Was Operation Sea Lion feasible?

>>33226436

A distinct possibility. If Luftwaffe had air superiority I think that it would have been achievable.

Brits lost a lot of men and equipment during the Dunkirk evacuation. Brit war industry not fully mobilized with sufficient tanks etc.

The Royal Navy would have had to do the heavy work during the Channel crossing.

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>>33226436

Bring the Jerry's on!

>>33226436

Not without total and overwhelming air superiority, which germany could not possibly obtain in any realistic way.

>>33226436

Wasn't the RN the biggest in all of Europe? It seems like it would be hard to pull it off with all those tommy gunboats around.

>>33226436
Only in Hitlers amphetamine dreams

>>33226436
Would have been more feasible if they had some of their troops swim across the channel

If the german army had succed their landing and had german boots on english soil. They would have been fought mercilessly by englishmen both from the army and militias. Every meter would have enormous casualties for the germans.

The attack was based on a whole number of failing factors.
- air superiority. Goering failed, big time.
- transport facilities. The German plan was to use towed river barges. Flat bottomed barged over the Channel. The worst wind hole in the Atlantic. And on top of that, the Royal Navy. Just no, big time.

But England was bleeding like a cut pig at the time, what with the Expeditionary corps being cut to shred. If Jerry had had the means to get tanks and men over in divisional units it would have been an absolute disaster for the English.

>>33226548

Mercilessly. Sure. Just like the French, the Netherlanders, the Danes and the Belgians you means? The English were no different at the time from the others. Barely trained, badly equipped, mostly unarmored and untested on the strategical level. Nice mustaches though.

>>33226916

It would depend entirely if it happened before or after winter 1942, when STEN production was sufficiently high to actually arm militias. Hitler wouldn't be able to roll into London like he could Paris if everyone between him and Westminster had a gun.

>>33226974

1942 is completely irrelevant to Operation Sea Lion (the point of the thread), which was scheduled for the spring of 1940. After the start of Barbarossa in 1941 there never were any hope, or plan, for invading England.

The Sten wouldn't have made any difference though. The big weak area for the English was their abysmal antitank equipment. The antitank rifle could not even stop the 1935 german tank and their antitank cannon was only good at point blank range, and only at the earliest tanks at that. Rommel proved this in Northern Afrika.

>>33226548
With what guns? The english army was training with spears practically and america didnt come through with more guns until 1943ish

>>33227026
The bigger problem of the German invasion and advance probably wouldn't be the actual invasion, as much as crossing the Channel and landing on the shores. Their amphibious capabilities were underwhelming to put it mildly.

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>>33227157

Mhm. "Wir fahren gegen Eeeengela- blub blub."

Picture related. Actual barges waiting for Operatione Seelowe. The Kriegsmarine must have been pissing their pants, and I don't blame them.

>>33226436
Absolutely not. The transports the Germans intended to use would have died horribly if anything encountered them (they'd capsize from the wake of a RN ship making flank speed, let alone getting shot) and they'd take over 24 hours to cross the channel at a time when the RN was doing drive-by shootings of french ports with their BBs every couple nights.

The RN would notice the invasion, call in the big ships, and murder them in a night engagement where the Luftwaffe wouldn't be able to do shit.

>>33226529
this desu
>hurr let's an invade an island when we have no transports

>>33226461
No, not in the slightest.

The Luftwaffe could have had superiority and still would have done nothing to defend the crossing from the home fleet.

>>33226502
Biggest in the world

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http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/operation_sea_lion_(wargame)

This was already professionaly considered and the result was overwhelmingly German defeat.

>The German navy's relative weakness, combined with the Luftwaffe's lack of air supremacy, meant it was not able to prevent the Royal Navy from interfering with the planned Channel crossings. The Navy's destruction of the second invasion wave prevented resupply and reinforcement of the landed troops, as well the arrival of more artillery and tanks.

>Of the 90,000 German troops who landed only 15,400 returned to France. 33,000 were taken prisoner, 26,000 were killed in the fighting and 15,000 drowned in the English Channel.

