If the Germans had invaded Britain during WW2 what would the result have been.

[Triggaaar]

The Navy was losing the merchant war at sea until it changed it's tactics

Destroying a merchant ship that's crossing the Atlantic isn't that hard, just as it's not that hard to destroy a troop barge that's crossing the channel. Our Navy could easily have destroyed an invasion fleet.

the German's were winning the BoB until they changed theirs

Firstly, the Germans were never winning the Battle of Britain - they weren't shooting enough of our aircraft down, they weren't ever putting our airfields out of action, and we continued to build as many fighters as we lost. Secondly, even if they had been winning it, we only needed to retreat north and sit back, ready to bomb the shit out of any invasion fleet. Germany never had a chance.

 

[theboybilly]

Destroying a merchant ship that's crossing the Atlantic isn't that hard, just as it's not that hard to destroy a troop barge that's crossing the channel. Our Navy could easily have destroyed an invasion fleet.

Firstly, the Germans were never winning the Battle of Britain - they weren't shooting enough of our aircraft down, they weren't ever putting our airfields out of action, and we continued to build as many fighters as we lost. Secondly, even if they had been winning it, we only needed to retreat north and sit back, ready to bomb the shit out of any invasion fleet. Germany never had a chance.

Wasn't Britain, at one point at least, on the point of starvation? The escorting of merchant ships would have used up vital resources that might have been used elsewhere in defending the coastline. Building as many fighters is one thing, replacing exhausted aircrew is quite another, and the RAF was running on almost empty until Goering's blunder. Once ashore I would expect crack German troops to quickly attack and put out of action most of the Southern Sector airfields. Hitler had vast amounts of his very best troops available to achieve this and I can't see our Home Guard doing much to prevent it however valiant a fight they put up. That would leave just the other RAF squadrons to fill a huge void when their resources were already fully stretched. The loss of the home ports would have quickly followed in my opinion. I can only think of how easily the Nazi forces overcame France and the Low Countries to come to the conclusion that however difficult British forces made it the Germans would have managed to overcome all obstacles and complete their occupation of this country.

 

[Nibble]

Wasn't Britain, at one point at least, on the point of starvation? The escorting of merchant ships would have used up vital resources that might have been used elsewhere in defending the coastline. Building as many fighters is one thing, replacing exhausted aircrew is quite another, and the RAF was running on almost empty until Goering's blunder. Once ashore I would expect crack German troops to quickly attack and put out of action most of the Southern Sector airfields. Hitler had vast amounts of his very best troops available to achieve this and I can't see our Home Guard doing much to prevent it however valiant a fight they put up. That would leave just the other RAF squadrons to fill a huge void when their resources were already fully stretched. The loss of the home ports would have quickly followed in my opinion. I can only think of how easily the Nazi forces overcame France and the Low Countries to come to the conclusion that however difficult British forces made it the Germans would have managed to overcome all obstacles and complete their occupation of this country.

And yet, they didn't manage it.

 

[atfc village]

Ventnor and Bexhill on Sea strategic military targets? How bizarre? The Germans would have been quaking in their jackboots and were probably quite relieved when operation sealion was postponed.

Ventnor had a main Chain Radar Station and a RAF Base and was important in the defence of The South Coast.

 

[theboybilly]

And yet, they didn't manage it.

I'm glad they didn't but it was a very very close call

 

[e77]

Wasn't Britain, at one point at least, on the point of starvation? The escorting of merchant ships would have used up vital resources that might have been used elsewhere in defending the coastline. Building as many fighters is one thing, replacing exhausted aircrew is quite another, and the RAF was running on almost empty until Goering's blunder. Once ashore I would expect crack German troops to quickly attack and put out of action most of the Southern Sector airfields. Hitler had vast amounts of his very best troops available to achieve this and I can't see our Home Guard doing much to prevent it however valiant a fight they put up. That would leave just the other RAF squadrons to fill a huge void when their resources were already fully stretched. The loss of the home ports would have quickly followed in my opinion. I can only think of how easily the Nazi forces overcame France and the Low Countries to come to the conclusion that however difficult British forces made it the Germans would have managed to overcome all obstacles and complete their occupation of this country.

They would have needed to overcome British air and sea superiority first before they got the chance.

 

[Triggaaar]

Wasn't Britain, at one point at least, on the point of starvation?

I don't know, and I can understand that if things had gone differently we would have required our Navy to devote more resources to the Atlantic, but we still could have defended against an invasion with our aircraft.

Building as many fighters is one thing, replacing exhausted aircrew is quite another

True, but I don't think we were that short of pilots - we rested pilots and moved them into teaching, whereas Germany kept their best pilots fighting all through the war. Also, when our pilots were forced to bail out, they parachuted to safety and got back in a new plane, while the Germans were either captured, or drowned in the channel.

the RAF was running on almost empty until Goering's blunder.

Which blunder? I was taught at school (70s and 80s) that the Germans lost the BoB because they stopped attacking our airfields, but more recent research (with the benefit of German and British records) shows that clearly wasn't the case. I think only one of our airfields was out of action for a whole day, and it was just the one day. Craters in airfields were easily filled.

Once ashore I would expect crack German troops to quickly attack and put out of action most of the Southern Sector airfields.

The reason I don't believe they had any chance is because the difficult bit would have been getting them ashore in the first place. And we didn't need our Southern Sector airfields to defend against an invasion fleet anyway.

