(01-11-2018 10:03 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(01-11-2018 09:42 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-11-2018 07:55 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(01-10-2018 11:00 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  There was no chance of Germany successfully invading Great Britain successfully with or without the Dunkirk evacuation.

The Royal Navy could have taken 4 to 1 losses vs Kreigsmarine and still been able to maintain operations in the Med vs Italy. The Germans had only one heavy cruiser, two light cruiser and four destroyers available immediately after the fall of France. D-Day the Allies had 5 battleships, 20 cruisers and 65 destroyers.

The German “plan” for invasion was designed to use a Dunkirk style cobbled up fleet primarily relying on river barges. They estimated they could land 100,000 soldiers in 10 days. The Allies landed nearly 160,000 in the first 24 hours of Overlord. Germany had less than 40 available minesweepers to clear a path to the invasion. The Allies used 350 ships to clear mines and it took about a month. Unlike the Germans the UK had tanks of oil on standby to dump at each potential land site and planned to set the slicks ablaze which would have been rather deadly for packed wooden barges.

The Luftwaffe could not have protected the landings. They lost 25% of their fighter pilots to death, injury, POW by July 1940. The Brits were out-numbered but each day built more fighters than Germany was building and any pilot shot down who escaped death or injury was stuck in a new plane. The Luftwaffe managed 327 sorties on D-Day vs about 14,000 by the Allies. Germany could not have achieved that sort of air dominance.

The civilian population of France was friendly to the Allies, that would not have been the case in Sea Lion.

It is likely that between the limited shipping capacity and Royal Navy and Royal Air Force that a German invasion force would quickly be out of food and ammunition and hurting for reinforcements.

Sea Lion was called off because they couldn’t gain air superiority, naval superiority and even with them needed at least 10 good weather days and an absolute minimum of three and had extremely limited access to any weather data west of the French Coast while the UK had weather data from Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, the US and convoys. They were looking at shooting into the dark. Remember their best guess at weather convinced them June 6 was a improbable date for attack.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I would strongly disagree with that.

The Regina Marina was a seriously potent force, in the Mediterranean.

Italian expansion plans to make it a true Atlantic navy were never completed, although sans the outbreak of war they would have by 1943.

The Regina Marina wasn't in any position position to help an operation such as Sea Lion but it was more than capable of dominating the Mediterranean, which it did briefly achieve at several points during the war. It is worth pointing out though that Italian submarines were a useful part of the war in the Atlantic.

It, along with limited portions of the Army and certain, but significant, portions of the Air Force were well equipped and well led. But, they were largely placed in a subordinate roll with just about every grand strategic decision falling to the Germans who were executing a war the Italians had never envisioned and hadn't spent the last 20 years preparing or equipping for.

Hell, the Italian military going into the war was strategically, tactically, and in terms of equipment most prepared for a war with Germany. They nearly went to war with one another of Austria in the 30s. The war that ultimately took place was not what had been contemplated and Mussolini's calculated risk that he could grab what he wanted before Germany won has been relegated to a bad decision by history.

A 4 to 1 loss vs Kreigsmarine would be 28 ships.

Regnia Marina had 6 battleships, 19 cruisers, and 59 destroyers.

In 1939 the Royal Navy had 15 battleships and battle cruisers, 7 aircraft carriers, 66 cruisers and 184 destroyers.

Losing 28 of 272 would have still permitted the Royal Navy to operate in the Med.

Probably not as aggressively but the likely losses the Luftwaffe would have experienced supporting Sea Lion would have reduced their ability to provide Regina Marina with air support at Malta.

The Luftwaffe played an overstated roll in the Mediterranean.

It's true that the Luftwaffe had to step in to prevent the collapse of the Regina Aeronautica but the Regina Aeronautica's roll in the war shouldn't be understated.

The Royal Navy would have to have committed more than half of its entire available fleet to the Mediterranean in order to ensure victory and that is just ship to ship and not considering the ability of the Regina Marina to conduct greater numbers of sorties and of the Regina Aeronautica's ability to use Italy as a carrier in its own right.

The Luftwaffe of the major powers was no better than fourth best at air to naval engagement behind the US, UK, and Japan. So taking on the Royal Navy, they were not well equipped for.

What the Luftwaffe was providing was air cover and recon. Remember that radar on ships while superior to lookouts was far inferior to the ability of aircraft to locate opposing forces. They also provided a boost to the number of flying fighters.

Regina Aeronautica could cover much of the Med from home bases and that should never be discounted (see Battle of Britain) but they could not put anything in the air as fast as the Hawker Hurricane until mid-1942. Yeah they shot down some Hurricanes in the early war but that was top Italian pilots vs pilots the UK was willing to "spare" from Great Britain. Even with generally better skilled pilots in East Africa, Italy lost about 40% of their aircraft in theater in three months and production pace was never close to keeping up.

I don't believe Italians ever had more than 2000 ready to fly aircraft at any given time and had only a brief period of technological superiority as the advanced fighters which were arguably superior to the Luftwaffe's 109 were facing Hurricanes and production couldn't keep pace.