AHC: Germany invades Britian

MattII

Okay, this isn't per-se a sealion thread, because that operation was impossible, but I'm wondering, given open reign on plausible PoDs, starting on 12 November 1918, is there any way Germany could launch a successful invasion of Britain before December 31, 1945? I've a couple of ideas on this myself:
* Kill Robert Watson-Watt, R. J. Mitchell, Sidney Camm and Hugh Dowding at any time up to the early 30s.
* Hitler isn't asked to investigate the DAP, and thus the Nazi party never comes to be.

Edit: PoDs can only start after 11 November 1918.
 
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Riain

Banned
Germany wins WW1 and keeps a big navy.

When a revanchist war starts a generation later Germany invades Britain using it powerful navy.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
Things would have to go catastrophically wrong for the UK. Maybe Britain somehow becomes a fascist/ultranationalist state and gets itself into a war with Weimar Germany, France, and the US at the same time? The US (and to a lesser extent France) would obviously provide the bulk of the ships for the eventual invasion, but it would still count as Germany invading Britain, just like the OTL Normandy landings count as the CANZUK nations invading France.

No matter what, I don't think Germany could do it alone. Launching an amphibious invasion of a whole country takes overwhelming naval superiority, and I don't see how post-WWI Germany could get itself into that position by itself.
 

Riain

Banned
The Japanese created overwhelming theatre naval superiority in a few hours on 7 Dec 41.
 
Meadow

Meadow

The closest I've ever been able to get to it is 'the Germans somehow defeat the Soviets in 1942, then in 1944 they stream across the Channel'. The problem is keeping the Americans out, as the second there are US bases in Britain the task goes from 'it looks doubtful' to 'lol nope'. Britain would also still be able to park the entire Atlantic RN in the Channel, which a Wehrmacht that has just carried out the most impressive feat of land warfare in history is still not going to be able to do much about.
 

Monty Burns

MattII said:
Okay, this isn't per-se a sealion thread, because that operation was impossible, but I'm wondering, given open reign on plausible PoDs, starting on 12 November 1918, is there any way Germany could launch a successful invasion of Britain before December 31, 1945? I've a couple of ideas on this myself:
* Kill Robert Watson-Watt, R. J. Mitchell, Sidney Camm and Hugh Dowding at any time up to the early 30s.
* Hitler isn't asked to investigate the DAP, and thus the Nazi party never comes to be.

Edit: PoDs can only start after 11 November 1918.
Click to expand...

After WWI is really hard. You may butterfly away some of the restrictions, maybe let communists take over France and Italy so that Imperial Germany suddenly looks much less menacing to Britain and the US for the moment.

Basically, Germany has the technological and industrial basis to do that, given sufficient preparations IMHO. The question is how you'll get a situation where Germany can dedicate these to preparing an invasion of Britain without having to concern itself about France and Russia.
 

Riain

Banned
CthulhuFhtagn said:
There's a huge difference between invading overseas territories and invading the metropole.
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The WAllies did it in reverse.

I'm not saying that it would be easy, just that in the right circumstances a WW1 victorious Germany with 20 years work could probably put 4 or 5 divisions ashore in one go. If they could sustain a beach head they could put ashore an army powerful enough to defeat Britain.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Riain said:
The WAllies did it in reverse.

I'm not saying that it would be easy, just that in the right circumstances a WW1 victorious Germany with 20 years work could probably put 4 or 5 divisions ashore in one go. If they could sustain a beach head they could put ashore an army powerful enough to defeat Britain.
Click to expand...

You'd probably need to economically blast Britain while leaving the Germans out of the radius, and have the Brits completely miss some major development in technology which alters the face of naval warfare (so the British fleet isn't as big as it could be, and the Germans can blast what "seems safe".)

