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I met Harry Turtledove! He's a pretty cool guy, he autographed my copy of "Guns of the South" for me!

This day again already? My how time doth flie.
Here is to all those whom gave their lives on this day all those many years ago *raises glass*

No need to speculate on how well the Stuka would perform against the RN. During the Dunkirk evacuation they managed to sing a total of four destroyers, all in shallow waters.

There are over a hundred destroyers in the RN home fleet, before we even begin to count ships of other types, and once the invasion starts every ship in the RN fleet (fleets?) will be sailing for the channel.

 George Spiggott wrote:
No need to speculate on how well the Stuka would perform against the RN. During the Dunkirk evacuation they managed to sing a total of four destroyers, all in shallow waters.

There are over a hundred destroyers in the RN home fleet, before we even begin to count ships of other types, and once the invasion starts every ship in the RN fleet (fleets?) will be sailing for the channel.

Dunkirk might be a bad example for the what-if we were doing. The Luftwaffe didnt even get close to air superiority and bad weather also affected the use of planes on some days. But in the end this is just like any other what-if. We cant get a consenus on all the effects combined, we dont know how it would go, no historical example of how they did it, because they didnt.

 Ahtman wrote:
I feel like we've moved so far into speculation mode that we might as well try and determine how aliens landing would have changed things.

Which kind?

M. Night Shamalamadingdong Signs kind? After the first thunderstorm, we'd be OK.

ALF? Just feed them cats to distract them take over their mother ships, then waste Germany.

From Aliens? We're all boned.

The Borg? Boned again.

The Ferengi? They'd totally back the capitalist swine, so we're good.

Earth Girls are Easy? Nothing to fear but 1500 space STDs...

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Dunkirk might be a bad example for the what-if we were doing. The Luftwaffe didnt even get close to air superiority and bad weather also affected the use of planes on some days.

Dunkirk is the only example we have. Remember that in the Summer of 1940 sinking a capital ship at sea with dedicated aircraft (which the Stuka is not) is still theory. The Germans aren't guaranteed total air superiority or good weather for Sea lion either.

 George Spiggott wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Dunkirk might be a bad example for the what-if we were doing. The Luftwaffe didnt even get close to air superiority and bad weather also affected the use of planes on some days.

Dunkirk is the only example we have. Remember that in the Summer of 1940 sinking a capital ship at sea with dedicated aircraft (which the Stuka is not) is still theory. The Germans aren't guaranteed total air superiority or good weather for Sea lion either.

Its not the only one though, we have the battle for the Kerch peninsula and the evacuation of Crete. Both show that the Luftwaffe can operate reasonably effective against enemy naval assests. The fact that its only a theory at the moment means nothing, just a few months later the theory was proved with a aircraft that werent dedicated. And the what-if only works when the Luftwaffe would have won the Battle of Britain, which was close for a while, without air superiority its out of the question of course. Good weather can be waited on of course, even d-day waited for good weather with a large superiority in most branches.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Its not the only one though, we have the battle for the Kerch peninsula and the evacuation of Crete. Both show that the Luftwaffe can operate reasonably effective against enemy naval assests. The fact that its only a theory at the moment means nothing, just a few months later the theory was proved with a aircraft that werent dedicated. And the what-if only works when the Luftwaffe would have won the Battle of Britain, which was close for a while, without air superiority its out of the question of course. Good weather can be waited on of course, even d-day waited for good weather with a large superiority in most branches.

But Crete also tells us that air superiority can't ensure the protection of transport craft. Two attempts were made by the Germans to move troops by sea, and both failed utterly when encountered by the Royal Navy. German air superiority made it very difficult for the Royal Navy to operate as it would have liked, but air superiority wasn't so powerful that it could allow a grossly under-resourced navy to operate with the freedom needed to supply an invasion force.

Simply put, to deploy troops over sea, you need overwhelming superiority in the air and on the sea. The Germans almost had one of the two.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
I think Britain and France were still in chicken-mode at that point. An immediate offer of a peace treaty would probably have been accepted. Or at the very least a cease-fire.

The political position is a lot more complex than that. While there was enough political pressure in England and France to restrict effective, aggressive action, at least as much political pressure would have resisted any effort at simply accepting a peace deal.

The idea of Poland as a traditional ally who deserves British support was really strong. In 1945 there were plans about how a limited war with the USSR might secure Polish independance. The idea that they would just give up on that in 1939 while they are in what everyone perceives as an overwhelming position of military strength is a non-starter.


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 LordofHats wrote:
No more or less than when Germany actual invaded. Russia's best defense was its sheer size. Even Russia east of the Urals is massive. Germany didn't have the manpower to cover the territory with sufficient force or the logistical ability to project into Russia adequately. As Barbarossa showed, once the initial shock of the Blitz was expended and the defense started to form, Germany just couldn't fight its way through all the bodies.

