What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

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Soetrich
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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#91

Post by Soetrich » 24 Aug 2017, 11:36

The Maginot was not defeated in 1940
Is that your opinion or dir you read this in a book?
The whole Maginot Line was defended.

German Attack on ouvrage Fermont - 80 casualties failed
German attack on Michelsberg - failed
German artillery fire on Schoenenburg with 42cm mortars - no effect
Bombardments on the ouvrages Hochwald and Schoenenbourg - hardly any effect.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start.

#92

Post by blau977 » 20 Aug 2019, 14:10

maltesefalcon wrote:
17 Jul 2017, 14:33
Hitler could have tried something else. He said more than once that he respected the British and considered the Empire a stabilizing influence on the world. But he only paid lip service to that respect.
Hi,
About BoB are written numerous books, but mostly from Allied, post-war (so called "inevitable") perspective. When taking a look from the opposite side - https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ETO/BO ... index.html - The Battle of Britain, A German Perspective by Lt Col Earle Lund, USAF, things are slightly different

Quoting
"Army Chief of Staff Generaloberst Franz Halder--writing in his diary--recorded statements made by Hitler in the Berghof on the previous day, 31 July 1940. Halder quotes Hitler as saying, "Russia is the factor by which England sets the greatest store . . . If Russia is beaten, England's last hope is gone. Germany is then master of Europe and the Balkans . . . Decision: As a result of this argument, Russia must be dealt with. Spring 1941."86 (Emphasis added.) Earlier in the month, Halder also recorded a similar thought of the Fuhrer's indicating that Hitler was obviously concerned with the unwillingness of Britain to make peace. Clearly, there were competing priorities, at the highest levels, over what the true national objectives were, and what the strategy to attain those objectives would be. There is also some room for conjecture that the entire focus for Operation Sea Lion was actually a great deception aimed at tying down British forces while the Germans prepared for operations elsewhere."

From a purely military point of view - "great deception aimed at tying down British forces" makes a lot of sense. Forces allocated for BoB compared to those for eastern campaign looks exactly as a deception force; Stalin was buying it too, there was a mantra that Germany will never fight two fronts again - so Stalin was sure that there is no attack to the east until the war in west is finished. And timing is also OK, if it was a deception than it should be believable trough autumn and winter 1940/1941 - as it was. Spring 1941 is already too late to change such a big campaign in any way...
Additionally, seizing Britain would not bring any new quality an terms of resources. And, most importantly - if and when taking Europe and Russia there is no need to rule the seas at all - and this was not a nightmare for Britain but for the United Sates, too. In this sense eastern campaign was a war against USA - and Roosevelt recognized it immediately..


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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#93

Post by HistoryGeek2019 » 23 Aug 2019, 06:12

Hitler did plan for war against Great Britain. Adam Tooze documents this in The Wages of Destruction. Specifically, Hitler believed that Britain could be subdued by aerial bombardment using a fleet of 7000 JU 88s. The initial plan for the war was to invade and occupy northeast France, using it as a base to bomb Britain in submission. The original focus was on defeating Britain first, then France. See Chapter 10, Part II.

This strategy followed the pre-war belief that "The bomber will always get through." Germany massively overestimated the ability of light and medium bombers to pound an enemy country into submission, and they paid dearly for it in the Battle of Britain.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#94

Post by Paul Lakowski » 06 Sep 2019, 00:24

German strategies for defeating UK where based on the war starting in the late 1940s. All the other notes had F-All to do with Hitler they were based on Wehrmacht contingency plans drawn up in the wake of Hitler's FOUR YEAR PLAN.

Just watch a doc on History channel last night about Hitler and his drug addiction [what fun!!!]. What I did not know was the degree to which this drug fascination effected the whole Wehrmacht war effort!!!

Hitler escalated from glucose injections in 1936 to souped up hormone injections prewar, but the war brought in "crystal meth" [CM] followed by "Oxycodone" [O] and "Cocaine" [K] . Hitler's drug with-drawls could have been mistaken for Parkinson's dieses , but Hitler was so convinced in the power of these drugs prewar , he made the Wehrmacht indulge to produce "super soldiers" allowing them to out last the WALLIES in most battles up to 1943.

