Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

Garrison said:
It's an exciting film but don't watch it with a tank enthusiast. ;)
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Someone mentioned the Spainish locations that look nothing like the Ardennes.....

"Patton" also was shot in Spain, but they found locations..probably in the Pyranees in Northren Spain...that do resemble the Ardennes for the Bulge segments of the film. I guess the producer of "Battle of The Bulge" could not be botherd to do much location hunting....
 
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dudalb said:
Someone mentioned the Spainish locations that look nothing like the Ardennes.....

"Patton" also was shot in Spain, but they found locations..probably in the Pyranees in Northren Spain...that do resemble the Ardennes for the Bulge segments of the film. I guess the producer of "Battle of The Bulge" could not be botherd to do much location hunting....
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Well Captain_Swoop mentioned the dusty plains of the Ardennes... and he isn't usually the idiot in this thread...
 
Garrison said:
What I've read suggest that the Blitzkrieg doctrine was really only formally developed after the success of the attack on France. The Ardennes plan was more the product of the limitations of German logistics and the fact that the original plan was compromised.
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The Germans and Guderian were developing blitzkrieg tactics way before that:

https://m.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/heinz-guderian-the-father-of-the-blitzkrieg.html

In the following years, he rose up the ranks, earning a General star in 1936. Due to his knowledge on the subject, he was given command over the XVI Army Corps of the Wehrmacht. At the same time, Guderian wrote his first book, titled Achtung – Panzer (Attention – Tank) which proved pivotal in the future development of panzer tactics, especially in the early stages of WWII.

In the book, the author discusses the importance of armored warfare and the extinction of the static trench war that defined WWI. He notes that the Allied superiority in both tanks and aircraft were instrumental in their victory and calls for a radical adoption of this technology. Guderian explored the possibilities of a combined warfare which utilized the use of tanks supported by motorized infantry and airplanes.
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Henri McPhee said:
The Germans and Guderian were developing blitzkrieg tactics way before that:

https://m.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/heinz-guderian-the-father-of-the-blitzkrieg.html
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Very much inspired by the writings of Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart commonly known as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart with whome he corresponded in the pre war years (along with Rommel)

and also by Major-General John Frederick Charles Fullers book 'The Foundations of the Science of War' and his 'Nine Principles of War which have influenced much military theory since the 1930s.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Very much inspired by the writings of Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart commonly known as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart with whome he corresponded in the pre war years (along with Rommel)

and also by Major-General John Frederick Charles Fullers book 'The Foundations of the Science of War' and his 'Nine Principles of War which have influenced much military theory since the 1930s.
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Yes, Dad has his father's 1941 penguin edition of The British Way on Warfare

It's an interesting read.
 
Henri McPhee said:
The Germans and Guderian were developing blitzkrieg tactics way before that:

https://m.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/heinz-guderian-the-father-of-the-blitzkrieg.html
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I should have said 'adopted' not developed. Yes Guderian was developing his tactical ideas well before 1940, BUT they were not greeted with any great enthusiasm by the German high command. Up until February 1940 they were going with what amounted to an updated Schlieffen Plan. They changed their minds because that plan was compromised by documents falling into French/British hands and the prospect that Guederian's plan would lead to the quick victory Germany desperately needed.

It was however a massive gamble, if the French had maintained more of a reserve, or their leadership had been even a little more dynamic, it would most likely have ended in disaster. The battle of Arras gave a hint of what could have happened and contributed to the German generals, not Hitler, calling the panzers to a halt to regroup.

After the fall of France Germany formalized 'Blitzkrieg' as their combat doctrine, but they grossly overestimated its utility and when they tried it again in Operation Barbarossa its key flaw was exposed, if the enemy didn't rapidly collapse the Wehrmacht forces soon exhausted their supplies and their logistics train could not resupply them effectively. As with so much else after the war the German Generals did their best to buff their reputations (see earlier claims in this thread about Dunkirk and Operation Sealion) and pretended Blitzkrieg was the product of some coherent program of strategic innovation rather than a flawed necessity based on ideas Guederian refined but did not invent.

Now in the context of this thread several additional problems confront the notion of a autumn 1938/Spring 1939 Blitzkrieg. Firstly obviously Guederian has had much less time to develop his ideas. Secondly Germany lacks the means to put them into practice. Their armour in 1938 is dominated by Panzer Is and IIs which were little more than training vehicles and they have far fewer armour and infantry divisions to put into the field. Blitzkrieg against France is not in an option for the Germans in a 1938 war, even if Guederian could overcome the inertia of the high command and persuade them to adopt his ideas.
 
