Why didn't the Germans focus more heavily on the battle

>>2508365

>all germany needs to do is beat the raf and get a landing and conquering the island will be easy

Because they got stuck on this point. Which is actually 2 separate points, both of which are likely out of Germany's reach. They could neither beat the RAF nor could they actually sealift the sort of force necessary to conquer England. (Which is another point entirely that I doubt I can address within the character limit but could touch upon if you want me to)

>What made beating the RAF so hard?

For starters, winning wars in the air is hard. Every time you escort a bomber sortie, your fighters are tied to something that's slow and vulnerable. That robs you of one of the chief advantages in an air to air engagement, speed. Furthermore, assuming you actually want to hit what you're aiming at, your bombers usually need to be relatively low to the ground, and if your fighters are to protect them, they need to be with the bombers, low to the ground.

The intercepting force has no such restriction, and it's usually an advantage to be higher up at the start of an aerial engagement. But tactics of escorting bombers aside, the real killer is quite simple. Britain was producing planes and training pilots considerably faster than Germany, and was better at retaining pilots; an ejected pilot in Britain went back in the cockpit the next day if he wasn't hurt on the crash. A German one almost certainly took up residence in a PoW camp. Long term, Britain wins this fight, especially since they're downing Germans faster than the Germans are downing Brits.


>Also do you agree with the statement "Churchill couldn't have won the war but he could have lost it"?

I mean, I guess. Churchill could have buckled and negotiated with Germany despite Germany's lack of existential threat to Britain. There's really very little more than what Hitler historically did to bring about the end of the UK; and about his only chance is to "shock" them into surrender or at least armistice.

>>2508365
Such a smug face

i wonder if part of it might have been not wanting to pull the US in which an actual invasion of Briton might have. there was also a lot of forces on the Island and it'd have been pretty hard to actually mount an invasion. Hitler seemed like he'd rather just cause enough damage and hope it'd force the Brits to sue for peace but he underestimated their resolve

>>2508365
They thought Britain would eventually just agree to one of the peace offers instead of dissolving it's empire to win, banking entirely on the U.S. getting involved.

You wouldn't expect the other guy in a fight to rip his own arm off just so his fit buddy can slap you with it.

>>2509509

> instead of dissolving it's empire to win,

What the fuck are you talking about? Despite what /pol/ might have told you, the loss of Britain's empire had little to do with WW2 or ongoing struggle in it, and a fucking lot to do with the rise of the USSR and the U.S. as the two dominant superpowers, both of whom were hostile to British style colonialism.

Not to mention the fact that Germany really had no means of striking decisively at Britain.

>>2509509
What a moronic post.

>>2509515
Many of the colonial problems Britain experienced were exacerbated by the fact that the British spend almost 8 years ignoring the colonies to fight Germany. The rise of the US was bankrolled in a big way by the wealth american corporations received through the Marshall Plan, wealth the UK would have used to rebuild.

>>2509537

>Many of the colonial problems Britain experienced were exacerbated by the fact that the British spend almost 8 years ignoring the colonies to fight Germany.

That is an extensive and far reaching claim that I'm sure you'll have no trouble proving, given that WW2 lasted SIX years and not eight. But please, show me how Britain's "ignoring" their colonies to fight a war in Europe paved the way for nationalism uprisings, the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, or the unprofitability of most of the African colonies.

> The rise of the US was bankrolled in a big way by the wealth american corporations received through the Marshall Plan,

This is so wrong I'm having trouble even figuring out how to respond to it. The Marshall plan was a huge injection of U.S cash into Europe. Sure, individual companies made lots of money off of it, but the dosh was coming from Washington. Britain got more Marshall money than just about anyone, certainly more than than places like West Germany, and it was used to rebuild. It just was, funnily enough, not the primary problem; which wasn't the wartime devastation, especially in Britain's colonial empire (which was relatively mild), but rather all the administration and policing costs, which would have happened anyway.


Please, please, PLEASE pull your head out of your ass.

>>2508365
>island
>easy to conquer

The British stockpiled so much oil for WW2 that they were literally going to set fire to the sea and gas all the landing zones.

Not to mention the RAF could have moved further north and maintained air superiority over the island quite comfortably.

Lets not forget about rhe Royal Navy being fucking MASSIVE, Good luck trying to feed and supply those troops that somehow made it through the fire and gas.

>>2508365
>Why didn't the Germans focus more heavily on the battle of Britain?
Because it was a futile attempt. It was impossible to bring a power like Britain to her knees from the air alone.

Not even Germany was beaten that way and they were getting the shit bombed out of them by the combined might of Britain and America who had way superior bombers.

>>2508386
>your bombers usually need to be relatively low to the ground, and if your fighters are to protect them, they need to be with the bombers
While it is factual that this was done - on Goering's personal order, this is actually a tactical mistake. Pretty much all fighter pilots - including the later General of Fighters, Adolph Galland, held the opinion that a bomber defence is more competently done by allowing the fighters to hunt freely. Sticking with the bombers gives them a false sense of security because, as you rightly said, a fighter that sticks to the bomber is a sitting duck.

In particular, because the German Bf109 fighters were faster at altitude than their British counterparts and better armed, giving them the edge in the encounter. By forcing the fighters to stick to the bombers, they had to give up that advantage.

>>2509515
Right, but the British empire was effectively running on minimum because of the war. It made a manageable problem into an unmanageable one.