Was WWII....

[Foreigner]

My pleasure, Foreigner! :)

Just to further your background knowledge of WWII, let me make one point about the German Luftwaffe's capabilities in anti-ship missions: look up the meditereanian campaigns of 1941-42. There, with pre-war trained crews and experience from relative easy victories, the Luftwaffe showed it was an effective force and scored quite a number of Allied Navy vessles, including cruisers.

Side note:
The only reason (to my understanding) the British didn't loose the HMS Illustrious after 9 direct or hull breaching bomb hits, was due to their superb design wich resultet in impressive 'staying power'. An American Liaision-Navy Officer commented in the end-phase of the Pacific campaing:  "When a kamikaze hits a U.S. carrier it means 6 months of repair at Pearl [Harbor]. When a kamikaze hits a Limey carrier it’s just a case of "Sweepers, man your brooms."” (Wikipedia: Article on Kamikaze)

Das Morbo,

The pleasure was all mine!

Thank you for drawing my attention to the Mediterranean campaign in WWII, and its implication for my argumentation! I stand corrected - the Luftwaffe did sink RN cruisers, and proved able to seriously damage RN capital ships even before 1943 and the introduction of the "Fritz-X" guided bomb. So, my statement about the Luftwaffe record against the RN should more properly have been qualified by adding "in British home waters, and in the early war period" - which, of course, would make the argument somewhat weaker, but, in my mind, still would not jeopardize the final conclusion.

After all, these German successes were achieved after the active phase of the Battle of Britain had been over (meaning they had time to rebuild, and incorporate lessons learned), in a different theater away from Britain (the RN Mediterranean Fleet being somewhat weaker than the RN Home Fleet, and further from the main support bases), and had at least some help from the Italians (I believe that for all their limitations, Italian air power was stronger than anything British allies could provide at the time).  The "Fritz-X" development, I suppose, is an indirect confirmation that the Luftwaffe themselves had not been satisfied by their then current anti-ship capabilities.

What these successes also proved, in my opinion, were the benefits of learning from past experience and adapting (for the German side), and the dangers of (maybe) underestimating an opponent they had beaten before (for the British).

It can also be a start of a next round of "What if" discussions - did the British have a reasonable chance to keep their Balkan allies free from occupation?  What additional effort would it have taken, and did the strategic and operational benefits outweigh the cost?