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Originally Posted by MontyB I think we have gone off track here a bit, while I have no doubt that few if any people believe Germany could ever have won WW2 the question was "How as the leader of Germany or the Luftwaffe" you would have gone about winning the Battle of Britain. |
Germany could not win the Battle of Britain...nothing could have been changed in 1940 to alter the outcome.
1. The Galland Approach: "We needed more fighters", Galland wrote after the war. This approach was wrong. What would fighters have accomplished? Nothing. Britain first of all had many fighters in reserve. Only the southern Group (Group 11) was under any real pressure. In any case, British production made up for the losses. Any German devotion to fighter production would only have made Britain's strategic bomber campaign much more difficult.
2. How about more bombers? Germany had to hit British fighter production to win the Battle of Britain. This was the major lesson of the Allied bombing campaign. That is, an attacker must bring the fighters to battle and destroy them, AND hit the productive facilities while simultaneously increasing indigenous production. All of this amounts to a long drawn out battle of attrition. And Britain had the US pumping in resources, men and production.
3. How about a landing to directly impact production? Any German attempt at landing on British soil was sheer fantasy...suicide is a better word.
4. How about knocking out the radar installations? So what. Radar was NOT the reason why Britain defended the skies over southern England. It was only a small bonus...and incidentally a bonus enjoyed by Germany as well. The British strategic bombing campaign had to overcome the same obstacles. They did so using numbers or mass. Germany could not mobilize this mass without severely restricting the economy and making Germany ripe for a Soviet ground offensive...which was coming whether the members of this forum like it or not.
Germany could only have "won" the Battle of Britain using unconventional weapons. That is, by dumping thousands of tons of Tabun, Soman and Sarin on s. England prior to and during the "Blitz". Germany had the stuff. These actions would have led to British retaliation, but the Brits did not have nerve gas and the strategic bombing capacities were too low in 1940-1941. These German actions would have led to the following results:
1. A reduction of the British population by over 50%. (guess based on nerve gas lethality)
2. A reduction of the German population by around 10%. (guess based on WWI gas lethality)