>>33226436
The understanding I've gained from John Toland's biography is that when it came down to it Hitler had too much respect for the Brits (their ethnicity) and desire to preserve their blood which was so ethnically close to theirs.

Not to mention the fight wouldve been too depleting and controlling Britian wasnt the main objective of the war.

The whole point was to perform ethic cleansing, namely of the jews and reds.

Perhaps if Barbarossa had been successful the Brits couldve been strongarmed like the rest of mainland Europe.

He wouldnt even have started the mass civilian bombings if it werent for the accident.

Even if the European theatre was a German victory the USA would still have developed the atom bomb in time and probably wouldve deployed it in europe too.

>>33227333

Professionally considered by whom, though?

>>33227399
Try reading the fucking link

>>33227382
>Perhaps if Barbarossa had been successful the Brits couldve been strongarmed like the rest of mainland Europe.

They couldn't take Britain when it was their only concern.

How could they take it after they've been attrited by an invasion of Russia and the RAF and RN have been getting larger and larger the whole time?

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>>33227399
It's in the very first paragraph

Jesus H

>>33227405

I did. The game was mostly run by English officers and, a few Germans who had long ago switched to NATO officer ranks.There was in no one's interest to have the Germans win that war game.

Mind you. I don't think the Germans would have won, either. But the number of Germans dead, wounded and captured seem pretty steep. Meanwhile, no English losses were even mentioned.

>>33227416
It was his only hope. At least thats what Toland gained from interviewing German confidants and officials who wer still alive in the 60's and 70's.

Its a logistical impossibility, I agree. But that was his thought process as far as Ive learned. And what else could he do? Let Russia arm? Let America arm?

>>33227333

Incidentally, are you able to download the actual document from the link given? Because I can only see the one page summary.

>>33227434
Yes I'm sure a random fucknuts from 4chan is credible to second guess decorated German WWII officers on the grounds of "well they're German so they're liars"

>>33226436
No, the RN would've buttfucked them before they ever got ashore.

>>33227463

Yeah well, you and me both then. Galland was a great pilot. So was Goering. Doesn't mean that either of them were great top level commanders. Or great politicians. You might as well say that Speidel was the best German general.

But I do wonder what would have happened if Germany had captured the French Navy intact and used it for the attack.

Also, it would depend on which Operation Sealion was actually authorized. The Army wanted a broad front attack, while the Navy wanted a much narrower landing.
Franz Halder, the Chief of the Army General Staff said of the Navy plan that it would have been better to put the troops through a sausage machine.

Germany was cutting up and putting landing ramps onto any civilian boat they could seize.

While Royal Navy wasn't the unstoppable juggernaut that Angloboos would want you to believe, at that very moment. It would have been more than capable of making the landing impossible for Germany. Even under contested air space.

not to mention that the British had captured or doubled every German intelligence agent in the country by that point.

>>33227322
US Navy was actually of the same size, and by mid war outnumbered the Royal Navy.

>>33226436
RN still dominant and the luftwaffe got fucked in 1940.

No.
I mean, just use some common sense. Overlord took shitload of planing and overwhelming force (especially in naval and air aspect), and even then it wasn't a guarantee.
Mediocre Kriegsmarine and embattled Luftwaffe wrecking best navy and one of best air forces in the world while German barges crossed the Channel?
And even if they magically landed troops, supplying those troops?
It's just close to impossible given the resources of Germany and UK in 1940.

>>33227508
>happened if Germany had captured the French Navy intact and used it for the attack

kreigsmarine would have probably wondered how the fuck they were going to find the men to crew the ships and time to train

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>>33226436
No.

It would have only worked with total air a naval superiority, neither of which were possible for Germany to obtain.

The German Navy had been mauled off of Norway and was not capable of fighting off even expendable light units from the RN. The Luftwaffe of the time was a poor replacement, lacking any units trained for anti-shipping roles, air-dropped torpedoes or AP bombs. There was nothing in the German arsenal that could reliably stop a RN force including and R class battleship maneuvering at high speed.

