Battle of Britain

[balllightning]

Douglas C. Dildy's To Defeat the Few: The Luftwaffe’s Campaign to Destroy RAF Fighter Command, August–September 1940 is a piece of superb literature precisely on this topic.

[militarymatt]

If the defeat of the RAF at the battle of Britain had, like some people have suggested, led to a successful German invasion, I believe this would have been a catalyst for the USA to enter the War. The Strategic importance of the UK and the Momentum Germany would achieve if successful would be impossible to ignore. With the onset of America coupled with supply issues likely hampered by Britains still strong Navy any Foothold gained would soon be repelled.

[Carl Schwamberger]

The US did implement its basic mobilization plan for the Army in the summer of 1940. That is the Protective Mobilization Plan. That included bringing all US Army reservists into active duty, transferring all National Guard units to Federal service & active full time duty, and training enough new recruits of volunteers and conscripts to reach a initial strength of over 1,600,000 men. Since Britain did not collapse in September the PMP schedule was set to reach its goal by the late summer of 1941, about 12-13 months after Congress authorized the funds. The focus also became expanding schools and training facilities for a four million man Army, and leadership training of existing personnel, rather than field combat ready for nations in one year. A few combat worth formations were readied 1940-41, but no large field armies for overseas service. Had Britain fallen the schedules and goals would have been more ambitious.

History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army 1775-1945 is a good reference for this, if you can find a copy.

What the US Army actually had on hand in July 1940 was in rough terms

Four infantry Divisions at 50-60 % strength

Five infantry Divisions at 25 - 30 % strength

Cavalry Division at <50% strength

Mechanized experimental brigade

Reinforced regiment or weak brigade in Panama

Hawaian defense units, amounting to a infantry brigade with a lot of coastal artillery

Philippines Scouts Regiment, which was transitioning to brigade strength

A Air Corps of <20,000 men & a couple hundred 'modern' aircraft. Plus several hundred more obsolete aircraft.

Depending on how you cunt them there were 80,000 men in the Reserve Officers Corps, tho like the National Guard many were not suitable for active service.

Approximately 300,000 men were divided among 18 National Guard Divisions

There were active duty staff available to form four corps or Army HQ, but those were all assigned to the four Defense commands and had considerable responsibilities for mobilization in the PMP. Forming a expeditionary corps HQ right at the start would have retarded subsequent mobilization and training. Temporary corps and Army HQ were formed for the training maneuvers of 1940, but those were incomplete with only the most important positions filled. Once the Reserve Officers Corps was mobilized about 60,000 officers were available to help fill out new corps & Army HQ, plus fill out the existing divisions, plus he school expansions.

The Navy had a combined arms Expeditionary Brigade of Marines on each coast, plus some partial strength base defense battalions. there were some 20,000 reservists available to fill out a couple more brigades and base defense battalions.

[Sheldrake]

If the defeat of the RAF at the battle of Britain had, like some people have suggested, led to a successful German invasion, I believe this would have been a catalyst for the USA to enter the War. The Strategic importance of the UK and the Momentum Germany would achieve if successful would be impossible to ignore. With the onset of America coupled with supply issues likely hampered by Britain's still strong Navy any Foothold gained would soon be repelled.

Interesting idea. However, there is an apparent contradiction. In the event of the RAF being defeated in the Battle of Britain and a successful German invasion in Summer 1940 , what is going to stop the Germans occupying Britain before the US cavalry come riding to the rescue? Dan Plesch in America, Hitler and the UN includes details of US opinion polls from 1938 to 1945. One question on 7 July 1940 asked if the there was a national vote on going to war with Germany and Italy how would you vote? Go to war 14% Stay out 86%.

[militarymatt]

from what Carl has posted it looks like at the time America were just beginning to be in a position to join in. I know some weight is given to the feeling of the nation however I don't believe that this would have held the us military back if necessary. that being said i can see that the British would have to held out longer than i initially theorised before 'the cavalry' arrived. I guess then it would come down to the size organisation and supply of the german efforts and how the british navy would hamper this. a drawn out invasion could still find itself fighting american troops on british soil.

[Huszar666]

Morning,

If the defeat of the RAF at the battle of Britain had, like some people have suggested, led to a successful German invasion, I believe this would have been a catalyst for the USA to enter the War.

In what dimension of reality?
Yeah, I can picture it. The US is in the middle of the presidential election, where everyone tried to up the other with "we will not sending our boys overseas", and in the middle of the whole affair, everyone just says: "Hey, the election is only in November, let's declare war on Germany! I will win the election with that 11 times out of 10!"
Even Late-41, despite FDR trying very hard to get the US into the war against Germany, a majority would not support it. Against Japan, after Pearl Harbour? Yes. Against Germany? No.

