Hitler's Britan - An Alternate History

As for the nukes - a lot of scientists taking part in the Manhattan project were British. I can imagine them being shipped to Germany to take part in German nuclear research

That would be fairly difficult, even if the British navy and air force did disappear into a time-space continuum, allowing the Germans to sail ... er, drift ... across the Channel in Rhine barges (with crossed fingers ... even a minor storm and they'd be sunk).

The MAUD program's facilities were mostly in Canada, which was quite a bonus for the Allies when they were incorporated into the Manhattan Program, since Canada had the world's only heavy water plant (Chalk River) after the Norsk Hydro plant was destroyed.

No heavy water, no boom-boom.
 
It's stupid. If Germany had actually got so far as to invade the UK, it would have opened the floodgates on British saboteurs operating in Germany.. forcing the Nazis to respond by lining up the German people and shooting them, and the Nazis would not have hesitated to do that!

What happens next is speculation... :crazyeye:
 
Even if the Germans could have landed troops there, they would have never been able to support them.

Here, I addressed this at length a long time ago. I'll quote the post for you.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6728928&postcount=81

Sealion was pretty much an impossible goal.

First, the Germans had absolutely NO way of getting troops across the channel. Their plan was to try and use barges, river barges, to ship troops across the channel. First off, the number of troops that would be needed to even take and hold the beach would've been enormous in number; the German plan hoped to get 16 divisions across in the first month.

This is all assuming, of course, that they Germans could even get across the channel. The most obvious barrier to this is the Royal Navy. The British Home Fleet outnumbered German surface vessels by at least ten to one in the Fall of 1940, and there were another five British battleships in production at the time; two entered service before the year was out.

The argument is sometimes made that "massive airpower could keep the RN out of the channel long enough to get troops across." First, you must realize that this is complete hogwash. The ineffectiveness of German pilots against ships was demonstrated effectively during the Dunkirk evacuation; though there were thousands of dive bombers strafing and dive-bombing the British ships, only one was sunk, of the many hundreds there.

However, assuming that somehow, some way, the Germans were able to keep the Royal Navy at bay, it's quite likely that the flotilla would have foundered in the channel itself. As I said before, the Germans had no landing ships, they intended to use confiscated river barges to ship men and materiel across. I don't know how familiar you are with the Channel's weather, but it's pretty much never favorable, and it's never, ever calm-watered. But again, assuming the Germans managed to get across the channel, how many men were they going to land? As I noted above, they hoped to get 16 divisions across in the first month. The standing British Army in September 1940 was at least of equal size, including two new armored divisions, of which creation was begun on the German model during Fall WeiB. In addition, the British were fully prepared to use poison gas on the beaches to defend the home island, if the Germans ever landed.

As if the death stroke had not already been dealt, there was no way the Luftwaffe was going to beat the RAF, either. British plane production already outpaced German production in 1940, and most of them were the new Spitfires, which put the RAF on a more equal footing with the BF-109s. Further to the point, however, is that the entire RAF was not engaged in the Battle of Britain; only the bare minimum needed to stave the Germans off was sent southeast; the rest was kept at airbases in the Midlands, out of the reach of German fighters. Granted, their bombers could reach that far, but only sheer madness would precede an unescorted bomber raid against an airfield; perhaps their only chance would be at night, but then there's a quite high chance that the bombers might never find nor hit their intended targets in the first place.

Had the Germans kept up the bombing of the RAF airfields, rather than switching to the cities as they did, the RAF would have simply withdrawn to the Midlands airfields to regroup long before it was truly "beaten" in the South. Because of this capability, the Luftwaffe really had no chance of ever besting the RAF permanently, and thus, we can deduce that RAF air cover would be present during any German attempt to "scare off" the Royal Navy, or during any beach landing.

So in conclusion, Sea Lion couldn't have been successful. It's not really a what if, it's all but fact; unless you journey into lands of the truly fantastic.