It's something of a myth that Russia was all just bodies. They actually held a massive advantage in industrial production over the Germans. They made more planes, more tanks, more field guns and, well, more of everything than the Germans. As the war became

But yeah, I agree on the logistical shorcomings of the Germans being a major issue. Had they been able to resupply forward units more effectively things might have been a little different. But, well, ultimately when you've state of the art military gear being supplied by horse and cart, you've got a problem.

The T-34 wouldn't be that big till long after Babarossa fail. During Barbarossa the life saver for Soviet armor were the BT7 and the KV1. The BT7 was fast enough to make a real pain of itself. The KV1 actually couldn't be killed by German weaponry in 1942 and even into 1943 remained a total pain (a single KV1 held up supply lines to the 7th Panzer Division for a week). More KV1's were disabled by running out of gas or ammunition than by German fire.

Actually, the T-34 was available in sufficient quantities, it was just used poorly by the disorganised Soviet command. Had they been held in reserve and used as intended to make breakthrough, deep operations attacks (as they were later in the war) the early stages of Barbarossa could have been very different.

But, of course, 'if early Russian command had been competent' is a big 'if'.

Hitler didn't do that much initial meddling in Barbarossa. By the time he started getting directly involved the Soviets had already started moving. The German advance was one of the fastest in history. It's unlikely they could have moved any faster.

Russia is just too damn big.

The initial stages of Barbarossa were incredibly successful, as you say, but the Germans failed to exploit some of that early success due to supply issues. This is in large part due to the sheer scale of Russia, as you say, but also because much of the German logistics machine was rather WWI-esque.


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 LordofHats wrote:
It's a complete toss up. It's feasible that a peace could have been negotiated. Choking off supplies with the U-Boats, slowly crippling the British fleet. The failure of the Kriegsmarine in WWII pretty much rests solely on Hitler being a propagandist first. The Kriegsmarine could never win a fight with the Royal Navy but they could more than adequately cripple it and British supplies.

Peace with Britain after the Fall of France was certainly plausible. But if it happened it wouldn't have been through any change in what Germany did (British commitment to the war only increased as the u-boat attacks continued), and more through political machinations in Britain working out differently - there were conversations about a cease fire in Britain, but it was seen rightly by Churchill as the thin end of the wedge, and interestingly enough, he received his strongest support from Chamberlain (who's reputation as an appeaser is one of history's bigger mistakes).

I do agree with the overall uselessness of the Kriegsmarine, but then when most of those boats were commissioned the ineffectiveness of surface ships was unknown. The Bismarck was put in to open sea in what was, at the time, a conventional role of a raiding ship. It's demise restricted the rest of the fleet to general uselessness.

And don't forget that despite their considerable early successes, by the mid to late war period service on a u-boat was close to a death sentence, and not just because of the ultra intercepts, but the really impressive counter-sub technologies and co-ordination the Western allies put in place.

Most of them ignore just how good the Russians really were. Stalin planned to fight Hitler from the beginning. If Hitler didn't strike first Stalin would, so waiting to fight Russia wasn't going to work. Germany's only real chance in WWII was to force a stalemate with Russia and sue for peace which was a slim to none chance that completely evaporated after the Battle of Kursk.

Absolutely. Stalin's plan was to fight the war in 1944 or thereabouts, when his army was fully in control politically, and properly modernised.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
And Germany could have just ignored Britain till they were able to squash them with certainty. Shore up the Atlantic Wall and keep the U-boats busy. And make sure not to poke the Americans(Thanks Japan)

The Japanese attack, and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war on the USA made things easier for Roosevelt, but US intervention was going to happen sooner or later.

Don't forget the US navy was under orders to blow up any German sub in open waters already, and the lend-lease program to the UK was already in full swing. War with Germany was kind of inevitable.


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 LordofHats wrote:
An invasion was never going to happen. It's funny because Hitler told his big wigs to plan an invasion of the British Isles and they talked about it for a bit and their response was basically "well feth this isn't going to work." XD The Royal Navy would have crushed such an overt move easily and Germany didn't have the boats to attempt a channel crossing anymore than the British did. You don't just load a bunch of soldiers into a battleship and take them across the water. You need landing craft and the ability to put them on the ground. Neither Britain or Germany could have pulled that off.

For historical context (wink) the English Channel has only been crossed 3 times with lasting military success. Aulus Plautius, William the Conquerer, and Operation Overlord.

Absolutely. And you look at the immense planning and resources thrown in to Overlord, by two nations that already have immense naval assets, and the idea of the Germans just throwing together a slap dash navy and sneaking over the channel doesn't make a lot of sense.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
A direct invasion would have probably happened sooner then being crippled due to U-boats. The Luftwaffe almost broke the RAF in 1940 and a invasion could have started, but Hitler changed the tactics for the Luftwaffe just before this crucial point, just like a year later for Heeresgruppe Mitte.

The near collapse of the RAF has been overstated. The strain on the pilots was immense, but each month there were more planes in the air than previously, and the cost on the Luftwaffe for what was basically a stalemate was disastrous for Hitler's long term plans.

