[Newsbot]

Title: Remembering Britain's hardest day: Spitfires and Hurricanes take to the skies again 75 years after battle that scuppered plans for a Nazi invasion 
Category: Military
Posted By: martin14
Date: 2015-08-18 08:37:16

[martin14]

What a shame to miss that.

[Hyack]

I would have loved to have seen even a part of that. Thanks for posting the story.

[llama66]

Stupid Operation Sealion. Hitler didn't bet on the brits putting on the incredible defence they did. Much respect for all those airmen that defended Britain during the war, especially during the Battle of Britain.

[Jabberwalker]

There was no real "Operation Sealion". The Germans collected together all of the shallow sided Rhine River barges from all over the continent and ... Voila ...they were an amphibious attack force. I don,'t think that the German general staff realized what they were up against, or maybe they did and that is why it never happened. Those barges would have all foundered in anything but flat calm water. Good luck finding that in the Channel. It took the Allies years of planning, practice and the construction of a fleet of purpose-built amphibious assault craft before our side attempted a cross-channel invasion. Sealion was a paper tiger and never for real. If the Germans had tried it, they would have lost that Army.

[llama66]

The Germans very nearly broke the RAF though, Thank God Hitler was not a good strategist.

I don't think Overlord would have worked had they not launched the disastrous Operation Jubilee (which was today) without the Air and Naval support.

[Thanos]

Yeah. The German air assault was too haphazard to eliminate the RAF. Let's say they concentrated on destroying the radar stations first. Early technology in set locations, not portable, can't be replaced quickly. That rips open a huge hole in detection over southeast England. Then hammer the crap out of the RAF airfields. This starts to take the RAF out through attrition. The time comes soon when the RAF reaches it's breaking point and is no longer effective. No RAF means that the Germans can then start pounding any Royal Navy assets in the area because they already proved during the Dunkirk evacuation how vulnerable ships are to air attack. Plus you then have Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and the rest of the bigger Kreigsmarine vessels make an appearance in the North Sea to keep the Home Fleet stuck in Scapa Flow and unable to head south to the Channel. Then the inevitable happens when about ten to fifteen thousand German parachutists and glider troops land and take over a port city like Dover. The regular British army is still whipped from what happened in France to the point of being irrelevant and only a lunatic would think that Dad's Army would make even the smallest dent against hardened Wehrmacht soldiers. Then with a port secured and the RAF and Royal Navy no longer an issue, the Germans can then use standard container ships and barges to ferry panzer units and the bulk of the Wehrmacht infantry across the Channel in a corridor that's solidly protected by the Luftwaffe and the U-boats. The Germans are then able to rampage across England the same way they did in France or, more likely, the British government capitulates. Churchill and the Royal Family flee to Canada and a pro-German puppet government is installed in Britain the same way it was in Vichy France.

It would have been the toughest and most risky campaign the Germans attempted but it was plausible. Change a few of Hitler's personal whims, like pointlessly reaching out to Churchill for an armistice after France collapsed, and have a solid plan in place even before the invasion of France and knocking Britain out of the war was certainly doable.

[BartSimpson]

Sort of on-topic....

I'm needing to create one of those Hitler-rant videos that borrows the rant from the movie "Downfall".

Any suggestions on maybe a web site that would be able to easily produce this kind of thing? I'm loathe to purchase something like Camtasia for this.

[CountLothian]

I never knew this till recently , but the Germans blitzed England for the first time in WWI

They used mostly Zeppelins and footage of the carnage wasn't so much different then WWII.

I loved making Balsa wood and Plastic replicas of WWI and WWII planes as a kid.

My favourite was a Spitfire and my best friend's dad flew in RCAF bombers. He had lost a hand which was wood with a glove over it and a fake leg.

He was a very quite man but did quite well for himself and his family . Thats all i recall of him for i can't recall much more than a hello and good bye. It was the sixties and he must have been still suffering from it all.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Thanos Thanos:

Yeah. The German air assault was too haphazard to eliminate the RAF. Let's say they concentrated on destroying the radar stations first. Early technology in set locations, not portable, can't be replaced quickly. That rips open a huge hole in detection over southeast England. Then hammer the crap out of the RAF airfields. This starts to take the RAF out through attrition. The time comes soon when the RAF reaches it's breaking point and is no longer effective. No RAF means that the Germans can then start pounding any Royal Navy assets in the area because they already proved during the Dunkirk evacuation how vulnerable ships are to air attack. Plus you then have Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and the rest of the bigger Kreigsmarine vessels make an appearance in the North Sea to keep the Home Fleet stuck in Scapa Flow and unable to head south to the Channel. Then the inevitable happens when about ten to fifteen thousand German parachutists and glider troops land and take over a port city like Dover. The regular British army is still whipped from what happened in France to the point of being irrelevant and only a lunatic would think that Dad's Army would make even the smallest dent against hardened Wehrmacht soldiers. Then with a port secured and the RAF and Royal Navy no longer an issue, the Germans can then use standard container ships and barges to ferry panzer units and the bulk of the Wehrmacht infantry across the Channel in a corridor that's solidly protected by the Luftwaffe and the U-boats. The Germans are then able to rampage across England the same way they did in France or, more likely, the British government capitulates. Churchill and the Royal Family flee to Canada and a pro-German puppet government is installed in Britain the same way it was in Vichy France.

