You may say that Germany didn't have much if a navy but when you look at the power of there individual battleships then you relise that it was extreemly powerful.

The Royal Navy lived in fear of almost all the germans major warships. They had powerful guns and extreemly accurate fire control systems when compared to the british and american counterparts.

Ever since the start of the war Scharnorst and Gneisneau were top of the British hit list and were only put in second place with the launch of Bismark and Tirpitz.

The size of the German navy or Kreigsmarine in WWII is directly linked to the fact that they had to surrender all there major warships at the end of WWI and could not make warships of over a certain tonnage after WWI. The germans got round this with the pocket battleships and finally gave up and made their famous heavys.

The british in WWII had several WWI era dreadnaughts and battle cruisers aswell as several more built in the interwar years and a few made during the war. The means that we had a huge head start and therefore had a far more powerful navy but of lesser quality.

Well brensec my old mate, the RAF and Royal Navy would have sank the Aircraft carriers before decimating the invasion fleet.

They wouldn't have got us that easy! Besides... If they destroyed the RAF first then there would have been the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm so the invasion would have failed anyway.

So me hearties! We were not in that much danger in 1941 after all!

on Quote:


The failer to cause significant damage during the channel dash was due to a number of faults and mistakes made. There was a whole plan drawn up on how to tackle the warships when they did do the enevitable and take a run up the channel. Sadly for the british this plan was not activated at the time therefore all the bombers, warships and other units that were inplace failed to do any damage at all. In the end 6 swordfish attacked... They shot down quite a few Fw190's in the process of being shot down themselves. 2 torpedos were launced and non hit. It was a gallant attack which was really a last resort to make sure that they didn't get through with out a fight...

Interesting comments all.

It's obvious that Hitler would have preferred that Britain not resist Germanies incursions on mainland Europe.

The fact that it's widely accepted that Hitler didn't allow the full "might" of the German Army and Luftwaffe to bear on the trapped British at Dunkirk and his many "assertions" that he had no designs on Britain or her Empire would suggest that he would possibly have been amenable to the simple subduing of British forces and a small occupation forces to see that there was no chance of more hostilities (which Britain would have needed US support for, anyway).

This leaves me wondering how serious he really would have been about Operation Lion, had it been possible.
I've have read that the Germans didn't have anywhere near enough landing craft or vessels of the kind needed to transport the necessary equipment.

On the European front, there was comparatively little activity on either side from October '40 until 18 months (9 in the East) later when the US had arrived in Britain in any force. The majority of the action was either in Africa or in the Atlantic. The Atlantic action being solely a result of American aid and supplies being shipped. So given this, the one thing that does puzzle me is the fact that Hitler, having just become bogged down in Russia by the worst winter in memory, decided to declare war on the US at such a time.
I know anyone else had to honour the Tri-partite Pact, but he had never shied from breaking his word or ignoring treaties before. Why support Japan at that time, when things were just beginning to turn bad for him?

Smoke2much, you would realise why a german invasion would have failed if you saw there landing craft. They were simply barges with the bow cut off. It would have taken the Germans 4 days to unload the amount of men and equipment that we landed in the first day of D-day. The Panzers would of had to of waited intill the infantry had established a huge beach head which could have taken weeks. In that time the Royal Navy would have decimated the invasion fleet and stopped the invasion.

Was down at Blockbuster today and came across one of those "obscure" titles in the area well away frrom the "quality New Releases" called "Dark Blue World".

On the cover was a Spitfire and a pic of an WWII RAF Officer. Obviously I had to pick it up and see if it was something worth seeing.
But after reading the usual "wonderful dogfight sequences, superb cinematography blah blah blah" I also read "SUBTITLED".
It is apparently a Csech movie withEnglish subtitles.

I can't stand subtitled movies, but I'll see this one if the aircraft stuff is plentiful and decent.

Has anyone seen it. Can someone recommend or debunk?

are you sure,woodlouse?

i think that the stukas, battleships and u-boats would have sunk the british ships and without being covered by the RAF,the royal navy would never have had a chance to win. especially not against such battleships like the "bismarck" (what if the bismark had shot down that swordfish,before it could drop its torpedo??).
i think,hitlers biggest mistake was the declaring war on america. america declared war on germany after germany declared war on america...what if..

"dark blue world"? gotta watch that movie. i hope it's almost as good as "the battle of britain". and brensec,why didn't you watch it? for me,it would not matter,if there were undertitles.