We just discussed the ‘what if’ idea of how Germany might
have been able to stop the Allied D-Day invasion. In addition to what we talked about, there
was one other possibility to stop the invasion and that would have been for
Germany to invade England, first. In
fact, Germany formulated plans for exactly that operation, calling it Sea
Lion. Most post-war analysts and
historians do not believe the plan could have succeeded and, indeed, Hitler’s
own military leaders expressed little support for the idea. Still, could it have worked? Sounds like another ‘what if’!
As it happened, the invasion was war gamed in 1974 at the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Wiki
has a good write up on the event and it makes for fascinating reading. (1) Let’s examine Sea Lion as a ‘what if’ and
take a look at how the war game played out.
Let’s start by looking at the war game results. To put it succinctly, the game demonstrated
that the initial invasion wave was readily able to cross the channel and
land. However, the follow on waves were
decimated and the invasion died due to lack of supplies. The German forces in England were defeated
and surrendered. As I said, Wiki has a
nice description of the game and I won’t make any great effort to repeat it but
there are a few items that are noteworthy.
The game was heavily biased against the German effort and in
favor of the English. This started with
the initial inclusion of a map of the landing area which instantly triggered a
massive surge of units straight to the area as opposed to maintaining the
landing site uncertainty that would have accompanied a real invasion. We saw the negative impact that site and
timing uncertainty had on German defenses and there is no reason to believe
that the same uncertainties wouldn’t have negatively impacted English defenses.
The German cross-channel transport vessels were severely
underrepresented in the game, leading to limited troop and supply
transport. From the Wiki article,
The
Germans had only converted river barges available as transport ships. Not a
great deal was known about the invasion fleet at the time of the wargame. This
represented a gross simplification relative to shipping plans discovered later,
which involved nearly 4,000 vessels, including 150 merchant ships and 237 light
or auxiliary close escorts, in four invasion fleets.
The invasion fleet naval assets were limited to some E
Boats, U-Boats, and destroyers.
The British Home Fleet was sent south to interdict the
invasion force contrary to historical intent.
From Wiki,
In
real life, both Admiral Charles
Forbes, commander of the
Home Fleet, and Admiral Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord, said they would not send capital ships into the Channel unless the
Germans did so, too.
The first two days of the game included weather conditions
which prevented the German invasion fleet from launching. Nonetheless, the previously mentioned map
issue which revealed the landing site enabled the English to spend two days surging
ground forces to the future landing site secure in the absolute knowledge of
the site’s location. Thus, the English
had a two day start on the game.
The initial assault wave was able to land relatively
unimpeded and managed to advance 12 miles inland and captured the ports of
Folkestone and Newhaven.
German minefields shielded the invasion force.
The Luftwaffe conducted bombing attacks on London instead of
directly supporting the assault forces.
The game was decided when the German’s second assault wave
was intercepted and destroyed by a Royal Navy (RN) force of 17 cruisers and 57
destroyers.
Clearly, the game was heavily slanted towards the British. Despite this, the initial assault wave made
it ashore in good order and achieved some degree of success.
Now, let’s ‘what if’ the concept the right way and see if it
could have succeeded. Of course, being a
‘what if’, we wouldn’t invade Russia, thus doubling our available resources!
We need to start with defining the goals of an invasion and
there would be two main goals.
1. To seize a port for follow on unloading of troops, supplies, and equipment. Only a functioning port can provide the volumetric throughput of supplies necessary to support a large scale invasion. Depending on a detailed study of available resources, seizure of a second port would be a desirable goal, as well.
2. To seize an area suitable for an airfield. This could be an existing airfield or just an open flat area that could be quickly converted to an airfield. The purpose of such a field would be to allow critical supplies to be flown in and to allow local staging of the Luftwaffe rather than having to sortie from mainland Europe. Local staging would enhance fighter cover and allow effective close air support by enabling aircraft to launch, attack, and land to refuel and rearm in short cycles. Additional fields would be developed as the invasion progressed.
To accomplish this, our version of ‘what if’ starts out with
many of the aspects discussed in the previous post and include:
- Refocusing the U-boat effort on sealing the northern approach to the English Channel, hunting British cruisers and destroyers, and bottling up the Home Fleet.