The Luftwaffe did not have the range to strike air bases in the North. Even if the BoB turned in German favor the RAF could (and planned to) simply withdraw bound German range and sortie out when the invasion occurred. This means that total air superiority was an impossibility for the Germans.

>only one in four of the flat bottomed invasion barges would even have had an engine

yeah no I don't think so OP. Even if they did get on land the few divisions to actually survive would be fighting practically very man, woman, child, and OAP in Britain armed with whatever shotguns, pistols, and WWI surplus they could find along with regular forces. Not to mention that they'd built anti-tank defences, barbed wire, and pillboxes willynilly across the countryside, taken down all road signs, mined practically every bridge in the country, and the British people were whipped up into an invasion fever. That and the RN, even if it hadn't arrived in time to stop the FLAT-BOTTOM BARGES (just thought I'd re-emphasise that) would almost certainly be in the channel by the time Jerry was actually fighting and so their supply lines would depend almost entirely on air-freighting. Assuming that the RAF had been defeated this would only allow for small amounts of food and ammo to be delivered. Maybe some vehicle parts if they were lucky but realistically Jerry would have lost almost all armoured capacity they'd landed in a few months barring some sort of muhkruppstahl Bismark unterwasserboot miracle in the English channel to defeat the entire Home Fleet plus whatever destroyer squadrons would be sitting there, which itself would distract heavily from the Battle of the Atlantic and allow larger quantities of supplies to flow into the British Isles. It would have been a shitshow for the Nazis.

"Croft's Pikes"

By late 1940, the Home Guard had amassed 847,000 rifles, 47,000 shotguns and 49,000 machine guns of various kinds. However, as there were more than 1,682,000 volunteers at the time, this meant that 739,000 men were without a weapon. There was little improvement in June 1941 when Churchill wrote to the War Office saying that "every man must have a weapon of some sort, be it only a mace or a pike." The civil servants took Churchill at his word and ordered 250,000 pikes from the Ministry of Aircraft Production, each consisting of a long steel tube with an obsolete bayonet welded to the end. When the first of these reached the Home Guard, there was uproar and it is thought that none were actually issued to Home Guardsmen. Captain Godfrey Nicholson MP, spoke for Home Guardsmen when he said in the House of Commons that the provision of pikes, "if not meant as a joke, was an insult".[55] Lord Croft, the Under-Secretary of State for War, could have blamed the fiasco on Churchill, but defended the decision, saying that the pike was "a most effective and silent weapon";[56] his name was attached to the affair thereafter.[57] The problem began to be solved when the first mass-produced Sten submachine guns entered service early in 1942.[58]

Source: wikipedia

Not that it would have been possible but I'd love to see a wargame of the IJN fleet from June 1940 vs the Home Fleet.

>>33226502
What if they pressed the captured French Fleet and transferred elements of the Italian navy to the channel? I mean they wouldn't have parity, but at least there'd be a sizable axis naval element to support the landings. Surely they had enough veterans of the Imperial German Navy to maybe help crew the captured french navy to speed up the process of getting the ships into action

>>33227839
USN became bigger by 1942 or so.

When I was a kid I used to hear stories about how the British had set fire to oil and/or flammable gas and stopped an invasion-attempt.
However, the Brits kept this success under wraps so that the US wouldn't think the Britis could deal with Hitler on their own and stop sending help.

Haven't heard/read anything about this since the mid-80's, though.

I guess they were just tall tales for sensationalist publications.

>>33228238
The best way to understand this is to check the numbers.

In the conditions of total air and naval superiority, allies were able to drop ~170k people during D-Day. That not that much given the size of the fleet.

Assuming that Germans would be able to drop just as much before RN broke through elements of Kriegsmarine split specifically to delay their arrival, they wouldn't be able to give them supplies later on.

No matter how short of everything Great Britain was after the fall of France, Germans couldn't simply land there and with the soldiers and equipment(no reinforcements) dropped on the area in the first hours, really conquer entire country.

>>33228835
Too bad the British destroyed the bulk of the French navy in port to prevent exactly this sort of thing from happening.

