World War 2, how close did we really come to loosing?

[Biker Biggles]

As the Iron Duke said about another battle,"It was a damn close run thing".
I am less convinced about the Battle of Britain being so close.Despite Hitlers error in bombing the cities, we were winning that battle already.Germany was sending many of the wrong aircraft to fight an RAF equipped with good fighters and Radar,the decisive factor IMO.
Strategically the invasion of Russia was a huge mistake,and cost Hitler the domination of mainland Europe in the long term,but I still wonder if he would have won an invasion of Britain.D day is the key.Look how costly and difficult that was for us,despite overwhelming superiority in air and sea power,and huge numbers of troops.

I was under the impression that the RAF was heavily outgunned, out numbered, and suffered heavy losses from the BoB? It was only that they changed targets to London was the fact we were able to get the fleet up and runnign and stop the london bombing raids?

[Biker Biggles]

RAF was outnumbered but largely by unsuitable bombers and other aircraft that were not up to fighting Spitfires and Hurricanes.The ME109 was the exception to this,and was a good match for the RAF.The use of Radar enabled the RAF to target it's fighters very well on the enemy,who were operating at much longer range.
Aircraft losses and production figures are very revealing.From midsummer onwards,British aircraft production outstripped the enemy,and enemy losses became unsustainable.
I was fascinated to learn this stuff when I visited the RAF museum in Hendon.Not suggesting it was a walk in the park,but Germany essentially withdrew from the Battle of Britain because they were losing.

Without any doubt Germany's attempt to conquer Russia was the key factor in them losing WW2. They did not take in to account the number of soldiers Russia could call upon, their tenacity nor the difficulties to be endured by fighting them during winter time.

Actually, Herr Hitler made the mistake that cost him the war a little earlier - end of May 1940 when the BEF (British Expeditionary Force - essentially the whole of the 'modern' (ie mechanised) British army) managed to escape across the Channel at Dunkirk. The German panzer armies were sweeping all before them, and had largely defeated the French armies (effectively they gave up without too much of a struggle) and driven the BEF back to Dunkirk, but were then halted on the express orders of Adolf. There have been various ideas put forward as to why this order was issued, including one that Goering asked Hitler to do so, so that the Luftwaffe could gain some of the glory by finishing them off, but it let a hastily improvised evacuation be put into practice.
This enabled 333,000 members of the BEF and remnants of the French armies to escape to fight another day. Imagine if 300,000 members of the British army had been captured and sent to POW camps - the heart would have gone out of the British fight in the same manner as the French, and we would have almost certainly sued for peace. At this stage, Hitler had no intention or plans to invade England, so we wouldn't have been invaded or defeated as such, just effectively removed from the war. Hitler could then have turned his attention to Russia, without England being a thorn in his backside. Indeed, all the evidence is that after the Battle of Britain was essentially 'lost' by the Germans in September, Hitler merely shrugged his shoulders, announced that he never really wanted to invade England, and carried on with his plans for Russia.

Why did the Germans 'loose' the Battle of Britain - poor planning, and poorer leadership. The British had built up a superb command and control system that enabled them to coordinate the fight with the relatively little resources that they had available - effectively outnumbered something like 4 to one in fighters alone. Dowding had put together the radar system and the ability to feed all the info into a central location where it could be analysed and acted upon. Keith Park, as head of 11 Group then used that system to superb effect to fight the battle on his terms. It wasn't luck that won the BoB as a lot of people make out.

[Biker Biggles]

Interesting take on Dunkirk.I reckon it was more of a **** up on the German's part.They simply did not realize that an evacuation was feasible until it was happening,and panzers or no they were unable to break through the Dunkirk rearguard.The British army was very good at fighting defensive actions,and the Germans had little concept of maritime/army warfare.Between those two misconceptions and skills,the Germans were unable to prevent an evacuation they had not thought possible.
The worst strategic error at this time was possibly the British decision to send the last serviceable divisions of the British Army to defend the rest of France after the fall of Dunkirk.