And a supplimentary later on:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6731764&postcount=91

Cheezy:

To extend your point with regards to any proposed landings the Luftwaffe would be sorely stretched whatever role was assigned to it. Potentially the plan would expect it to:

a) Destroy or at the least drive off the Royal Navy
b) Protect the flotillas of barges and other ships involved in the landings
c) Conduct airborne landings, probably followed by attempts to air lift infantry into airfields
d) Provide close support for the army
e) Possibly provide air-dropped supplies to cut off units

Given that that the British would be throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the battle its unlikely in the extreme that the Luftwaffe could fulfil all of the above tasks. If emphasis was placed on attacking the Royal Navy then the RAF would have an easier time. If emphasis was placed on protecting the flotillas then the chances are the Royal Navy would have intervened in stregnth. Given the flimsy nature of the German flotilla as you correctly point out it would hardly have been difficult for either branch to cause chaos and heavy loss of life before the Germans even got ashore.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6731951&postcount=92

All been said already really, only to add -

The poison gas and oil fires are symptomatic of the psychology. The "civilised" western theatre would have ended at the white cliffs. Wars were something fought under rules overseas. Fighting on the mainland would have caused a massive cultural shock and it would have got nasty fast.
 
suddenly_bananas.jpg

:mad: There are four-and-a-half bananas in the picture, each of which is at least yellow on the visible side!

Also, I bet they would be forced to stop pronouncing it "zed" leading to mass revolution in the civilian population.
 
Nor with anything they had or could acquire at the time, not even if they'd started preparing years earlier. The disparity in naval power was just too great.

It would be far, far more plausible to "remove" Great Britain from the war by positing a takeover of homegrown Fascists or Fascist-sympathizers at some point considerably before the war even broke out, making the regime either friendly or at least neutral towards Germany.

Not necessarily - imagine the Brits get totally destroyed in Dunkerque and most of their lads are captured or killed by the Germans. Royal Navy suffers terrible losses in the unsuccessful rescue operation. To the politicians in Britain, the situation looks hopeless (remember that the German offensive was a sort of 1940s "shock and awe", Germany seemed invincible). Then Hilter offers generous peace terms (let's say he is just a little less insane in this timeline), what would Britain do? It is conceivable that the doves would prevail over the hawks - especially if Churchill wasn't appointed Prime Minister around the time the German offensive in the West started - and Britain would simply sign a cease-fire with Germany.

"The French have been our enemies for centuries and we have our great Empire; the Russians are a lot of wogs and who cares what the Germans do on the continent" or something along those lines. And that's still not very plausible, but it's more plausible than Sealion resulting in anything more than a bunch of drowned Germans.

OTOH, invading Britain isn't that hard in HoI2 :mischief: However I usually postpone it until after I deal with the Russians :D
 
Still would not happen, because you'd have to be completely ******** to believe that Nazi Germany stood any chance at all, even a tiny one, of successfully conquering or threatening Britain itself. I doubt many people besides Churchill in the UK government at the time were ******** to the point of insanity. I know you like to fantasize about the Soviet Union being destroyed, even if by a nation-state infinitely worse, but come on. At least admit you're just indulging in pure fantasy.
 
Not necessarily - imagine the Brits get totally destroyed in Dunkerque and most of their lads are captured or killed by the Germans. Royal Navy suffers terrible losses in the unsuccessful rescue operation. To the politicians in Britain, the situation looks hopeless (remember that the German offensive was a sort of 1940s "shock and awe", Germany seemed invincible). Then Hilter offers generous peace terms (let's say he is just a little less insane in this timeline), what would Britain do? It is conceivable that the doves would prevail over the hawks - especially if Churchill wasn't appointed Prime Minister around the time the German offensive in the West started - and Britain would simply sign a cease-fire with Germany.



OTOH, invading Britain isn't that hard in HoI2 :mischief: However I usually postpone it until after I deal with the Russians :D

In HoI2 for Sealion I either.

1. What until after I have beaten the Russians in 41. Then build 18+ aircraft carriers and naval bombers or.
2. Lay down X6 Bismarck class ships in 36 which will give you 12 by 1939 and another 6 in late 1940. Invade in May 1940 with massive fleet+naval bombers to scare off the RN.

Sealion is a gamble in 1940 otherwise and the RN normally smashes you in the channel.
 
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