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

Originally Posted by northwind

By the time we got into continental europe, it wasn't so much about beating the germans- it was about beating the germans before the russians did, since stalin with most of europe under his belt wasn't a welcome thought. Damn right too...

Hmmmm..... I think perhaps the thinking of the time was to let the Soviets do as much as possible unaided as a means of depleting the Red Army. Initially, the Western Allies planned to assist in the capture of Berlin by dropping paratroops into the city. However, decided against it, seeing no need to suffer casualties taking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence once the war was over. Hence the Western allies sat by and watched the slaughter as the Soviets took Berlin alone.

Originally Posted by northwind

The red army was getting set up to march all the way to the english channel, as most see it now, and then we'd just have a different enemy/rival over the water, one with the biggest fighting force the world's ever seen and the willingness to grind it to a pulp to win.

..... said the Western Paranoia

If only Chuck Norris was alive at the time, it be over in 10 minutes!

Originally Posted by socommk23

personaly i dont think the english would have rolled over and play dead for the germans as others did!

You're quite right. We, unlike other countries, had a formal system of resistance splinter cells in every town and city, the whole thing was orchestrated by the government once war broke out. Had they occupied us, they'd of had a harder time than elsewhere.

I'll also agree with Valleysboy and say the main reason we lost was their overconfidence/misjudgement in trying to get Russia at the same time.

[Biker Biggles]

"Main reason WE lost"
Ceri jc----We will be accusing you of being a closet nazi if you carry on like that.

That last paragraph is probably more closer to the truth than perhaps the author and its readers realise. Look at what happened to us in the Falklands campaign - when the Argentinians surrendered some British soldiers & marines were down to their last couple of rounds of ammo in their magazines, hadn't eaten for a day or two, and had no likelihood of being resupplied for a couple of days.

We were in no position to continue with the campaign, had the Argies not surrendered when they did. Had the Germans in WW2 pressed on with the BOB for only a couple of days longer then who knows what language we would all have been speaking now !!!!!!!!

The Germans changed tactics just enough to allow the RAF to re group, take stock, even let the pilots get a decent nights sleep allowing them to carry on. The same could be said over the withdrawal from france by the BEF. Some 300,000 troops came back over the channel and had the Germans pressed on who was going to stop them ?? I suggest no one as the 300,000 returning troops were all tired, hungry, and regiments were all split up with no signs of clear leadership.

However, the troops got home safely, had time to re group, get fed, sleep, and take stock of what had happened and then we had 300,000 troops all along the south coast of Engalnd ready to defend our homeland. The Germans at the time probably knew that on both of the above situations they had F***ed up, but with a mad tyrannical leader who would have sent you to one of the death camps for admitting you were a failure, would you have said to him "OOPS SORRY BOSS I'VE DROPPED A BIT OF A BOLOCK HERE".

We have to thank Mr Mitchell for his Spitfire, Douglas Bader for motivating the Poles and Canadians and MFI for building the Horsa gliders which landed close to Pegasus Bridge.

Germany gave us the autobahn to play on.

The Americans didnt win the war for us, they just gave us a loan which exceeded a glasgow money lenders interest rates

4 Billion quid over 75 years

[Biker Biggles]

I suppose if you want to narrow it down to one single factor that won the war for us,you would have to plump for Japan.Them bombing Pearl Harbour was the event that caused America to enter the war,and their manufacturing capacity was what made the eventual result inevitable.Industrial warfare is won by industrial output,America far outstripped everyone else combined,so would eventually win.By 1944 American factories were supplying most of the military hardware for all allied efforts.Even the Russians were supplied this way via the arctic convoys.
A surprisingly small proportion of American output was dedicated to the war against Japan for most of the war,as the allied policy was to defeat Germany first,possibly to ensure they didn't build an atomic bomb before they were defeated.

Originally Posted by grh1904

. . . had the Germans pressed on who was going to stop them ??

A good point, except that the Germans had no plans to invade England at that point in time. The basic German warplan was to avoid having to fight a war on 2 fronts, like in WW1. Hitler had always seen the Soviet Union as the natural threat to Nazi Germany - the clash of 2 totalitarian systems - Fascism & Bolshevism. Knocking out the Soviet Union would give Germany the lebensraum they required - ie room to expand into the fertile lands to the east. Knocking out the French so quickly was almost as much of a shock to the Germans as it was to the French, and they had no plans to carry on and take out England - Hitler didn't believe it needed doing. He always held the English in high esteem, and said several times that he had no quarrel with us. If you read Mein Kampf, he laid out all his plans, and then went ahead and followed what he had written. His dream was that England and Germany should combine - with the Germany Army, and the British Navy, they'd rule the world. And that dream took quite a while to die out - ever wondered what Rudolf Hess was up to ?

To go back to the earlier point, yes it would have been hard for the British to stop a German invasion, but not that hard. The British navy was intact and would have put up one hell of a fight to stop invasion forces crossing the channel - if there had been any that is. The RAF was still an effective fighting force, and the Germans can nowhere be said to have had effective command of the air in the summer of 1940. The Germans didn't invade, because they had no plans to.

I recommend a visit to the D-Day beaches in Normandy - you can see the sheer scale of the forces required to land an amphibious assault and hold on to the beachhead. The museums and battlefields there are absolutely mind blowing. Even with the tremendous forces available to the Allies, it was by no means a forgone conclusion.

The Battle of Britain is usually taken in the context of the war and what happened next.

Can you imagine if the Germans threw the forces against Britain in 1941 that they did against the USSR?

With the Bf 109F and the Fw 190 both better or equal to the Spitfire V? The Hurricane was not even close.

An invasion was only canceled in 1940 but was a goer in Summer 1941.

Hitler invaded USSR instead and six weeks late too.

[Biker Biggles]

I agree with Mr Toad.They did not have the required air supremacy and the Royal Navy was ready to take them on in the Channel.It's easy to look at theoretical land force supremacy(which they had)but getting it across that twenty mile ditch and supplying it would have been a different matter.
One thing the Battle of Britain showed was that the RAF was capable of taking them on when given home advantage,and their losses at sea would have made the affair too big a gamble.