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What if the Fuhrer completed operation sea lion and eliminated the British capacity to wage war over the channel,
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How?
This is of course what the Germans were
trying to do. They failed, but not for want of trying.
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Hitler was winning albeit at a loss to his own Luftwaffe but never the less he had the British on the run until he ordered the bombing of London
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No, the Luftwaffe were losing throughout. They just didn't know it because of their inflated kill claims. It's worth pointing out that in the 4 weeks
before the switch to London the Luftwaffe had a worse kill/loss ratio against the RAF than they had in the 4 weeks
after they began attacking London.
It still wasn't anything like good enough to win the battle, though.
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Thus the Germans believed the RAF wasn't actually on the brink of annihilation as it almost was.
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No, other way around. The Germans believed their own kill claims, believed the RAF was almost destroyed, believed they were winning the battle.
The truth is RAF strength
increased for most of the battle. From 1200 Fighter Command aircrew at the end of June to 1,396 on the 10th August to 1,381 on the 7th September to 1,581 at the end of September.
Same for aircraft. On 17th July (earliest date for which I have operational aircraft numbers) Fighter Command had 568 Spits and Hurricanes fit for duty in operational squadrons.
By 13th August, the start of the Luftwaffe's all out offensive, that had risen to 579.
By the 20th August, after a week the Luftwaffe believed would destroy the RAF, they had 636.
By the end of August they had 587, and by the 7th September, when the Luftwaffe switched to London, they had 621.
Look at those figures again. In early July, when the battle was just beginning, the RAF had 568 serviceable single engined fighters. On the 7th September, when the Luftwaffe largely abandoned attacks on airfields and switched to bombing London, they had 621. 2 months of the best the Luftwaffe could do and the RAF had more fighters and more fighter pilots.
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Seelöwe was not necessarily needed to accomplish this either. Instead, the Germans could have reinforced the Italians and finished Britain in the Mediterrainian basin. Taking the entire Middle East wasn't necessary, just driving the British out of Egypt and taking Suez might have been sufficent.
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Why? As soon as the Italians entered the war the British stopped running merchants through the Med. All the trade with the far east went the long way around Africa.
The Germans taking the Med merely reduces British commitments a little.
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The air war could have been pursued long term at a lower pace than Göring's original blitz strategy. A sustained and sustainable bombing campaign was possible. Germany had the resources for it if they focused on such a strategy.
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They did, it was called the Blitz. It was called off for the attack on Russia, but after the early phase it didn't really achieve much.
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At sea the Germans could have continued the U-boat campaign but by being more scruplious about US losses kept the US from whipping up support for joining the war at home. It didn't matter if Britain was starving. It mattered that Britain was investing far more capital into fighting U-boats that Germany was in building them.
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Again, this is what Germany actually did. Again it didn't do them much good.
Britain didn't build more ships than the Germans were sinking, but it benefited from the merchant fleets of neutral countries Germany had invaded, like the Norwegians, Dutch etc.
In 1939 the British merchant fleet amounted to 17.7 million tons. By the end of 1941 it was 20.8 million tons.
As to starving, food stocks in Britain were 10.53 million tons at the start of the war, 7.49 million tons by December 1939, 10.63 million tons in December 1940, 13.39 in December 1941.
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Combined with a loss or inavailablitiy of Middle East oil the British would be in the same position as Germany with limited fuel resources.
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Because of the long shipping route, most of Britain's oil came from the western hemisphere, either the US or Caribbean.
The big producers in the Caribbean were Trinidad and the Dutch West Indies, being allied there was little problem in paying for this fuel. Production in 1939 was something over 10 million tons a year, and with the pre war expansion plans would likely have increased as the war went on.
The US was the world's largest oil producer and supplied oil, but in return for dollars or gold only, until Lend Lease cut in in 1941.
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With the Japanese entering the war at the beginning of 1942 the British would have been in even more trouble. With no German declaration of war on the US Lend-Lease would have dried up as the US politically could not have supported its continuation.
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I don't understand this. Once the Japanese declare war on the US, the US sees far more common cause with the UK.
There's no way Japan would declare war on the UK and not the US, because it was the US embargo that drove Japan to war anyway. Their whole strategy in going to war against the US was to secure a free hand for themselves.