In 1940 they took 25 million CM pills in France/BELUX to blitz through the WALLIE defences and steamroll to the coast. Trouble is the body can only handle so many successive days on CM before you 'crash and burn'. It may be no accident they had to call a 'panzer halt' to recover the tank force, but this may have also included recovering the tankers as well.

That may have been bad enough- but Goring convinced Hitler the LW could finish off the Brits on the beaches of Calais, while the LW could not defeat the RAF as prewar studies had predicted. Without an army they could do little to stop any invasion.

The BOB did alert the WALLLIES to their drug induced enemies and by mid war "Mothers little helper" was being mass produced for the Wallies and NAZI drug factories were added to the growing list of targets to bomb .

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#95

Post by ljadw » 06 Sep 2019, 12:08

Watching a doc on the History Channel is only wasting one's time .

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#96

Post by Paul Lakowski » 06 Sep 2019, 21:03

ljadw wrote:
06 Sep 2019, 12:08
Watching a doc on the History Channel is only wasting one's time .
Doesn't mean its wrong.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#97

Post by ljadw » 06 Sep 2019, 21:55

The History Channel,also called Hystery Channel and Hitler Channel,is also specialised in stories about Aliens and in repeating the blahblah of von Däniken . The story of the 25 million pills has already been debated on this forum and the opinions about the inventor of the story were mostly negative .
Besides, all this does not prove that Hitler was drug-addicted and that his( non existing ) drug addiction influenced his military decisions .
It is also not so that the capture of the BEF forces at Dunkirk ( some 195000 men ) would have made Britain helpless against an invasion : the Home Forces could have crushed an invasion easily, very easily .And even without the Home Forces ,Sea Lion was doomed to fail .

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#98

Post by ljadw » 06 Sep 2019, 21:58

HistoryGeek2019 wrote:
23 Aug 2019, 06:12
Hitler did plan for war against Great Britain. Adam Tooze documents this in The Wages of Destruction. Specifically, Hitler believed that Britain could be subdued by aerial bombardment using a fleet of 7000 JU 88s. The initial plan for the war was to invade and occupy northeast France, using it as a base to bomb Britain in submission. The original focus was on defeating Britain first, then France. See Chapter 10, Part II.

This strategy followed the pre-war belief that "The bomber will always get through." Germany massively overestimated the ability of light and medium bombers to pound an enemy country into submission, and they paid dearly for it in the Battle of Britain.
Hitler did NOT plan a war against Britain and the 7000 JU 88 never existed .
The initial plan was an ad hoc plan, elaborated after the campaign against Poland,when Britain and France decided to continue the war til the end .

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#99

Post by Terry Duncan » 07 Sep 2019, 00:10

ljadw wrote:
06 Sep 2019, 21:58
HistoryGeek2019 wrote:
23 Aug 2019, 06:12
Hitler did plan for war against Great Britain. Adam Tooze documents this in The Wages of Destruction. Specifically, Hitler believed that Britain could be subdued by aerial bombardment using a fleet of 7000 JU 88s. The initial plan for the war was to invade and occupy northeast France, using it as a base to bomb Britain in submission. The original focus was on defeating Britain first, then France. See Chapter 10, Part II.

This strategy followed the pre-war belief that "The bomber will always get through." Germany massively overestimated the ability of light and medium bombers to pound an enemy country into submission, and they paid dearly for it in the Battle of Britain.
Hitler did NOT plan a war against Britain and the 7000 JU 88 never existed .
The initial plan was an ad hoc plan, elaborated after the campaign against Poland,when Britain and France decided to continue the war til the end .
I would add that the Z Plan designed to defeat the British navy was also predicated on the idea there would be no response from Britain, and that Germany would somehow find the money and resources to build such a fleet. The 7,000 Ju88's would also likely fall foul of the ability to build them, along with the navy and army that were also desired. Germany had big plans, but few resources, and relied on the intended targets not taking any notice of what Germany was up to.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#100

Post by Paul Lakowski » 23 Sep 2019, 00:01

Terry Duncan wrote:
07 Sep 2019, 00:10
ljadw wrote:
06 Sep 2019, 21:58
HistoryGeek2019 wrote:
23 Aug 2019, 06:12
Hitler did plan for war against Great Britain. Adam Tooze documents this in The Wages of Destruction. Specifically, Hitler believed that Britain could be subdued by aerial bombardment using a fleet of 7000 JU 88s. The initial plan for the war was to invade and occupy northeast France, using it as a base to bomb Britain in submission. The original focus was on defeating Britain first, then France. See Chapter 10, Part II.

