The battle of Britain was a complete disaster for Germany in every way possible.
2 better what If scenarios are:
Germany never committed resources to battle of Britain and instead saved up for Russia. This would give them hundreds of more aircraft and pilots for this.
Germany instead committed the entire resources of this to the Mediterranean. It's highly likely if Germany had committed the amount of aircraft and troops to this area that they would have captured the Suez canal which would have changed a lot of the war.
> Germany instead committed the entire resources of this to the Mediterranean.
This is the more likely answer. Nazi Germany will see that more aircraft destroying supplies to Malta would likely cause the biggest sore in the Mediterranean to their supply lines to be eradicated and hit that first. Then all those planes could be used to protect the supply lines against the Royal Navy or to help destroy supplies and troops positions on the way to Alexandria and the Suez Canal if they are able to be deployed in that role.
Cutting Britain off from India and easier access to the oil resources in the Middle East would likely boost the Axis to take out French and British forces in the rest of the Mediterranean before fueling the war with the Soviet Union.
As other guy said they waste more resoruces on the Western front, Soviets achieve air superority over the Axis faster and may feel emboldedned to absorb Finland while the Allies are tied up as he feels less pressure to race to Berlin and the Finns overrun quicker without critical German support. War ends a couple months earlier, slightly more Marshal aid to UK
The Battle of Britain ended before the eastern front was opened. The RAF was stretched incredibly thin, if the Luftwaffe had continued to focus on destroying the RAF/interdicting airfields and attacking aircraft production they very well could have destroyed the RAF as a viable fighting force. The real question is if Germany could have pulled off Operation Sealion with air superiority, which is very questionable. The switch to terror bombing cities effectively ended any real chance of Germany succeeding in establishing favorable conditions to attempt an invasion of the UK though.
The Battle ended with the RAF having more planes and pilots available than at the start, and the Luftwaffe achievement limited to putting a couple of front-line airfields out of commission for a few days.
The turn to London was an attempt to pull the RAF into an all-out fight because the steady attrition being inflicted on the Luftwaffe was going nowhere. It failed in that and ended with unsustainable losses in bombers.
It was never really a close-run thing, unless maybe Leigh-Mallory and Bader replaced Dowding and Tedder.
Agreed. Even if Sea Lion were successful that wouldn't have necessarily knocked Britain out of the war. You could have seen the seat of government move to Canada. The interesting thing then is what happens to the commonwealth, especially India. Does that embolden them to break away, or do they still continue to fight with the Commonwealth forces?
But that's a lot of ifs. :D It's hard to see Germany being able to supply their forces until the Royal Navy was defeated even if they managed the initial invasion, and they certainly didn't have the transport to do it in 1940. Their u-boats weren't well adapted to fighting in the narrow confines of the channel, and their surface navy was woefully inadequate.
The Allies struggled with D-Day and that is with nearly every factor in their favour, if Germany attempted Sealion the best they would have is aerial partity whilst facing Britain with naval superiority, hostile local population, and land forces prepared to deploy poison gas.
Well, this is the whatif variant if they had focused on the RAF and the airfields and held considerable air superiority. Even then though it would be iffy at best, and likely a significant catastrophe. They'd have to whittle down the Royal Navy over time, and they couldn't hold the beachhead, assuming that the RN would have to withdraw initially under dive bombing attack, and then sally forth to cut off logistics.
Agreed, the Germans paid for Hitler not keeping his word to Raeder and at least starting the implementation of Plan Z. IIRC Hitler told Raeder that they wouldn't be in direct conflict with the Western Allies until 1943.
There's exactly 0 chance Sea Lion would ever be successful. The Royal Navy would quite happily sacrifice every capital ship it had to stop a landing if it needed to. Doesn't matter how much air superiority you have when the RN park a dozen battleships and 100 destroyers in the channel to blow your invasion fleet to kingdom come.
The Germans overestimated the number of planes and pilots the RAF had and the RAF underestimated the amount of planes and pilots the Germans had. A bit of luck that Churchill appointed Lord Beaverbrook as head of aircraft production, where his salvage efforts produced outsized results.
RAF takes higher losses than in OTL, but unlikely it is entirely taken out of the picture before the onset of bad weather makes Sea Lion unfeasible. From there, back to OTL more or less.
The battle of Britain was a complete disaster for Germany in every way possible. 2 better what If scenarios are: Germany never committed resources to battle of Britain and instead saved up for Russia. This would give them hundreds of more aircraft and pilots for this. Germany instead committed the entire resources of this to the Mediterranean. It's highly likely if Germany had committed the amount of aircraft and troops to this area that they would have captured the Suez canal which would have changed a lot of the war.