So Hitler shifted to bombing cities to force the population in to submission. In hindsight, the correct decision would have been to simply abandon offensive operations against mainland Britain, but at the time we didn't know how ineffective strategic bombing would be in harming a civilian population's morale (and after all, the Allies made the same mistake against Germany).

I guess the best chance at a what-if scenario would have been a warmongerer like Hitler, but not Hitler.

There's a pretty long history of German senior command blaming Hitler for all kinds of stuff after the war. Historical research indicates that much of that was self serving politics. In fact, in many places Hitler put demands on senior command and he turned out to be entirely correct. It was Hitler that demanded that German must plan for a rapid strike war against France, and it was Hitler that demanded the German troops must not retreat against the Winter Offensive (which likely prevented a route and the loss of many more German soldiers and material, and later German counter attacks produced a German victory).


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
It was all down to the ability of the Luftwaffe to take out the RAF. For historical context look at the HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse. The British army would have probably been unable to even push a small German force of the beaches with German air cover, seeing as how the lost most of their heavy equipment at Dunkirk.

There's a difference between sinking two capital ships that were operating in open waters without any air cover at all, in which the enemy also has considerable naval assets of their own, and the invasion of England by Germany.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Dive bombing would be adequate enough, provided by the example of Midway or the Soviet Baltic fleet confined to Leningrad due to the threat of German bombers and minefields. It can be argued that Germany possesed the best dive-bombers at the start of the war. Poor planning but operational succes was shown in the end with the invasion of Crete, the Germans pulled it off, even though the Royal Navy enjoyed naval supremacy in the Meditarranean.

You're not paratrooping an effective invasion force in to Britain. Crete was a shambles that should have failed, and it was only small scale.

And note that the two efforts to transport infantry by boat to Crete both failed, repulsed with heavy casualties by the Royal Navy.


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 LordofHats wrote:
In spite of its reputation for being Zero fodder, the Dauntless was probably the best dive bomber designed in WWII.

As I understand it, the Dauntless poor reputation was caused more by a few instances of poor deployment - exposed to Japanese fighters without any fighter cover of their own, than to any problems with the plane itself.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Well the capabilities might have been better developed, but they were not involved yet. In the first years it was the Germans that preformed best among the combatants. The Stuka worked best in an air superiority situation, for the reasons you provided, but its effectiveness against tanks, trains and ships were proved during the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Stuka as an aircraft was probably one of the worst and already at the end of its servicable years in 1939, but due to air superiority it worked.

And German air superiority over France was largely the result of British planes having to cross the channel first (and therefore having little fuel remaining in order to remain in theatre). In trying to fight British shipping defending the coast, the British had no such issue, instead it would be the German planes suffering greatly reduced time in theatre.

And don't forget the Spitfires were withheld from defence of France.

Saying Crete was luck is just throwing away almost all of the first years of German succes, most of it was luck, they didnt have numbers or quality at their side, but training and luck. But Crete was a similar situation, the British had just evacuated Greece, leaving behind their equipment, just like Dunkirk and the only missing part was the total air superiority. The invasion of Britain would also have used airborne assests followed by ground elements, like in Norway. The defenders of Britain would have faced quite a similar situation as the soldiers on Crete, demoralized and without most of their equipment.

It's simply a nonsense to compare the defence of Crete by with the defence of the British homeland. Small scale operations, like paratroop drops, will work in a small campaign, but be utterly dwarfed in the other.

 sebster wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Its not the only one though, we have the battle for the Kerch peninsula and the evacuation of Crete. Both show that the Luftwaffe can operate reasonably effective against enemy naval assests. The fact that its only a theory at the moment means nothing, just a few months later the theory was proved with a aircraft that werent dedicated. And the what-if only works when the Luftwaffe would have won the Battle of Britain, which was close for a while, without air superiority its out of the question of course. Good weather can be waited on of course, even d-day waited for good weather with a large superiority in most branches.

But Crete also tells us that air superiority can't ensure the protection of transport craft. Two attempts were made by the Germans to move troops by sea, and both failed utterly when encountered by the Royal Navy. German air superiority made it very difficult for the Royal Navy to operate as it would have liked, but air superiority wasn't so powerful that it could allow a grossly under-resourced navy to operate with the freedom needed to supply an invasion force.

Simply put, to deploy troops over sea, you need overwhelming superiority in the air and on the sea. The Germans almost had one of the two

Additionally neither Crete or Kerch have occurred in 1940. More importantly neither of them result in multiple naval sinkings (one for Kerch, none? for Crete) or faced a force as large as the whole of the RN nor would the the Stuka fleet have just come out of the largest all battle of all time (does that record still stand?) during which they revived a mauling.

 sebster wrote:
But Crete also tells us that air superiority can't ensure the protection of transport craft. Two attempts were made by the Germans to move troops by sea, and both failed utterly when encountered by the Royal Navy. German air superiority made it very difficult for the Royal Navy to operate as it would have liked, but air superiority wasn't so powerful that it could allow a grossly under-resourced navy to operate with the freedom needed to supply an invasion force.

Simply put, to deploy troops over sea, you need overwhelming superiority in the air and on the sea. The Germans almost had one of the two.

