Not sure how many of you are aware of this...
In the early 1970s, the military bigwigs at Sandhurst (where British officers train) ran a very complex military wargame. It fought the battles of Operation 'Sealion', aka the German invasion of Britain once the RAF had been wiped out (which of course, they weren't).
The interesting thing about this wargame wasn't the fact that they employed some of the best probability theorists and statisticians around to run the results of battles; but that they actually gathered the British and German commanders who were still alive and comptis mentus who would have been opposing each other 30-odd years before.
Now, the RAF then in the wargame had been wiped out, but the complex systems of fortifications and defences which criss-crossed Britain still remained, including the GHQ(?) line which circled from Bristol, around London and up towards Edinburgh. This was designed as the main British defensive position should it be invaded. There were countless other smaller lines all over the country. You can still see evidence of these in the British countryside which are still dotted with pillboxes, etc.
So, Sealion began with massive bombardments, etc, and Germans creating a channel in the channel(!) using mines. The Royal Navy under threat from this bombardment retreated to Scapa Flow in Scotland. Then the Germans began the invasion using seaborne and airborne landings. British beach defences did their job, holding up the Germans, but the first day or two saw the Germans pushing up through Sussex and Kent, held up by the few regular troops stationed in those counties and by the numerous Home Guard units. On day 3 the Germans hit the first of these 'Stop lines' known as the 'Winston line' which was a line of fortification further South of the GHQ line. It was here that the tide turned. The Navy had left Scapa Flow once the actual invasion had begun, and now arrived back in the Channel, and regular troops from the North started to flood the defences of the Winston line. Over the next few days a mixture of the Navy disrupting German supply and strength of defence of the Winston line turned the tide strongly back in Britain's favour. After 7-10 days, the German commanders ordered the withdrawal but only about 25% of German forces managed to get back to France in a German 'Dunkirk'. The German's hadn't managed to break the first of the British Stop lines and hadn't even got as far as the main GHQ line.
As I said, I'm not sure how many of you know this, but I thought it was interesting.
I have long been certain that German invasion of the UK was impossible, and in great part due to the Naval situation.
I mean, look how long it took the Allies to organmise a proper invasion of Europe. Even with overwhelming material advantage, the D-Day landdings took years to organise and were a close run thing, done with the latest equipment, total naval superiority and purpose-built landing craft.
The Germans had a tiny Navy and a load of crappy wooden barges. Anyone who wants to take a barge across the Channel on a good, calm day is a fool- it is nasty water. Anyone who wants to take a whole fleet of them across, in a 12 hour period almost certainly being dark at some point, with the enemy firing at you and with enemy ships able to sink yours just by being near them (the wash would flip them over)... is insane.
Adolf Galland, whose job it would have been to control the Luftwaffe in the UK, never had any doubt at all- that the German plans to invade the UK were never serious, and the army had chucked the whole thing onto Goering in the hope he could bomb the UK into giving up and making a deal. Which was also silly.
The Germans were looking East. As has happened to a lot of would-be conquerors over time, it was just too damn inconvenient to invade the UK. It couldn't really be done, even if they had annihilated our air force. And if they HAD wanted to- well, by the target dates, the ability of our air force to defend the Channel was virtually zero anyway; before the bombing of London started we had been forced to evacuate our coastal airfields.
None of this, of course, is to deny the bravery and skill of the pilots of the RAF- or even to deny how important their victory was. Their victory showed that Hitler could be stopped, which makes it one of the most vital in the war at any time Their victory also gave us control over our own skies. The Germans might not have been able to invade with control, but how many more of our people would have died, with Germans roaming freely? How hard to organise Overlord with the Luftwaffe triumphant over every staging camp?
The Battle of Britain is a legend and no myth. The only myth is that they prevented the immediate conquest of Britain. That was never on the cards- the Germans couldn't do it.
If you want to point at what saved the UK in Word War II, it was the Battle of the Atlantic. The UK would have looked silly without food.
There was a three part documentary on channel four here in the UK early this year all about Sealion, Germany would never had succeeded in a successful invasion of England. But it did serve one thing the fear of an invasion right up to mid June 1941 only after Hitler attacked Russia the threat was gone. In many ways this was a correct decision by Hitler to postpone then latter to cancel Sealion.
Originally posted by Janus Marius%100
Hitler was a poor general, and he never had any real training in tactics and strategy- he was a lance corporal in WWI. The idiot murdered 80 of his generals just in one year. He argued against the better judgment of the OKH and pushed aside good generals to advocate yes-men.
The only reason Hitlers plans at the end where not near as good as his first ones was because his brain was LITERALLY rotting. He had Syphilis, and he wanted to conquer Europe before he died of it. He tried to rush the end. If he had focused all his military and not gone after Russia during the Ceasefire, He would most definitely have taken control of Europe.