If Hitler had understood that Britain would not Sue for peace in time
for him to make an assault on the SU as he was already planning then
there was only one option that actually could have done the job.

How about a German Invasion of Eire ? With enough strength maintained
in the French CHannel ports the RN would not have been able to maintain
a close blockade of the Irish ports or the Brittany coast anymore than
it was able to stop reinforcements to Norway. An Air landing / covert
sea operation into the SW or Eire would have been able to establish a
strong air head at least. If Germany can push the British out of
Ireland then they can enforce a close blockade of the rest of the UK and
starve Britain into submission. Meanwhile Britain can't afford to
direct a lot of resources away from the SE to Eire because of the
presence of significant German forces building there.

Note that the Iris Forces at that time would have been totally
ineffective while anti- british feelings would probably mean that
Britain would have had to carry out a counter invasion against an at
least partially hostile population - not a nice thought.

WOuld an unprovoked German invasion of Eire trigger a response from the
US strong enough and quick enough to make a difference ? Given the US
Isolationism and concerns in the Far East I doubt it. Once the UK has
surrendered Germany can withdraw from Eire in response to US political
pressure and both the US and Germany would have understood that.

End result would probably be a United Ireland which quiet a few of the
US Irish lobby would be strongly in favour of :-

So can Germany get a large enough force into Southern Eire quickly
enough while maintaining the Barge threat to the SW at a high enough
level that the UK can't commit enough forces to prevent the occupation
of Eire ?

Sea lion as the fake in the same way that the Allies convinced Hitler
that the invasion of Europe would occur in the Pas du Calais :-




Leadfoot wrote:
"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
...

Leadfoot wrote:


How successful could the luftwaffe had been if they had simply

concentrated

on attacking ports?

Successful at what? Certainly not successful winning air superiority

prior to

an invasion, which was what they were trying to do. They did bomb ports a

lot

during the BoB (Portsmouth, Southampton, Portland, Plymouth, London,

Bristol

and Liverpool by night), but except where they were able to damage

warships

that would otherwise be available to attack the invasion convoys and/or

shoot

down a lot of fighters, it was kind of irrelevant. In any case they

didn't

want to damage the port facilities on the south coast too much, because

they

figured they'd need them eventually to supply their armies. That presumes

the

Brits wouldn't have wrecked them as badly as the Germans wrecked the

French

ports in 1944/45, and also assumes that Sealion itself had succeeded

enough so

that ports would be an issue, which is damned unlikely given the relative

naval

strengths and the ever improving condition of the British Army.



I was thinking in terms of starving the British out. Not launching an
invasion that had no chance of success even with air superiority


Guy