Yes but neither the Kriegsmarine or the Regia Marina supported Crete with a decent amount of ships. We would assume that the significant elements the Germans possesed in Norway would have been redeployed. But for the example of air superiority, Crete was already severely diluted in air support after the failed and costly battle of Britain and preparations for Barbarossa. With a crossing we could expect a whole lot more air support and better naval elements. What Crete showed us is that the Germans pulled off a reasonably sized landing with almost no naval support and pushing the British off the island.

Agreed on the next points, although the importance of Soviet tanks did help it was mostly the effort the Whermacht had to expend to clear the enclosed pockets that saved the Soviet Union. So the bodies myth holds some value if you measure the enormous casualties by the time they bought in 1941, but not afterwards.

Absolutely. Stalin's plan was to fight the war in 1944 or thereabouts, when his army was fully in control politically, and properly modernised.

Stalin's forces would have been strong enough in 1942 to resist attacks and even counter attack succesfully. By that time the new equipment and officers that were just beginning to arrive in 1941 would have made the difference. Off course this was all just to scare off the capitalist powers to not attack them, just look at the size of the Red Army at the start of 1941. Suvorov's theory about a preemptive strike might have been viewed in a different light if it was 42-43, but 41 would be ridicolous. But in 1942 or 1943 it might have happened had the German threat been big enough.

The Japanese attack, and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war on the USA made things easier for Roosevelt, but US intervention was going to happen sooner or later.

Don't forget the US navy was under orders to blow up any German sub in open waters already, and the lend-lease program to the UK was already in full swing. War with Germany was kind of inevitable.

If memory serves the first lossof the US Navy was suffered when an U-boat sunk an American destroyer on escort duty, before the US was even involved in the war against Japan or Germany.

Absolutely. And you look at the immense planning and resources thrown in to Overlord, by two nations that already have immense naval assets, and the idea of the Germans just throwing together a slap dash navy and sneaking over the channel doesn't make a lot of sense.

It only makes sense if they could have taken out the RAF, they almost succeeded. If the had waited with the invasion of the Soviet Union (unlikely due to this being the only window) or had done it right after France it might have worked, but this is a really small amount of time for military operations. The immense naval assets for D-Day were mostly due to the Americans though, the Royal Navy was getting older with less modern ships, even before WWII.

The near collapse of the RAF has been overstated. The strain on the pilots was immense, but each month there were more planes in the air than previously, and the cost on the Luftwaffe for what was basically a stalemate was disastrous for Hitler's long term plans.

So Hitler shifted to bombing cities to force the population in to submission. In hindsight, the correct decision would have been to simply abandon offensive operations against mainland Britain, but at the time we didn't know how ineffective strategic bombing would be in harming a civilian population's morale (and after all, the Allies made the same mistake against Germany).

Only the first two months the Germans did slightly better than the RAF, this should have been taken advantage off, but it wasnt. The Luftwaffe was never intended for these kinds of operations, as seen by the aircraft they used for it. But if they had used the correct tactics in those first two months they might have evened the score for later months, but they never did.
Some historians even go as far as to say that the Battle of Britain might have costed them Barbarossa, due to the large losses they took in the bombing of cities. If the amount of planes lost over Britain were available in the Soviet Union it might have been a different story.

There's a pretty long history of German senior command blaming Hitler for all kinds of stuff after the war. Historical research indicates that much of that was self serving politics. In fact, in many places Hitler put demands on senior command and he turned out to be entirely correct. It was Hitler that demanded that German must plan for a rapid strike war against France, and it was Hitler that demanded the German troops must not retreat against the Winter Offensive (which likely prevented a route and the loss of many more German soldiers and material, and later German counter attacks produced a German victory).

Yes these decisions were correct. But it was with the targets of the Heeresgruppe that Germany lost the war, Hitler detached panzer groups from Mitte to support the northern and southern advance. They might have reached Moscow if he didnt and as seen later Stalin didnt leave the Kremlin, so who knows. Off course Fall Blau is another strong indication that with different leadership it might have gone better.

There's a difference between sinking two capital ships that were operating in open waters without any air cover at all, in which the enemy also has considerable naval assets of their own, and the invasion of England by Germany.

But then again, my what-if revolved around the fact if the Royal Navy lost air support. But the difference of the enemy also having considerable naval assets isnt valid, they didnt partake in the sinking and later proved during the Battle of the Java Sea that they were not that considerable, certainly not more then if the two battleships would have stayed with the supporting fleet.

You're not paratrooping an effective invasion force in to Britain. Crete was a shambles that should have failed, and it was only small scale.

And note that the two efforts to transport infantry by boat to Crete both failed, repulsed with heavy casualties by the Royal Navy.

See my previous anwser for the landing. Crete was the result of hubris I guess, they already thought they had won, one of the other mistakes they made repeatedly.
I agree on the fact of the paratroopers, best case scenario they would have had to capture a reasonable port and a nearby airfield to give other German forces even a chance.

