few questions about ww2

What you all forget the best pilots in the RAF weren't even british, the best pilots with the most kills were the polish, they had the highest ratio of kill's.

On another note RAF had pilots form other nations, that help the uk, such as Canada Holland Sweden etc... If it wasnt for the polish pilots britain would have lost " the battle for britain".
 
I'm personally of the opinion that if Hitler had seriously wanted to invade Britain, he would have done so and while we would have put up a brave resistance, we would ultimately have had to sue for peace.

As previous posters have mentioned, as it actually happened the Battle of Britain was a close-run thing which we only 'won' because of pure luck and circumstances. An accidental dropping of bombs by a sole German bomber on London arguably changed the course of the whole war, as we naturally retailiated to what we saw as a deliberate act. Once we had done this, the Germans of course were going to follow suit and change tactic to targeting the cities, thereby giving Fighter Command much needed respite from attack - a conflict the Germans were winning

Seriously though, if you look at our airforce in mid-1940, the vast majority of the aircraft are fighters. Where are the bombers and attack aircraft? The Fairey Battle attack aircraft had shown itself to be a sitting duck death trap and was relegated to training, and all our training and production was focusing on fighters. While these were most certainly useful in fighting the Battle of Britian as it was, what about if Hitler had been more audacious in his invasion attempt and launched ground forces across the channel in August 1940? We would have needed bombers/fighter-bombers and attack aircraft to repel the invasion forces, but there were virtually none of those.

Anyway, nice to play 'what if' :)
 
No............................

The German army did not have the required infrastructure to transport and then support an invasion of the UK, even without losses from the British navy (the most powerfull in the world at the time) and the defeat of the RAF simple logistics would have stalled any foothold gained from an initial German invasion.
 
Ricochet J said:
Read Operation Sea Lion. Germany intended to invade Britain but first they had to overcome our naval presence in the British Channal, North Sea and Irish Sea. Our navy was impressive and wasn't easy to take down. Secondly they had to take down our air superiority. We might have been out numbered, but we had a lot more men with flying experience and much better planes. Two things that the Luftwaffe did not have. Thirdly, they had to decide which was more important. Concentrating their efforts in taking over the UK or expand eastward and take over Russia. If successful, they would come back and easily take the UK since we would have no eastern allies.

They attempted to take Russia under the operation name Barberossa. Many historians believe Operation Barberossa was Hitlers downfall.

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This is the best answer in the two pages i have read, except

Hitler could have defeated us Brits if he had left Russia alone.

He had a treaty with Russia so they would not have done anything if he attacked us, but he hated the Reds more than us, so he chose wrong.

What he should have done is invaded the UK, then Russia if he felt like doing so, after.
 
jamesmorris86 said:
im having a bit of a drunken debate and i need some help to win or loose it :P

can someone please explain why germany never invaded england?

and did we have the defenses to hold them off, or if they invaded, would they have walked all over us?

cheers for any help guys
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Quick answer: RAF.

Long answer: Hitler had a load of converted barges as troop transport ships. Enough to carry a large enough force for an invasion, but they were very vulnerable to attack, especially from the air. So the only way the plan was viable was if the Luftwaffe utterly dominated the air, which meant that effectively wiping out the RAF was essential before the invasion of England could occur. Hence the famous phrase "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." The few in question were the highly outnumbered people in the RAF, to whom the entire population of the UK owed not being invaded by the Nazis. You could extend that debt further, because if Britain had been invaded then, most of the resistance to the Nazis would have collapsed because it was almost entirely centred around Britain. Either the British Empire, forces allied with Britain (e.g. ANZAC) or forces from occupied countries that had retreated to fight from Britain (free French, Poles, etc). Hitler could then have fought against the USSR by itself, maybe winning. The USA would probably have remained neutral and even if it didn't, where would they have fought from? You couldn't invade Europe directly from the USA in the early 1940s. So it could be argued that everyone owed not being invaded by the Nazis or Japanese to the RAF.

Early on in the war, when Germany was blitzkrieging Europe, Hitler apparently didn't want to invade England. He still had some sort of alliance in mind, apparently. All Aryans together, uber alles, blah blah.
 
Jono8 said:
Also. Hitler was rubbish and should have let his generals run the war. Germany probably would have won if he did that.
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Hitler being the person who used the circumstances to gain power might have been the best thing for everyone. If it hadn't been him, it might have been someone more competent and less deranged.
 
Duff-Man said:
If Hitler had defeated Russia, then no-one could have stopped them taking over all of Europe (the UK included). The world would have descended into a dark time, with the US and Nazi Europe as the two world superpowers. I guess that only atomic weapons would have broken the stalemate, probably leaving Europe as a smouldering wasteland.
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I think Nazi Germany would have had nukes (and the ability to send them far enough) before the USA did, and I doubt if Hitler would have hesitated to press the launch button.

Nazi Germany wasn't far behind in developing a nuclear bomb, and that was after the Allies blew the crap out of their main research facility three times. Nazi Germany was well ahead in developing rockets. Without having to fight a war on three fronts, they could have developed nuclear bombs and the means to get them to the USA.
 
-BA- said:
Nope it was the Normans in 1066. :)
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Or it was no-one. Britain as a whole hasn't been invaded in recorded history, only parts of it.

But that's just being awkward.

I found the original comment about the last invasion being the Roman one more than a bit odd. How could anyone overlook the invasion and conquest that gave England its name? Then there was the Scandanavian invasion and conquest of England, although that was admittedly rather short-lived. The Irish invasion and conquest, too, plus the other Irish invasion that was repelled.
 
With this talk about war, i would now like to express my gratitude to the pilots of the RAF who died in WW11.

The pilots who in all probabilaty changed Hitlers mind about his invasion plans.
I just cannot imagine me doing what they did.

Dying for the UK.
 
ShaolinDreams said:
they lost the battle of britain :D

being half polish im quite proud that the poles had a small squadron in the raf :)
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They did a lot of damage, the poles had a few squadrons all of them doing better that the british. What was sad about the invasion of poland by the germans was the russians invaded on the other side so really there wasnt any hope for the poles fighting back. If poland wasnt invaded they would have been a great country economically, and industrially.
Russia invaded poland because they felt humiliated when the poles invaded russia can't remember the full facts but poland was the only nation to ever invade russia talking control of all its western cities.
Anyway theres anther school of thought that the US and British wanted germany to invade poland and pushed them to do it, what they say is if ie britain said they would declare war on germany if they invaded poland how come they didnt say the same to russia?
 
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