Why did Hitler not fuck Britain before invading Russia?

[jamest]

Simples. The English Channel, the Royal Navy and the RAF.

The RAF was on its last legs by the end of the 'Battle of Britain'. Indeed, if the Germans had stuck to attacking RAF airfields (instead of changing strategy and bombing London/cities) then Britain would have lost the air war.

Further, the Royal Navy could not operate in [or anywhere near] the English Channel unless the RAF were dominant/victorious, so were actually powerless to deter a German amphibious assault. The battle in the sky was the key to everything... and Germany was oh-so-close to winning that. Would have done so too, had they not given up so soon.

Lastly, the English Channel itself does not prohibit a decisive military assault against Britain in 1940/41, any more than it prohibits a decisive military assault against the Germans in Normandy, in 1944.

Damn! Perhaps their hindsight was faulty!

Most of the stuff I've been talking about here revolves around having a modicum of common sense and an ability to reason to a basic degree. Nothing to do with being the beneficiary of hindsight. Have a word with yourself!!

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Simples. The English Channel, the Royal Navy and the RAF.

The RAF was on its last legs by the end of the 'Battle of Britain'. Indeed, if the Germans had stuck to attacking RAF airfields (instead of changing strategy and bombing London/cities) then Britain would have lost the air war.

Further, the Royal Navy could not operate in [or anywhere near] the English Channel unless the RAF were dominant/victorious, so were actually powerless to deter a German amphibious assault. The battle in the sky was the key to everything... and Germany was oh-so-close to winning that. Would have done so too, had they not given up so soon.

Lastly, the English Channel itself does not prohibit a decisive military assault against Britain in 1940/41, any more than it prohibits a decisive military assault against the Germans in Normandy, in 1944.

Damn! Perhaps their hindsight was faulty!

Most of the stuff I've been talking about here revolves around having a modicum of common sense and an ability to reason to a basic degree. Nothing to do with being the beneficiary of hindsight. Have a word with yourself!!

Easy to say that with hindsight.

[laklak]

It's 20/20, you know.

[Hermit]

The RAF was on its last legs by the end of the 'Battle of Britain'. Indeed, if the Germans had stuck to attacking RAF airfields (instead of changing strategy and bombing London/cities) then Britain would have lost the air war.

Correction: At the beginning of the Battle of Britain the RAF was hopelessly in both quantity and quality of equipment as well as manpower. Hitler abandoned his plan to invade Great Britain precisely because the RAF had become superior to the Luftwaffe. At the end of that battle Great Britain had lost not quite 1000 of its crew and Germany a bit more than 4500. Between August and December 1940 the German fighter and bomber strength declined by 30 and 25 percent. The Luftwaffe kept shrinking while the RAF kept growing. On the personnel side, the Germans fared even worse. By September 1940 the Luftwaffe could crew only 67% of its remaining aircraft.

On September the 17th 1940 Hitler formally announced the abandonment of his plan to invade England because instead of the Luftwaffe gaining the necessary precondition of air superiority over the island, it was being smashed to bits, for the most part by the RAF.

Most of the stuff I've been talking about here revolves around having a modicum of common sense and an ability to reason to a basic degree.

Neither your modicum of common sense nor your common sense, whatever there is of it, is of any use without a third ingredient: facts.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The RAF was on its last legs by the end of the 'Battle of Britain'. Indeed, if the Germans had stuck to attacking RAF airfields (instead of changing strategy and bombing London/cities) then Britain would have lost the air war.

Correction: At the beginning of the Battle of Britain the RAF was hopelessly in both quantity and quality of equipment as well as manpower. Hitler abandoned his plan to invade Great Britain precisely because the RAF had become superior to the Luftwaffe. At the end of that battle Great Britain had lost not quite 1000 of its crew and Germany a bit more than 4500. Between August and December 1940 the German fighter and bomber strength declined by 30 and 25 percent. The Luftwaffe kept shrinking while the RAF kept growing. On the personnel side, the Germans fared even worse. By September 1940 the Luftwaffe could crew only 67% of its remaining aircraft.

