Invasion 1940
Derek Robinson wrote "Invasion 1940" which reminded us of many facts already alluded to here by the many posters who have contributed to this discussion. Ultimately, he concludes that there never was a serious threat of invasion because the English Channel was not really crossable by towed barges. Tides, currents, shifting sandbars, winds, squalls were all factors that would have rendered an effort to tow 90,000 men and 70,000 horses and all the support materiel useless in and of itself. The Royal Navy was also waiting in the wings for the first sign of such an effort and would simply have run roughshod over all the cables swamping the barges while blowing the German tugboats out of the water. He also makes the point that German air attacks on Royal Navy ships would not have done much damage due to the difficulty in making precise hits especially when being harassed by RAF aircraft.
So when Hitler took his troops to the Eastern Front, he had lost little of his army and ground machinery or horse services which was after all his most powerful force in conquering western Europe. Germany's production facilities were still pouring out aircraft in late 1940 replenishing losses easily.
Hitler's efforts to demoralize the British people by terror bombing did not work as he hoped it might. So the "threat" of invasion was mostly a terrible bluff by an army that was occupying France and getting ready for the treacherous Operation Barbarossa.
The spin that Churchill put on the success of "the Few" was a morale boosting maneuvre that worked well to highlight that not everyone would give in to the Germans. The British population had seen their fighter pilots in action right above their heads unlike their armies either before or later in the war. They revered their heroes for giving them hope and encouragement.
Hitler also figured that if he couldn't invade England, then the Allies probably couldn't invade Europe across the Channel for the same reasons. While he might have been right in 1940, he truly underestimated the might of sea power commanded by the Allies over the next four years.
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