>>33228872
I believe the British did install pipelines along the coast that would discharge oil to create a fire barrier in the event the Germans actually tried to invade, but it was never put to use for obvious reasons.

>>33229015
The amount of ships in the Vichy navy at Toulon seems like it could have made a significant contribution to Sealion, and that wasnt scuttled until late '42. The Brits only destroyed a small part of the French Fleet in North Africa, so assuming that they could get the survivng French Fleet into the atlantic, it could be fesible

>>33226436
No way they could keep them supplied with the Home Fleet breathing down their necks. The best-case scenario for the Germans is that they manage to rush a few divisions across the channel that are promptly cut off and Diepped en masse.

>>33229052
They were scuttled exactly because the Germans tried to seize the ships. The same thing would have happened if they tried it in 1940.

>>33227333
Im still curious how much it would've changed if Kriegsmarine/Luftwaffe committed a massive mining campaign of the English Channel prior to the attack to block off a sizable corridor and then guard entrance to said corridor with wolf packs.

>>33229147
Yes, because the RN is totally just going to sit back and let the Germans mine the channel. That's not even getting into the fact that the British had WAY more destroyers than the Germans did.

>>33229195
Sub launched mines and airborne dropped mines. Can't stop them all.

>>33229035
>obvious reasons

Because it was a bad idea and the oil would be better used as fuel?

>>33226461
Not at all

>>33229147

No. Just no.

This whole thread is misdirected anyway. Sealion could only have been put into effect under the premise that air superiority had been effected first. If that HAD happened then the British fleet would have been in deep shit, and if the British fleet had been neutralized then UK would have been naked. All the near-coast UK air stripes would have been used by the Luftwaffe to do the leapfrogging thing they were known for.

>>33229244
>If that HAD happened then the British fleet would have been in deep shit,

Lolno. Anti-shipping was not the Luftwaffe's forte

>>33229234
That and the Germans never actually invaded.

>>33229217
Subs that aren't in the Atlantic interdicting shipping and are now restricted in a narrow strait that makes it easier for destroyers and planes to hunt them down.

Planes that aren't bombing RAF airfields meaning more RAF fighters are freed up to contest airspace over the channel.

>>33228872
The Brits made an entire department just to develop different flamethrower type defenses. The Foo gas anti tank mines and the like came from there too
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_Warfare_Department

>>33229254

That's not true, is it? They were bombing ships, single and in convoy, the whole war through. The Allied lost 3500 merchant ships and 175 war ships in the Atlantic alone. I doubt they all fell over from age. I grant you this is not just the Luftwaffe's score card numbers.

>>33229333
The majority of Allied shipping was sunk by U-boats and surface raiders. The Luftwaffe had very poor anti-naval performance because their planes had short ranges and they didn't have the type of weapons or experience in actually attacking ships.

>>33227314
They planned it for night time. The RAF would have been a non-issue even with their diminished numbers. The battle of Britain was the end of the story like Churchill would like you to believe. It's been lauded much like dunkirk to be some miracle. Had the Luftwaffe kept up the RAF would have been fucked. The germans didn't know how close they were to breaking their back and the British only told half truths. Everyone said the Norway would never be invaded and guess what? There is something to be said for initiative and making your own luck. I recommend everyone in this thread read "We March Against England: Operation Sea Lion, 1940–41" it's a fresh and very subjective look at the operation itself and situation both sides were in.

>>33228872
>>33229278

>During August the corpses of about forty German soldiers were washed up at scattered points along the coast between the Isle of Wight and Cornwall. The Germans had been practising embarkations in the barges along the French coast. Some of these barges put out to sea in order to escape British bombing and were sunk, either by bombing or bad weather. This was the source of a widespread rumour that the Germans had attempted an invasion and had suffered very heavy losses either by drowning or by being burnt in patches of sea covered with flaming oil. We took no steps to contradict such tales, which spread freely through the occupied countries in a wildly exaggerated form and gave much encouragement to the oppressed populations.

