Could Hitler have made an attempt to invade Britain and succeeded?

[unmerged(8840)]

Re: Re: Could Hitler have made an attempt to invade Britain and succeeded?

Originally posted by Fredrick II


Well assuming that Goring wont be in charge I think Germany would have have succeeded in getting air superiority.



Germany could not gain air superiority - the RAF could be withdrawn from German fighter range at any time and only returned at a decisive time (ie the invasion).

The RAF only ever had to accept as many losses as they chose to.




The initial plan was to land 2 army groups in Southern Britain. Now as to what they would do is up for discussion. German planes may have been able to supply them by the air but I don't know for sure.



The Army at Stalingrad could probably help you out with how effective air resupply is...

 

[Maximilian I]

may be it could be done, if preparations would start in 36:

- development of effective naval bombers
- strong emphasis on the Kriegsmarine
- increased fighter range.

otoh, if you would do that, you would be probably lacking in army strength.

 

[unmerged(10352)]

Re: Re: Re: Could Hitler have made an attempt to invade Britain and succeeded?

Originally posted by husky65
Originally posted by Fredrick II

The Army at Stalingrad could probably help you out with how effective air resupply is...

Think Berlin Airlift.

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Even before first - I'm talking in game terms , I give a rats rearend what positin RL Germany was in 1940 or any year other than 1936.

First I don't think it is necessary to invade England to get peace with it. Moreover I think its a bad Axis strategy because its a big gamble and a gamble that will require so much resources and leave you little opportunity/defense elsewhere.

Best thing would be to use diplomacy to distance Britain from France Poland and USSR. Perhaps not invade Poland. Make treaty with UK against USSR. If you can get away with it great, go off and do Barbarossa or whatever. To encourage diplomatic means besure to sink all those convoys bringing booty from the far corners of the empire.


If it doesn't work or your life just won't be complete without driving panzers around the moors of merry old England.

Then you need when the air battle over the channel, Britian, and the north sea(more and better fighters than UK/allies) Develop many good land based naval bombers. Research more sub tech than you thought was possible. Use it to build a massive fleet of uber-subs. Use the subs and naval to sink every convoy trying to reach Britian. Take out the odd AC or BB that comes into view.
Having access Norway, Iceland, Greenland would help alot here.

Wait for the starving citizens to force a surrender. If the jolly brits aren't getting unhappy fast enough. Invade, the Isles should have had no supply for many months(9-18), no oil, no new production and it should not be that hard to take a provence or two. Don't forget to liberate Ireland

The is *not* easy. I would say imposible vs a competant human. He can see what you are trying to do and has many options to foil your silly plans.


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For the nay sayers

Remember WWII ended the reign of surface ships and firmly put airpower in charge of the waters.
The RN in the channel would die horribly if Germans had air superiority. The campaign for Crete gives a small inkling of what it would be like for the RN.

The ends of the invasion path could be mined to hell limiting the RN impact on invasion and followup supply/reinf. (really doubt something like that is in game mechanics though.

Finally the Germans captured and occupied several channel islands during WWII didn't seem to have much of a problem supplying those or defending them from the RN. Of course that could be cause Churchill could care less about a few citizens on unimportant islands (no offense to inhabitants of said islands)

 

[unmerged(6073)]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Could Hitler have made an attempt to invade Britain and succeeded?

Originally posted by robothelpermnky
For the nay sayers

Remember WWII ended the reign of surface ships and firmly put airpower in charge of the waters.
The RN in the channel would die horribly if Germans had air superiority. The campaign for Crete gives a small inkling of what it would be like for the RN.

The ends of the invasion path could be mined to hell limiting the RN impact on invasion and followup supply/reinf. (really doubt something like that is in game mechanics though.

Finally the Germans captured and occupied several channel islands during WWII didn't seem to have much of a problem supplying those or defending them from the RN. Of course that could be cause Churchill could care less about a few citizens on unimportant islands (no offense to inhabitants of said islands)

Did I post that big article for nothing? Geez, I even scoured the Internet to find that thing again....

 

[unmerged(6105)]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Could Hitler have made an attempt to invade Britain and succeeded?

Originally posted by Chuikov


Did I post that big article for nothing? Geez, I even scoured the Internet to find that thing again....