As I understand it, the Dauntless poor reputation was caused more by a few instances of poor deployment - exposed to Japanese fighters without any fighter cover of their own, than to any problems with the plane itself.

Training might have been somewhat of a problem too, with the Japanese having more experience with their planes at first. Later in the war the loss of these experienced crews lost them the carrier battles after 1942.

And German air superiority over France was largely the result of British planes having to cross the channel first (and therefore having little fuel remaining in order to remain in theatre). In trying to fight British shipping defending the coast, the British had no such issue, instead it would be the German planes suffering greatly reduced time in theatre.

And don't forget the Spitfires were withheld from defence of France.

German air superiority also had something to due with France's lack of newer planes, those were still on order from the US.
Yes the British planes over France were mostly older models, that werent equal to those later defending their own country. On the part of fuel, I agree completly, one of the reason they suffered such heavy losses in Britain was lack of fighter support for the bombers. Later this was seen again in the US bomber offensive until the addition of drop tanks.

It's simply a nonsense to compare the defence of Crete by with the defence of the British homeland. Small scale operations, like paratroop drops, will work in a small campaign, but be utterly dwarfed in the other.

Off course its not a valid comparison, as later allied tries point out. But on Crete the circumstances were quite similar, with the loss of heavy equipment and the desperate effort to pull the army back together. But trying a repeat of Crete would certainly fail.


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 George Spiggott wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Its not the only one though, we have the battle for the Kerch peninsula and the evacuation of Crete. Both show that the Luftwaffe can operate reasonably effective against enemy naval assests. The fact that its only a theory at the moment means nothing, just a few months later the theory was proved with a aircraft that werent dedicated. And the what-if only works when the Luftwaffe would have won the Battle of Britain, which was close for a while, without air superiority its out of the question of course. Good weather can be waited on of course, even d-day waited for good weather with a large superiority in most branches.

But Crete also tells us that air superiority can't ensure the protection of transport craft. Two attempts were made by the Germans to move troops by sea, and both failed utterly when encountered by the Royal Navy. German air superiority made it very difficult for the Royal Navy to operate as it would have liked, but air superiority wasn't so powerful that it could allow a grossly under-resourced navy to operate with the freedom needed to supply an invasion force.

Simply put, to deploy troops over sea, you need overwhelming superiority in the air and on the sea. The Germans almost had one of the two

Additionally neither Crete or Kerch have occurred in 1940. More importantly neither of them result in multiple naval sinkings (one for Kerch, none? for Crete) or faced a force as large as the whole of the RN nor would the the Stuka fleet have just come out of the largest all battle of all time (does that record still stand?) during which they revived a mauling.

It would have only worked before the invasion of the Soviet Union and these examples only show a small effort of the Luftwaffe, certainly not the numbers they would have pulled out for an invasion of Britain, its on a whole different scale for everyone. But I dont get what the importance of the 1940 theory is, the atomic bomb was also a theory, yet they had an expectation that was fulfilled according to the theory. Just because something cant be tried earlier then it truly happened doesnt mean its impossible.

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 Grey Templar wrote:
And Germany could have just ignored Britain till they were able to squash them with certainty. Shore up the Atlantic Wall and keep the U-boats busy. And make sure not to poke the Americans(Thanks Japan)

"The Japanese attack, and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war on the USA made things easier for Roosevelt, but US intervention was going to happen sooner or later.

Don't forget the US navy was under orders to blow up any German sub in open waters already, and the lend-lease program to the UK was already in full swing. War with Germany was kind of inevitable."


Not inevitable. Roosevelt might of lost his next presidential election, which could have removed the pro-war supporters from influence in the U.S.A. Nothing was set in stone.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
It would have only worked before the invasion of the Soviet Union and these examples only show a small effort of the Luftwaffe, certainly not the numbers they would have pulled out for an invasion of Britain, its on a whole different scale for everyone. But I dont get what the importance of the 1940 theory is, the atomic bomb was also a theory, yet they had an expectation that was fulfilled according to the theory. Just because something cant be tried earlier then it truly happened doesnt mean its impossible.

The importance is that in 1940 Germany has made no preparation for attacking capital ships with Stukas and their preparation between 1940 and 42 is slight since they only sink one between Crete and Kerch combined.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes but neither the Kriegsmarine or the Regia Marina supported Crete with a decent amount of ships.

What exactly are you expecting the Kriegsmarine to bring to Sea Lion after the mauling they received during Norway?

 George Spiggott wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
It would have only worked before the invasion of the Soviet Union and these examples only show a small effort of the Luftwaffe, certainly not the numbers they would have pulled out for an invasion of Britain, its on a whole different scale for everyone. But I dont get what the importance of the 1940 theory is, the atomic bomb was also a theory, yet they had an expectation that was fulfilled according to the theory. Just because something cant be tried earlier then it truly happened doesnt mean its impossible.

The importance is that in 1940 Germany has made no preparation for attacking capital ships with Stukas and their preparation between 1940 and 42 is slight since they only sink one between Crete and Kerch combined.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes but neither the Kriegsmarine or the Regia Marina supported Crete with a decent amount of ships.