- Extensive laying of minefields at both ends of the channel and in lanes protecting the invasion fleet’s approach routes.
- Use of the Luftwaffe to destroy bridges, railways, and roads that would be used to move British reinforcements to the landing area.
- Use of the Luftwaffe to hunt British cruisers and destroyers.
- Co-ordinated use of the German battleships and heavy cruisers to screen the invasion fleet from British cruisers and destroyers.
- Use of E Boats to screen the German naval force.
With those measures in place, the actual assault would consist
of the following operational steps,
- Airborne assault to secure the selected port.
- Airborne assault to secure the selected airfield.
- Amphibious assault to support the port seizure and isolate/screen the port from counterattack.
- Amphibious assault to support the airfield seizure.
Students of history will note the similarity between this
operational plan and the Allies D-Day plan.
Many people think the D-Day assault was all about pushing troops across
the beach and then straight on to Germany but the real purpose was to seize
ports for the critical follow on supply effort which was the only way the subsequent
large scale European combat could be supported.
The actual D-Day landing was all about seizing the ports.
Having laid out the goals, plan, and methods, we are now led
to ask, would it have succeeded?
The wargame, even heavily slanted towards the British,
demonstrated that the initial assault wave would have successfully landed and
moved inland. In our ‘what if’, we’ve
enhanced the chance of success with more numerous, more substantial, and
specific measures aimed at isolating and screening the invasion fleet. Thus, there is every reason to believe that
the initial assault would be quite successful.
Recall that the Allied D-Day assault landed in the teeth of
extensive fortifications at the beach.
England had no such defenses, never believed an invasion was a real
threat, and had no plans to fortify beaches.
There is every reason to believe the assaulting forces would have been
able to land and move inland with only minimal resistance.
Airborne forces always enjoy initial success in terms of
landing. The question becomes whether
they can assemble and organize once on the ground to the extent necessary to
enable them to become combat effective and achieve their objectives. As seen by the Allies’ D-Day efforts, the
airborne element did succeed, though at a cost.
The Allied airborne effort was hampered by landing dispersed in somewhat
featureless and difficult terrain which made assembly and subsequent effective
combat problematic. I would submit that
landing an airborne force in and around a port city would be far more practical
and easy. Orientation of the forces,
once on the ground, would be easier because a city is full of recognizable
landmarks and the confusion factor for the defenders is immense. I would aim a portion of the airborne
landings directly on the port facilities and the remainder in and around the
city to screen the port.
In the game, a port was seized. Thus, there is every reason to believe that
the initial port seizure objective could be accomplished quickly and easily.
The same reasoning applies to seizure of an airfield
area. Being, presumably, out in the
country and isolated, an airborne landing and follow up support from amphibious
troops would almost certainly ensure the successful seizure and establishment
of a functioning airfield. Thus, the
assault would benefit immensely from the rapid establishment of a local
airfield for fighter cover and close air support.
Where the game failed
for the Germans was the second wave was intercepted by British cruisers and
destroyers and completely destroyed. This
resulted in the initial force being ‘starved’ of supplies and the invasion died
out. It is no great surprise that the
entire assault hinges on the follow on effort.
This is the logistics portion of war that ultimately determines military
success or failure. The measures we’ve
outlined here should have been sufficient to ensure the success of the follow
on supply effort. That being the case, the
entire assault would have had a fair chance of success.
The importance in this ‘what if’ of Germany not attacking
Russia cannot be overstated. Being able
to double the resources available to be brought to bear against England would
have been incalculably beneficial.
We see, then, that the concept of an invasion of England was
feasible and would have had a fair chance of success. However, it would have been necessary to gear
the entire German war effort toward this goal.
From the beginning, the Germans would have had to have been working
toward this goal by not squandering U-boats and their surface ships, not
attacking Russia, working to lay minefields and isolate the English channel,
etc. In other words, they would have
needed a strategy on day one of the war that had this goal in mind.
