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> the Royal Air Force was the only thing preventing the Germans from invading across the English Channel. Apart from the Royal Navy, of course. I think the gen

by zelos 7y ago

> the Royal Air Force was the only thing preventing the Germans from invading across the English Channel. Apart from the Royal Navy, of course. I think the general consensus now is that Germany couldn't have sucessfully invaded the UK, even if it had won the Battle of Britain?

ceejayoz 7y ago
A loss of air supremacy would've had extremely significant impact on the Royal Navy, I suspect. The Pacifc theater showed us this pretty conclusively.
hollerith 7y ago
Naval ships are essentially artillery platforms that can reach 10 or more miles inland, but over the first 3 or 4 years of thewar the Royal Navy never dared to use these platforms against any of the coastlines (Norway, Northern France, Germany itself, Poland) occupied by the Germans except when they had to cover the evacuation of their Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk and except for a few small raids relying on the element of surprise. (What they did instead was to use subs to land commandos on the coast.) And of course by D-Day the Luftwaffe had been mostly destroyed relative to what it was in 1940. So, no, I tend to doubt that if the RAF had been destroyed, the Royal Navy could have prevented the German army from making a crossing of the English Channel.
- dctoedt 7y ago
  > Naval ships are essentially artillery platforms that can reach 10 or more miles inland .... Naval ships also are just a bit useful for control of the sea; indeed, historically that's been arguably the foremost purpose of the navies of island nations such as the UK and U.S. If the Germans had tried to invade Britain, the Royal Navy would have thrown in every last ship it had to attack the German troop transports in the Channel. (I'm paraphrasing Herman Wouk here.) The RN ships would have been extremely vulnerable to U-boat and E-boat attack there, of course (just as the U.S. Navy and RN are worried about in today's Strait of Hormuz). The RN would also have been vulnerable to air attack (as the British, U.S., Dutch, and Japanese navies learned at terrible cost in the Pacific War), especially if the Luftwaffe had previously gained mastery of the skies over the Channel. But as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
  - hollerith 7y ago
    If they had gained air supremacy over the Channel, the German's first move probably would've been to start shelling the southern coast of Britain using a low-value naval asset. If the Brits send in a warship to stop the shelling, attack it with the Luftwaffe. If the Brits don't send a warship, keep on shelling with the goal of preparing a segment of the coast for the landing of German troops. The Luftwaffe had about 2600 planes in 1940 and the ability to build as many airstrips as they pleased all along one border of the Channel. What do you think the chances were of a British ship or task force's surviving a single mission into the Channel? I agree with what you're saying that the Brits would've been willing to risk their entire Navy to stop an invasion of the homeland (which BTW was the original reason for the creation of their Navy centuries ago) but would that have been enough? (And if they lost most of their Navy, would they have been able to continue to feed their population? Remember that the Brits were dependent on food from overseas.) If some power wants to attack a US aircraft carrier, they face the formidable task of finding it first. On the open ocean this is very hard: during the Cold War, the Soviets deployed an entire constellation of satellites for the sole purpose of locating US carriers in the North Atlantic (then transmitting the location to their submarines and long-range bombers). I mention this because the reputation for awesomeness earned by the British Navy before WW II was earned mainly in unconfined waters; against air power and subs, it is much less powerful in the confined waters of the Channel. Also, look what happened to the British Pacific Fleet the next year when it dared to sail within range of Japanese aviation assets. And I think that happened in unconfined waters.
    - garyscary 7y ago
      Check out this actual war game they conducted in 1974 where they concluded that the invasion would have been a resounding failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)
      - abecedarius 7y ago
        That says they assumed a Germany with no air supremacy yet.
- vkou 7y ago
  That's because the amount of firepower you can cram on a stretch of coastline, is far greater than that of a ship. The British had no reason to risk their ships, by shelling the European coastline. Little of the vital war-making industry was along the coast, and harbors and dockyards were heavily defended through geography, mines, and fixed coastal batteries. Instead, the Royal Navy had complete sea superiority of the English channel. Trying to ship, and then support hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and thousands of tanks, on slow-moving barges, through the English channel, while being outnumbered 4:1 by the opposing Navy would have been complete suicide. Not to mention the months of supplies, that would also have to come over the channel, that any sort of invasion would require. If, by some miracle, Operation Sealion actually made a landing on the British Isles, the most likely outcome of any such invasion would have been another Stalingrad. [1] [1] In one of his speeches, Hitler quite famously stated that the Sixth German Army (after its encirclement in December 1942) would never leave Stalingrad. He was not wrong.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > by D-Day the Luftwaffe had been mostly destroyed relative to what it was in 1940. From my reading about D-Day, it would have failed if the Allies had not achieved absolute air superiority. The Allied positions behind the front line were safe, and any strong points of German resistance were immediately attacked by ground attack airplanes.

