Hitler decides to finish Britain

I eant the english chanell obviously. And Germany at that time had an airforce capable of cripling those destroyers should they had acted. The fact is Germany mde a lot of mistakes and not going after the Mediterranium and Britain was one of them.



Cheers...

 

It's not obvious when you reference "the canal" that you meant the English Channel.

The Luftwaffe might have attacked the RN's vessels in the Channel, but it never had the ability to prevent British warships from operating very effectively in the Channel and it's approaches, and certainly not while simultaneously contending with the RAF.

Nor did the Luftwaffe ever achieve air supremacy over either Britain or the English Channel, and it was seldom able to exercise even air superiority over the Channel.

"Not going after Britain" was not one of Germany's mistakes. The German armed forces did their best to knock Britain out of the war. The fact of the matter is that Germany never had the capability of neutralizing Britain or forcing it to the negotiating table. Germany did not invade the Soviet Union until June 22, 1941, long after Hitler had given up trying to bluff Britain into negotiating peace terms.

 

MIguel B

Indeed the Germans refered to the English Channel as the "Kanal" there are mis-interpretaions to that word, so indeed you are correct in assuming that the English Channel "Kanal" could have stylized English translation to it been called "Canal". So anyone who has critisized MIguel B for this get off his back, and stop been so god damn pedantic, get over yourselves.

The very fact that Fuhrer Adolf Hitler allowed the BEF 1st French Army to escape, was in turn was a huge mistake. Anyone correct me if i am wrong on this, but the 1st French Army was the basis of the creation of the Free French Forces in Britain, imagine if those 340,000 or so British and French Troops were now in German POW camps. Britain was vulnerable if this course of event had taken place.

Also to finish off, if Britains RN was in such a perfect shape to defend British home soil after the Norwegian and French campaigns then why did Churchill crawl to Roosevelt to get 50 old WW1 destroyers in exchange for US bases in the Carribean, the RN supremacy myth was never truely tested during WW2 on a Fleet v Fleet engagement and when it was tested it showed many time that RN ships were just as vulnerable to be sunk just as much as the much maligned Italians, Imagine the Royal Navy having to contend with the Imperial Japanese Navy, Royal Italian Navy and the Kriegsmarine without any support of the United States Navy, could the Royal Navy sustain losses on a global scale without lend-lease, remember the releif of Malta in getting defensive aircraft was at the hands USN, could the British without American support launch both Operations Torch or Overlord. I'll leave that up to you to figure.

v.R

 

defending home soil has different hardware requirements from protecting convoys crossing an ocean.

 

Very few, nearly all were returned to France in the ensuing weeks. Often on the ships that evacuated the other 100,000+ British soldiers still in France. Many went back on the French ships that took them to England, after they were sorted out. They were all under French military discilpline, the Brits did not want them there, there was no Free French organization to join until after the armistice when DeGualle made his announcement. DeGualle drew more for his tiny organization from deserters from the colonys, or a few who escaped France shortly after the armistice.

I used to have a magazine artical with some stats on this. Tho a inquiry at any of the French military discussion boards is likely to get you the same general data.

 

"Lightning War, Blitzkrieg in the West,1940" by Ronald e. Powaski. In it he states :

"The British ships took them aboard fully armed,but when they arrived on the quays of Dover or Ramsgate,they were disarmed by the British military police,marched onto trains for the more westerly ports of Southampton and Weymouth, and immediately shipped back to France. Along with their government,These French soldiers would surrender to the Germans on June 25."

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/21730-evacuated-french-troops.html

 

They certainly weren't used to defend the English Channel against the minuscule German navy.

This is nonsense. The RN was never tested because neither Germany nor Italy had a fleet capable of contesting control of the sea. Of course individual British ships were liable to be sunk in action, but the KM, much less the Italians, was undeniably inferior to the RN in surface ships and had no chance of prevailing in a fleet action, nor of supporting a successful amphibious invasion of Britain.

What's your point? The RN did have the support of the US and did outclass both the German and Italian fleets to the point that neither ever seriously threatened British control of the either the Atlantic or the English Channel. The issue in question is, could the KM have protected an amphibious operation against Britain; the answer is an unequivocal NO!

 

The 50 destroyer deal was necessary for Britian for convoy escorts. These ships were unsuited for general fleet actions for the most part. The British had to eventually make some pretty major modifications to them to make them effective escorts.

Typically, they removed the boilers in the first boiler room along with the first stack. This was replaced by a fuel tank. This gave these ships sufficent range to actually cross the Atlantic unrefueled.
They then usually stripped off half the torpedo tubes and replaced the 4"/50 cal guns with British 3 or 4" guns often leaving off the two waist guns giving a reduced main armament of 3 guns.
Six to eight 20mm were added.
A new ASDIC set or sets were installed.
The depth charge racks were enlarged and six to eight K guns installed. Depth charge accomidation went from a about a dozen to over 50 on some ships.
Most got a search radar or two.
HF/DF was generally installed.
On the whole they made decent escorts even if they were a bit wet. The British simply couldn't turn out enough escorts of their own fast enough is what prompted the trade.

 

Thank you for that information. Cheers.

Again thank you for the information. Cheers.

This i can't argue the RN and USN did effectively work together.

Again thank you for that information. Cheers

v.R

 

Funnily you are the one being pedantic here, as Miguel B was using the Portuguese word "Canal" as in "Canal da Mancha" (La Manche, The English Channel) not the German "Kanal", and as far as I know not many people in this list speak Portuguese so how could they know?

Why don't you "get over yourselves" yourself a bit? You seem somewhat tense for the last few days.

 

A bit harsh don't you think, mate? No one is "on his back" for misleading us into thinking that he was not refering to the English Channel. Ifyou are refering to the English Channel perhaps he should have said the English Channel, whether the Germans referred to it as the "kanal" or not.

So I think that you need to settle down a bit mate.

 

Maybe you might like to read up on the deal a little more von Rundstedt.
http://www.ww2f.com/atlantic-naval-conflict/23442-50-destroyers-bases-deal.html

 

Yeah I appologise for the confusion but I'm on my exams right now so it's hard to focus os anything else. Thanks for the save tough von Rundstedt.
Later today, I'll get my sources on the mediterranean and operation Sea Lion to see the point I make about the english being somewhat in the ropes.


Cheers...

 

Well as much as some of us here just love to have "Sealion" brought up over and over again. May I suggest you check out the Archives and post in one of the many threads already about it.

 

While I wouldn't claim that Britain could go it alone when it came to launching these naval operations, it should be noted that the RN and RCN made up 79% of the warships supporting the Normandy landings with the USN making up 16% and the other Allies 5%. In all other support and transport vessels the figure was 75% British and 25% US

 

Could you please state your definitions for me, maybe if I understand you terms I can understand you.

 

Wikipedia is your friend

Air superiority - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ; Air supremacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I didn't know that there were three different levels of air superiority, thanks guys.

 

There's a fourth one, Air Inferiority :lol:

 

Very nice... I have never noticed (if I have ever heard of) air supremacy. Oh and maybe I like making you look them up in Wiki for me.