This strategy followed the pre-war belief that "The bomber will always get through." Germany massively overestimated the ability of light and medium bombers to pound an enemy country into submission, and they paid dearly for it in the Battle of Britain.
Hitler did NOT plan a war against Britain and the 7000 JU 88 never existed .
The initial plan was an ad hoc plan, elaborated after the campaign against Poland,when Britain and France decided to continue the war til the end .
I would add that the Z Plan designed to defeat the British navy was also predicated on the idea there would be no response from Britain, and that Germany would somehow find the money and resources to build such a fleet. The 7,000 Ju88's would also likely fall foul of the ability to build them, along with the navy and army that were also desired. Germany had big plans, but few resources, and relied on the intended targets not taking any notice of what Germany was up to.
As I recall they had a 'reasonably' thought out plan through out the 1930s- for a flexible anti WALLIE naval strategy. Z-Plan was more of a late 1930s "shot across the bow" since Hitler seemed to be reneging on his commitment to wait until the mid to late 1940s before waging a European war.

"IF YOU DO THAT - WE NEED THIS"!

As per usual enemy planning had little to do with KM building strategy etc.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#101

Post by T. A. Gardner » 25 Sep 2019, 00:21

Actually, thinking about this some more, an alternate plan the Germans could have easily implemented to defeat Britain would be:

First, the actual invasion of Britain isn't planned for. That is, the Germans recognize they probably can't pull it off so they don't waste a lot of time and effort on trying to pull it off.

Instead, they focus on a strategy of strangling Britain by sinking their merchant fleet. This time it isn't a half-@$$ed effort by the Luftwaffe and just U-boats with the occasional traditional surface raider. Instead, they plan a mass commerce war at sea, and once France falls, a full and massive effort to crush Britain in the Middle East while holding off on attacking Russia until Britain goes under.

The changes would involve the Luftwaffe putting more effort into developing long ranged maritime aircraft. They don't need huge numbers of these, 100 at most in operational service would suffice. That's a far cry from the dozen FW 200 that were improvised into this role in 1940. Pick the type, it really doesn't matter early on so long as it can range out into the Atlantic and has the ability to bomb / torpedo / attack and sink a merchant ship.

Next, the Luftwaffe develops a torpedo and torpedo bomber (this could be their extant bombers carrying a torpedo) by 1939. This is quite doable.

Pilots are given at least some training on attacking ships and thought is put into how to best do this.

The KM in addition to traditional merchant raiders, converts a number of merchant ships into small aircraft carriers. This consists of razing the superstructure of the ships picked and plopping a hanger and flight deck with arresting gear and maybe a catapult or two somewhere such that rolling takeoffs can still be done. The complement of aircraft is 8 to 12 operational planes with some of either the He 112 fighter (navalized), the Ju 87, and or Fi 167 aboard along with say another 6 to 8 disassembled spares that can be put together as needed for replacements. The cargo holds are converted to magazines and to carry avgas. Plop say 4 15cm guns and some light AA here and there aboard and you're all set.
Training the pilots could be done on a land based mock up of the flight deck. The planes would still be Luftwaffe to appease Göring.

You pair one of these with a conventional raider or even a warship at sea at the beginning of the war where they're already deployed to begin operations.

This greatly enhances the capacity of the surface raiders. They have the ability to scout far more ocean, attack ships at greater distances, and put a huge strain on the British to protect their merchants from air attack.
Given that in the first year or so of the war almost all British merchants would be unarmed, these planes would give the Germans a means to cripple and sink far more shipping over a wider area of ocean. The planes also make it far easier for the raiders to evade British surface warships looking for them.
Imagine for example one of these improvised carriers being with Graf Spee. The carrier's planes could have found the British cruisers far enough away to allow the Germans to evade detection. Worse for the British the planes might attack their cruisers damaging them.