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The first production Spitfire was on May 14th 1938. Germany could have attacked France through the Ardennes in 1938. The French had done an intelligence assessment of that possibility and concluded it was not possible, but somehow the Germans obtained that information and became very interested in it. The Luftwaffe was strong in 1938 while the RAF was woefully inadequate:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...e_czechoslovakia_to_adolf_hitler_seventy.html

First, a look at the military situation. Most historians agree that the British army was not ready for war with Germany in September 1938. If war had broken out over the Czechoslovak crisis, Britain would only have been able to send two divisions to the continent—and ill-equipped divisions, at that. Between 1919 and March 1932, Britain had based its military planning on a “10-year rule,” which assumed Britain would face no major war in the next decade. Rearmament only began in 1934—and only on a limited basis. The British army, as it existed in September 1938, was simply not intended for continental warfare. Nor was the rearmament of the Navy or the Royal Air Force complete. British naval rearmament had recommenced in 1936 as part of a five-year program. And although Hitler’s Luftwaffe had repeatedly doubled in size in the late 1930s, it wasn't until April 1938 that the British government decided that its air force could purchase as many aircraft as could be produced.
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Henri McPhee said:
The first production Spitfire was on May 14th 1938. Germany could have attacked France through the Ardennes in 1938. The French had done an intelligence assessment of that possibility and concluded it was not possible, but somehow the Germans obtained that information and became very interested in it. The Luftwaffe was strong in 1938 while the RAF was woefully inadequate:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...e_czechoslovakia_to_adolf_hitler_seventy.html
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Still wrong Henri.

A fringe reset huh. The German's didn't have a plan at that time I believe the later Manstein Plan that was later created was an attack with the right flank not the center the center attack came about in 1940.

The Luftwaffe was not strong enough to take on the French, Belgian, Dutch and British Airforce's at that time and - your claim - bomb England into submission in one week was impossible as was an invasion of England.
 
There is a bit about the Germans and the Ardennes which makes sense to me at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/23romr/how_were_the_germans_able_to_so_easily_pass/

The French did not consider it to be a literally impassable area. The French and Belgians had done inter-war year testing and knew full well that tanks could pass through the forest.
The idea that the French thought of the forest as impassable is attributed to the inter-war French General Maxime Waygand, who described it as not requiring defensive fortifications ( to the intensity that the Maginot Line was built), and that if properly defended, the combination of terrain and forest would make the area impassable.
The French were under the impression that it would take the Germans ten days for an armored element to navigate the forest. Especially because they would have to cross a major river where all the bridges were destroyed. They felt the combination of the time and effort involved in moving armor made it an unlikely route of armored attack. As well, they had scouts in villages in the area, which gave them a sense they could see the attack coming.
The French expected, if anything was to be moved through the forest, it would be German light infantry and artillery to move through the forest.
When the Germans attacked, the French scouts were unable to properly communicate what they were seeing to higher headquarters, and the French were unexpectedly attacked by armor (instead of infantry) almost a week earlier than they expected to be physically able. The French high command, without the full reports from scouts were convinced that the reports of German movements in the Ardennes they were receiving were of minor German forces conducting diversions. They sent their limited forces to what they considered more likely routes of attack.
The Germans crossed the rivers especially quickly by deploying pontoons strung along cables to transport their tanks over river crossings. They navigated quickly, with tanks that were able to handle rough terrain better than expected, and in four days had come out of the forest. The communication equipment in their tanks kept the movement organized, and also faster.
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Henri McPhee said:
There is a bit about the Germans and the Ardennes which makes sense to me at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/23romr/how_were_the_germans_able_to_so_easily_pass/
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Very much simplified and misses out key elements such as the Germans using their air force as tactical artillery to support the ground advance. This is one of the key elements that allowed a fast advance through such difficult closed terrain.

French tactical thinking was heavily influenced by the speed at which artillery could advance and emplace to support an attack.
French artillery at the time was horse drawn (as was much of the German artillery) It took up a lot of road and was slow. In the heavily forested Ardennes with narrow meandering roads it would have been unable to keep up with the front line.
British artillery was completely mechanised by the start of the war but even then the 6" guns were nicknamed the 'Divisional Road Block' because of their low speed of deployment and advance.