On September the 17th 1940 Hitler formally announced the abandonment of his plan to invade England because instead of the Luftwaffe gaining the necessary precondition of air superiority over the island, it was being smashed to bits, for the most part by the RAF.

Most of the stuff I've been talking about here revolves around having a modicum of common sense and an ability to reason to a basic degree.

Neither your modicum of common sense nor your common sense, whatever there is of it, is of any use without a third ingredient: facts.

I must correct you here, Hermit. You have failed to uphold the first rule of teh interwebz: FACT must always be capitalised - and the plural spelt with a "Z" - FACTZ!

[Hermit]

Godfuckingdamnit, XC. You managed to shoot my entire argument down in flames because of my inability to spell one solitary word correctly!

If only the Luftwaffe had your resourcefulness at its disposal, it would have been able to win the Battle of Britain by sheer force of lexia, proving once again that the pen (keyboard in this instance) is mightier than the sword (bomber and fighter planes).

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Godfuckingdamnit, XC. You managed to shoot my entire argument down in flames because of my inability to spell one solitary word correctly!

If only the Luftwaffe had your resourcefulness at its disposal, it would have been able to win the Battle of Britain by sheer force of lexia, proving once again that the pen (keyboard in this instance) is mightier than the sword (bomber and fighter planes).

True dat. Or if they had laser-eyed, flying sharks. They would have won then too.

[Hermit]

Godfuckingdamnit, XC. You managed to shoot my entire argument down in flames because of my inability to spell one solitary word correctly!

If only the Luftwaffe had your resourcefulness at its disposal, it would have been able to win the Battle of Britain by sheer force of lexia, proving once again that the pen (keyboard in this instance) is mightier than the sword (bomber and fighter planes).

True dat. Or if they had laser-eyed, flying sharks. They would have won then too.

LAZERZ, man. LAZERZ.

[jamest]

The RAF was on its last legs by the end of the 'Battle of Britain'. Indeed, if the Germans had stuck to attacking RAF airfields (instead of changing strategy and bombing London/cities) then Britain would have lost the air war.

Correction: At the beginning of the Battle of Britain the RAF was hopelessly in both quantity and quality of equipment as well as manpower. Hitler abandoned his plan to invade Great Britain precisely because the RAF had become superior to the Luftwaffe. At the end of that battle Great Britain had lost not quite 1000 of its crew and Germany a bit more than 4500. Between August and December 1940 the German fighter and bomber strength declined by 30 and 25 percent. The Luftwaffe kept shrinking while the RAF kept growing. On the personnel side, the Germans fared even worse. By September 1940 the Luftwaffe could crew only 67% of its remaining aircraft.

On September the 17th 1940 Hitler formally announced the abandonment of his plan to invade England because instead of the Luftwaffe gaining the necessary precondition of air superiority over the island, it was being smashed to bits, for the most part by the RAF.

Most of the stuff I've been talking about here revolves around having a modicum of common sense and an ability to reason to a basic degree.

Neither your modicum of common sense nor your common sense, whatever there is of it, is of any use without a third ingredient: facts.

The fact is that there was a time towards the end of August when the RAF was very much on its last legs and close to defeat. Only a change of tactics by the Germans enabled the RAF to gradually recover. Here, have a butcher's at this:

Göring soon realized success would not come easily. Not wanting to lose face with the Führer, he stepped up the pressure, throwing everything in his arsenal against the RAF, beginning on Saturday, August 24th. Over the next two weeks, the British suffered terribly, losing 466 planes. Fighter Command was desperately low on planes and pilots, flying its very last reserves. The Germans, by sheer weight of numbers, stood on the brink of victory.

But they didn't know this.

Göring had no idea the RAF was nearly knocked out. And now, in one of the great turning points of World War II, the German strategy abruptly changed.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/d ... -alone.htm

[Hermit]

The RAF was on its last legs by the end of the 'Battle of Britain'. Indeed, if the Germans had stuck to attacking RAF airfields (instead of changing strategy and bombing London/cities) then Britain would have lost the air war.

