How About Another EU Referendum?

[nikaiyo2]

Ivan stewart said:

Luckily for you guys we did get involved otherwise you would still be Germany’s parking lot ..

Lets be honest, if it was not for England the Netherlands would still be Spain's back garden.

[Pan Pan Pan]

2xChevrons said:

Sigh....we've had this discussion, verbatim, before, PPP. I don't really know why I bother beyond some strange attachment to 'history' and 'facts' and 'truth'. But if you can keep littering PH with your boilerplate WW2 comics (that are usually irrelevant to the topic beyond some strange idea that the rest of Europe should be prostratingly grateful to us for ever more) then I can have another crack at it:

Pan Pan Pan said:

If thousands can get across the Channel now, in rubber boats, at all times of the year, why would it not have been possible for the Nazis to get across the channel in 1940?...Strange how you believe that the Nazis could not have got across the channel, when today Thousand make it across in rubber boats, and hundreds of large vessels make that crossing every day.

Do you really think this is equivalent? Do you see any difference between a few hundred (at the most) civilians in rubber dinghies drifting across the Channel on any given day with the aim of either reaching the British side of the territorial boundary before declaring distress or washing up on 'some beach' somewhere before being taken in by the authorities and an attempt to launch 250,000 men in a coordinated military invasion, hitting designated landing sites (against at least some defending forces) in a line spreading several hundred miles? And then not only delivering further waves of landing forces (in a similarly coordinated fashion) but resupply and support for the initial force?

Pan Pan Pan said:

They did not only have flat bottomed boats, but numerous cruise liners, capable of transporting hundreds of thousands the of troops, and equipment across the channel. (You know just like the cruise liners used by the allies, to ship hundred of thousands of troops and equipment across the Atlantic to the `still standing' UK)

The Germans only assembled a flotilla of barges and lighters for the amphibious invasion of Britain - to be supported by shallow-draft naval destroyers, minesweepers and E-boats. The Germans had very few ocean liners available to them and they were - clearly - useless to mount an amphibious invasion, being unable to draw in close to the landing sites and unable to disembark large quantities of men quickly. That's why the Allies didn't use ocean liners and large ferries to land men during D-Day(!) The Germans were at least more aware than you seem to be that you can't just steam a liner up alongside the pier at Dover and start walking off thousands of soldiers - you have to land them elsewhere, onto a beach, then capture a proper port before you can do that. There is no comparison with using ocean liners for strategic transport of soldiers and equipment from Points A to B within Allied territory 'behind the lines' - those American GIs weren't jumping off the Queen Mary to secure a beachhead.

Pan Pan Pan said:

As for the Navy, Sir Dudley Pound was so worried his major surface vessels would be pounded to destruction, by the Luftwaffe, he kept the majority of the home fleet, hundreds of miles away in Scapa Flow.

The RN was - rightly- worried about the vulnerability of large warships to air attack when in harbour or restrained in maneuver in coastal waters. That's why the fleet was kept in Scapa Flow. But in the event of an actual invasion of the British Isles kicking off, you can bet that every naval asset available would have been thrown into the Channel. There would have been losses (mostly from E-boats, U-boats and minefields) but the RN had overwhelming superiority by both numbers and capabilities and just a fraction of the Home Fleet being able to get 'guns on' the easy target of a massed flotilla of barges moving at walking pace would have crippled the German invasion before it even really got started. As I noted before, just one destroyer steaming past the flotilla at flank speed would have swamped dozens of the craft and drowned their unfortunate occupants. The Luftwaffe lacked the equipment an training to provide seriously effective attacks against moving shipping from the air - that was a Japanese specialty in 1940.

Pan Pan Pan said:

The RAF did a wonderful job fighting against the Luftwaffe during the battle of Britain, but by the end of the BoB it was on its knees, with a shortage of pilots, rather than machines.

The RAF was being run ragged by several months of high-tempo operations. There was a shortage of (properly trained) pilots but it is unfair to describe the RAF as 'on its knees' - it was secure in the knowledge that it had enough aircraft, ammo, equipment and fuel, that the Luftwaffe was unable to meaningfully disrupt its radar network and command chain and that it could not prevent the RAF operating from 10 and 12 Group areas even if control over SE England was temporarily lost. And if the RAF was 'on its knees' by September 1940, the Luftwaffe was flat on its front, gasping for breath. It never recovered its deficit in equipment or training for the rest of the war.

Pan Pan Pan said:

You seem to be contradicting yourself, by saying on the one hand, that getting troops and equipment across the channel was too difficult, yet the allies managed to get vast numbers of troops and war materiel across the Atlantic. and they managed to get across the channel on D Day.

The Allies spent four years working out how to do that. And notice that Overlord operated in an almost entirely different form to Sea Lion - a much vaster scale all round, with purpose-designed vessels for putting men, artillery, vehicles, stores and support ashore on beaches in large quantities, dedicated landing landing craft of various sizes, backed by heavy naval and air support, plus things like the Mulberry Harbours and PLUTO to ensure that the forces put ashore stood a chance of being adequately supplied from the beachhead. The Germans had nothing like that in 1940. No one did - that's why it had to be developed from scratch.

Pan Pan Pan said:

War game are rubbish and NOT reality, so putting stock on the outcome of a war `game' and declaring a possible result based on a game is stupid. War is categorically NOT a game, and wars do not stick to the `rules' of war game.

The staff of every military college in the world for the past 150 years would disagree with you. Yes, war games aren't 100% predicators of outcomes, and maybe in 1940 every dice-roll would have gone the Germans' way - it could have happened. But the consensus of every expert - including the retrospective opinion of the German leaders who would have been in charge of Sea Lion - is that quick and total failure was by far the most likely outcome.