By using dive bombers as tactical close support artillery the ground units were free to advance without fear of 'outrunning' their guns. It also cut down the logistics required for the advance, even then there was a huge traffic jam and supplies for the leading units were slow in arriving. Some units had to rely on foraging for fuel supplies from roadside garages and captured vehicles to avoid having to halt and wait for the supply to catch up.
 
Henri McPhee said:
There is a bit about the Germans and the Ardennes which makes sense to me at:
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Why given you track record in this thread would you think the article making sense to you would be a recommendation? And again you are discussing the Wehrmacht of 1940, the German army of 1938 had neither the means nor the strategy to carry out a 'Blitzkrieg'. We are still waiting for you to support your claims.
 
Henri McPhee said:
The first production Spitfire was on May 14th 1938. Germany could have attacked France through the Ardennes in 1938. The French had done an intelligence assessment of that possibility and concluded it was not possible, but somehow the Germans obtained that information and became very interested in it. The Luftwaffe was strong in 1938 while the RAF was woefully inadequate:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...e_czechoslovakia_to_adolf_hitler_seventy.html
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During the Battle of Britain, Hurricanes downed more aircraft than Spitfires. The RAF was indeed stronger in 1939 than 1938... However, and this is the bit you seem to be missing, so was the Luftwaffe.
 
Henri McPhee said:
The first production Spitfire was on May 14th 1938.
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And the first production Bf 109E wasn't completed until early 1939. At the time of Munich, and for many months after, the Luftwaffe fighter squadrons were mainly equipped with the Bf 109D, which was comparable in performance to the Hurricane, but had only half the firepower. Additionally, the D model lacked a fuel-injection engine, giving the aircraft the same aerobatic performance disadvantage as the early Spitfires and Hurricanes. Fail.

Henri McPhee said:
Germany could have attacked France through the Ardennes in 1938. The French had done an intelligence assessment of that possibility and concluded it was not possible, but somehow the Germans obtained that information and became very interested in it.
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Yes, they could have attacked, and that attack would have been virtually certain to have been a miserable failure, for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost, what makes you imagine that the Germans would have attacked France without first dealing with Czechoslovakia? If this would have been such a great idea in October 1938, then why didn't the Germans try it in September 1939, when their army was much stronger, and they had a nonaggression pact with the Soviets?

Second, as has been explained to you, ad nauseam as usual, the panzer formations that were so crucial to the German breakthroughs in the west in 1940 were much weaker, and far less numerous, in 1938. Specifically, in May 1940, the Germans had nearly 1000 tanks that mounted 37mm or larger guns. In October 1938 they had fewer than 150, and the majority of these were developmental models with extremely thin front armor, which made them vulnerable to even the the weak French 25mm antitank gun, as, of course, were the earlier panzers. In 1940 the Germans were able to use their heavier tanks to outmaneuver the French tanks and destroy them from the rear; this simply wasn't possible for the lightly armed Panzer Is and IIs.

Henri McPhee said:
The Luftwaffe was strong in 1938 while the RAF was woefully inadequate:
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We've been over this many times; the Luftwaffe wasn't nearly as strong as you imagine, nor was the RAF nearly as weak as you imagine.

Henri McPhee said:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...e_czechoslovakia_to_adolf_hitler_seventy.html
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Yet another article written by a journalist with the clear agenda of rehabilitating appeasement by rehabilitating Chamberlain. Fail.
 
SpitfireIX said:
deleted good stuff
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Since Henri is actually participating in the discussion...... I have a question on how effective and how much impact did the British anti-aircraft system have on the Battle of Britain and what sort of shape was it in 1938?
 
Hans said:
Since Henri is actually participating in the discussion...... I have a question on how effective and how much impact did the British anti-aircraft system have on the Battle of Britain and what sort of shape was it in 1938?
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AA had very little effect. Very few German aircraft were shot down by A until later in the war when Radar direction and proximity fuses were available.

The guns in London were a big morale booster though.
 
Hans said:
Since Henri is actually participating in the discussion...... I have a question on how effective and how much impact did the British anti-aircraft system have on the Battle of Britain and what sort of shape was it in 1938?
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The anti-aircraft system in 1938 seems to me to have been woefully inadequate. In 1938 it was just assumed that any air attack would come from Germany in the east. As Garrison has said, it was assumed that the Luftwaffe would never reach Northern France because it was assumed there was no possibility of that happening.

