Date Posted:14:59:06 06/16/07 Sat Author:RMW Stanford Author Host/IP: 74-141-135-135.dhcp.insightbb.com / 74.141.135.135 Subject: Re: Britain standing alone vs Germany who wins WW2 In reply to:
Carl
's message, "Re: Britain standing alone vs Germany who wins WW2" on 05:24:31 06/09/07 Sat
>Now you're crazy. Britain was not getting its butt
>kicked in the early war, the British didn't actually
>wait to see how they'd fare on their own after the
>French surrendered, they just decided to withdraw from
>the continent. However during their retreat to
>Dunkirk, they won basically every battle on the way
>there and caused so much damage to the German tanks
>that Germany stopped sending Panzers in agains the
>British because they were losing far too many and
>couldn't maintain an effective army if the loses
>continued. German commentaries at the time stated
>they weer, glad the British weren't going forwards
>because they'd have been losing territory fast.
>Admitedly there were set backs in Africa, but the
>African war would have gone the same way it went
>anyway with eventual British victory. The U boat
>strangle hold was more myth than fact. Less than 1%
>of allied shipping was sunk by u boats, the threat
>they posed was inflated, Britain wouldn't have any
>worry continuing with that loss rate. However, when
>saying Britain alone, are you including countries that
>identified themselves as British at the time like NZ,
>Canada and Australia? Canada would have
>industrialised much more than it did if America hadn't
>entered the war, the war would have been longer too,
>so Canada would have been contributing a lot of heavy
>arms by the end ie tanks and planes. NZ and Australia
>would have continued sending men and producing small
>arms and logistics equipment. And don't forget that
>the British Expeditionary Force that went to the
>continent was not by any means Britain's entire army.
>It wasn't even Britain's entire regular/standing army.
> It was a tiny army that did brilliantly in all
>engagements right up to Dunkirk.
I think you hit on a good point, what does Britain alone mean? Does mean that the Soviet and the US never entered the war, but Britain still has access to lend-lease and other forms aid and American industry or does it mean The British Empire entirely on it own, because that makes a big differences.
The big problem I see facing Britain is invading Europe, they would face all of the problems that the Western Allies did historical but with far smaller industrial base and pool or man power to do with plus facing a German Army that could entirely focus on the West.
The other question is are we just talking about Germany and Italy or is Japan include. The biggest threat from Japan would be that they could cut down or cut off supplies from Australia and New Zealand.
