MontyB
All-Blacks Supporter
was ever under a realistic threat of German invasion?
In 1940 I can understand the fear that Germany may have tried to invade but in 2016 we know that even in 1940 they could never have done so so why does this myth persist.
For German aircraft to have operated over Britain put them at the limit of their range, the majority of the Kriegsmarine was sitting at the bottom of Norwegian Fjords and the Royal navy outnumbered its opposition by a ratio of nearly 10 to 1 and was safely parked up in ports outside Luftwaffe range.
At best Germany could have landed some of its Fallschirmjäger and most of an Infantry division before the Royal Navy completely overwhelmed the invasion lanes and the RAF destroyed too many German air transports to allow further large scale landings or resupply.
German losses would have irreplaceable while the British were operating over friendly territory and falling back on shorter supply lines, at best the Luftwaffe may have gained air superiority over a small part of southern Britain but any base's there would have been pounded day and night to the point of being unusable.
In 1940 I can understand the fear that Germany may have tried to invade but in 2016 we know that even in 1940 they could never have done so so why does this myth persist.
For German aircraft to have operated over Britain put them at the limit of their range, the majority of the Kriegsmarine was sitting at the bottom of Norwegian Fjords and the Royal navy outnumbered its opposition by a ratio of nearly 10 to 1 and was safely parked up in ports outside Luftwaffe range.
At best Germany could have landed some of its Fallschirmjäger and most of an Infantry division before the Royal Navy completely overwhelmed the invasion lanes and the RAF destroyed too many German air transports to allow further large scale landings or resupply.
German losses would have irreplaceable while the British were operating over friendly territory and falling back on shorter supply lines, at best the Luftwaffe may have gained air superiority over a small part of southern Britain but any base's there would have been pounded day and night to the point of being unusable.