The importance of a coherent strategy cannot be overstated
and offers a lesson for us, today. What
is our strategy towards Russia, China, Iran, and NKorea? We haven’t got one. How can we expect success, then? But, I digress …
Had Germany been able to successfully invade England, how
would the war have progressed beyond that point? Would the US have prosecuted a war against
Germany without England as a base of operations or would the US have attempted
to negotiate a peace settlement of some sort?
If the US had opted to continue the war, would Africa have become the
base of operations? What role would
Russia (not having been attacked by Germany) have played, subsequently?
What if?
(1)Wikipedia, “Operation Sea Lion (wargame)”, retrieved
11-Mar-2019,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)
Erhard Milch proposed another strategy. Even before France had sued for peace and the evacuation of the BEF, Milch proposed an airborne invasion of Britain involving seizing airfields with paratroops and then air-landing a limited number of infantry divisions (I believe the figure was 13) without heavy equipment.
ReplyDeleteHis reasoning was that Britain was effectively defenseless at the time and that even weak forces would suffice to cause the UK to collapse and sue for peace.
In the event that Britain collapsed, I have trouble believing that the USA would have ultimately involved itself in war against Germany despite Roosevelt's wishes. British defeat would have discredited FDR's foreign policy and raised the prestige of "isolationist" and "defeatist" factions in American politics.
If FDR somehow got his way anyway, I don't see Africa as an operational base. Spain would've permitted the Germans to capture Gibraltar, and whatever the Germans decided to do with France then surely would've involved fortifying the Northwest African coast.
I don't know what year this air war plan was created, but the USAAF did have a plan to deal with a victorious Germany. The idea was to use B-36s for a transatlantic mass atomic bombing of 200 German cities simultaneously.
The USSR would've pursued a policy of appeasement of Germany in the event the UK was occupied. Especially if the British Dominions made peace with Germany as well, which would reopen Germany to world trade and reduce its dependence on the Soviet Union. Whether or not this would be sufficient to forestall a German invasion is impossible to say. Had the Germans invaded they would have won, though perhaps not in a single campaign (which would reopen the question of American involvement).
Postwar world would likely have some kind of Cold War between Germany and America.
Very nice speculation!
DeleteI also think that if Germany had occupied England by removing the military threats rather than occupying the cities, it could have secured England, militarily, without the massive manpower requirement of occupying the cities and dealing the resulting unrest and guerilla warfare.
Imagine the common person in the cities if they are allowed to go about their daily lives unhindered and with no constant visible reminder of the occupation. The motivation for rebellion would be greatly decreased. England would be removed as a military threat and Germany could, after consolidating its overall European victory, could have 'magnanimously' vacated England at some point down the road to appease world opinion (the US).
Of course, benevolent occupation was not really the German way ...
German occupation in Western Europe was mostly benevolent (aside from the obvious). In Denmark they even left the prewar Danish government in tact until 1943 and allowed free elections (except the communist party was banned). Resistance operations against German forces in the West were always weak compared to what the Germans faced in the Balkans (tied down like a dozen German combat divisions) and Eastern Europe (see for instance the Belorussian Railway War and the Warsaw Uprising).
DeleteOutside of Norway, where the Germans always feared another British landing, there were no substantial German forces in Western Europe until they started building up forces to counter Overlord. Prior to the Dieppe Raid there were only 100,000 German troops in all of France.
For understandable political reasons postwar France chose to elevate the French Resistance beyond its actual proportions and to exaggerate the harshness of the German occupation. In reality the French themselves killed as many Frenchmen in a few months as the Germans did in four years of occupation.
Given the high opinion the Nazis had of the British peoples, there's no reason to suspect a German occupation would've been harsh or employed large forces. Britain being a highly urbanized and industrialized country, major armed resistance operations would have been minor and limited to Welsh and Scottish highlands.
Hitler's ultimate strategic intentions were to restore Germany's western frontiers to where they were in 1540 and extend its eastern frontiers to the Ural Mountains (the Japanese proposed the Yenisei River). Presumably most of occupied Western Europe would've regained sovereignty (under new fascist governments) and be integrated into a German-dominated economic union and military alliance. Other Germans had different ideas of course as in any country.