– Winston Churchill [42]

>>33227972
I would think the main problem would have been supporting the legions of French navy personnel that would have gladly crewed the ships.

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>>33226461
>Brit war industry not fully mobilized

The Uk was fully mobilised and actually out-produced Germany for most of the war.

>The Royal Navy would have had to do the heavy work during the Channel crossing.

Destroying cargo ships with destroyer escorts would be fairly easy, you wouldn't even need half the home fleet, yet the entire home fleet would be deployed.

>>33229349
>They planned it for night time.

The first wave means nothing when you can't reinforce them. The home fleet would curb stomp the German reinforcements so hard it would be hilarious.

>>33229349
>Amphibious landing at night.

The Allies were having trouble pulling one off during the DAY with purpose built landing ships and naval and air supremacy. How do you expect the Germans to effectively land on the British Isles at night with shitty river barges and nothing to stop a single RN destroyer or battlecruiser rolling straight through them?

>>33229271
Oh yeah.

>>33229278
Kinky.

>>33229354
I have to agree with Churchill.
It sure made for a good story.

All this bullshit about "muh air superiority" . At no point did Hitler order air superiority. The invasion was planned for NIGHT TIME. WTF was this almost broken RAF going to do at NIGHT? Everyone wants to get caught up in the minutia and totally ignores common sense. I"m not saying this was a shoe-in for success I'm saying most people have bought into the battle of Britain propaganda and this idea of everything hinging on air superiority.

>>33229333

They weren't that good at it.

most of the 175 "warships were destroyers and other escorts". Being able to sink merchantmen is not the same as being able to sink warships.

>>33229349
This is blatantly ignoring the massive losses the Luftwaffe were suffering as well, and the fact that the RAF was actually winning the war of attrition against them. The RAF came out of the BoB with MORE pilots and planes than they had started with.

>>33229473
Yes, tell us how the Germans would be able to stage a D-Day level operation at NIGHT with their current 1940 capabilities, in which they had no navy, no landing ships, and the darkness would rob them of their own air support.

Not to mention the British radar network would detect shit tons of transport planes ahead of time if the Germans attempted a preliminary paradrop.

>>33226436
No

The Nazis lacked the sealift capabilities to land a significant force in England. That's assuming they could get past the Royal Navy, of course.

>>33229349
The Luftwaffe losses as well as being far less capable of replenishing them as German pilots went down over occupied territory whereas British pilots could be recovered and given a new plane (By August aircraft production was no longer an issue, the problem for the RAF was replacing skilled pilots). Most RAF airfields were grass and could be repaired quickly following attacks while British manufacturing was rapidly being dispersed and therefore less vulnerable to attack from the air. It doesn't help that Luftwaffe targeting data was sometimes patchy at best (RAF Manston, one of the most heavily bombed bases of the Battle of Britain, was a grass coastal command airstrip designed for light patrol strips being used as a reserve interceptor station by the RAF, and rarely had more than one squadron deployed at any time) and the Luftwaffe itself was suffering with a growing morale problem; They'd been promised victory in a matter of weeks yet they were fighting an enemy that was still strong and even seemed to increase in strength whereas the Luftwaffe only seemed to lose more every week - Kanalkrank (channel sickness) was a common complaint among pilots.

Not to mention the fact that OPERATION SEA LION WAS A FUCKING RETARDED PLAN IN THE FIRST PLACE. INVADING BRITAIN WITH FUCKING UNPOWERED BARGES IS NOT 'INITIATIVE' OR 'MAKING YOUR OWN LOOK', IT'S CALLED BEING FUCKING MORONIC

>>33229899
*The luftwaffe were suffering heavy losses

fucked up a few words there

>>33229147
That was the plan.

The problem that contained between the planed minefields the RN still had a dozen destroyers, four cruisers and a battleship.

More then enough hulls and firepower to smash any invasion attempt.

>>33226901
The barges would've worked quite well actually. They're used all the time in rough weather, they're wide enough they ride well.

This is predicated on them being able to keep the RN off of them, which was a nonstarter though.

