgracefully sold out the Czechs and in doing so gave the Germans the money, arms, and experience they needed to roll over western Europe. Nice one.

 

[ddt]

I think I can state with some authority that Germany would have had no problem getting every Tiger operational in 1940 across the Water Line

Dave

Or if he'd have attacked a few years later in the winter, like Pichegru did in 1795. This is a picture from 1947, on the Waal, the main arm of the Rhine, near Nijmegen. Most Dutch winters in the 1940s were pretty severe.

 

[ddt]

Germany was even starting to have a major protein intake problem, and the life expectancy was dropping compared to the countries around it. Denmark or even the USSR would have been more than happy to export food to Germany (Stalin was starving his people to export all the food he can), but, you know, you have to export SOMETHING to pay for such imports. E.g., you could produce industrial machinery to export to Russia, and Stalin would happily buy as many as you can sell him, but then you're not producing as many tanks and airplanes.

The Nazi solution, of course, was to plan to kill millions of Poles and Ukrainians and take THEIR food.

Germany didn't only have a protein intake problem, but also for fat/oil and fiber. That was, however, nothing new. The Wilhelminian empire wasn't self-sufficient with food either, and had to import about one third of its food, which led to hunger during and directly after WW1.

Obviously, the solution is to promote that people eat modestly ("Eintopfsonntag") or turn to unconventional sources of meat, like nutria or "Dachhase"