There is a bit about the matter in the Battle of Britain book 1989 by Alfred Price:

The part played by the heavy anti-aircraft gun batteries during the Battle of Britain has usually been neglected. The task of the heavy gun defences was four-fold: first, to shoot down or damage enemy aircraft; secondly to split up the enemy formations so that the fighters could engage the bombers more easily; thirdly, to indicate the position of enemy aircraft to the fighters; and fourthly, to prevent or hinder accurate bombing. And while they were rarely successful in achieving the first three of these, the gunners were consistently able to achieve the fourth.
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I don't know much about the Royal Observer Corps. There is some waffle about it, and its job in 1938, at this website:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Observer_Corps#Interwar_Period
 
Henri McPhee said:
The anti-aircraft system in 1938 seems to me to have been woefully inadequate. In 1938 it was just assumed that any air attack would come from Germany in the east. As Garrison has said, it was assumed that the Luftwaffe would never reach Northern France because it was assumed there was no possibility of that happening.

There is a bit about the matter in the Battle of Britain book 1989 by Alfred Price:



I don't know much about the Royal Observer Corps. There is some waffle about it, and its job in 1938, at this website:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Observer_Corps#Interwar_Period
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Henri, you don't need to preface every statement about your lack of knowledge on the subject - by now I'm taking that as read.

The thing is that the air defences in 1938 were not woefully inadequate for threat they faced in 1938.

The Luftwaffe was not going to fly from airbases that it were in the control of its enemies.
 
Henri McPhee said:
As Garrison has said, it was assumed that the Luftwaffe would never reach Northern France because it was assumed there was no possibility of that happening.
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Henri please provide the number of the post where I said that or retract this. I'll be generous and assume this was your poor comprehension skills at work again rather than you outright lying.

All I have ever said was that any attack on Britain in 1938 would have to be carried out without proper fighter cover and that the Luftwaffe concluded in 1938 that they could no carry out such a campaign. I have never suggested they couldn't reach Northern France nor that there was no possibility of this happening.

Retract in your next post or I will assume you did deliberately lie and report you to the mods.
 
Henri McPhee said:
The anti-aircraft system in 1938 seems to me to have been woefully inadequate. In 1938 it was just assumed that any air attack would come from Germany in the east.
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The questions that would have lead to the state of the AA system in the UK:

1. What was the air threat to the United Kingdom?
2. Where was this air threat likely to come from?
3. What resources do you need to defend against the likely threat?
4. Can said resources be diverted if circumstances require?
5. How easily can said resources be diverted?
6. Who will co-ordinate (strategically and operationally)?
7. Are the resources currently allocated enough to meet the anticipated threat?
8. If not, can we get additional resources (ie. are there higher defence priorities)?
9. When can we get additional resources?

Answer the first 4 questions and you should be able to determine that the AA system in 1938 was adequate for the German threat at the time, but was in need of improvements in light of projected developments in the Luftwaffe (increased numbers of Me109e, and development of longer ranged aircraft).
 
Garrison said:
Indeed, there's a big difference between thinking another 6 months or year would be useful and being sanguine about throwing the Czechs under the bus...
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The trouble with you people is that you practically all think Britain should have gone to war in 1938. That's want of judgment, and it's not just me who thinks so either.
 
Henri McPhee said:
The trouble with you people is that you practically all think Britain should have gone to war in 1938. That's want of judgment, and it's not just me who thinks so either.
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With hindsight? Lets revisit the bullet points shall we? The evidence overwhelmingly supports a firm stance against Hitler in summer '38. For one there is a chance Hitler backs down. For another there is a chance of a military coup. Even if war does start Germany has no captured Czech tanks. They have a handful of Pz III's and Iv in '38. Maybe enough to equip one division. The rest of their armored force is Pz I's and II's which are obsolete compared to what the allies had. Their plans for invasion was still the Schleifen plan that had absolutely 0% chance of a quick result against France. So its a static WW1 style front. That means no Italian entry into the war, Mussolini was an opportunist who saw an easy land grab after Germany had basically defeated France. All in all the odds of a worse outcome for the allies are really close to nil.
 
Henri McPhee said:
The trouble with you people is that you practically all think Britain should have gone to war in 1938. That's want of judgment, and it's not just me who thinks so either.
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How is it want of judgment?

