SS-GB on Sunday bbc1 9pm

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I'd tend to agree with this.

The Royal Navy was probably the biggest reason for Great Britain's continuing existence during the early stages of the war. It was a fearsome force, even if some of it's ships were ageing and obsolete in comparison to more modern fleets, like those of Italy and Germany.

It never seems to get as much credit as the other armed forces with their more 'glamorous' episodes such as the Battle of Britain, victory at El Alamein, the Normandy invasion etc. Even the evacuation from Dunkirk seems not to get the credit it deserved, probably as it came about because of a massive defeat. It performed heroically though, along with the Merchant Navy, in keeping Great Britain afloat, as it were.

For heroic episodes, read up on HMS Jervis Bay, and the efforts made to ensure the SS Ohio made it to Malta.

Good points re the RN. Also getting sunk in the middle of the Atlantic must be one of the most horrific ways to check out.

You don't like us in the navy do you?

Yes sir I like the navy - whenever we need to go somemplace to fight you're always there ready to give us a ride!
 


I'd tend to agree with this.

The Royal Navy was probably the biggest reason for Great Britain's continuing existence during the early stages of the war. It was a fearsome force, even if some of it's ships were ageing and obsolete in comparison to more modern fleets, like those of Italy and Germany.

It never seems to get as much credit as the other armed forces with their more 'glamorous' episodes such as the Battle of Britain, victory at El Alamein, the Normandy invasion etc. Even the evacuation from Dunkirk seems not to get the credit it deserved, probably as it came about because of a massive defeat. It performed heroically though, along with the Merchant Navy, in keeping Great Britain afloat, as it were.

For heroic episodes, read up on HMS Jervis Bay, and the efforts made to ensure the SS Ohio made it to Malta.

Well Germany had no effective capital ships at the time and the Bismark and Scharnhorst when they were deployed later were hunted down. After the retreat from Dunkirk, Churchill actually invited Mussolini to send his fleet to take part in the Axis assault and even offered safe passage to British waters. Mussolini didn't take up the invitation but after the Battle of Taranto in November 1940 in which the Italian navy took a battering it never really challenged the British in the Med.
 
With air superiority, yes. Air superiority would have meant that they could have destroyed the Royal Navy in the Channel, more or less unopposed.


We had no artillery. We'd left it all on the beaches of Dunkirk. We got 200,000 men back but had nothing for them to fight with.

sorry, but both your comments are wrong

the luftwaffe was pretty dreadful at sinking ships in 1940, they did'nt really get their act together until early 1941

and altho we had left a lot of equipment behind in France (cos you know it was'nt just Dunkirk) we still had lots of equipment handy in the UK (albeit there was a shortage in a few areas)
 
sorry, but both your comments are wrong

the luftwaffe was pretty dreadful at sinking ships in 1940, they did'nt really get their act together until early 1941

and altho we had left a lot of equipment behind in France (cos you know it was'nt just Dunkirk) we still had lots of equipment handy in the UK (albeit there was a shortage in a few areas)
My comments are what Churchill's chiefs of staff said to him in June 1940!
 
My comments are what Churchill's chiefs of staff said to him in June 1940!


which we now know were absolute tosh

they got themselves in a panic due to 'invasion scare', and also credited the germans with capabilities that at that time they simply did'nt possess
 
which we now know were absolute tosh

they got themselves in a panic due to 'invasion scare', and also credited the germans with capabilities that at that time they simply did'nt possess
Source?
 

this ones from wiki, discussing tank numbers

Estimates of the numbers of tanks in Britain after the fall of France vary; Viscount Cranbourne stated in the House of Lords (in 1942) that Britain only had 50 infantry tanks and 200 light tanks armed only with machine guns, and these figures have become the basis of the myth that the British Army in June 1940 had very few tanks. But Churchill stated that there were 102 cruiser tanks, 132 infantry tanks and 252 light tanks left in Britain after the fall of France.[9] Churchill also stated "in the last half of September we were able to bring into action on the south coast front sixteen divisions of high quality of which three were armoured divisions or their equivalent in brigades".[10] An official history gave the figures for tank numbers on 10 June 1940 as 103 cruisers and 142 infantry tanks.[11] Other sources indicate that these had more than doubled by the end of July. Whatever the exact numbers in August 1940 the British Government felt sufficiently confident in Britain's ability to repel an invasion (and in its tank production factories) that it sent 52 cruiser and 50 infantry tanks to Egypt. At this time Britain's factories were almost matching Germany's output in tanks and by 1941 they would surpass them

yes we were short on artillery for a period, but by the time of any hypothetical sealion that shortage had also been addressed

as for the luftwaffe's ability to sink the RN. The figures for Dynamo look pretty good (5 or 6 destroyers sunk by air attack) but once you dig deeper you realise that these were mostly stationary targets that were embarking troops. The same could mostly be said for RN losses off Norway. In a hypothetical Sealion the RN would'nt be sat still waiting for an attack

The luftwaffe did'nt get its anti-shipping thing sorted until fleigerkorps X moved to the med in early 1941, prior to that they were as much a danger to their own side as they were to the allies (and these were the luftwaffe's elite anti-shipping unit)
 
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