At the time of Operation Sea Lion, September 1940, the US was not at war. The attack on Pearl Harbor was more than a year away with Germany declaring war on the US after that attack, with the US responding in kind.
ReplyDeleteBeing neutral at the time, had Germany successfully invaded England in 1940, would the US have declared war on Germany or sought some kind of peace agreement? Since the country was gearing towards a war footing at the time and recognizing the threat of Germany, I think the US would have declared war on Germany, with Germany declaring war on us in response. Then based on Germany's success, I suspect Japan would have declared war on the US and our fighting would have started a year earlier than it did.
How to fight Germany an ocean away is an interesting question. I suppose this would have expedited the development of the B-29 and other longer-ranged aircraft, including fighters, and the need to find a staging base to strike England. A likely staging base would have been Iceland, which is about 1,100 miles from England.
Interesting! The problem with an air war is that it can't seize land, of course. Assuming the US would have wanted to recapture England/Europe, where do you see the land force buildup and subsequent invasion being staged?
DeleteI believe we staged from the East Coast for the invasion of North Africa. I'd assume we would do the same in this instance and maybe launch a larger force to account for losses enroute.
DeleteSealion wasn't feasible unless the Germans had better transport for their forces. Converted river barges, many of them towed, could potentially take over a day to cross to one side. Add a day to unload and a day to cross back you could be looking at several days between waves.
ReplyDeleteYou noted this quote in the post?
Delete"This represented a gross simplification relative to shipping plans discovered later, which involved nearly 4,000 vessels, including 150 merchant ships and 237 light or auxiliary close escorts, in four invasion fleets."
Further, just as the Allies built transport vessels for the Normandy invasion, so too could Germany have embarked on a construction program of simple, small transport vessels.
If I remember correctly, some German officers advocated for the forces in Norway to immediately create a beachhead in England after Norway's pacification.
ReplyDeleteIf this had happened, along with the dunkirk pocket being eliminated... Chamberlain probably would have sued for peace instead of resigning. Churchill wouldn't have been able to continue the war as he wouldn't have been in power.
Whether the invasion was successful in the end wouldn't have mattered, as long as it didn't immediately fail.
"England had no such defenses, never believed an invasion was a real threat, and had no plans to fortify beaches. There is every reason to believe the assaulting forces would have been able to land and move inland with only minimal resistance." This is not strictly true. Wiki has a good write up on the invasion preparations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_the_Second_World_War
ReplyDeleteFor the Germans to be successful they would of required a more invasion focused strategy and time for preparations. Nothing exists in a vacuum. If they made preparations before the war began it would of been noticed. That action would of had a reaction. If they focused their efforts after the fall of France it would of required time. Time during which British tank and aircraft production was overtaking that of Germany. Time during which defences were being prepared. Time during which offensive action was being carried out against the invasion fleet "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." The Germans never had a chance of success. With a more invasion focused strategy they could of really hurt the UK but they would of hurt themselves even more.
The British defenses were absolutely laughable compared to the density and intensity of the Normandy defenses. As history demonstrated, the Normandy defenses proved insufficient to stop a determined assault so the British efforts would have provided little more than a momentary nuisance to German troops.
Delete"Nothing exists in a vacuum."
That is true and is a valid point. However, post-war documentation demonstrated, as I said, that Britain's leaders never really took the invasion threat seriously. Churchill, for example, did not believe German would attempt an invasion. Britain's defensive efforts were more of a 'cover all the bases' action than a concerted anti-invasion fortification effort.
Still, your point is valid that if Germany had demonstrated more intent - though it should be noted that the German military actually practiced loading and unloading transports for an assault! - Britain might well have responded with more defensive effort. This is where the landing site uncertainty would come into play just as it did for the Germans defending against the Allied assault. Lacking specific foreknowledge of the landing site(s), the British effort would have been spread out and diluted.
"The Germans never had a chance of success."
Okay, you've made the statement now back it up with some data and logic. Simply saying it doesn't make it right! Give some reasons.
Finally, the point of the post is to have some fun with the 'what if' proposition more than to critique the actual Sea Lion plan.