This would likely require the Brits missing the naval aviation card, or alternatively if the Germans have the resources to devote to what amount to radio-guided glide bombs on a huge scale while Britain continues to believe that they're set for a more conventional naval war. (And I do mean a huge scale - basically the British capital ships getting glide-bomb-ed to death, and the Germans own battle line being able to kill the RN DDs and light ships. That at least wins sea control.)
 

Riain

Banned
Germany conducted an opposed amphibious landing in the Baltic in 1917 and without defeat and the scuttling of its navy it would be able to expand on this capability after the war. Its huge economy would support a large navy as well as the alliance power to ensure that Britain couldn't concentrate the entire RN against Germany like WW1. Germany also had a myriad of smaller detail advantages over Britain that explain the result of hundreds of actions and battles in WW2, these would still come into play.
 

jsb

With a 1918 POD its easy.

Germany falls to communism in 1918/19 (alongside USSR earlier) then a bit later so do the French/etc.......

Some time later (well 20+ years) the massive Communist state (including Germany so it counts :p) that now dominates Eurasia liberates the people from the capitalists/imperialist in city of London (attacks GB) and wins ?
 

Gudestein

In 1918 the Germans were experiencing with a wire guided torpedo. If this concept was taken seriously in 1933 they could mass-deploy radio guided weapons in 1940. Taking out Radar towers and ships from 5km altitude.
 

NOMISYRRUC

Riain said:
The Japanese created overwhelming theatre naval superiority in a few hours on 7 Dec 41.
Click to expand...

The Luftwaffe makes a mass attack on Scapa Flow in September 1939 using He111s and Ju88s armed with torpedoes. It follows that up by decimating British shipping on the east coast over the next six months. More damage is done to the British Home Fleet if it dares to come in range during the Battle for Norway. German torpedo-bombers create havoc during Dunkirk and the other evacuations from France. Then they inflict severe losses on British convoys in the English Channel in July and August. In September 1940...

The Germans didn't have effective air launched torpedoes until 1942 in the real world. They bought them from the Italians after failing to develop their own.

The Luftwaffe had to build up a large tactical air force first, but its longer term plan included 39 gruppen of anti-shipping aircraft, 27 squadrons of maritime reconnaissance aircraft, 12 carrier squadrons and 2 squadrons of catapult aircraft by the autumn of 1942. However, the anti-shipping force was in an embryonic state when war was declared.

I think that if Milch had been in charge of aircraft production throughout the prewar period the Luftwaffe could have 6 full strengh groups of torpedo bombers (180 aircraft) in September 1939.

The Germans could have developed an effective air launched torpedo by that time if they had put their minds to it.
 
Chris Triangle

Chris Triangle

I'm doubtful about the likelihood of a revanchist war after a central powers victory. With Germany having won WWI and begun consolidating its position, it has no scores to settle with Britain. Britain , regardless of how much it would like revenge would surely be go to great lengths to avoid any possible war with a Germany powerful enough as to be capable of overcoming the Royal Navy. Unless Britain stupidly goes to great lengths to oppose the new German hegemony over Europe (as in attempting a blockade), I can't see imperial Germany bothering with such a costly invasion in the first place.
 

Morningfog

Post WW1, not possible, unless some sort of ASB technology is developed or discovered by the Germans. There are simply too many restrictions for the Germans following Versailles. The only possible route, is to extend the 1939 non aggression pact with SU, seize the Vichy French ships (we all saw how that turned out), build their own fleet, and extend Luftwaffe capabilities.

Though this is based on the premise that the SU will not attack back
Germany doesn't declare war on US
Germany manages to take the Vichy French Ships
Germany manages to train enough men to man a battle fleet
Germany has enough convoys to maintain an invasion force.
Germany undergoes a massive ship construction venture (destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers, assault ships)
Germany actually manages to win a couple major naval battles against the UK (effectively disabling, or at best, destroying the British fleet.)

Not possible prior to the beginning of WW2 (because of France) and 5 years from the fall of France to 1945 is simply not enough time, to construct the fleet, let alone use it effectively.
 
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