Which nation state benefited most from the time between the Munich Accords and the invasion of Poland? ie. which country got to incorporate large quantities of superior pattern armoured vehicles into their fleets, got additional industrial resources, was able to geographically improve their position for military action against an intended target? Which country had a general staff that stated that they could not win a war on two fronts against Czechoslovakia and Britain/France?
 
Henri McPhee said:
The trouble with you people is that you practically all think Britain should have gone to war in 1938. That's want of judgment, and it's not just me who thinks so either.
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That's nice but they actually should have stopped Hitler when he entered the Rhineland and remilitarized it in 1936 but they were into appeasement then too and we all know - even you - where that ultimately led to.

Belgium became a neutral country again in 1936 effectively cutting itself away from staff planning with the French and British. Those two nations would never violated Belgium neutrality but Germany certainly would and had in the past.

Belgium concluded an alliance with France in 1920 but after the remilitarization Belgium opted again for neutrality. On 14 October 1936 King Leopold III of Belgium said in a speech:

"The reoccupation of the Rhineland, by ending the Locarno arrangement, has almost brought us back to our international position before the war... We must follow a policy exclusively and entirely Belgian. The policy must aim solely at placing us outside the quarrels of our neighbors".

Belgian neutrality meant there could be no staff talks between the Belgian military and those of other nations, which meant that when German forces invaded Belgium in 1940, there were no plans whatsoever for coordinating the movement of Belgian forces with those of France and Britain, which gave the Germans a head-start in their offensive

With the Rhineland re-militarized, Germany started the construction of the Siegfried Line, which meant that if Germany attacked any of the states in the cordon sanitaire, the ability of France to start an offensive against Germany in response to a German aggression against the states of the cordon sanitaire was henceforward limited
 
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Oh and thanks to folks who responded to my question about British AAA. That was one area I had never looked at closely. I had studied it for the anti-Zeppelin, Gotha and ZS campaign in WWI and wondered how it had fared.
 
I was interested in just how many tanks Adolf would have had from his Blitzkrieg.
Here’s a few details, culled from Wikipedia:
First of all, the Panzer I. Not intended as a battle tank, just to be used to train crews. Manufactured between 1934 and 1938, some 1,659 armed versions were produced. Of these 1,190 were Ausfuehrung A, with suspension issues, and an overheating engine. By the way, about 30% of all tanks used in the Anschluss with Austria broke down in that operation. Oh, and 10 were sold to China, and around 110 sent to Spain.

Next we have the Panzer II – designed as an interim, stop-gap tank, but the Wehrmacht was forced to use it as a battle tank. Between March 1937 and April 1940 1,113 models A, B & C were built. For these 35 months, the average was 31.8 tanks per month. In the 16 months up to September 1938, production calculates as 508.8 tanks. Let’s be generous, and call it 510.

Now we come to the first ‘real’ tank, the Panzer III. IN 1937, 10 model A, and 10 model B were built. IN 1937/8, 15 model C arrived. In 1938, 25 model D’s were built. So, a grand total of 60 tanks for the Blitzkrieg.

And finally, the Panzer IV. Prior to the Polish campaign, 217 of this tank were built, 35 model A, 42 model B and 140 model C. Therefore, between 1937 and 1939. The model C was apparently introduced in late 1938, so before Munich let’s estimate 40 of this model would have been available.

To conclude, 1,100 Panzer I’s, 510 Panzer II’s, 60 Panzer III’s and 117 Panzer IV’s. So – rounding up gives Adolf 1,800 tanks, of which maybe 180 were proper battle tanks, and the majority were the unreliable and unsuitable Panzer I.

Shall we take a peek as what happened in Poland? Well, there were something like 2,700 tanks used, but only 310 Mark III and IVs. And around 350 Czech tanks. 832 tanks were lost in the campaign, so about a third of the available tanks. In fact, around half of the tank force were unavailable due to maintenance issues or enemy action.

Now, after an alternative Munich, where Chamberlain said no, the first campaign of the Wehrmacht would have been against the Czechs. It’s quite likely that the Czechs would have fought hard against the Wehrmacht, so it’s likely that there would have been few tanks to switch to attacking in the west.
 
Hans said:
Oh and thanks to folks who responded to my question about British AAA. That was one area I had never looked at closely. I had studied it for the anti-Zeppelin, Gotha and ZS campaign in WWI and wondered how it had fared.
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I used to have the figures for number of shells expended for number of aircraft shot down but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

Suffice to say with Proximity Fuses and Radar the kill rate went up but far too late for the BoB.