The carrier doesn't even necessarily have to keep up with the Graf Spee much of the time. It just needs to be close enough to operate it's planes over the ship.

The Luftwaffe also cooperates more with the KM in attacking shipping. For Göring, this lets his service play an important role in defeating Britain.

It doesn't require much in the way of new equipment, nor does it detract from existing systems and controls. For the British, it creates a quandary though. Since Germany pursues a Balkans / North Africa campaign scheme from the start and puts the effort put into Seelöwe into sustaining an army in North Africa instead, the British have to continue to field a large army. The Luftwaffe can pursue both missions at the same time as they are putting only a token effort into attacks on Britain itself and often these attacks are against shipping in ports.
The FAA remains largely impotent for the most part in the early years of the war due to poor equipment and simply lack of production. The RAF's short-ranged fighters are mostly worthless against a commerce war at sea, but have to remain in service in case Germany changes strategies.

If we say Britain loses 20 to 30% more shipping per year from 1939, that would definitely have put the hurt on Britain by 1941.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#102

Post by HistoryGeek2019 » 25 Sep 2019, 00:27

ljadw wrote:
06 Sep 2019, 21:58
HistoryGeek2019 wrote:
23 Aug 2019, 06:12
Hitler did plan for war against Great Britain. Adam Tooze documents this in The Wages of Destruction. Specifically, Hitler believed that Britain could be subdued by aerial bombardment using a fleet of 7000 JU 88s. The initial plan for the war was to invade and occupy northeast France, using it as a base to bomb Britain in submission. The original focus was on defeating Britain first, then France. See Chapter 10, Part II.

This strategy followed the pre-war belief that "The bomber will always get through." Germany massively overestimated the ability of light and medium bombers to pound an enemy country into submission, and they paid dearly for it in the Battle of Britain.
Hitler did NOT plan a war against Britain and the 7000 JU 88 never existed .
The initial plan was an ad hoc plan, elaborated after the campaign against Poland,when Britain and France decided to continue the war til the end .
Tell it to Adam Tooze.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#103

Post by ljadw » 25 Sep 2019, 06:40

Chapter 10 is about the first winter war, NOT about the period before September 3 1939 .
The fact is that before September 3 1939,Hitler blamed Wilhelminian Germany for its attack on France and Belgium,because they could know,should have known that this would result in war with Britain,a war Germany could not win .
The fact is also that on September 3 1939,Hitler had no plan for war against Britain,which means that he did not plan a war against Britain .
If he did plan such a war, this plan would exist and be commented by historians . No one has been able to reproduce this plan, thus this plan does not exist .

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#104

Post by ljadw » 25 Sep 2019, 06:55

T. A. Gardner wrote:
25 Sep 2019, 00:21
Actually, thinking about this some more, an alternate plan the Germans could have easily implemented to defeat Britain would be:

First, the actual invasion of Britain isn't planned for. That is, the Germans recognize they probably can't pull it off so they don't waste a lot of time and effort on trying to pull it off.

Instead, they focus on a strategy of strangling Britain by sinking their merchant fleet. This time it isn't a half-@$$ed effort by the Luftwaffe and just U-boats with the occasional traditional surface raider. Instead, they plan a mass commerce war at sea, and once France falls, a full and massive effort to crush Britain in the Middle East while holding off on attacking Russia until Britain goes under.

The changes would involve the Luftwaffe putting more effort into developing long ranged maritime aircraft. They don't need huge numbers of these, 100 at most in operational service would suffice. That's a far cry from the dozen FW 200 that were improvised into this role in 1940. Pick the type, it really doesn't matter early on so long as it can range out into the Atlantic and has the ability to bomb / torpedo / attack and sink a merchant ship.

Next, the Luftwaffe develops a torpedo and torpedo bomber (this could be their extant bombers carrying a torpedo) by 1939. This is quite doable.

Pilots are given at least some training on attacking ships and thought is put into how to best do this.

