When should Germany have surrendered?

[Grumbler]

First, there are these thing called boats. Small boats evacuated the 300,000 from Dunkirk. There are as many small boats in Europe as there are in England. Because they are small, you can load them on trains and move them to the ports that are needed.
As far as the RAF, controlling the channel, they couldn't in 1940. The Germans destroyed the coastal convoys that tried to use the channel and there was nothing the Royal navy or air force could do to stop them. The admiralty gave up on coastal shipping. The RAF won the battlke of Britian because the Bf-109 didn't have the range to fight over London, it did over the channel. That is why the RAF got spanked over Dunkirk and was unable to prevent the coastal convoys from being slaughtered.
The Luftwaffe had control of the air over the channel by late summer of 1940. They could not extend that control to cover lower England, but you are wrong to think the royal navy would have been able to prevent reinforcement of an air drop to capture a port capable of landing supplies and more men. The Germans could not have landed armor, but they didn't need armor to beat a bunch of old men and boys armed with longbows shotguns and pitchforks. Remember what happened to the Army and Navy at Crete?
As far as Donitz as a source, he always told Hitler what Hitler wanted to hear, why on earth do think he changed because he was a prisoner? Suck ups are suck ups. he boss can change but the sucking up doesn't.
And as a point of fact, the Japanese used 2nd line equipment in the Burma theater also. No zeros EVER fought in that theater. IIRC, there were Spitfires station at eother bangcok or Ragoon. They were shot out of the sky by the Japs in Ni-97's.
The Spitfire was a good plane, but it was far from the best plane. It was perhaps equal to the BF-109E. More 109's were lost by running out of fuel then were shot down by the RAF. Neither fighter was the equal of the Zero.
I say the Battle of the Atlantic was won in April of '43 because that was when the Allied production of shipping exceeded loses of shipping for the first time. And as you pointed out, WW2 was a war of production and logistics.

http://www.explorecrete.com/preveli/batt...crete.html

The Fallschirmjagers took almost 50% casualties. Crete could have been any small British coastal town with a dock. I think turn around time from fwance to england would have been shorter, which means more then two sorites could have ben flown. Air drop about 2 AM, then again about 5Am, with a 3rd wave either landing on captured airfilds or, if that didn't happen( unlikely, since it would require some British airman with an Enfield with 4 rounds fighting off a few dozen Fallschirmjager armed to the teeth)
The RAF had maybe a handfull of night fighters at that time. The greatest danger to the Germans would have been midair collision. The Raf, might have gotten too the 3rd wave, but by then they would have been better used against the small boats full of troops landing on the beaches.
No, the Germans could have invaded England in September of '40, if they had wanted to. The didn't want to, so they didn't. It was nothing the british did or could do that stopped them. Burning OIL on the water? So what? the boat will get to the beach before it's damaged by the burning OIL.

[Narwan]

Yes, quite true in a public sense, however (and I'll have to have a root around to find the references) there is more than a suggestion that Llyod-George was going to give a significant part of the fleet back to Germany and was certainly not going to enforce all the treaty conditions.

True, but this was after he himself had agreed to those same terms. In fact, some of them the British delegation had proposed themselves or had their inclusion forced. The position of (general?) Smuts who represented South Africa in the british delegation perfectly sums up the problem they had with the final treaty. After the final version was drafted he held a passionate speech within part of the delegation pointing to how this would merely set the stage for another war to come or perhaps worse, would so bankrupt and impoverish germany that it would fall into bolsjewik hands almost automatically. He and some others in the delegation went to Lloyd-George and told him they wouldn't sign. To which he replied to Smuts "so are you going to give german southwest africa (Now Namibia) back to them then?". Which he wouldn't off course.
Everyone saw that is was a bad treaty but expect someone else to act to rectify it. The treaty wasn't as much aimed against germany and the other central powers but more to create a 'fair' new balance of power between the victors. The idea of giving back part of the fleet was int he back of the mind of LG indeed, but would that mean only ships destined for the UK or should everyone who got part of the Hochsee Fleet in the settlement give some back? If not, the UK's position of primairy naval power was at risk... So I don't think it was more than an idea he played with, not a serious option.

There was certainly a feeling in some quaters that sacrificing Germany in the way it was would rebound on the other major powers in particular the UK. Allowing Germany to remain "armed" would provide a bulwark against French expansion abroad ... that is if the German's still had guns then the French would have to keep troops at home and stop messing around in the colonies ... no more repeats of Fashoda for instance.

Likewise allowing Germany to keep its colonies would keep the presure of the UK colonies ... at least to a certain extent.

The European's don't call us "Perfidious Albion" for nothing.

The UK had the largest commercial interests in germany and needed a healthy german economy as a market to dump their goods in (especially those produced cheaply in the dominions and colonies). They also suffered far less damage to their own economical infrastructure so wanted to get things back to 'normal' ASAP. Whereas the french in particular had to rebuild a significant part of their industry (up to 90% of the coal mines in former german occupied france had been destroyed by the germans which accounted for over 2/3's of frances prewar coal production capacity).

Keeping germany armed wasn't an option. As it was the french could barely accept the treaty as it was as they felt it left germany far to strong. A stronger germany would have been completely unacceptable to the French and the British would have had to come up with some huge compensations for the french to get anything like that through.

For that same reason (the careful balance between the victors) no serious amendments were possible or happened. In the end Germany just stopped abbiding by the conditions and the allies let them.

Narwan

[Periander]

[Sgt Barker]

[Grumbler]

"ROTFLMBO and you think that the same 109s that didn't have the range to properly fight over the UK during the BoB would suddenly have the necessary range to protect ground troops? Yeah, right."

NOT what I said. The 109 didn't have the range to provide air cover for bombers over London. They DID have the range to provide air cover over the bombers that shut down the English Channel to English ships in August of 1940. It took 5 minutes for the germans to cross the channel and attack ships using it. It took 15 minutes for the RAF to get enough altitude to intercept them. Do the math. Dowding told the War Cabinet that it was a waste of aircraft, and worse the pilots to figth the Luftwaffe over the channel. He was correct. It was nevy the airplanes that worried the brts, it was the pilots. A pilot shot down over England could be back in the air a few hours later, if needed, one shot down over the channel was probably dead, since the English had no trained rescue service like the germans did.

And I have more clues then you can deal with, which is why you are not being very rational on this subject. The Germans didn't do Sealion because they couldn't get the 10 Divisions they wanted. My reasoning is that they didn't NEED 10 divisions. 2 regiments would have been enough to grab a port and get it working. You land the prars, grab an airfield and go from there. The Germans were man to man worth about 10 brits in 1940. So landing 3,000 paras would have been more then enough to grab a foothold.
The Germans weren't interested in Invading England, since they figured you guys would surrender and if you didn't, so What? It was just not possible for England to beat Germany on it's own. You didn't have the men or resources.
Another thing you are overlooking is the difference in supply requirements. Germans needed about 25% of what the Allies considered normal. All that would have been needed was ammo. Food and medical supplies would have been captured.
It would not have been easy, but it would have been possible.

[Stryker]

Old Russian saying: "Never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig"

Just as there is no point in arguing with you.....:bang:

[Periander]

[Periander]