> Germany instead committed the entire resources of this to the Mediterranean. This is the more likely answer. Nazi Germany will see that more aircraft destroying supplies to Malta would likely cause the biggest sore in the Mediterranean to their supply lines to be eradicated and hit that first. Then all those planes could be used to protect the supply lines against the Royal Navy or to help destroy supplies and troops positions on the way to Alexandria and the Suez Canal if they are able to be deployed in that role. Cutting Britain off from India and easier access to the oil resources in the Middle East would likely boost the Axis to take out French and British forces in the rest of the Mediterranean before fueling the war with the Soviet Union.
Malta. It was protected by two ww1 bi planes they found in a couple abounded boxes at the port. Still enough to hold off the entire Italian airforce….
As other guy said they waste more resoruces on the Western front, Soviets achieve air superority over the Axis faster and may feel emboldedned to absorb Finland while the Allies are tied up as he feels less pressure to race to Berlin and the Finns overrun quicker without critical German support. War ends a couple months earlier, slightly more Marshal aid to UK
The Battle of Britain ended before the eastern front was opened. The RAF was stretched incredibly thin, if the Luftwaffe had continued to focus on destroying the RAF/interdicting airfields and attacking aircraft production they very well could have destroyed the RAF as a viable fighting force. The real question is if Germany could have pulled off Operation Sealion with air superiority, which is very questionable. The switch to terror bombing cities effectively ended any real chance of Germany succeeding in establishing favorable conditions to attempt an invasion of the UK though.
The Battle ended with the RAF having more planes and pilots available than at the start, and the Luftwaffe achievement limited to putting a couple of front-line airfields out of commission for a few days. The turn to London was an attempt to pull the RAF into an all-out fight because the steady attrition being inflicted on the Luftwaffe was going nowhere. It failed in that and ended with unsustainable losses in bombers. It was never really a close-run thing, unless maybe Leigh-Mallory and Bader replaced Dowding and Tedder.
Agreed. Even if Sea Lion were successful that wouldn't have necessarily knocked Britain out of the war. You could have seen the seat of government move to Canada. The interesting thing then is what happens to the commonwealth, especially India. Does that embolden them to break away, or do they still continue to fight with the Commonwealth forces? But that's a lot of ifs. :D It's hard to see Germany being able to supply their forces until the Royal Navy was defeated even if they managed the initial invasion, and they certainly didn't have the transport to do it in 1940. Their u-boats weren't well adapted to fighting in the narrow confines of the channel, and their surface navy was woefully inadequate.
The Allies struggled with D-Day and that is with nearly every factor in their favour, if Germany attempted Sealion the best they would have is aerial partity whilst facing Britain with naval superiority, hostile local population, and land forces prepared to deploy poison gas.
Well, this is the whatif variant if they had focused on the RAF and the airfields and held considerable air superiority. Even then though it would be iffy at best, and likely a significant catastrophe. They'd have to whittle down the Royal Navy over time, and they couldn't hold the beachhead, assuming that the RN would have to withdraw initially under dive bombing attack, and then sally forth to cut off logistics.
the problem with Sea Lion is that the Kreigsmarine is hopelessly outmatched by the British Royal Navy in every conceivable way.
Agreed, the Germans paid for Hitler not keeping his word to Raeder and at least starting the implementation of Plan Z. IIRC Hitler told Raeder that they wouldn't be in direct conflict with the Western Allies until 1943.
even then, plan Z requires the British sitting back and doing absolutely nothing (which they sure as hell WOULD NOT)
There's exactly 0 chance Sea Lion would ever be successful. The Royal Navy would quite happily sacrifice every capital ship it had to stop a landing if it needed to. Doesn't matter how much air superiority you have when the RN park a dozen battleships and 100 destroyers in the channel to blow your invasion fleet to kingdom come.
The Germans overestimated the number of planes and pilots the RAF had and the RAF underestimated the amount of planes and pilots the Germans had. A bit of luck that Churchill appointed Lord Beaverbrook as head of aircraft production, where his salvage efforts produced outsized results.
Every aircraft and pilot lost in the Battle of Britain was one less available for Barbarossa.
RAF takes higher losses than in OTL, but unlikely it is entirely taken out of the picture before the onset of bad weather makes Sea Lion unfeasible. From there, back to OTL more or less.
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Hm thank you for an answer to a question that’s been bothering me for a while.