What exactly are you expecting the Kriegsmarine to bring to Sea Lion after the mauling they received during Norway?

And they never made any significant effort, because they didnt have a chance at an invasion as it stands. Off course had they been able under the best conditions to even make the effort of trying they might have trained in naval battles, like they tried for a while in the Soviet Union (and with the Fieseler Fi 167). But it didnt pay off, it was mainly a land war, so why invest effort into something you will probably never need? Its still a long shot, if they had gained air superiority they might have developed this role, but the Soviet-Union was more important at that time.
In Norway the Kriegsmarine performed reasonable. They inflicted heavier losses than they suffered, only they couldnt afford them as well. They still had the advantage of some of the heavier ships that hadnt been sunk yet, but which they would lose quickly in the upcoming months, when they didnt consider an invasion anymore. Off course we would have to consider the role of German U-boats that were on interdiction operations. Even though not their main goal they sunk a decent amount of enemy warships during their time in the Mediterranean.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
They inflicted heavier losses than they suffered, only they couldnt afford them as well. They still had the advantage of some of the heavier ships that hadnt been sunk yet...

That's really not how the Battle(s) of Narvik went. The Germans lost half of their destroyer fleet and a cruiser for considerably less gain.

The Kreigsmarine is tiny 1940 . Since the submarines would have to come out of the Atlantic to engage warships in a narrow band of water crawling with destroyers I actually see any involvement by U-boats as being beneficial to the UK.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes but neither the Kriegsmarine or the Regia Marina supported Crete with a decent amount of ships. We would assume that the significant elements the Germans possesed in Norway would have been redeployed. But for the example of air superiority, Crete was already severely diluted in air support after the failed and costly battle of Britain and preparations for Barbarossa. With a crossing we could expect a whole lot more air support and better naval elements. What Crete showed us is that the Germans pulled off a reasonably sized landing with almost no naval support and pushing the British off the island.

But you can't discount the RAF's greater presence in that engagement.

Nor can you just wave away that while the Kriegsmarine would play a greater role, they'd still be miles short of the naval force needed to adequately protect any landing force.

Agreed on the next points, although the importance of Soviet tanks did help it was mostly the effort the Whermacht had to expend to clear the enclosed pockets that saved the Soviet Union. So the bodies myth holds some value if you measure the enormous casualties by the time they bought in 1941, but not afterwards.

That mattered. I mean, sure, bodies mattered. But what people don't realise when continuing the myth of the Red Army's mass of bodies is that at the start of Barbarossa the Wehrmacht and its allied forces were more numerous. What decided the war, ultimately, was the ability of the Soviets to replenish their numbers. And not even their ability to replenish men, as their numerical advantage was only overwhelming in the very late stages of the war, but their ability to replenish lost tanks and aircraft.

Stalin's forces would have been strong enough in 1942 to resist attacks and even counter attack succesfully. By that time the new equipment and officers that were just beginning to arrive in 1941 would have made the difference. Off course this was all just to scare off the capitalist powers to not attack them, just look at the size of the Red Army at the start of 1941. Suvorov's theory about a preemptive strike might have been viewed in a different light if it was 42-43, but 41 would be ridicolous. But in 1942 or 1943 it might have happened had the German threat been big enough.

I've always heard 1944 as the planned date for the Soviet drive West.

If memory serves the first lossof the US Navy was suffered when an U-boat sunk an American destroyer on escort duty, before the US was even involved in the war against Japan or Germany.

Yeah, there was already a low intensity war on the seas. Which is exactly what you'd expect - the Germans are trying to starve Britain, and the Americans are trying to keep Britain in supply.

It only makes sense if they could have taken out the RAF, they almost succeeded. If the had waited with the invasion of the Soviet Union (unlikely due to this being the only window) or had done it right after France it might have worked, but this is a really small amount of time for military operations. The immense naval assets for D-Day were mostly due to the Americans though, the Royal Navy was getting older with less modern ships, even before WWII.

I think you're mistaken in both your assumptions on how close the RAF was to destruction. They built 15,000 aircraft in 1940. They lost 1,500 in the Battle of Britain. The idea of grinding the RAF down is simply a non-starter. Basically, as events like Singapore and Barbarossa show, the only truly effective way to devestate an opposing air fleet is to blow it all up while it's on the ground. Thanks to radar, that was never going to happen over Britain.

And yeah, the Royal Navy's overall size is a little misleading, because as you say many of its ships were old, many were even pre-WWI vessels. But it was still a navy that was utterly superior to the And while many of new vessels used in D-day were American, notably the landing craft, the task of fleet protection still came down to the Royal Navy (the US had that whole war in the Pacific going on, after all). And when you look at the sheer number of vessels commited to fleet protection, and how concerned they still were that it might not be enough (hence the series of whacky missions trying to keep Tirpitz out of the fight), and despite the overwhelming air superiority of the Western Allies, it becomes laughable to think the much, much inferior Kriegsmarine could have been sufficient, even before your consider that the Luftwaffe's superiority at the time was far more marginal.