I would love to get into this (preferably beer in hand!) But I don't have the time to commit. I would like to make a point regarding the landing site uncertainty though. The further the invasion site gets from the Dover/Folkstone area the longer and longer the defensive corridor for the invasion fleet needs to be and of course more difficult to defend and maintain. Now this is relatively OK with air and naval superiority but the Germans had neither and they knew it. Could the Germans have gained naval superiority in just the English channel with a littoral focused navy. No Bismarck or Tirpitz just massive numbers of E-boats and a greater number of destroyers ready to retreat under Luftwaffe protection? If the German army got ashore and was sustained then no one would argue about German victory in 1940.
ReplyDelete"Could the Germans have gained naval superiority in just the English channel with a littoral focused navy."
DeleteYou're quite right that this is the key and, as such, is what the 'what if' I proffered in the post was designed to accomplish. Could it have been done? Well, that's the debatable (and fun) part of the discussion.
One aspect of Wehrmacht that gets forgotten is probably no other modern army was as good as it as "living off the land". Rommel in Africa was almost as much supplied by UK as by Germany! 85% of his transport trucks were Allied, fuel and food was hugely supplemented by captured stocks and Africa Korps even used Brit tanks against Brits. Let's not assume that Germans needed as much logistical support as Allies needed, Wehrmacht was very good at fighting with little support. Would it have been possible to get that first big wave ashore and then let it fend for itself? Kind of a one way mission but in early 1940, not many armies could stand up to the speed and brute strength AND HUGE MORAL SUPERIORITY of the Wehrmacht. It's TRUE Brits would have been fighting on home soil but how much fight was there in BA after Dunkirk???
ReplyDeleteMy other reason why invading UK was a good idea, maybe Wehrmacht couldn't take London BUT could they have stayed for a year or 2 on British soil and thus delayed DDay for years? How much prep and fight would have been needed to kick Wehrmacht out of Southern Britain? How much destruction of airfields and ports? US would have needed to rebuild all that infrastructure before even building up stocks and gear, troop build up for DDay...its not like Wehrmacht would have invaded and been defeated inside a week. IMO, this would have lasted months if not years of occupation.
" maybe Wehrmacht couldn't take London "
DeleteWhy would they want to take London? From a military perspective, there was little combat power in London. Had the German army limited itself to defeating the British army and air force and occupying key outlying bases, thus neutralizing the British military, there would have been no need to occupy London and deal with the inevitable uprisings and guerilla warfare.
This is a lesson for us, today. There's a lot of discussion about combat in mega cities but no one asks the question, 'why?'. Cities, as a general statement, have no combat value. They may contain war-critical factories but those can be destroyed by stand off weapons. Beyond that, they have no combat value and should be bypassed or ignored. Willingly engaging in urban warfare is foolish.
Had the Germans occupied England without entering the cities or interfering with daily life, the average citizen would have had nothing to tangible to resist! They would have carried on with their daily lives and, arguably, been slightly better off because the threat of bombing raids would cease!
In 1940 the U.S. population was strongly anti-war and wanted no part of "Europe's problems". IMO, FDR was already doing everything he could to support England. Getting further involved, if England had been invaded, was probably not possible. Also, the speed at which the Germans conquered countries had not been seen before. Getting support from the American public and from congress would have taken weeks, if not months. Building up an assault force would also have taken many more months. By the time the U.S. was ready to act, the invasion would have been over for England.
ReplyDeleteWhat could the U.S. do? Assuming we decided to fight, military planners would get down to 3 options:
1. A direct invasion of England's Western coast.
2. Invade Portugal or the Spanish coast.
3. Use Finland as the starting point.
None of these options require an amphibious assault. Frankly, trying to conduct an amphib assault across an ocean was not possible. Men and materiel would have to be moved in large ships to a port or two, while being under continuous attack from the Germans while in port.