It was an good and logically written artcile, but I saw some holes in it. Most notably didn't he seem to know much about the air superiority case. I seen quite an bunch of programs about this on discovery channel. the fact was that RAF at the point of Germanys beginings of the bombings on London was on the verge of collapsing. germany bombed the airfields and factories and RAF had an precious little number of planes and pilots, but especially planes. When Germany shifted to bombing London, RAf got the time they needed to rebuild the airfields and the factories could put out new planes. At that time the RAF planes where almost constantly in the air.

air superiority would be no means had made it easy for Germany to invade England, but without it was impossible. the Navy issue had to be solved of course...

 

[unmerged(5120)]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Could Hitler have made an attempt to invade Britain and succeeded

Originally posted by Chuikov


Did I post that big article for nothing? Geez, I even scoured the Internet to find that thing again....

Best summary I've ever read about why Germany couldn't invade Britain successfully.

I'm not sure I fully agree with the author about the LW's poor antiship capabilities, but that's about it.

It's not critical anyway because in any case RN ships in the Channel would have been provided with plenty of fighter cover, the RN could afford to lose a number of battleships and even a couple cruisers would have crippled the German invasion fleet.

And as I've already posted on some other thread, building a large navy in the prewar period isn't necessarily a good idea:

If anything would have prompted the British to sit up and take notice, it would have been a large German shipbuilding program. It would simply have prompted Britain to rearm earlier, and diverted German resources into the single one area where they simply couldn't compete with Britain.

And there's a very simple equation here:

1 30,000t battleship = 1,000 30t tanks.

In a world of finite resources, add a battleship, take the tanks out.

Now what do you invade Poland and France with if you've invested in a large navy?

 

[Generalisimo]

i think is a crazy thing to do, but in game terms it should be possible
maybe i will try that
we will see when the game comes out

 

[Smirfy]

Excellent post Chuikov glad HOI got beta’s with sense
Excellent observations as well Dam
and Sire Enaique


On the diplomatic front attempts to isolate Britain were also doomed. Hitler’s efforts to bring Stalin into the war against Britain to dismember her empire were continually thwarted by Stalin’s correct assessment of German intentions. The price for Stalin’s intervention was always the oil provinces of the Gulf a price that Hitler could never pay as the victory would not bring that decisive resource just more indefensible real estate. Hitler too realized I believe that he had to destroy Russia before Britain. A British collapse would leave the Russians in Strategic pole position to seize the Gulf States leaving any victory hollow. As Clausewitz states Leader’s sometimes have little choice than the course of action they took and not being able to foresee the earlier than predicted intervention of America I believe Hitler to be shackled to destiny just as Napoleon a century earlier.
He was stuck in the wrong war!

 

[cthulhu]

Re: A longer reply

Originally posted by Chuikov
The US had not yet joined the war, there was little reason to expect it would do so soon...Hitler cannot predict that the US will join the war, and without significant change to his knowledge and thought processes, believes that Russia will be defeated within a couple of years...

Interesting analysis. I wonder however about the above quotes. Hitler was the one declaring war on the US, therefore I'm sure he could imagine the possibility. With the americans coming he should have realized the danger to north africa and in the long run western europe. Comments?

 

[unmerged(10984)]

Two things I would like to make comments on.

1. I am a little worried that a Beta tester (no offence to the beta tester himself) feels so strongly that an invasion of the UK is not feasible. (This goes for all betas) I hope that when testing for play balance is carried out that an open mind is at work so that some invasions/options are not made impossible because of personal beliefs. This does not only apply to Sealion but to other events like an early allied D-day attempt, the invasion of the Japanese home islands, etc. I agree that Sealion would be hard to pull off even if work started in 36 but like I mentioned in an earlier post there are a lot of other variables that could change along the way before the invasion even begins that could make it easier on the Germans.

2. I think I have figured out my plan to do away with the Royal Navy. Bluff a Sealion. Mine the channel extensively than one morning send out the Luftwaffe one morning to bomb the hell out of the expected landing zones to draw attention and than launch a bunch of empty cargo ships, barges, etc with skeleton crews into the channel. Give them air support like what would be expected to make it look good. When the RN dashes in to save the day, launch the rest of the Luftwaffe and go to town. Turn the invasion fleet around once RN targets emerge. I might lose half my fake invasion fleet but the damage done to the RN would be worth it. Hopefully HOI will not allow my opponents to know my invasion fleet carries no invasion Thoughts?

 

[unmerged(7580)]

Originally posted by Panzer39
Two things I would like to make comments on.


