Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[Rincewind]

Found something else:

From an article called "Airpower during Munich" - sadly I can't find the original source...

However:

Most of the Luftwaffe was preparing to attack Czechoslovakia, so to shift the emphasis against Britain would have probably take considerably more than the week that Henri allowed Germany to beat Britain. Common sense suggests they would have wanted to defeat the Czechs first.

And - apparently they only has 378 fully operational bombers (excluding the Ju-87) and another 411 partially operational.

The Luftwaffe achieved very high serviceability rates for its aircraft before Fall Grün by reducing flight and training time and using up many spares. These rates were 90% for bombers and 95% for fighters on 26 September.

However, by December the serviceability rate had dropped to 78%

Czech Combat Aircraft:

Fighters: 252; 326 including reserves
Night Fighters: 10
Bombers: 94; 101 light bombers and 54 heavy bombers including reserves
Observation: 160; 529 including reserves.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I still think Chain Home radar was in its infancy in 1938:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_Home_Low

Chain Home was used to detect aircraft formations forming up and approaching at high altitude from long range, it could never reliable detect at low altitude.

Low altitude detection was covered by a separate system called Chain Home Low.

Go and study the Radar pages at the link given above, it has far more info than Wikipedia.

 

[Tolls]

Most of the Luftwaffe was preparing to attack Czechoslovakia, so to shift the emphasis against Britain would have probably take considerably more than the week that Henri allowed Germany to beat Britain. Common sense suggests they would have wanted to defeat the Czechs first.

Considering this is what happened with Poland a year later, the whole idea that the UK (or even France) would come under sustained air attack in 1938 is nonsense.

It would just be nice if Henri finally admitted it.

 

[Henri McPhee]

I don't think it is nonsense. I think in Hitler's little mind he thought Britain would negotiate after Dunkirk, and that he would win the air war of the Battle of Britain. It was pretty close even with Spitfires and Hurricanes, which were not really available in 1938. To think that Gloucester Gladiators could win an air war in 1938 is not being a realist.

The Bristol Beaufighter seems to have been a good warplane, which unfortunately was not available in 1938 I didn't know until recently that it was manufactured at Weston-Super-Mare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

The concept of the Beaufighter has its origins in 1938. During the Munich Crisis, the Bristol Aeroplane Company recognised that the Royal Air Force (RAF) had an urgent need for a long-range fighter aircraft capable of carrying heavy payloads for dealing high amounts of damage.

 

[Henri McPhee]

From the internet, which is relevant to appeasement and all that waffle about peace in our time, and the Anglo-German naval agreement:

As Wing Commander Andrew Green, who has piloted the more modern Phantoms and Tornados, points out: '’People say that after the Battle of Trafalgar, England was safe from invasion for ever. But if it wasn’t for the Spitfire we would have been invaded in 1940.’’

 

[Tolls]

You haven't addressed any of the points others have raised, just regurgitated your assertions.

You haven't explained how the Germans could do a thing to Britain in 1938, considering they didn't in 1939 in the real world.

Even had the battle of Britain started in June 1939, you haven't explained how 109s would be effective, when the 'E' (the version used in the Battle of Britain) was only just coming into service, and the 'D' was not as dominant in its role compared to the 'E'.

 

[Border Reiver]

I don't think it is nonsense. I think in Hitler's little mind he thought Britain would negotiate after Dunkirk, and that he would win the air war of the Battle of Britain. It was pretty close even with Spitfires and Hurricanes, which were not really available in 1938. To think that Gloucester Gladiators could win an air war in 1938 is not being a realist.

The Bristol Beaufighter seems to have been a good warplane, which unfortunately was not available in 1938 I didn't know until recently that it was manufactured at Weston-Super-Mare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

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.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

I don't think it is nonsense. I think in Hitler's little mind he thought Britain would negotiate after Dunkirk, and that he would win the air war of the Battle of Britain. It was pretty close even with Spitfires and Hurricanes, which were not really available in 1938. To think that Gloucester Gladiators could win an air war in 1938 is not being a realist.
The Bristol Beaufighter seems to have been a good warplane, which unfortunately was not available in 1938 I didn't know until recently that it was manufactured at Weston-Super-Mare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Once again you totally ignore the fact that there were no German fighters capable of reaching the UK from Germany, and once again you fail utterly to explain how Germany could have forced a British capitulation within a week in 1938.

Honestly, this is getting boring.

 

[Dave Rogers]

It was pretty close even with Spitfires and Hurricanes, which were not really available in 1938. To think that Gloucester Gladiators could win an air war in 1938 is not being a realist.

No. What's unrealistic is to pretend that the 1938 RAF would have had to face the 1940 Luftwaffe flying from 1940 bases. What the Gladiators and Hurricanes (and of course even a few Spitfires) would actually have had to face was about 300 unescorted bombers with 500kg bomb loads. And even if they hadn't been there, you're pretending that 300 bombers with 500kg bombloads could force a surrender in a week, when the RAF found that 1,000 bombers with 5,000kg bombloads couldn't force a surrender in three years. You're out by a factor, therefore, of about 5,000.

And it's "Gloster".

Dave

 

[Andy_Ross]

From the internet, which is relevant to appeasement and all that waffle about peace in our time, and the Anglo-German naval agreement:

Andrew Green is wrong. Without the Spitfire there still wouldn't have been an invasion in 1940 or any other year.

 

[Craig B]

From the internet, which is relevant to appeasement and all that waffle about peace in our time, and the Anglo-German naval agreement:

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?

 

[Tolls]

That's how it's normally phrased, based on how early 19th century types viewed it all.

Trafalgar saved England.