If the Germans would have won the BoB, invaded and defeated the UK, I think the US would do everything possible to stay out of the war. Meaning: not provoking Germany and Japan.

[At ease]

Morning,

If the defeat of the RAF at the battle of Britain had, like some people have suggested, led to a successful German invasion, I believe this would have been a catalyst for the USA to enter the War.

In what dimension of reality?
Yeah, I can picture it. The US is in the middle of the presidential election, where everyone tried to up the other with "we will not sending our boys overseas", and in the middle of the whole affair, everyone just says: "Hey, the election is only in November, let's declare war on Germany! I will win the election with that 11 times out of 10!"
Even Late-41, despite FDR trying very hard to get the US into the war against Germany, a majority would not support it. Against Japan, after Pearl Harbour? Yes. Against Germany? No.

If the Germans would have won the BoB, invaded and defeated the UK, I think the US would do everything possible to stay out of the war. Meaning: not provoking Germany and Japan.

By August 1939, Physicist Leo Szilard had persuaded Albert Einstein to pen the well known letter to the President, alerting him to the potential dangers of a Nazi A-Bomb.

[.....]

Nevertheless, Einstein was frequently asked to explain his role—as he was when a Japanese magazine editor asked him, "Why did you cooperate in the production of atomic bombs, knowing full well their... destructive power?"



Einstein's answer was always that his only act had been to write to President Roosevelt suggesting that the United States research atomic weapons before the Germans harnessed this deadly technology. He came to regret taking even this step. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, he said that "had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing."
[.....]

https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einste ... an-project

A year later, the US was even more alarmed.

It was kept highly secret, of course, but the rationale for the US "Germany First" policy was founded primarily on defeating Hitler before he could develop nuclear weapons.

[At ease]

Podcast aired as a result of Battle of Britain Day September 15:

Author James Holland:

The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940

https://www.amazon.com.au/Battle-Britai ... 125000215X


on Australian ABC Radio.

28 minutes:

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/n ... /101452656

[LWD]

...
Beyond that, there really isn't any validity into your specific criticisms. You bring up the issue of airframes, but that is quite literally addressed in the study itself:



Total air frames to air frames are being accounted for. Likewise, citing the sortie rate does nothing; the thrust of their paper is that German tactics were resulting in a casualty rate among British pilots that was simply unsustainable. Their analysis used three different benchmarks to run their simulation:

1) The Battle of Britain was a 50/50 contest, and either side was just as likely to win/lose.
2) The Battle of Britain favored the British, at 84% chance of winning. This is a full standard deviation from the above.
3) The Battle of Britain was always likely to be won by the British, at ~98% chance of winning. This is two full standard deviations from (1).

Rather than them pulling out all stops, the best odds they give the Germans are 50/50. The other options favor the British, the last decisively so. They then ran five simulations and only the first, which was CF1, showed the British still winning the battle with any high degree of success. All others showed the Royal Air Force being subjected to such attrition that they were forced to concede the battle, granting the Germans aerial superiority over Southern England.

As presented I see a number of serious issues with this study.
One it indicates that the casualty rate for the British is unsustainable. Yet the airframe losses would indicate that the Germans had an even higher casualty rate as they were loosing more airframes and while the British were loosing pilots at far less than one per airframe loss the German rate was higher so both more airframes lost and more pilots lost per airframe (not to mention other crew especially copilots as bombers often had them).
Two it looks to me like this model allowed for the Germans to change the way they conducted the battle but didn't allow for the British to react to it.

[ErnestTttt]

Quick thing to note here is there is an R class battleship stationed at Portsmouth waiting precisely to jump on the Germans, and also used it to blow up most most of the barges assembled in October in Operation Medium
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British ... operations), the RN were not playing around, and would have beached it if needed. Had the RAF lost the air war, the RN would have sailed out to Cherbourg at night, blasts all the transports assembling, and the invasion is toast. Doesn’t matter whether battleship sank or not, you are aren’t invading Britain

[Carl Schwamberger]

From: (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British ... operations) {quote]Between 15 July and 21 September, German sources stated that 21 transport vessels and 214 barges had been damaged by British air raids. These figures may have been under-reported.[186][/quote]

A bit of data you don't often see presented in the pro invasion arguments.

[Carl Schwamberger]

... Operation Medium
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British ... operations),

Between 15 July and 21 September, German sources stated that 21 transport vessels and 214 barges had been damaged by British air raids. These figures may have been under-reported.(186)

A bit of data you don't often see presented in the pro invasion arguments.