Hi james-rockford; One of the endearing qualities of the human race is to always exaggerate the abilities of their past enemies. This is how you increase the respect for your own warriors. So the myth that the Germans were unbeatable (despite the logistical facts) persists along with similar stories about how good the Indians were as cavalry (despite the fact that they repeatedly lost battles where they outnumbered the US), or how the Japanese almost won the Pacific war, etc.
The fact is that wars that cover significant percentages of the earth's surface, but paradoxically conclude in only a few years with the unconditional defeat of one of the sides are not close conflicts. To win, so quickly and so completely, the winning side has to be much stronger than the losing side. Wars between equally matched sides either peter away into a permanent stalemate and armistice, or last for decades (or even a century).
So did the Germans really let the British get away?
Forget the civilians and their exaggerated tales of near misses, ones that got away and derring-do. Here's what the experts say:
Combining Sequential and Cumulative Air Strategies For Victory:
The Past Informs the Future
Courtney A. Ducharme,
... for completion of graduation requirements
School of Advanced Airpower Studies
Air University
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabam, June 2000
...
... Unfortunately,at the conclusion of the Battle of France, the German Army and Navy were not well prepared to commence an immediate assault upon Britain. ...
... The Luftwaffe’s doctrine, training ,and equipment may have been well suited to Continental operations; however, it would face a different enemy in Britain,for which it was not ideally suited.
...
The first argument that recommended this option was that by avoiding a full-scale invasion, Germany could save its Army troops for Continental operations,especially the contemplated invasion of Russia. Second, an independent Luftwaffe operation was much simpler to plan than an amphibious landing and invasion.
...
If this option were chosen,the Luftwaffe would have included a wide array of targets including ports and shipping to isolate Britain economically, population centers, a wide array of industrial targets including the aircraft industry, and British military targets outside the immediate southeast coastal area to affect British morale. Hitler did not choose this option, preferring instead to plan for the worst case, that a full invasion would be necessary.
...
Option Two
In a second option, a force-on-force direct-assault scenario, Hitler could defeat Britain by conducting an amphibious landing and invasion. The military strategy was straightforward: use the Luftwaffe to destroy Britain’s Fighter Command as an effective force, overcome the Royal Navy in the Channel, defeat coastal defenses, and occupy airfields in Britain allowing the Luftwaffe to support German ground operations across the entirety of Britain.48 This option was attractive because a full invasion, if it were successful,would decisively eliminate Britain from the war. However, there were several difficulties with this option. Unlike Continental operations in Poland, Norway, Belgium, and France, the execution of an amphibious invasion would require complicated operations and logistics coordination between Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Army and Navy were as yet unprepared to invade Britain. Detailed plans had not yet been drawn up;moreover, Army and Navy forces had to be reconstituted after the Battle of France. According to Navy Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, the Navy would not be prepared to bring Army troops to England until at least 15 September, just a few weeks before fall and winter weather closed in making an amphibious landing impossible.49 Another difficulty was that the German Navy alone would be no match for the Royal Navy.50 Therefore, Germany would have to gain air supremacy over the Channel and the invasion front in order for the Luftwaffe to protect German naval and ground assets against Royal Navy and Air Force threats.
papers.maxwell.af.mil
Also see:
Overall German Strategy in World War Two and the Allied Air Offensive
Joseph C. Schott, Lt. Col, USAF, April 1997
...
Previous to this,by the late fall of 1940,Hitler had stunned the world by his conquering of the Low Countries and France.On the other hand,Hitler had received a set-back when the Luftwaffe was defeated in the “Battle of Britain.” Historians still debate whether Hitler would have initiated,or have been successful with Sealion — the planned invasion of Britain — even if he had attained air superiority over the invasion beachheads.1 Nonetheless,Hitler decided not to launch the hastily planned invasion of Britain.
...
papers.maxwell.af.mil
A pretty good way of finding out what the military thinks about a subject is to restrict your google searches to military web sites. Do that by including site:.mil in your google search. At this point in time, since I've found zero military sources that believe that the Germans had a chance to invade Britain, I'm going to probably ignore whatever contrary replies this post gets, unless they use sources from US military web sites.
-- Carl
P.S. As to how much artillery the British had available after the disaster at Dunkirk, the fact is that they lost 2,500 guns there. Their total artillery production for the war was 300,000 guns, so that the Dunkirk contingent amounted to about 20 days worth of production, or somewhat more since in late 1940 they were not yet up to full production.
Re: "... the Wehrmacht said they were satisfied that the Luftwaffe had control of the skies over the invasion Beaches in southern England."
Rather than quoting "the Whermacht", the author should ascribe the silly claim to the actual person who stated it, Goering. He was wrong about that, and a bunch of other things besides.
Re: "The British Army had left almost all their heavy artillery back on the beaches of Dunkirk. There was hardly a good anti-tank gun in the whole Country."
While this may be true, it hardly matters. The Germans had no way to move tanks to Britain. The German invasion of Britain was called "seeloewe" or sealion, and it was hardly a trivial operation. The amphibious tanks required weren't ready until August 1940 (but were used instead the next year against Russia):
planet-interkom.de
The fact is that they were unable to prevent the British from escaping at Dunkirk and they were unable to control the beaches for a landing.
British tank production during WW2:
tabletoptactics.com
Also, for an analysis of the somewhat similar situation in Taiwan (I've argued that the mainland Chinese are in absolutely no position to take Taiwan by force) see:
papers.maxwell.af.mil |