The KM in addition to traditional merchant raiders, converts a number of merchant ships into small aircraft carriers. This consists of razing the superstructure of the ships picked and plopping a hanger and flight deck with arresting gear and maybe a catapult or two somewhere such that rolling takeoffs can still be done. The complement of aircraft is 8 to 12 operational planes with some of either the He 112 fighter (navalized), the Ju 87, and or Fi 167 aboard along with say another 6 to 8 disassembled spares that can be put together as needed for replacements. The cargo holds are converted to magazines and to carry avgas. Plop say 4 15cm guns and some light AA here and there aboard and you're all set.
Training the pilots could be done on a land based mock up of the flight deck. The planes would still be Luftwaffe to appease Göring.

You pair one of these with a conventional raider or even a warship at sea at the beginning of the war where they're already deployed to begin operations.

This greatly enhances the capacity of the surface raiders. They have the ability to scout far more ocean, attack ships at greater distances, and put a huge strain on the British to protect their merchants from air attack.
Given that in the first year or so of the war almost all British merchants would be unarmed, these planes would give the Germans a means to cripple and sink far more shipping over a wider area of ocean. The planes also make it far easier for the raiders to evade British surface warships looking for them.
Imagine for example one of these improvised carriers being with Graf Spee. The carrier's planes could have found the British cruisers far enough away to allow the Germans to evade detection. Worse for the British the planes might attack their cruisers damaging them.

The carrier doesn't even necessarily have to keep up with the Graf Spee much of the time. It just needs to be close enough to operate it's planes over the ship.

The Luftwaffe also cooperates more with the KM in attacking shipping. For Göring, this lets his service play an important role in defeating Britain.

It doesn't require much in the way of new equipment, nor does it detract from existing systems and controls. For the British, it creates a quandary though. Since Germany pursues a Balkans / North Africa campaign scheme from the start and puts the effort put into Seelöwe into sustaining an army in North Africa instead, the British have to continue to field a large army. The Luftwaffe can pursue both missions at the same time as they are putting only a token effort into attacks on Britain itself and often these attacks are against shipping in ports.
The FAA remains largely impotent for the most part in the early years of the war due to poor equipment and simply lack of production. The RAF's short-ranged fighters are mostly worthless against a commerce war at sea, but have to remain in service in case Germany changes strategies.

If we say Britain loses 20 to 30% more shipping per year from 1939, that would definitely have put the hurt on Britain by 1941.
The problem is that Britain was depending less on imports during the war than before the war .The sinking of ships ( empty or loaded ) does not mean less imports.

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Re: What if Hitler made fighting Britain a serious consideration from the start..

#105

Post by T. A. Gardner » 25 Sep 2019, 07:32

ljadw wrote:
25 Sep 2019, 06:55

The problem is that Britain was depending less on imports during the war than before the war .The sinking of ships ( empty or loaded ) does not mean less imports.
The problem is that Britain was always heavily dependent on imports to keep their economy running. They imported 100% of their oil at the time for example. Even food was imported to some extent. Imagine the Germans are waging a more effective commerce war using merchant carriers coupled to surface raiders as well as putting their aircraft to attack coastal shipping and also ranging into the Atlantic.
Let's say instead of losing just shy of a million tons of their and allied / neutral shipping in 1939 the British suffer 30% higher losses. Instead of 158 merchant ships sunk, they lose 205 for 648 thousand tons. The same happens in 1940 and 41.
In the Middle East the Germans put more effort into winning that now singular campaign and have say two surface raiders and a merchant carrier in the IO attacking British shipping out of Italian East Africa. Pressed on land by a larger German contingent backed by more captured shipping and such the Germans have pushed into use-- Yes, they could have done this without the distraction of Seelöwe-- they aren't quite as dependent on the Italians to get supplies to North Africa. With more MFP and other coastal shipping in use they can move supplies forward more efficiently. The RN faces the full wrath of the Luftwaffe on a more sustained basis as well.
So, more shipping coming from the Middle East goes down including more tankers. That puts a pinch on British oil supplies. More shipping losses off India hurt too.

Any one of these wouldn't end Britain on its own, but given a sustained campaign it likely would cause the public in Britain to question continuation of the war with Germany. That might be the crack necessary to get a peace treaty and Germany could make some concessions on that. Peace with Britain means Hitler can then focus his full wrath on Russia afterwards.

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