>>33226436
People always say that air superiority wasn't that important. People forget that air superiority literally means that allied planes would not be able to take off or do any damage, which is huge especially for a country that small.

The Luftwaffe should have zerg rushed the British, instead of trying to develop new planes which ate up resources and time, they should have mass produced things that worked and Kriegsmarine should have immediately gone straight to Dover. Instead of trying to build new tech, they should have devoted into the Luftwaffe and early rocket types that could reach England from the Coast of France.

With England conquered, the Nazi's should have devoted more political gains into the Axis, with extending the troops farther into the Mediterranean and cutting North Africa off. They also should have increased defenses of the Atlantic Wall and securing the Scandinavian coast line. They should have increased partnership with the Soviets, who would be able to crush resistance in Manchuria/China allowing Japan to develop a stronger relationship with Nazi Germany, and increase troop movement in SW Asia, removing British influence and control of India, Malay, Burma, etc. This would have allowed them to extend influence into the Pacific by controlling the major ports, and eventually move into control of the Asian continent while helping to grow Anti-British movements in formal colonial jewels.

Having North Africa secured, and the Pacific realm essentially conquered, the Soviets with German Naval Dominance should have moved to take Greenland, and also have a Soviet Battle Group with Japanese troops move to take Alaskan Territories. Germany would then take steps to set up Fascist governments in South America, while also waging Counter-Insurgencies in Africa from North Africa to Somalia moving downwards with Japanese troops moving from the Eastern side to the middle. Nazi Germany would take the Oil in the Middle East while 1/?

>>33229473
>>almost broken RAF

>Bomber Command still at full strength, operating from bases out of German range.

>Coastal Command still at full strength, operating from bases out of German range.

>Fleet Air Arm still at full strength, operating from bases out of German range.

>Fighter Group 10 still at full strength, operating from bases out of German range.

>Fighter Group 13 at near full strength, operating from bases at the edge of German range.

The British had far more planes then just those it risked above London.

>>33227399
neck urself

>>33230239
>This entire post

And where are these mythical extra planes going to come from? Factories and pilot training take time to ramp up, and German production already was increasing as fast as they could make it.

And where are they going to be based? The airfields in France were already full.

And what are they going to use to strike airfields in the North of England? The Bf-109 lacked the range.

And how does any of this stop the RN from wreaking any invasion fleet?

>>33230239

Woah. Hold that horse. In the theoretical possibility that Germany could successfully invade England, they'd be utterly tied up attempting to occupy it. England is HUGE and its occupants aren't exactly cooperative under the best of circumstances. The Axis showed their weakness when trying to hold on to Yugoslavia. Or Soviet territory.

>>33230239
>The Luftwaffe should have zerg rushed the British

That's exactly what they tried doing, except the problem was that they didn't have the pilots or the industry to support a zerg rush, and their planes weren't designed to fly across the fucking English Channel and back. The lack of proper long range fighters and strategic bombers and their strategy of just haphazardly throwing planes at the British was what guaranteed their loss.

>33227298
>park huge batteries at the disembarkation points
>bomb the navy out of existence
>cross

>>33227333
Why the fuck wargame it without gerry air supremacy? Everyone knows that would fuck it

>>33227382
Toland's biography is god tier

>>33231360
Because the Germans never would have realistically achieved it. If you're going to historical wargame, you can't just spawn nonexistent planes and pilots out of nowhere.

>muh gubnors fightin the gerries toof and nail
This argument is laughable. You faggots had just been knocked over in France, and the Germans had just finished off several major European powers.

>>33231320

I looked at that, actually. The biggest gun the German possessed, Schwere Gustav, had a range of 30 km or so. At the narrowest point the distance to England is 30 km or so. So those batteries might in theory pound the beach on the other side - if you built dozens of the most expensive artillery ever made - but hitting moving naval targets wold be a game of vast proportions. Meanwhile, the same artillery would be the prize bombing target for RAF.

>>33231472
Yet we single handedly destroyed them in the BoB and still had naval dominance.