Only the first two months the Germans did slightly better than the RAF, this should have been taken advantage off, but it wasnt. The Luftwaffe was never intended for these kinds of operations, as seen by the aircraft they used for it. But if they had used the correct tactics in those first two months they might have evened the score for later months, but they never did.
Some historians even go as far as to say that the Battle of Britain might have costed them Barbarossa, due to the large losses they took in the bombing of cities. If the amount of planes lost over Britain were available in the Soviet Union it might have been a different story.

Yeah, the result of the Battle of Britain was the beginning of the end for the superiority of the Luftwaffe. The losses they sustained there meant reduced assets in Barbarossa, and the future trend of the war meant a steady decline in air assets from then on.

It didn't help, of course, that Hitler started to mistrust Goring's wild boasts, following his failure in the Battle of Britain. Had the Luftwaffe been prioritised over the ack ack towers and other resources in the air defence of Germany, it could have been even more costly for Strategic Air Command. Not enough to turn the war, of course, but enough that many more pilots might have died.

Yes these decisions were correct. But it was with the targets of the Heeresgruppe that Germany lost the war, Hitler detached panzer groups from Mitte to support the northern and southern advance. They might have reached Moscow if he didnt and as seen later Stalin didnt leave the Kremlin, so who knows. Off course Fall Blau is another strong indication that with different leadership it might have gone better.

See, but ultimately that amounts to 'if Army Group North had been granted greater resources then maybe Moscow might have been taken, and then maybe that might have preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union'. And that's the problem I have with all that kind of speculation, because 1,001 things went right for the Germans in the early stages of Barbarossa, and so there's this hope that maybe the 1,002 thing might be the tipping point that collapsed the Soviet Union. Well maybe, but given the first 1,001 things didn't do it, I've got doubts the 1,002nd would have been it.

Ultimately, the Germans were fighting an skillful, aggressive war against a Soviet enemy that proved very resilient against its many, many setbacks, and was able to replace its losses in men and material more easily than the Germans. I'm not convined there's really a way of winning that war, even if we ignore Germany's scarce few mistakes early in the campaign, the reality is they probably did much better than they ever should have.

But then again, my what-if revolved around the fact if the Royal Navy lost air support. But the difference of the enemy also having considerable naval assets isnt valid, they didnt partake in the sinking and later proved during the Battle of the Java Sea that they were not that considerable, certainly not more then if the two battleships would have stayed with the supporting fleet.

And ultimately, I think that's a what-if that isn't very sensible, as the Luftwaffe never came close to actually destroying the RAF. And it's a what-if that doesn't even matter anyway. You can't protect a sea-borne invasion fleet with air power alone. You might be able to tell your landing fleet that when the enemy's battle fleet comes attacking the invasion force that you'll eventually sink them all, but before then they will play merry havoc among that landing fleet.

Once again, you need both air and sea superiority to properly protect a naval invasion. The Luftwaffe almost had one of the two.

See my previous anwser for the landing. Crete was the result of hubris I guess, they already thought they had won, one of the other mistakes they made repeatedly.
I agree on the fact of the paratroopers, best case scenario they would have had to capture a reasonable port and a nearby airfield to give other German forces even a chance.

Had the defence of Crete been properly organised, and had that New Zealand commander paid full attention to the Ultra intercepts, it would have been very, very different. But it wasn't, and that's history, I guess.

Training might have been somewhat of a problem too, with the Japanese having more experience with their planes at first. Later in the war the loss of these experienced crews lost them the carrier battles after 1942.

Yeah, the long term approach of the Americans, cycling experienced pilots back in to training programs to teach new pilots, was much better than the Japanese method of letting ace pilots burn out, make mistakes and die, and taking all their experience with them.

And, you know, there's a load of luck involved as well. The Japanese losses at Midway that proved so decisive was just an instance of luck finally landing with the allies, after everything had gone right for Germany and Japan in so many major campaigns before then.

That's kind of why I don't like the 'what if Hitler hadn't shifted to bombing cities in the Battle of Britain'. Well, sure, that was a campaign objective that turned out to be a mistake, as ultimately the whole Battle of Britain was. But before then just about every gamble and guess taken by the Axis had come off, while those made by the Allies came out wrong. There's no need to give the Axis yet another thing that falls their way.

German air superiority also had something to due with France's lack of newer planes, those were still on order from the US.
Yes the British planes over France were mostly older models, that werent equal to those later defending their own country. On the part of fuel, I agree completly, one of the reason they suffered such heavy losses in Britain was lack of fighter support for the bombers. Later this was seen again in the US bomber offensive until the addition of drop tanks.

Sure, and day time bombing operations. And some effective anti-bomber tactics by the Luftwaffe, that ultimately only became less effective as the Luftwaffe dwindled in size.

 sebster wrote:
[

But then again, my what-if revolved around the fact if the Royal Navy lost air support. But the difference of the enemy also having considerable naval assets isnt valid, they didnt partake in the sinking and later proved during the Battle of the Java Sea that they were not that considerable, certainly not more then if the two battleships would have stayed with the supporting fleet.