During WWII, my Dad flew bombers (Wellington, Sterlings & Halifax's) and my Mum was in the Fire Service based in South East London.

As has been mentionted before, if the Germans had crossed the channel chasing the BEF we would have been stuffed. At that time we had no Spitfires, just a handful of Hurricanes and the rest were bi-planes, slow and unmanouverable. We had very little in the way of a Navy, most of which was in the North Sea.

What many people don't realise is that Hitler's socialist government had workers designing Aircraft, Ships and Tanks under the guise of vehicles for commercial applications. Germany was not allowed to produce military vehicles after the 1st World War. Most of the Luftwaffe bombers were designed as "cargo" planes, the ships were "Merchant" designs and believe it or not, those amazingly advanced tanks were for "agricultural" use.

However, Hitler had pitched millions into research and many of their developments were years ahead of anything else in the worrld. Thier biggest failure was a common fault - They believed the thier hype, got complaicent and made major mistakes. The advance on Russia was a major mistake. Rather than stand & fight, when the Russians realised how poorly the Germans were equiped, they just retreated, burning every building on the way, giving the Germans no cover for a long harsh winter. Stalin just waited until the time was right, and made a major offensive. His strategy was fantastic, he saved many of his own lives while the German army became weaker.

The 3rd and probably most crucial mistake, was the agreement with Japan to let them run the Asia/Pacific region. Bringing the Americans into the war at a time when British reserves were running low was fatal. Although the US forces were not as good as ours, their sheer weight of numbers and the amount of equipment they had swung the scale the other way.

It's amazing that Hitlers Germany had produced a number of superior tactical vehicles, the U boats and Panzers are just 2 examples, but when it came to the air, they couldn't compete with the 2 British fighters, the Mosquito was leagues ahead of anything else in it's class, and our bombers were far more effective.

Sorry, long post, but the subject used to be a bit of a passion with me....

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Fair play to your folks...

The 3rd and probably most crucial mistake, was the agreement with Japan to let them run the Asia/Pacific region. Bringing the Americans into the war at a time when British reserves were running low was fatal. Although the US forces were not as good as ours, their sheer weight of numbers and the amount of equipment they had swung the scale the other way.

This business seems to be forgotten a lot. That the English war effort was running out of stuff fast. The That's why U Boats were such a major problem. If you cant ship stuff in, then you starve.

The Germans new this, and thats why they put "unbreakable" crypto on where these U Boats were.

Except it wasnt unbreakable. Turing and the people of Bletchly broke it. It was all top secret of course, but being able to know where and when the U boats were going to be anywhere was an absolutely huge deal, and it marked a (secret) turning point in the war.

And... what did England do for the father of computer science, builder of the first programmable computer, major player in WWII?

Completely ignore and keep secret everything he has done, and harass him to death for being gay.

Obviously.

I know its a crap film but I think that Fatherland had it about right. If the Americans hadn't joined the war in Europe, Hitler would have been quite happy to annex us and get on with pushing into Russia. We simple didn't have the resources or equipment to sustain an assault on D -day and Hitler knew this.

Remember in WW1 the Americans were quite happy to sit back and watch Europe self destruct while they made heaps money by selling everyone arms. Europe's empires where in decline anyway so they just helped them on there way. The only reason the Americans joined in WW2 is what happened in the Pacific but more over Churchill persuading Roosevelt Hitler wouldn't stop with Europe.

The real irony is that Hitler and Starlin signed a pact right at the start of the war agreeing not to attack each other with a view to mutual gain. The fact that Hitler didn't trust Starlin lead him to invade Russia fearing they were building there forces against him. They weren't .....

So I Believe that if America hadn't joined in, We would be sitting in England with no power or influence. Hitler would have ruled most of western Europe with the war in the east going on for far more years, probably well into the 50's.

If it wasn't for Churchill, we'd all be speaking German now . . .