Proximity Fuses were a high priority and very secret when they were first developed, they transformed the effectiveness of AA.

As hinted at further up the thread the main effects in the BoB were in morale for the civilian population and in disrupting bomb aimers and breaking up formatiions and forcing them higher.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
I used to have the figures for number of shells expended for number of aircraft shot down but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

Suffice to say with Proximity Fuses and Radar the kill rate went up but far too late for the BoB.

Proximity Fuses were a high priority and very secret when they were first developed, they transformed the effectiveness of AA.

As hinted at further up the thread the main effects in the BoB were in morale for the civilian population and in disrupting bomb aimers and breaking up formatiions and forcing them higher.
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As I understand it we (US Army) wouldn't even use proximity fuses in ground artillery until rather late in the war for fears that the Germans would get their hands on one and reverse engineer it.
 
lobosrul5 said:
As I understand it we (US Army) wouldn't even use proximity fuses in ground artillery until rather late in the war for fears that the Germans would get their hands on one and reverse engineer it.
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Similarly the RAF wouldn't fly the Meteor over enemy held territory in case one was shot down and the Germans got the engines.
 
Hans said:
Henri certainly likes to pretend that no one is replying to him - doesn't he?
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Oh he's now moved on to inventing stuff other people posted so he can show ridiculous these fictitious posts are.
 
Hans said:
Since Henri is actually participating in the discussion...... I have a question on how effective and how much impact did the British anti-aircraft system have on the Battle of Britain and what sort of shape was it in 1938?
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Sorry I didn't respond sooner; I had to work late last night. Just to add to what others have said, I found this from what appears to be an official historical monograph from 1957, The Defence of the United Kingdom, digitized on Gawdzilla's website:

. . . In the autumn [of 1938] the German attitude became so threatening that the British Government ordered an emergency deployment of a great part of the home defences.

The deployment was not a full-dress rehearsal for mobilisation. Neither a state of hostilities nor the 'precautionary period' for which the various departments of State had drawn up plans was deemed to have begun. In some respects conditions were less favourable for rapid moves of units than they might have been if emergency measures had been applied more widely. Nevertheless the experience provided a convincing demonstration of unreadiness for war. In Fighter Command twenty-nine fighter squadrons were reckoned mobilisable, but only five of them had modern aircraft. Even those five were incapable of fighting at high altitudes, for their guns had not yet been modified to work above 15,000 feet. There were also five squadrons of Gladiators, old-fashioned in appearance and no match for modern fighters, but capable of engaging bombers. The rest of the fighter squadrons had obsolete or obsolescent aircraft. There were no stored reserves of fighter aircraft; immediate reserves with squadrons and in workshops amounted to about two-fifths of first-line strength. The radar chain gave partial cover only between the Wash and Dungeness, communications were incomplete, and the whole command was dependent on radio equipment much inferior to that which replaced it in 1939 and 1940. The London balloon-barrage was only about one-third ready--142 balloons were deployed towards an establishment of 450--and its deployment raised many problems, not all of which had been foreseen. The state of the anti-aircraft and searchlight formations was still worse. Nearly 50,000 Territorials joined the air defence and coast defence formations when summoned, but only about one-third of the anti-aircraft guns and lights proposed by the Reorientation Committee in 1937 were available. Some of them were not in working order or were accompanied by unsuitable ammunition or equipment. The majority of the guns were of the obsolescent 3-inch pattern, some fifty 3-7-inch and no 4-5-inch pieces being ready. Arrangements for billeting and the issue of stores left much to be desired. Measures of Civil Defence were hampered, according to the Air Raid Precautions Department of the Home Office, by undue regard for secrecy.[ETA: citations and note omitted]​


Henri will doubtless seize on the above as evidence that Britain could have been bombed into submission in a week, while conveniently ignoring the facts that a) terror bombing by itself has never led to the capitulation of any nation, and b) the Luftwaffe had a lot of very serious deficiencies of its own at this time.

Further, many of these deficiencies were, or could have been, quickly remedied, especially with the impetus of war. For example, the high-altitude gun problem was solved by the expedient of covering the gun ports with fabric patches, and dedicated landlines were being installed in order to communicate radar data.
 