by zelos 7y ago

ceejayoz 7y ago

A loss of air supremacy would've had extremely significant impact on the Royal Navy, I suspect. The Pacifc theater showed us this pretty conclusively.

hollerith 7y ago

Naval ships are essentially artillery platforms that can reach 10 or more miles inland, but over the first 3 or 4 years of thewar the Royal Navy never dared to use these platforms against any of the coastlines (Norway, Northern France, Germany itself, Poland) occupied by the Germans except when they had to cover the evacuation of their Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk and except for a few small raids relying on the element of surprise. (What they did instead was to use subs to land commandos on the coast.) And of course by D-Day the Luftwaffe had been mostly destroyed relative to what it was in 1940. So, no, I tend to doubt that if the RAF had been destroyed, the Royal Navy could have prevented the German army from making a crossing of the English Channel.

dctoedt 7y ago
> Naval ships are essentially artillery platforms that can reach 10 or more miles inland .... Naval ships also are just a bit useful for control of the sea; indeed, historically that's been arguably the foremost purpose of the navies of island nations such as the UK and U.S. If the Germans had tried to invade Britain, the Royal Navy would have thrown in every last ship it had to attack the German troop transports in the Channel. (I'm paraphrasing Herman Wouk here.) The RN ships would have been extremely vulnerable to U-boat and E-boat attack there, of course (just as the U.S. Navy and RN are worried about in today's Strait of Hormuz). The RN would also have been vulnerable to air attack (as the British, U.S., Dutch, and Japanese navies learned at terrible cost in the Pacific War), especially if the Luftwaffe had previously gained mastery of the skies over the Channel. But as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
- hollerith 7y ago
  If they had gained air supremacy over the Channel, the German's first move probably would've been to start shelling the southern coast of Britain using a low-value naval asset. If the Brits send in a warship to stop the shelling, attack it with the Luftwaffe. If the Brits don't send a warship, keep on shelling with the goal of preparing a segment of the coast for the landing of German troops. The Luftwaffe had about 2600 planes in 1940 and the ability to build as many airstrips as they pleased all along one border of the Channel. What do you think the chances were of a British ship or task force's surviving a single mission into the Channel? I agree with what you're saying that the Brits would've been willing to risk their entire Navy to stop an invasion of the homeland (which BTW was the original reason for the creation of their Navy centuries ago) but would that have been enough? (And if they lost most of their Navy, would they have been able to continue to feed their population? Remember that the Brits were dependent on food from overseas.) If some power wants to attack a US aircraft carrier, they face the formidable task of finding it first. On the open ocean this is very hard: during the Cold War, the Soviets deployed an entire constellation of satellites for the sole purpose of locating US carriers in the North Atlantic (then transmitting the location to their submarines and long-range bombers). I mention this because the reputation for awesomeness earned by the British Navy before WW II was earned mainly in unconfined waters; against air power and subs, it is much less powerful in the confined waters of the Channel. Also, look what happened to the British Pacific Fleet the next year when it dared to sail within range of Japanese aviation assets. And I think that happened in unconfined waters.
  - garyscary 7y ago
    Check out this actual war game they conducted in 1974 where they concluded that the invasion would have been a resounding failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)
    - abecedarius 7y ago
      That says they assumed a Germany with no air supremacy yet.
vkou 7y ago
That's because the amount of firepower you can cram on a stretch of coastline, is far greater than that of a ship. The British had no reason to risk their ships, by shelling the European coastline. Little of the vital war-making industry was along the coast, and harbors and dockyards were heavily defended through geography, mines, and fixed coastal batteries. Instead, the Royal Navy had complete sea superiority of the English channel. Trying to ship, and then support hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and thousands of tanks, on slow-moving barges, through the English channel, while being outnumbered 4:1 by the opposing Navy would have been complete suicide. Not to mention the months of supplies, that would also have to come over the channel, that any sort of invasion would require. If, by some miracle, Operation Sealion actually made a landing on the British Isles, the most likely outcome of any such invasion would have been another Stalingrad. [1] [1] In one of his speeches, Hitler quite famously stated that the Sixth German Army (after its encirclement in December 1942) would never leave Stalingrad. He was not wrong.
WalterBright 7y ago
> by D-Day the Luftwaffe had been mostly destroyed relative to what it was in 1940. From my reading about D-Day, it would have failed if the Allies had not achieved absolute air superiority. The Allied positions behind the front line were safe, and any strong points of German resistance were immediately attacked by ground attack airplanes.