Social_Critic wrote:Seems to me the Germans didn't need a navy to invade the uk. They needed a fleet of 20 thousand boats to cross the channel. These could be built easily. Once the Germans had a beach head the Brits would be toast because they had no armour.
Acutally they had at least one Armoured Division
[quote=
Wiki]In June 1940 the British Army had 22 infantry divisions and one armoured division.[/quote]
You'll also see elsewhere in that article that the British had started to build fortifications, had a strong navy and could count on a decent show by their airforce.
I don't think the Royal Navy had the assets to maneuver in the Pas de Calais if the Germans had placed submarine packs in the entrances.
The Royal Navy had plenty of destroyers to spare, and using submarine packs in static defence would have made them easy to track and destroy.
the crossing for the first wave could have taken place at night, when it was very difficult for the British assets to see anything.
I'm quite sure the Royal Navy had operated at night, and in fact would have had considerably more experience of it than then German opponents in this scenario. The Luftwaffe would have had little experience in naval warfare at night, given they had limited experience against maratime shipping in general. The British also had this thing called radar... you may have heard of it.
Furthermore, diversionary attacks could have been made along the coast using Italian forces and such.
Pure fantasy. Italy was in no position to provide such support.
it lacks natural barriers.
...The Channel?
this is why the Normans had such an easy time conquering England.
This is a topic of another thread, but there was a small matter of England having to fight a separate invasion in the North before having to deal with the Normans. Or that it wasn't out of the question for William to have lost the Battle of Hastings.
The Sandhurst war game assumed an attack in September using a barge fleet. I specified a 20 thousand boat fleet.
The Germans have no means to build that fleet, we've been over this. The barge fleet was what Operation Sealion was actually slated to use, not some idiotic fantasy scenario in which German industry consists of a magic wand.
When you mentioned them I searched the literature and read the detailed scenarios
You miserable liar. Thompson_NCL posted the Sandhurst wargame reference at 12:50pm, and you replied at 1:06pm. You could not have possibly done the research you claim in less than 20 minutes, even if you already had the materials close at hand. I wager you haven't even done this research as of right now. You ought to apologise for such a ridiculous fraud.
In modern lingo, this is said to be a hacked game. It means you load up with goody assumptions, got magic on your side, whatever it takes.
Thompson asked you for evidence that the Royal Navy was treated as immune to airpower. You have provided no such thing.
There's also another twist. Did anybody wonder what would have happened if the invasion had taken place in may 1941? The Germans could have devoted their resources solely to bombing British ports and rail yards, and focused on building a huge air fleet. New moon in late May would have given them cover, and the Bismarck and Tirpitz could have sailed to distract the Royal Navy.
You know how you criticised the Sandhurst similuation as supposedly giving all the initiative and intelligence to the British? That's actually what you are doing, only with the Germans. At least the Sandhurst exercise didn't involve conjuring naval/air fleets out of nowhere...
Travesty wrote:Yes, Yes but Germans dont need 5 million troops in Africa, just enough to drive the British out of Africa, with the appropriate air support etc and we are assuming that Germany goes naval and starts building supply ships etc
You obviously didn't read what I linked to - it has nothing to do with the number of supply ships. North Africa did not have the infrastructure to sustain a larger German force (insufficient ports, roads and rail) and German formations were short of trucks. So you can have all the ships you want, and they could even all arrive without being sunk... but the ports in Axis control won't be able to handle the influx of material and there will be no way to get it to the front.
Travesty wrote:Not if the Germans are allied with the USSR and Persia again I don think they would have needed that many troops.
You initially suggested an advance through the Middle East. Persia can't support the German army and you still haven't done anything about the enourmous distances involved or the lack of infrastructure. In fact you went so far as to suggest the USSR would be stupid for allowing the Germans to launch an invasion from its own territory, so I'm unclear why you think they would have ever allowed it even as allies.
Travesty wrote:I know how this scenario could have work theoretically in regards to the USSR, Tukhachsky and the Generals succeed in their plot and pop Stalin and become Germany's bitch.
A hypothetical which I've already pointed out is absurd. You're just making it worse.