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SpitfireIX said:
Sorry I didn't respond sooner; I had to work late last night. Just to add to what others have said, I found this from what appears to be an official historical monograph from 1957, The Defence of the United Kingdom, digitized on Gawdzilla's website:

. . . In the autumn [of 1938] the German attitude became so threatening that the British Government ordered an emergency deployment of a great part of the home defences.

The deployment was not a full-dress rehearsal for mobilisation. Neither a state of hostilities nor the 'precautionary period' for which the various departments of State had drawn up plans was deemed to have begun. In some respects conditions were less favourable for rapid moves of units than they might have been if emergency measures had been applied more widely. Nevertheless the experience provided a convincing demonstration of unreadiness for war. In Fighter Command twenty-nine fighter squadrons were reckoned mobilisable, but only five of them had modern aircraft. Even those five were incapable of fighting at high altitudes, for their guns had not yet been modified to work above 15,000 feet. There were also five squadrons of Gladiators, old-fashioned in appearance and no match for modern fighters, but capable of engaging bombers. The rest of the fighter squadrons had obsolete or obsolescent aircraft. There were no stored reserves of fighter aircraft; immediate reserves with squadrons and in workshops amounted to about two-fifths of first-line strength. The radar chain gave partial cover only between the Wash and Dungeness, communications were incomplete, and the whole command was dependent on radio equipment much inferior to that which replaced it in 1939 and 1940. The London balloon-barrage was only about one-third ready--142 balloons were deployed towards an establishment of 450--and its deployment raised many problems, not all of which had been foreseen. The state of the anti-aircraft and searchlight formations was still worse. Nearly 50,000 Territorials joined the air defence and coast defence formations when summoned, but only about one-third of the anti-aircraft guns and lights proposed by the Reorientation Committee in 1937 were available. Some of them were not in working order or were accompanied by unsuitable ammunition or equipment. The majority of the guns were of the obsolescent 3-inch pattern, some fifty 3-7-inch and no 4-5-inch pieces being ready. Arrangements for billeting and the issue of stores left much to be desired. Measures of Civil Defence were hampered, according to the Air Raid Precautions Department of the Home Office, by undue regard for secrecy.[ETA: citations and note omitted]​


Henri will doubtless seize on the above as evidence that Britain could have been bombed into submission in a week, while conveniently ignoring the facts that a) terror bombing by itself has never led to the capitulation of any nation, and b) the Luftwaffe had a lot of very serious deficiencies of its own at this time.

Further, many of these deficiencies were, or could have been, quickly remedied, especially with the impetus of war. For example, the high-altitude gun problem was solved by the expedient of covering the gun ports with fabric patches, and dedicated landlines were being installed in order to communicate radar data.
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And there's a nice comment in that stating that Gladiators were capable of engaging bombers!
 
Rincewind said:
I was interested in just how many tanks Adolf would have had from his Blitzkrieg.
Here’s a few details, culled from Wikipedia:
First of all, the Panzer I. Not intended as a battle tank, just to be used to train crews. Manufactured between 1934 and 1938, some 1,659 armed versions were produced. Of these 1,190 were Ausfuehrung A, with suspension issues, and an overheating engine. By the way, about 30% of all tanks used in the Anschluss with Austria broke down in that operation. Oh, and 10 were sold to China, and around 110 sent to Spain.
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Just to point out for anyone unfamiliar, the Panzer I didn't even have a cannon; it was armed with two machine guns.

Rincewind said:
Next we have the Panzer II – designed as an interim, stop-gap tank, but the Wehrmacht was forced to use it as a battle tank. Between March 1937 and April 1940 1,113 models A, B & C were built. For these 35 months, the average was 31.8 tanks per month. In the 16 months up to September 1938, production calculates as 508.8 tanks. Let’s be generous, and call it 510.
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Actually, 300 were built in 1937, and 669 in 1938 (source). This includes at least 125 developmental models a, b, and c (Panzer II mark numbers are case sensitive). So the number available in September 1938 was probably closer to 800. But not all of these, or all the Panzer Is, obviously, could have been assigned to the Panzer divisions; some would have been required for training.

Rincewind said:
Now we come to the first ‘real’ tank, the Panzer III. IN 1937, 10 model A, and 10 model B were built. IN 1937/8, 15 model C arrived. In 1938, 25 model D’s were built. So, a grand total of 60 tanks for the Blitzkrieg.
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This source says there were 30 Panzer III Ds built. Also, there were actually 15 B versions built, but five of them were converted to assault guns. I wonder if that might not have happened with the D model, also.