Just think how difficult and costly D-Day was, and that was with naval superiority, air superiority (neither of which Germany ever had over Britain), and a huge advantage in ground troops too.

I can only think of how easily the Nazi forces overcame France and the Low Countries

If there was no channel between us and France, I'd agree with you (not that such a hypothesis makes any sense, as Britain wouldn't exist without the channel). But driving tanks through the Ardennes is not the same as ferrying troops in boats over the channel - it's not even remotely similar.

Germany needed to command the air and sea in order to mount a successful invasion of Britain, and they never came close to either. As you mentioned, their best chance would have been to prevent us resupplying from the US, and then they could have won.

 

[theboybilly]

I'm enjoying this thread but have to be up early so I'm off to bed. I'll be at the match tomorrow but will have my phone with me to discuss further. I think I've decided on the Bricklayers Arms in Putney

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Ventnor had a main Chain Radar Station and a RAF Base and was important in the defence of The South Coast.

Good point. Radar was critical to the success of the Battle of Britain. Somehow the Germans failed to destroy the Chain Home radar network, otherwise we would have been blind to their air raids and rendered the RAF less effective.

However it seems likely the coastal radar stations would have been captured in the event of a German invasion. Therefore for us to maintain our hard gained air superiority and prevent the Germans from establishing the necessary supply lines we would have needed to replicate Chain Home across the North downs and the Midlands etc.

With regard to Bexhill being a focal point for invasion, you can disregard the sedate geriatric seaside resort - although it does provide a perfect template for Dad's Army. Historical events show that the coastline in the Pevensey/Cooden/Bexhill area, plus the shorter channel crossing it offers suited the Romans and Normans, so I guess it makes sense for it to be on the Germans list of potential invasion sites.

 

[BensGrandad]

Worrying thought would TB and familyhave been here?

 

[beorhthelm]

... I can only think of how easily the Nazi forces overcame France and the Low Countries to come to the conclusion that however difficult British forces made it the Germans would have managed to overcome all obstacles and complete their occupation of this country.

Belgium and Holland had no army or defenses to speak of and where easily over run by German blitzkrieg, invading France was ore of the same only a larger army. the principle obstacle to Britain was the 30-100 mile wide sea, for which the Germans had no equipment to assault in numbers. they would not have been able to transport the vehicles to push inland. in this situation even air superiority wouldnt help much, focused mainly on defence of the slender beachhead from being cut off by the navy.

 

[Triggaaar]

Worrying thought would TB and familyhave been here?

That certainly puts the death of millions of people into perspective

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

A lot of faith was placed in the Royal Navy and RAF being able to command the seas and skies and therefore to repel a German invasion fleet in the autumn / early winter of 1940. Maybe this was true. However you would also expect the Germans to have concentrated their own resources, including U-boats and Luftwaffe.

Despite the superiority of the Royal Navy and RAF we still managed to allow two German battle cruisers to escape unhindered from French ports and sail up the Channel to safety, yet their movement was well anticipated.

Among the embarrassing deficiencies was a lack of proper and effective inter-service communication and secondly the response times were appallingly slow. Finally we lacked suitable aircraft to attack a surface fleet.

I feel that we would have prevailed but suspect the outcome would have been much closer than some suggest. If the Germans had gained a foothold in the South East I wonder how long we would have been able to mount an effective defence while the UK was under blockade from U-boats etc. Ok we did get very limited help from across the pond but despite Hollywood's airbrushing of history the good old US of A would not been around to save us for another 18 months to two years. That was a long time to survive on our own.

 

[Nibble]

A program I watched about this possibility, detailing all the homeland defences Britain used, said the plan was to let them take the South East for 2 weeks, scramble all available craft and troops from literally across Europe and get them back to battle for London. Dunno if that's true or not but makes some sense.

 

[BensGrandad]

A Bob Monkhouse joke The French wanted the channel tunnel built so they could get to England quicker to surrender if another world war.

 

[Nibble]

For Sale: French rifle. Never fired. Dropped once.

 

[portlock seagull]

For Sale: French rifle. Never fired. Dropped once.

Disrespectful to the tens of thousands of french soldiers who fought bravely and well to let the British retreat (or run if you're a Frenchman) from the beaches of Dunkirk.

 

[Nibble]

Disrespectful to the tens of thousands of french soldiers who fought bravely and well to let the British retreat (or run if you're a Frenchman) from the beaches of Dunkirk.

Get over yourself.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

Ok we did get very limited help from across the pond but despite Hollywood's airbrushing of history the good old US of A would not been around to save us for another 18 months to two years. That was a long time to survive on our own.

To be fair to Roosevelt he had to consider the legalities of being neutral, the American opposition to being drawn into another war and the American military's reluctance to give anything away to a country they thought would be defeated. We still got much needed ammunition and small arms after Dunkirk, after the neutrality Act was bypassed by declaring them obsolete, and in September 1940 came the bases for destroyers deal where we got 50 old WW1 destroyers in return for American leases on military bases in the Caribbean. Then came Lend Lease in December 1940 when the Americans agreed to supply arms in return for payment sometime in the future, previously they had operated on a strict cash and carry basis, you could have supplies only if you paid up front. By that point the UK was literally bankrupt.

The other point to bear in mind was the unknown quantity of the American military. They had not done anything out of the ordinary in WW1 and had not fought a major campaign since the Civil War. In fact Jane's Military ranked the US army as below that of Belgium in the 1930s.

 

[portlock seagull]

Get over yourself.

This is the standard response from a halfwit. Don't drag yourself down there