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To what degree do we owe the Allied victory in World War 2 to the size and strength of the Royal Navy?
It seems to me that one of the major factors that prevented Nazi Germany from realizing its ambitions was its inability to achieve naval supremacy in the North Sea and the Mediterranean in the early years of the war, because it stalled Germany's attempts to resolve the war in the west before it began the war in the east.
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>>33909130
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>>33909130
>only HMS Belfast still exists
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>>33909130
Of these, i think all the sunk ones are war graves and so cannot ever be touched ever without having a lynch mob after you, and the rest are long since scrapped, anyone know if any were sunk as targets?
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>>33909130
The KM surface fleet never had a chance of gaining naval supremacy.
What's more incredible is that the RN performed almost zero offensive operations in the North Sea despite having overwhelming numerical and technological superiority and German maritime strike capability being atrocious at its best. There's no reason why Operation Weserübung should have ever succeeded. Unarmed transports managed to casually sail past the entirety of the Home Fleet unmolested into Norway. The only possible explanation was an irrational fear of another Jutland.
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>>33911471
This
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>>33909130
About 1/20 of the degree you give to effort by the USSR.
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>>33909130
The RN did its part in containing Germany to the continent and helping keep Britain supplied, but the former was never going to be much in question and the latter was only accomplished with American aid.
The Italian navy was able to fight them to a standstill for a couple years, prolonging affairs in North Africa *long* past when they should have been concluded, and the Japanese navy kicked them out of the Pacific rather easily.
As far as navies go, it was the US fleets and their merchant marine that won the war.
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>>33911471
What offensive operations would you perform when there's nothing to offend against? German shipping was nonexistent, German ports were more safely and effectively bombed by aircraft, and German navy stayed put.
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>>33909130
Germany didn't need naval supremacy to take over Europe, they only fought in the north atlantic to try and stop supplies from getting to England.
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>>33909176
We have the only surviving First rate ship of the line in existence.
Also Unicorn up in Dundee is worth a look
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