Correction: At the beginning of the Battle of Britain the RAF was hopelessly in both quantity and quality of equipment as well as manpower. Hitler abandoned his plan to invade Great Britain precisely because the RAF had become superior to the Luftwaffe. At the end of that battle Great Britain had lost not quite 1000 of its crew and Germany a bit more than 4500. Between August and December 1940 the German fighter and bomber strength declined by 30 and 25 percent. The Luftwaffe kept shrinking while the RAF kept growing. On the personnel side, the Germans fared even worse. By September 1940 the Luftwaffe could crew only 67% of its remaining aircraft.

On September the 17th 1940 Hitler formally announced the abandonment of his plan to invade England because instead of the Luftwaffe gaining the necessary precondition of air superiority over the island, it was being smashed to bits, for the most part by the RAF.

Most of the stuff I've been talking about here revolves around having a modicum of common sense and an ability to reason to a basic degree.

Neither your modicum of common sense nor your common sense, whatever there is of it, is of any use without a third ingredient: facts.

The fact is that there was a time towards the end of August when the RAF was very much on its last legs and close to defeat. Only a change of tactics by the Germans enabled the RAF to gradually recover. Here, have a butcher's at this:

Göring soon realized success would not come easily. Not wanting to lose face with the Führer, he stepped up the pressure, throwing everything in his arsenal against the RAF, beginning on Saturday, August 24th. Over the next two weeks, the British suffered terribly, losing 466 planes. Fighter Command was desperately low on planes and pilots, flying its very last reserves. The Germans, by sheer weight of numbers, stood on the brink of victory.

But they didn't know this.

Göring had no idea the RAF was nearly knocked out. And now, in one of the great turning points of World War II, the German strategy abruptly changed.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/d ... -alone.htm

Yes, the fact is that the RAF started off very much from behind the eight-ball. But then the fact also is that the Luftwaffe had lost its initial advantage at such a fast rate that it got beaten so decisively that Hitler called the invasion of England off two months and two days after the first airborne attack. Besides that, the seaborne component of his invasion plan never got within cooee of marshalling the required equipment and men at the starting blocks, and was not expected to be ready for a long time. Meanwhile, Hitler was panicking about the possibility that the red army would soon have strengthened sufficiently for Stalin to invade Germany - and bloody well defeat the Wehrmacht. So he turned his forces east.

You'd do better to forget about what might have been and focus on what actually was. Perhaps then you would not need to ask the question "why the fuck did Hitler give up on defeating Britain before attacking Russia?" If you study what actually happened, you'd soon discover the answer. In case you can't be bothered I gave you a summarised version - twice now. Surely, you won't need to hear it a third time.

[Strontium Dog]

Britain hadn't been conquered for the best part of 9 centuries, what makes anyone think some stumpy little Kraut would succeed where everyone else had failed?

[pErvinalia]

Britain First!

[Hermit]

Britain hadn't been conquered for the best part of 9 centuries, what makes anyone think some stumpy little Kraut would succeed where everyone else had failed?

The stumpy little Kraut.

[jamest]

You'd do better to forget about what might have been and focus on what actually was. Perhaps then you would not need to ask the question "why the fuck did Hitler give up on defeating Britain before attacking Russia?" If you study what actually happened, you'd soon discover the answer.

You're making it sound as though Hitler acted correctly/objectively within the context of achieving an overall victory. That is very much questionable.

[Hermit]

You'd do better to forget about what might have been and focus on what actually was. Perhaps then you would not need to ask the question "why the fuck did Hitler give up on defeating Britain before attacking Russia?" If you study what actually happened, you'd soon discover the answer.

You're making it sound as though Hitler acted correctly/objectively within the context of achieving an overall victory. That is very much questionable.

Whether Hitler's actions were "correct" is easily ascertained by looking at the results of his actions. He set out to conquer the world and finished up 10 metres below ground level of the totally destroyed capital of his totally destroyed nation, chasing a bullet through his skull a few hours before the victorious enemy would have dragged him out of his hidey hole that made his previous redoubt, the Wolfschanze, appear positively palatial, and hung him up by his balls.

Of course he never took responsibility for his failures. As far as he was concerned, his people failed him and his generals betrayed him. As the self-proclaimed GröFaZ he should have shouldered the lot. Any leader is responsible for what his underlings do, and especially so the greatest one of all times.

I neither said nor implied what you read into my words.