The shortest distance from New York to Europe would be Finland. Neither the Russians nor the Germans were able to overcome Finland. Working together the U.S. military and Finnish government could have achieved an agreement to allow the U.S. army to base operations in Finland. The air force would have been required to occupy Iceland, the navy would have been conducting ASW patrols in conjunction with the air force. Our Battleships would have been moved from Hawaii in 1940 to the East coast in preparation for combat with the German/British navy. The most likely time for an invasion would be weather dependent, but the ocean crossing would have to take place in the winter, when aircraft and U-boats were the least effective. Heavy bombers could be staged in Iceland and flown to Finland when allied forces were ready to begin moving against Germany.
Finland??? How would ships/supplies get to Finland? The approach through Denmark and into the Baltic Sea was controlled by the Germans. From the North through Norway? Finland was just not reachable. And, with the specter of an unreliable Russia sitting there …
DeleteI don't see it.
I think the US would have had to use Africa as a staging base via Morocco/Algeria.
Some thoughts...
ReplyDeleteThe Kriegsmarine's surface capabilities were essentially non-existent after the Battle of Norway. Thus the Kriegsmarine couldn't have provided adequate cover for an invasion in 1940.
By mid-1941, the British would have had the time to prepare and re-equip their land forces. I have to remind you that the Germans didn't set up a war economy until 1942/43, and that Germany was outproduced in every domain by France in 1940 and the UK in 1941...
The big problem of this "what if" is that is doesn't fit to the mind of the decisionmaker at the time-Hitler. Hitler wasn't a rational individual, but followed his own logic. In his mind, invading the USSR was the absolute priority at the time-and the quicker the better. He also clinged to the delusion that the British might still get on his side, since in his mind they were part of the "master race".
I'd have to check the exact numbers and dates but in the 1940-41 time frame, the Germans had 2x Bismarcks, 2x Scharnhorst, 5x heavy cruisers, 2x dreadnought battleships, 2x light cruisers, several auxiliary cruisers, ?x destroyers. With the support of U/E boats and air cover, this would have been sufficient for the task of English Channel A2/AD and invasion support.
Delete"The big problem of this "what if" is that is doesn't fit to the mind of the decisionmaker at the time-Hitler."
DeleteOf course not! That's why it's a 'what if'!!!!!
As a discussion of the tactical/operation means by which Germany could successfully invade the UK in September 1940 this what-if is actually pretty interesting. Even if the Royal Navy had sortied south the extent to which it could make a decisive difference is open to question. As the RN discovered in multiple locations, though especially in the Mediterranean, operating in confined waters against land-based airpower could result in huge losses. The capacity of the RAF to provide sustained air-cover for the RN at the same time as it is trying to provide air-support to a British Army heavily engaged with German ground forces is likely to have been extremely limited. Especially when we take into consideration the scale of the losses incurred by the RAF during the Battle of France when ever they attempted air support missions against German forces. All front line German ground forces were provided with extensive ground-based AAA that had shredded French and British attacks in May 1940. Every aircraft the RAF lost attacking the German beachhead would be another aircraft unavailable to protect the fleet against dive bombers and torpedo attack.
DeleteTanguy also makes a point about the mobilization of the Nazi economy that has been a repeated commonplace but which has been largely overturned by relatively recent economic-historical assessments. Simply put, the German economy was fully mobilized for war by 1938/39. The problem they had was that they had reached the limits of their economy, which even with the incorporation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, was smaller than that of the UK, let alone the UK and the USA. In the context of WW2, war came too soon and Germany wasn't remotely ready resulting in such difficulties as a weak navy, and a inadequately equipped army.
The idea that Germany didn't have a war economy in place until 1942/43 is largely driven by the concept of "the Speer Miracle" but this assessment is derived from a relatively simplistic interpretation of German output figures in the 1942-44 period.
Simply put Nazi Germany established a war economy in the mid-1930s but due to the impact of disarmament following their WW1 defeat, and the inherent weaknesses of the German economy more generally particularly in the form of facilities and labour. Because war came earlier than planned for Germany was still engaged in extensive investment in war production facilities as opposed to actual war production. This spending, on items like synthetic petrol facilities, doesn't appear in the military spending column but the key reason for the effort was to prepare for the loss of oil imports when war began.