 

[Henri McPhee]

Andrew Green is wrong. Without the Spitfire there still wouldn't have been an invasion in 1940 or any other year.

I just think that's amazing complacency. The Gladiators would not have stood a chance against any German fighter aircraft, and not much chance against German bombers in 1938:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Gladiator

By September 1937, all eight Gladiator squadrons had achieved operational status and had formed the spearhead of London's air defences.[16] Difficulties with introducing the type had been experienced. Although the Gladiator was typically well liked by pilots, the accident rate encountered during operational training for the type were so numerous that a small replacement batch of 28 Gladiator Mk IIs was hurriedly produced.[15] Most accidents were caused by pilots being caught out by the fighter’s increased wing loading and many aviators had little experience in landing aircraft with such a wide flap area.[15] The aircraft had a tendency to stall more abruptly, frequently dropping a wing while doing so. The Gladiator proved even easier to enter a flat spin with and great skill was needed to recover.[17][15]

During 1938, the RAF had begun to receive its first deliveries of the Hurricane and Spitfire monoplanes; an emphasis was soon placed on quickly reequipping half of the Gladiator squadrons with either of these monoplane types.[18] By the outbreak of the Second World War, the Gladiator had largely been replaced by the Hurricane and Spitfire in frontline RAF service.

 

[lobosrul5]

I just think that's amazing complacency. The Gladiators would not have stood a chance against any German fighter aircraft, and not much chance against German bombers in 1938:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Gladiator

You got anything to back that up?

 

[Dave Rogers]

I just think that's amazing complacency. The Gladiators would not have stood a chance against any German fighter aircraft, and not much chance against German bombers in 1938:

And I think that's just amazing obstinacy. The Gladiator didn't need to stand a chance against any German fighter aircraft in the first week of a hypothetical war in 1938, because they couldn't actually get within a few hundred miles of one. Finnish Gladiators scored 45 kills in 1940; Norwegian Gladiators shot down Bf110s and He111s in 1940; 263 squadron RAF shot down 26 aircraft over Norway; Gladiators over Malta scored several successes despite being no more than a single flight, outnumbered by higher performance monoplane fighters. All in all, they did pretty well against the sort of opposition prevalent in 1940. That clearly gives the lie to the suggestion that they would have been utterly useless in 1938, don't you think?

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

You got anything to back that up?

No, but as usual he's edited in a random quote that has nothing to do with it.

Dave

 

[Border Reiver]

I just think that's amazing complacency. The Gladiators would not have stood a chance against any German fighter aircraft, and not much chance against German bombers in 1938:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Gladiator

As we've pointed out - there is no reasonable chance that a Gladiator would have gone up against an Me109d in a 1938 - the German fighters did not have the range to reach Britain and return. And if you'd actually read the article you linked to you'd have found out that the Gladiator was capable of scoring victories in all theatres against Axis aircraft until 1940...

Based on the wiki entries statistics for Gladiator, and the bombers it would have to intercept and chase - the He 111 and the Do 17[ - the biplane ends up with a higher ceiling and comparable speeds. Not to mention German bombers were notoriously poorly defended.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

We are kind of getting away from the main point which is that the Germany economy was tanking by the late '30's

By 1937, the German economy was suffering serious shortages of steel because of a lack of ore imports, while the industry itself was operating at barely 83 percent of capacity. These economic difficulties affecting rearmament most likely played a role in pushing Hitler into the confrontations of 1938. Here again, despite substantial financial gains made by the Anschluss with Austria, efforts to expand the rearmament program, to build up synthetic and munition industries, to begin the massive construction of the Westwall project, and to mobilize for the Czech crisis severely strained the German economy. In November 1938, Hermann Göring admitted that the German economic infrastructure had reached a point of maximum economic distress. As a direct result, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the German armed forces high command, made major reductions in steel and raw material allocations to armament production. Continuing difficulties led Hitler to announce to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, that Germany must wage an "export battle" (Exportschlacht) to raise foreign exchange. Simultaneously, he announced further reduction in Wehrmacht allocations: steel, 30 percent; copper, 20 percent; aluminum, 47 percent; rubber, 14 percent.

In other words, all the western allies had to do was to say "No!" and the German economy would have collapsed. As it was.....

 

[Andy_Ross]

I just think that's amazing complacency. The Gladiators would not have stood a chance against any German fighter aircraft, and not much chance against German bombers in 1938:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Gladiator

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

 

[Garrison]

From the internet, which is relevant to appeasement and all that waffle about peace in our time, and the Anglo-German naval agreement:

I'm not surprised you cut out the source, I suppose even you guessed that invoking the current holder of the land speed record as an expert on pre WWII aviation might be seen as less than compelling.

We are kind of getting away from the main point which is that the Germany economy was tanking by the late '30's
In other words, all the western allies had to do was to say "No!" and the German economy would have collapsed. As it was.....

'Wages of Destruction' by Adam Tooze covers the economics of the entire Nazi period and it really does seem to have consisted of lurching from one crisis to another. One great irony is that in 1934 Germany threatened to default on debts owed to the British and one Neville Chamberlain was in the forefront of demanding punitive action.

Based on the wiki entries statistics for Gladiator, and the bombers it would have to intercept and chase - the He 111 and the Do 17[ - the biplane ends up with a higher ceiling and comparable speeds. Not to mention German bombers were notoriously poorly defended.

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?

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

Yep, even if the Germans somehow pull off a conquest of France with a fraction of the armoured forces they had in 1940 they are going to be sat staring across the Channel in the summer with no hope of mounting an invasion (not that they had one in 1940) and the distinct possibility that a hostile USSR is rearming behind them...