It would have been the toughest and most risky campaign the Germans attempted but it was plausible. Change a few of Hitler's personal whims, like pointlessly reaching out to Churchill for an armistice after France collapsed, and have a solid plan in place even before the invasion of France and knocking Britain out of the war was certainly doable.

Actually, the RAF was pretty close to being on its knees until the fickle finger of fate intervened. The Germans WERE bombing the radar installations, as well as airfields and aircraft manufactories. That was the plan and Hitler was sticking to it. In fact Hitler had forbidden any attacks on London proper. However one fateful night a lone bomber crew got lost in the smoke and haze and were running short of fuel. They decided to drop their load which happened to be when they were over London proper.
Outraged by this act, the RAF mounted a 12 bomber raid on Berlin the following night. Hitler, unaware of what had transpired the previous night, lost his shit and lost sight of the ball, changing the bombing campaign to attack the City of London. This gave a HUGE reprieve to the RAF who could repair their radar stations, fill in all the craters on their airfields, all while aircraft production increased. One lone, lost bomber crew quite possibly changed the fate that Britain was staring at.

[Thanos]

Yup. And apparently that bomber crew got frog-marched all the way back to Berlin for some intensive questioning on their screw-up, in what was probably the most intimidating and nerve-wracking employee performance evaluation of all time.

Overall it was an indication of Hitler's lack of mental and emotional discipline that led him to abandon the effective bombing in exchange for revenge attacks on British cities. Practically every other leader at the time would have accepted something like the RAF attack on Berlin as a minor annoyance and shrugged it off. Not Hitler though. At that stage his mania was well-developed enough that he'd deliberately sabotage a successful strategy and do the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time for no other reason than his lack of control over his temper. It would happen again and again on all the fronts until it became apparent to everyone but Hitler that Hitler himself was the greatest threat to the success of the German war effort.

[Jabberwalker]

llama66 llama66:

The Germans very nearly broke the RAF though, Thank God Hitler was not a good strategist.

I don't think Overlord would have worked had they not launched the disastrous Operation Jubilee (which was today) without the Air and Naval support.

Thank God the the RAF Fighter Command WERE good strategists. They won that battle along with the hundreds of little back-alley shops all over Britain that were pumping out fresh Hurricane and Spitfire fighters at a faster rate than their losses and ... as amazing as it sounds ...at a faster rate than the Germans were able to replace their losses.

[2Cdo]

Another thing people forget is that RAF pilots that survived being shot down could often find themselves flying again the next day. German pilots shot down found their war over.

[Jabberwalker]

A common tactic thepat RAF fighter Command used was to let the fighter escorted German bombers reach their targets by which time, the ME-109s had to go home. Then send your fighters intyo the unescorted retuning bomber formations and cut them to pieces. It sounds cold blooded and those directing the Battle in Britain would have known that their decisions were killing civilians but it destroyed the main body of the Luftwaffe over time. It also gave the Germans the illusion that they were winning the Battle. "Where are the RAF? We must have shot them all down!"

The legend lives on but the truth is, the RAF always had enough aircraft right through the Battle. They just refused to get drawn into large fighter engagements. It's a perfect example of intelligence winning out over hubrus and a good reason why you don't want a charismatic madman running your foreign policy.

[Jabberwalker]

llama66 llama66:

The Germans very nearly broke the RAF though, Thank God Hitler was not a good strategist.

I don't think Overlord would have worked had they not launched the disastrous Operation Jubilee (which was today) without the Air and Naval support.

Overlord wouldn't have worked then, now or any other time even if the Germans owned the seas and skies. It took years for the allies to learn how to launch a big amphibious assault .. and that is when we had most of the control over the airspace and sea lanes around the UK. Are the Germans that much smarter or otherwise magical in some way? No. The Germans had no plan, no experience at all, no notion of what to do next. All that they had was a catchy name a few thousand commandeered barges designed to cross little, flst water rivers.

(See English Channel Meteorological conditions)




Truth is, The German army was far more successful than the German Generals ever expected them to be. They were astounded at their success and an invasion of Britain went way beyond any scenerio that they had planned for. They had no clue how to invade the UK with or without control of the airspace and they didn't try it ...not even little raids. They were soldiers, man.