Additionally, we should bear in mind that most or all of these had extremely weak front armor (15mm), except the last 15 D models may have theirs strengthened (30mm), at least enough to better resist anti-tank rifles and the aforementioned 25mm anti-tank gun).

Rincewind said:
And finally, the Panzer IV. Prior to the Polish campaign, 217 of this tank were built, 35 model A, 42 model B and 140 model C. Therefore, between 1937 and 1939. The model C was apparently introduced in late 1938, so before Munich let’s estimate 40 of this model would have been available.
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The Panzer IV C didn't enter production until September 1938 (source); it's extremely doubtful that more than a handful could have been delivered to the Panzer divisions before Munich. Also, again, the model A only had 15mm front armor.

Rincewind said:
To conclude, 1,100 Panzer I’s, 510 Panzer II’s, 60 Panzer III’s and 117 Panzer IV’s. So – rounding up gives Adolf 1,800 tanks, of which maybe 180 were proper battle tanks, and the majority were the unreliable and unsuitable Panzer I.
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Although your total number is a bit low, as I mentioned above, the number of "proper battle tanks" was more like 150, and that's only if one counts the developmental models with 15mm armor, which is questionable.

Rincewind said:
Shall we take a peek as what happened in Poland? Well, there were something like 2,700 tanks used, but only 310 Mark III and IVs. And around 350 Czech tanks. 832 tanks were lost in the campaign, so about a third of the available tanks. In fact, around half of the tank force were unavailable due to maintenance issues or enemy action.
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If we only count total write-offs, it was more like 250 panzers lost in Poland. The others were eventually repaired and returned to service. But see below.

Rincewind said:
Now, after an alternative Munich, where Chamberlain said no, the first campaign of the Wehrmacht would have been against the Czechs. It’s quite likely that the Czechs would have fought hard against the Wehrmacht, so it’s likely that there would have been few tanks to switch to attacking in the west.
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In addition to about 300 tanks comparable to the up-armored Panzer III, the Czechs had about 600 superb 47mm AT guns, which were capable of penetrating the front armor of any German tank then in service at a range of over a mile. I question the extent to which the panzer forces would have actually been committed to the assault on Czechoslovakia, though, at least initially, as the border terrain was unsuitable for armored operations.
 
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Rincewind said:
And there's a nice comment in that stating that Gladiators were capable of engaging bombers!
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Yes, I considered calling attention to that. :) One thing I think is incorrect in the passage is that there were no reserve fighters on hand, except in the squadrons and repair depots shops. I don't think that applies to the Gladiators, though, because several squadrons had recently converted from Gladiators to Hurricanes (plus one Gladiator squadron was in the process of converting to Spitfires), and the RAF had taken delivery of over 400 Gladiators by that time. So I imagine that there would have been enough on hand to have converted some of the older biplane squadrons to Gladiators in an emergency.
 
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Don't forget, the PZ IV up to the E model had a short-barreled 75 mm which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells.
It was essentially an 'Infantry Tank'
With the experience against British and French tanks they went to a higher velocity 50mm long barrelled gun designed with better AP capabilities.

The PZ III was designed for a 50mm but was fitted with the same 37mm as the infantry AT gun for standardisation. This was fitted to the tank up to the 'G' model.
After experience in France the 50mm was fitted.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Don't forget, the PZ IV up to the E model had a short-barreled 75 mm which was a low-velocity weapon mainly designed to fire high-explosive shells.
It was essentially an 'Infantry Tank'
With the experience against British and French tanks they went to a higher velocity 50mm long barrelled gun designed with better AP capabilities.

The PZ III was designed for a 50mm but was fitted with the same 37mm as the infantry AT gun for standardisation. This was fitted to the tank up to the 'G' model.
After experience in France the 50mm was fitted.
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Yes, but its penetration beat that of the Panzer II's 20mm gun all to hell. :)
 
Henri McPhee said:
The trouble with you people is that you practically all think Britain should have gone to war in 1938. That's want of judgment, and it's not just me who thinks so either.
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You have utterly failed to provide any real evidence that the outcome for Britain, the other Allies, and indeed the world, would have been significantly worse if Britain and France had supported Czechoslovakia, and we have provided much evidence that the outcome would have very likely been considerably better.

The fact that you've managed to find a few anonymous Internet posters and agenda-driven, non-historian journalists who agree with you does not serve to strengthen your argument, such as it is.
 
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