By 1942/43 Germany's earlier investments in facilities were beginning to pay off massively. At the same time Germany was in a position to increase production through the importation of millions of foreign slave-workers.
As an aside Adam Tooze's "The Wages of Destruction" is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the course of WW2.
Very nice comment.
DeleteYou mention potential RN ship losses. One of the weaknesses of the German air force was the lack of a good torpedo aircraft, as far as I'm aware. Most Pacific theater ship losses to aircraft were due to torpedo hits rather than bomb hits - a Japanese carrier or two being notable exceptions.
Conversely, the British had very poor torpedo aircraft that were barely advanced beyond WWI standards. German ships should have been immune to torpedo attacks for all practical purposes and yet this was not the case, at least for the Bismarck (and others?).
I very much enjoyed your discussion of economic aspects. Regrettably, I have no useful knowledge along those lines and cannot add anything to your comments but thanks for the mini-education.
I was not aware of Tooze's work. Thanks for the heads up. I did a quick read of some reviews and it sounds like the book is well worth reading even at 892 pages!
Excellent comment, all around.
@Markus Karl Binder
DeleteThe Germans clearly hadn't mobilized their entire economy, seeing that France -a country with half the economic and industrial power of Germany- was able to outproduce them in nearly every category.
@ComNavOps
The state of the Kriegsmarine's major surface combattants in the second half of 1940 :
-Bismarck : working up, not yet ready
-Tirpitz : being built
-Scharnhorst : out of commission
-Gneisenau : out of commission
-Graf Zeppelin : construction stopped
-Admiral Hipper : operationally ready
-Blucher : sunk
-Lutzow : incomplete, sold to USSR
-Prinz Eugen : working up, not yet ready
-Seydlitz : construction stopped
-Deutschland : out of commission
-Admiral Scheer : operationaly ready
-Admiral Graf Spee : sunk
-Schleswig-Holstein & Schlieffen : pre-dreadnought battleships, military value next to non-existant
"The state of the Kriegsmarine's major surface combattants"
DeleteWe're talking about a 'what if' invasion in the 1940-41 time frame - maybe even into 1942. Plenty of time for repairs. I also stipulated that the German navy wouldn't do idiotic things like piecemeal surface raiding - they would conserve their ships. So, my original listing pretty much stands. Also, dreadnoughts would be quite useful for invasion gun support just as the US used its old battleships for invasion support.
So, for channel isolation and defense and to provide invasion support, the navy could have had:
Bismarck
Tirpitz
Scharnhorst
Gneisenau
Scheer
Graf Spee
Deutschland (renamed Lützow)
Schlesien (dreadnought)
Schleswig-Holstein (dreadnought)
Admiral Hipper
Prinz Eugen
Light cruisers
Auxilliary cruisers
Destroyers
A good force for the purpose.
It would make more sense to me to use those units to attack North Africa and take Cairo to guarantee access to the Middle East oil. Persuade the Japs to ignore the Americans and take India & Ceylon instead, polish off Australia, New Zealand & South Africa. Give some bits of Africa to Spain and Italy and the Spanish will sort out Gibraltar and Malta then falls too. The Germans already own much of South America so take that next and then you really have everything you need to polish off the USA, Russia, China and Britain.
ReplyDeleteI like your thinking but the problem of the Allied invasion remains. Those units you would use to secure Africa would have to remain on the Channel coast to guard against the invasion threat. The 'what if' preemptive assault on England, if successful, permanently ends that threat and then Africa can be taken at leisure.
DeleteI was assuming that the Germans didn't attack Russia and therefore had troops to do both - the USA probably wouldn't have entered the war if Japan hadn't attacked and any UK-only invasion would have been at least half the size.
Delete"USA probably wouldn't have entered the war if Japan hadn't attacked"
DeleteAn excellent point - right up there with Germany not attacking Russia. If Japan and Germany had coordinated their plans and timing they might well have kept the US out of the war or greatly delayed the US entry.
If Japan had been patient and taken the long view, as China is doing today, and just seized small islands from time to time, the US would likely have done nothing.
You're also correct about a UK-only invasion. In fact, I don't think it would have been possible.