No Battle of Britain

Chengar Qordath

Not sure if this specific PoD has been tossed out before, but it seems like an intriguing idea since it's a tactic I've adopted when I do WWII games; suppose the Nazis decide not to launch the Battle of Britain as part of the preparations for "Operation Unmentionable Marine Mammal." I'd assume there would still be some aerial skirmishing and bomber raids between Germany and England, but nothing like the scale of OTL.

Would this have any significant effect on the outcome of the war? Britain would lose the boost to their resolve and morale that came as a result of the battle, and Germany gets slightly less bad press and won't lose a couple thousand planes and pilots in the BoB. On the other hand, if the British Isles are seen as being less threatened than OTL we could see larger British forces deployed overseas, which might alter events in several theatres. Thoughts?
 

Redbeard

Banned
Chengar Qordath said:
Not sure if this specific PoD has been tossed out before, but it seems like an intriguing idea since it's a tactic I've adopted when I do WWII games; suppose the Nazis decide not to launch the Battle of Britain as part of the preparations for "Operation Unmentionable Marine Mammal." I'd assume there would still be some aerial skirmishing and bomber raids between Germany and England, but nothing like the scale of OTL.

Would this have any significant effect on the outcome of the war? Britain would lose the boost to their resolve and morale that came as a result of the battle, and Germany gets slightly less bad press and won't lose a couple thousand planes and pilots in the BoB. On the other hand, if the British Isles are seen as being less threatened than OTL we could see larger British forces deployed overseas, which might alter events in several theatres. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

The British Army by mid 40 could hardly muster two operational Divisions, that will not be be changed by no BoB, and limit how much can be deployed. But one minor I thought of immediately: In OTL awaiting an invasion soon the British kept the 2pdr. anti tank gun in production in order not to slow down while shifting to the new 6pdr. by then ready for production. With no imminent invasion threat they might go for the 6 pdr. in 1940. Would remove the WWII British trauma of allways being undergunned and perhaps be the drop to have 1941 offensives in North Africa prevail. But I don't think so - the British still were lousy in co-ordinating their arms, which is tremendously more important.

But without the demand and drain of a BoB Churchill might be persuaded to send modern fighters to Malaya. RAF lost 1004 fighters in BoB, half of that would be enough to make it impossible for the Japanese to conquer Malaya and Singapore, and without those no Dutch East India - and no oil, bauxit, pewter, rubber or whatelse the Japanese urgently needed from SEA.

Without the humiliations vs. the Japanese the British Empire might live longer and perhaps transform into more tightly bonded Commonwealth.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 

Broz

the most important result would be that the luftwafe would not get decimatet which would affect any later ofensiwe agast europe from west or south, as well as the outcome of barbarossa, wich would still probably fail but could of ended in a stalemate

also more resourses and energy would go towards deweloping the misile arsenal as well as more concentrated efforts on the african front possibly ewen a wictory trough areal superiority, and the surwival of british malta would come into question

all this would open the posibility for a better planed comperhensive asult on the british islands and not the prepotent gorrings luftwafe-olnly tactic wich had large obvious drawbacks, ewen asuming the germans didnt expect such strong resistance

the spitfire would probably get replaced with the hurricane and tornado
 

Deleted member 1487

This begs the question of what will happen to these forces not being used. Are they just sitting around or will they be employed doing something? I think that as long as they are unoccupied, other than defending against British raids, there might be a large effort against Malta, at least a suppressive campaign. Might this even change the German habit of "fly 'til you die"? As there are not nearly as many losses in TTL, why would the Luftwaffe not take the aces from the battle of france and use them to train the next generation of fighter pilots? I see some problems for the Brits later.
 

Archibald

Banned
The Hurricane had lower performances and was older than the
Spitfire. It was outclassed at the end of 1940.

By Tornado I suppose you mean the big family of Hawker fighters.
The Tornado and Typhoon were plagued by their unreliable Vulture and Sabre engines.

Vulture problems were never overcome, thus killing the Tornado.

The Typhoon had more luck as Sabre problems were solved; but it had others problems which led to a massive upgrade, giving birth to the Tempest.
The Typhoon ended as a ground-attack platform.

The Spitfire had enough growth potential to survive WWII and being replaced only by jet aircrafts. Not too bad for a 1936 design!
 

ranoncles

Broz said:
the most important result would be that the luftwafe would not get decimatet which would affect any later ofensiwe agast europe from west or south, as well as the outcome of barbarossa, wich would still probably fail but could of ended in a stalemate

also more resourses and energy would go towards deweloping the misile arsenal as well as more concentrated efforts on the african front possibly ewen a wictory trough areal superiority, and the surwival of british malta would come into question

all this would open the posibility for a better planed comperhensive asult on the british islands and not the prepotent gorrings luftwafe-olnly tactic wich had large obvious drawbacks, ewen asuming the germans didnt expect such strong resistance

the spitfire would probably get replaced with the hurricane and tornado
Click to expand...

Jeez, would it kill you to use a spell checker :mad:.
 
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