>>33226436

Imagine the resources they'd need to place into that and leave out on the Eastern Front. No, I don't think it would be feasible at that time.

>>33231472
>had just finished off several major European powers
France, that was it.

>>33226436

Realistically, no. So let's change the scenario.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols extend from the carve-up of Eastern Europe and into the conquest of Western Europe as well. Stalin leads the Soviet Navy in an attack on the Orkneys, Shetlands and northern Scotland, both as a distraction from Sealion and to split Great Britain between Soviet and National Socialism.

What happens then?

>>33232109
The Soviets suffer from the exact same problems the Germans did in that they have no effective navy, their air force can't possibly reach Britain, and their army and logistics simply are not capable of supporting a massive AMPHIBIOUS expeditionary war in the 1940s.

And by attacking Britain, Russia is locked out of Lend Lease, and Germany is in no way capable of supporting its needs.

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>>33229147
>guard entrance to said corridor with wolf packs.
lol no, ww2 subs where vulnerable as fuck to any warships actually hunting them. and the RN would be able to probe and harass the corridor with no other resistance because compared to other major powers the germans barely had a surface fleet.
pic unrelated I just like ships

>>33232109
Interesting scenario, of course it requires Stalin to do an about-face on the idea of going to war before his rearmament program is done but whatever.

Adding the Soviets does add a number of heavy surface units to the available naval forces, something the Germans completely lacked. However, many of those are in the Black Sea and would have to force the Straights of Gibraltar. This is a impossibility for a naval force in 1940.

The Soviets also had a number of 4 engine bombers, something the Germans lacked, but they were few in number and still lacked escorts with enough range.

In short it would add to German assets and perhaps let the BoB drag on longer but fail to change the overall strategic outlook in 1940.

The more important effect would be the absence of a Eastern Front and the addition of Soviet subs into the Battle of the Atlantic.

>>33231651
And Poland, Holland, Belgium.

You pom faggots would have folded faster than you did in Singapore

>>33227026

>and their antitank cannon was only good at point blank range

Literal bullshit. The 2-Pounder was one of the most effective anti-tank guns around at that time. It wasn't until the much later variants that it needed bumping to the 6-Pounder. But as you said, this is 1940, so those tanks didn't exist yet.

>>33233649
>Holland
>major
They had something like one tank.

>>33235459
They put up more of a fight than you pom surrender monkeys would have

>>33226436
No because they went for Briton instead of Scotland and already emboldened the defence by all of those aerial raids.

>>33227026
Anti tank equipment when on the other side of Europe's Biggest moat was the least of out worries.
Feeding the dead and burying those that surrendered would have taken days. ;)

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So how come Germany was able to rally up a sizable enough army and airforce to go to war, but was totally lacking in naval power at the start of WWII?

>>33237570
Because battleships are harder to build in secret than tanks and planes; remember, they still had to pretend they were abiding by the treaty of Versailles.

>>33237586
>construct battleship hull
>build cheap, fake wooden upper 'decking' that looks like an ocean liner / freighter / other civilian ship
>pay off anyone who comes to inspect them
>install guns and shit under the wooden structure

No idea how feasible it is, but it's one way that might work.

>>33237598
It's not just the requirements of the construction method, Germany's economy was failing catastrophically and the Deutsche Mark was literally worthless. It lacked the raw material to produce things like ships of the line on a scale anywhere close to it's air and land armies, and more importantly the fuel to power them, which proved to be a critical vulnerability throughout the second world war. Germany seemed like it was on the road to recovery in the 30's, but in truth it was accruing massive dept and/or flat out scams like the KdF-Wagen program. They knew how unsustainable it was, but that didn't matter because they already planned to go to war.

>>33237656
>>33237598
Also, why build a Battleship when you can build 3-4 U-boats with the same material & crew numbers?

>>33226436
Not even slightly. Between the British fleet and Germany's quite frankly horrifying logistical situation it wasn't even a snowballs chance in hell.
Even if somehow Germany magically managed to defeat the soviets they'd still be absolutely fucked.