2. I think I have figured out my plan to do away with the Royal Navy. Bluff a Sealion. Send out the Luftwaffe one morning to bomb the hell out of the expected landing zones to draw attention and than launch a bunch of empty cargo ships, barges, etc into the channel. Give them air support like what would be expected to make it look good. When the RN dashes in to save the day, launch the rest of the Luftwaffe and go to town. I might lose my whole fake invasion fleet but the damage done to the RN would be worth it. Hopefully HOI will not allow my opponents to know my invasion fleet carries no invasion Thoughts?

I doubt that'd help much, you'd lose A LOT of planes that way, and anything that you did kill would probably not have too large an impact

 

[Generalisimo]

Re: Re: A longer reply

Originally posted by cthulhu


Interesting analysis. I wonder however about the above quotes. Hitler was the one declaring war on the US, therefore I'm sure he could imagine the possibility. With the americans coming he should have realized the danger to north africa and in the long run western europe. Comments?

i do not think Hitler want a war with the US/UK.
of course at the beggining, but i think he thought that when he attacks the USSR, the allies will realize that the USSR was a bigger threat than the nazis, so they will join their cause.
Big mistake....
If not, explain the "Rudolf Hess flight", it is said that he was carrying a note from Hitler to sign peace with the allies "at all cost", but instead of signing peace the UK captured Hess until he die in 1987.
I think that only left 10 years to the "opening" of the Rudolf Hess documentation by the British Secret Service, so there we will know the truth.

 

[Thanak]

If history taught us one thing, it's that notting is impossible.

The roman empire could never fall,..., France WW2 army was unbeatable.

History is full of invicible forces that got beat.

It's easy after end to say that it england could not be invaded, but I think that history could very well have surprised us.

 

[unmerged(10984)]

Originally posted by KlevesWarrior



I doubt that'd help much, you'd lose A LOT of planes that way, and anything that you did kill would probably not have too large an impact

Where would I lose the majority of my planes? Shipboard AA guns were not that great early in the war and my bombers would have greater fighter protection because it would be over the channel not over the coast of England. Channel mines would hopefully slow the RN ships down and make them easier targets for my planes, which if I plan ahead will have better ship attacking abilities. If I can sink enough of the heavies, the Bismarck and Tirpitz could have a field day on Atlantic shipping. Not to mention the propaganda victory of sinking a few BB's in return for losing some barges.

 

[jacob-Lundgren]

so instead of stukas you have awesome torpedo planes and a slightly better fleet. guess what? your attack at the ardennes was driven back due to strong french defense positions that your torpedoes couldnt crack

thats the problem with beating the UK. if you do that odds are the ussr will overun you in 42 if they want to. if the franche havent already begun to

but your right we have no idea what will happen or how or what gamey strategies people will use. however we do want the axis to have a very steep uphill battle else it wont be as much fun its up to axis players to run wild in the early years and for the allies to prevent that running from taking anything too vital or from knocking them out early

 

[Derek Pullem]

Originally posted by Panzer39
Two things I would like to make comments on.

1. I am a little worried that a Beta tester (no offence to the beta tester himself) feels so strongly that an invasion of the UK is not feasible. (This goes for all betas) I hope that when testing for play balance is carried out that an open mind is at work so that some invasions/options are not made impossible because of personal beliefs. This does not only apply to Sealion but to other events like an early allied D-day attempt, the invasion of the Japanese home islands, etc. I agree that Sealion would be hard to pull off even if work started in 36 but like I mentioned in an earlier post there are a lot of other variables that could change along the way before the invasion even begins that could make it easier on the Germans.

2. I think I have figured out my plan to do away with the Royal Navy. Bluff a Sealion. Mine the channel extensively than one morning send out the Luftwaffe one morning to bomb the hell out of the expected landing zones to draw attention and than launch a bunch of empty cargo ships, barges, etc with skeleton crews into the channel. Give them air support like what would be expected to make it look good. When the RN dashes in to save the day, launch the rest of the Luftwaffe and go to town. Turn the invasion fleet around once RN targets emerge. I might lose half my fake invasion fleet but the damage done to the RN would be worth it. Hopefully HOI will not allow my opponents to know my invasion fleet carries no invasion Thoughts?

The RN had loads of minesweepers and minelayers (in the numbers you are talking about) would be very vulnerable to just about anything.

Bombing false landing zones is a waste of bombs (and potential sorties for later) - Germans would just lose planes to no good effect as they did thru most of the Battle of Britain.