And ultimately, I think that's a what-if that isn't very sensible, as the Luftwaffe never came close to actually destroying the RAF. And it's a what-if that doesn't even matter anyway. You can't protect a sea-borne invasion fleet with air power alone. You might be able to tell your landing fleet that when the enemy's battle fleet comes attacking the invasion force that you'll eventually sink them all, but before then they will play merry havoc among that landing fleet.

Once again, you need both air and sea superiority to properly protect a naval invasion. The Luftwaffe almost had one of the two.

Assuming the Luftwaffe won the BoB and had annihilated the RAF, how feasible would it have been for the Luftwaffe to then go on and destroy the RN? As the War in the Pacific showed, there is not a whole heck of a lot an unprotected Navy can do vs an Air Force.

VensersRevenge wrote:
Not inevitable. Roosevelt might of lost his next presidential election, which could have removed the pro-war supporters from influence in the U.S.A. Nothing was set in stone.

Huh? Roosevelt won his third term in 1940. What election are you suggesting we change history to make him lose?

And before then policies were in place that would see an eventual conflict with either Germany or Japan. The only way US involvement can be taken out of the war is if we theorise that American military or merchant assets were sunk and the American people and political class decided to just put their tail between their legs and back off, which is kind of ludicrous, to be honest.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
In Norway the Kriegsmarine performed reasonable. They inflicted heavier losses than they suffered, only they couldnt afford them as well. They still had the advantage of some of the heavier ships that hadnt been sunk yet, but which they would lose quickly in the upcoming months, when they didnt consider an invasion anymore. Off course we would have to consider the role of German U-boats that were on interdiction operations. Even though not their main goal they sunk a decent amount of enemy warships during their time in the Mediterranean.

Well, the Kriegsmarine inflicted slightly greater losses, the most significant Royal Navy losses were suffered while trying to cover the British evacuation. That is, when trying to protect transport boats the Royal Navy was a lot more vulnerable to enemy aircraft. Before then it was the Germans that suffered far greater losses, as they tried to protect their invasion forces. Point being, in Operation Sea Lion the British vessels would be free to roam and attack the Germans where and when they pleased, with aircraft protection coming from nearby bases. It would be the Kriegsmarine forced to play picket duty, and they simply lacked the vessels to do it.

Then you have to consider that in the near future the UK would have Spitfires capable of being launched off their carriers, rather than the vastly outdated planes used earlier in the war.

And then you have to consider that even if the Germans could have achieved a rate of casualties equal to at those during the Norwegian campaign (which is dubious considering how many more British assets would have been drawn in to the defence), the Germans would have run out of ships long before the British.

And if you want to speculate about submarines, then you have to consider the havoc that Royal Navy subs could have inflicted on the German invasion fleet. You've got a Kriegsmarine that's vastly under-supplied with ships considering what's needed to protect a naval fleet, and you've got a Luftwaffe with absolutely none of the anti-submarine expertise that the Western allies developed over their fight against the u-boat fleet. All I'm saying is that while you might want to speculate about how the Germans might have achieved Sea Lion, and all I'm saying is that to me it really, really feels like a good way to waste the lives of hundreds of thousands of German soldiers.

I mean, you consider all the ambitious crazy stuff the Germans actually got up to during the war, and the invasion of Britain never even got past the speculation stage. I think that really says something abotu how plausible the operation would have been.


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 George Spiggott wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
They inflicted heavier losses than they suffered, only they couldnt afford them as well. They still had the advantage of some of the heavier ships that hadnt been sunk yet...

That's really not how the Battle(s) of Narvik went. The Germans lost half of their destroyer fleet and a cruiser for considerably less gain.

Well, it isn't Narvik but Operation Glorious where the Royal Navy suffered its greatest casualties.

All of which only makes the overall point you and I are arguing all the stronger though - when trying to protect their invasion force, the German navy suffered far greater. When trying to protect their evacuation force, the British navy suffered more. Which means, of course, that we can only conclude that the casualty rate for the Kriegsmarine in a hypothetical Sea Lion would have been horrendous, even assuming an air dominance they never had nor were ever likely to have. And when you look at how small the Kriegsmarine was, those are losses it simply can't sustain.

 sebster wrote:
Well, it isn't Narvik but Operation Glorious where the Royal Navy suffered its greatest casualties.

Operation Alphabet and the sinking of HMS Glorious yes? Yeah, on checking neither Blucher or Glorious were sunk during Narvik. I'm only counting RN named ships damaged/sunk but I still don't see more losses for the RN than for the KM.

Totals (inc. Narvik(s), Alphabet, Drobak Sound).

RN (damaged/lost)
0/1 Carrier
4/4 Destroyers

KM (damaged/lost)
1/1 Cruiser
4/10 Destroyers
0/1 U-boat

They're both around the same size but you may wish to attach more value to the carrier, however I think the operational value of carriers and cruisers may be switched when taking into account their future role in the hypothetical Operation Sea lion.