Or, would the Second World War have ended had the German nation actually attempted to invade Britain in September 1940?

My money's on 'Yes'.

Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm, Bomber Command, Coastal Command, all thrown into the mix. And that's if they didn't make it to the shores. If they did make it, Then you would have the army too, and every civilian armed with a bread knife or better.

Speculations are cordially invited.;)

uhmm I dunno, personally I would have avoided the invasion by sea initially, I would have used Fallschirmjaeger units with gliders and Me321s to transport troops and tanks. They could have poured in thousands of men in a day, establishing bridgeheads and carried on the invasion.

It would still have been necessary to gain air superiority though, and concentrate attacks on RAF bases and aircraft factories.

But before all this, the introduction of external fuel tanks for the fighters would have been of paramount importance.

So, the technological needs were:

1) droptanks for the Luftwaffe
2) development of gliders and glider systems

strategy:

1) converge bombers on airfields and aircraft factories
2) establish air superiority
3) arrange massive para-drops
4) capture airfields and/or prepare improvised land strips
5) combined attacks of bombers and u-boote towards the RN
6) mine channel
7) ask for support from the Italian Navy


all in all it would have been too much of a logistic strain and effort in 1940/41, but still feasible, had they decided to avoid the invasion of Russia.

Occupying Great Britain would have left only two frontlines to defend: southern Italy and the East, but had GB actually fallen, the US would have never intervened in the ETO and would have instead tried to find a truce with Germany (at least until the atomic bomb was ready..).

Fortunately the German high command was very narrow sighted and led by an impulsive psychopath, but it still remains that under a military point of view, the Reich's one was a formidable armed force which was appallingly wasted.

you missed hitting the radar, thus leaving the massive 321s open to interception.

did they have gigants in 1940?

this was in fact the thing about the battle, the only time the luftwaffe actually kicked a hole in the radar net was a chance raid by epgrp 210, which took out a generator. however the luftwaffe never realised what they did, and utterly failed to exploit it.

drop tanks would have allowed the fighters more time over london, but that was at a stage when the battle was already shifting in the UK's favour - hitting london took the pressure off the airfields. a fair chunk of those hit had in fact not been active fighter command fields, but the pressure was off the ones that were. it would have allowed the fighters to cover the bombers for longer, but they would've been stripped away by the methods park used (and which 8th airforce would face over europe later in the war), in that he sent many smaller formations to intercept bombers along the course of their ingress and egress. this also relates to the myth of the big wing's success and how it was not the way to deal with the battle of britain.

so, stages 1 and 2 of your plan are what they tried to do, although they didn't know about the shadow spit factory elsewhere in the country and only hit southampton iirc.

simply carrying out the plan they had, but actually targeting only active fighter command fields and radar stations, as well as aircraft factories, and not being goaded into bombing london. that could have gained them the ability to surprise RAF fighters on the deck more often, get raids in and hit targets without being intercepted as effectively, and possibly led to local air superiority over the south coast of england, idea being that fighter command pulls out of the most affected airfields. then sending paratroops to capture the southern bases that have been bombed out of use, and resupplying the landing force that way... that could've ended badly.

it relies on intelligence the germans didn't have on quite what chainhome was and how it could be knocked out - not hitting the masts themselves, but going for buildings around them

The whole battle was probably one of those "false flag" things that you hear guys with tinfoil taped to their heads talking about.

You know what I mean, the government just let the Luftwaffe pound London so that the populace would hate the Nazis more. I bet that MI5 were planting most of the bombs themselves.

I'm also going to speculate that, had the Nazis invaded, the long lost kingdom of Avalon would have probably re-emerged from the mist and a glorious host of Arthurian warriors, clad in resplendent, glittering armour would have sallied forth to smite the beastly Huns and turn the tide in favour of their beloved Chrisendom.

By the way, Hitler was a reptilian you know, that whole silly moustache thing was just a ploy to divert attention from his peculiar lizard tongue.

*Disclaimer*

This post is in no way intended to belittle, demean or otherwise deride the imaginative and somewhat plausible contemplative fantasies contained in this thread. It's just that it's Sunday afternoon and the author is in a slightly bemused frame of mind. His primary motivation here is simply to push this behemoth of a thread just one post closer to the 100 page barrier and, hopefully, make a few people laugh along the way.

The British feared invasion even as late as 1942.

I spotted these Tank Traps outside the London Road Railway Station in the town of Guildford, a few miles south of London.

They have a commemorative metal plate attached to one of them which dates their construction as being from 1942.

http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/a...vro_UK/118.jpg

http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/a...vro_UK/117.jpg

http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/a...vro_UK/120.jpg

Jimmy! You are a very naughty boy!

If you listen to wiki leeks you deserve to believe every thing that you do!

MI5 are public servants! Logic would have told us that they would have been too busy waiting for the Tea Trolly to wheel past their desks to go and plant bombs anywhere.

This may have been the case but since Henry the 8th renounced the pope and set himself up as head of the Church of England I'm afraid those Authurian warriors probably have better things to do! (See my note about MI5!)

Unfortunately without DNA evidence your 'V' theory cannot be validated!

[/quote]

Ditto!

;)

The 321 glider didn't make its first flight til Feb 1941 so would be hard for them to be used in Sept 1940.

The 7th Flieger Division and the German 22nd Air Landing Division had taken losses during the preceding campaign battle of France), and were now understrength.

Do you know how much supplies are required by a Division when in combat? I don't think so.

The Channel was already mined by the Germans and the British.

You.

Shall.

NOT.

Die.

Hehe,heh. Top bump mate.:grin:

well I suppose it was developed because of the logistic needs of Barbarossa, if we're going by speculation I'd say that, had an airborne invasion planned before, they might have been able to deliver the 321 earlier.

same as above, despite the losses, if they knew they needed more paras, they would have concentrated on that.
I think I might have a faint idea, I was only 18 when I served in the Army initially, but I've seen enough divisions to know what the logistic needs are ;)
You can appreciate that massive drops from the Ju52s and capturing strategic enemy facilities/vehicles etc.. could have been part of the invasion. Paras are renown for improvising with what they find available.
well, not enough to cause a complete blockade afaik.