Those empty cargo ships you casually threw away - the Germans had barely enough landing ships to deliver the real invasion without losing half of them on a feint.

The air support for the feint is the second major effort the Luftwaffe has made that day (and it will lose again - see above)

RN dashes in to save the day - you launch your third major effort that day (do your pilots and planes have infinite resources?) and try to bomb them against the RAF cover (which wasn't there in Crete hence the losses). They lose

The invasion barges are making how many knots - 5,10? You'd lose the lot unless your airforce could stop the RN - which I believe is unlikely.

So - the outcome is that you have lost a good fraction of the transports you need to shift your troops across, the RN lose say 3 battleships, 6 cruisers and a dozen destroyers. Luftwaffe lose a 150 planes and RAF 50. But you are not going to invade again - ever. No transports. Good trade for the UK. Battleships are something the UK can afford to lose (see Pearl Harbour for similar US perspective)

Sorry I just don't see it happening.

And I do believe Sealion could happen - but I don't think it would win the war for the Germans. You won't have enough divisions left to take on the russians in 1942/3

 

[unmerged(1847)]

Well its really not feasable until you finish off Russia. Assuming it succeded, you would take losses not to mention divisions needed to occupy Britain. You will need everything you can muster to fight russia and win, 10-20 divisions policing the UK wont help.

 

[Mattias]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Could Hitler have made an attempt to invade Britain and succeeded?

Originally posted by robothelpermnky
Best thing would be to use diplomacy to distance Britain from France Poland and USSR. Perhaps not invade Poland. Make treaty with UK against USSR. If you can get away with it great, go off and do Barbarossa or whatever. To encourage diplomatic means besure to sink all those convoys bringing booty from the far corners of the empire.

Another problem for the germans is the need to conquer France to get hold upon their armament-industry and resources (esp iron ore) much needed when invading Russia. Any delay in those plans would give Stalin the time he needed to prepare for a war with Germany . /Mattias

 

[unmerged(10880)]

For a loss of the barges yes, which were an extremely important element of the Rhinelands economy. The Rhine river barges that were assembled in preparation for Sealion didn't magically appear. They were used up and down the Rhine to transport goods and raw materials to and from factories. Production throughout the Rhine was impacted throughout the fall of 1940 until the barges were returned, and with 15% of the barges destroyed by the RAF during raids on Antwerp it would take several months before production returned to Summer 1940 levels. Loosing these barges would have devestated the economy of the economy.

One problem with most plans that involve the fall of the UK is that they require the British to be really dumb, or they require the British to not respond to German actions. As we saw in 1936 shortly after the Bismark, Tirpitz and Graf Zeppelin were laid down, the Royal Navy immediately began construction on 5 Battleships and 4 Carriers in response. As Germany began to build up her U-boat fleet, the Royal Navy increased production of new destroyers. If Germany suddenly starts building U-boats in massive numbers and spending vast resources on R&D. The UK will respond by building large number of destroyers and investing in ASW technology, refitting ships with ASDIC, depth charges and Hedgehogs. It wouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure out who the target of a massive U-boat fleet would be.

When coming up with a plan you not only have to take into account the finitie resources available (i.e. if Germany builds 8 battleships then what isn't she building that she did originally), plus the potential responses of her allies (i.e. if Germany builds 8 battleships, the Royal Navy may begin constuction on 12) . When you take both factors into account I can see no way of constucting a reasonable plan that has a basis in historical fact. It starts getting down to, well if Germany was super smart and made no errors, while Britain was run by a bunch of total morons, well then Germany could take over England.

 

[unmerged(5664)]

Originally posted by Panzer39
Two things I would like to make comments on.

1. I am a little worried that a Beta tester (no offence to the beta tester himself) feels so strongly that an invasion of the UK is not feasible. (This goes for all betas) I hope that when testing for play balance is carried out that an open mind is at work so that some invasions/options are not made impossible because of personal beliefs. This does not only apply to Sealion but to other events like an early allied D-day attempt, the invasion of the Japanese home islands, etc. I agree that Sealion would be hard to pull off even if work started in 36 but like I mentioned in an earlier post there are a lot of other variables that could change along the way before the invasion even begins that could make it easier on the Germans.

I think you give to much credit to us beta-testers. We only test, andmake occasional suggestions. We do not code the game. The various biases / beliefs / points of view of the beta-testers will make little difference in the end. Our primary task is, after all, to find bugs in the game.