Pan Pan Pan said:

As for starving the UK out, Churchill stated that the effect of the U Boats on the fleets shipping men and materiel to the UK, was his greatest fear and what kept him up at nights, But what would Churchill know compared to a war `game'?

Germany didn't have enough U-boats with enough range and enough fuel to meaningfully restrict the supply of materiel to the British Isles across the Atlantic. The overall loss rate of shipping was about one per cent, with 10 per cent of convoys coming under U-boat attack throughout the war. The German navy never achieved a practical blockade of the British Isles and in the first two years of the war the shipping tonnage lost to U-boat attack only exceeded new-build ship launched from British yards in four calendar months. Once US shipyard capacity was added to the equation, Allied merchant shipping tonnage only suffered a net loss in one month until the rest of the war.

Now, that obviously doesn't mean that the Allies could have just sat back and twiddled their thumbs and everything would have been hunky dory - without concerted efforts to build new merchant ships at previously unknown speeds, without the continual increase in the number of escort ships, the training of tens of thousands of naval sailors to man them, the ongoing development of ever-more effective ASW equipment and tactics and so on those numbers would not have been so favourable. But the efforts paid off and Britain was never at risk of being 'starved out' - at no point during the war was the supply of material and equipment into Britain significantly disrupted.

And the Battle of the Atlantic was still the theatre that came closest to destroying Britain's ability to fight - it's the one where if we hadn't put in the effort then the Germans would have quickly and irrevocably gained the upper hand (and who knows what would have followed then). The Luftwaffe was never going to be able to achieve air superiority over Britain in the summer of 1940 - as was his fashion, Goring over-promised and under-delivered. And Sea Lion in its 1940 form only ever promised to be the military equivalent of a Three Stooges routine.

Now, if the Allied efforts in the Atlantic hadn't been as effective, the oceanic supply lines had been meaningfully disrupted and Britain's ability to hold fast was affected...maybe Germany would have been able to develop the means and ability to stage a sort of reverse D-Day after a few years of regrouping and expansion. But Hitler's die was cast the moment he tried to fulfil his ideological destiny and destroy the Soviet Union. He was never going to win that fight with the forces he had and Germany was going to be out of the picture eventually from the moment Barbarossa swung into action.

Pan Pan Pan said:

In 1940 (without Churchill guiding the country) the UK could easily have capitulated, indeed many in the UK Parliament who wanted to do just that.

That bit I'll agree with. Churchill did a huge amount to bolster the national nerve at a time when the raw information and hindsight wasn't available to us. People in 1940 had no way of knowing that Germany had no practical way of invading the UK, didn't know that the Luftwaffe was coming off worse in the Battle of Britain and didn't know that the Battle of Atlantic basically only ever went the way the Allies' wanted it to. Without Churchill and his ilk, it's possible that Britain could have sued for a peace either post-Dunkirk, post-Battle of Britain (when it might well have seemed that the Luftwaffe had merely paused for breath before a knock-out blow) or when the first jackboots hit Sussex sand (because the German Army had steamrollered every other European nation it had invaded up to that point). It never pays to underestimate your enemy, and it's rarely a bad thing to overestimate them.

But that doesn't change the actual, historical fact that the 'plucky Britain, backed against the wall, fighting overwhelming odds against the unstoppable Nazi war machine' is not true. It is the stuff of pulpy boy's comics and third-rate novels.

So many falsehoods as to be utterly ridiculous.
I have never said that the UK won the war, What I have said, which is categorically true is that if the UK had fallen to the Nazis or capitulated in 1940, then NONE of what actually happened after 1940 could have taken place.
You still have not answered the question of how the US (a country that did not even want to get involved in another European war) was going to be able bomb the Nazi Germany, including its ports, factories, and oil refineries from the far side of the Atlantic.
You have not explained how the attacks, which disrupted and delayed the Nazis nuclear weapons program were going to be launched from the far side of the Atlantic.
You have not explained how the billions of tons of war materiel from the west, needed to keep Russia in the war against the Nazis was, going to be supplied via the arctic convoys from the far side of the Atlantic.
You have not explained how D Day could have been launched from the far side of the Atlantic. As for your ridiculous comment regarding the supplies coming into the UK from the US, it seems you believe `you' know better than Churchill what effect the Nazi U Boats had on shipping crossing between the US and UK, and later, on the arctic convoys taking war materiel to Russia The UK avoided being take over by the Nazis in 1940, for a number of reasons, including its geographical location and the channel itself.
The efforts of the RAF in the battle of Britain.
Hitler not wanting to invade, until air superiority over the channel had been established, (It was not by the way) and in no small measure, luck, including some of the strange decisions made by Hitler when his forces were approaching the channel coast. But without what did factually take place the outcome of WW2, would have been completely and utterly different.

[Mrr T]

Pan Pan Pan said:

II seems that `we' have to suffer your deluded, false, and ignorant posts .
You appear to know absolutely nothing of what what actually happened in WW2. so your posts are even more irrelevant, especially since you cannot answer even simple questions about what actually happened. I suspect that this is because you know you are wrong but dont want to confirm it..
Your comment on the Germans arriving by small boats, shows how ignorant you are, because I did not say they could do that in1940. I was making the point that if thousands can get to the UK across the channel `now' in small inflatable boats, why couldn't the Germans get across the channel in the large barges, they had in their hundreds, or better still, in the large ocean going liners, or merchant ships that `they' also had in their hundreds?.

FFS you really like to demonstrate your ignorance.

The Germans had barges with no drop front. So they could land troops and maybe manhandle small artillery and AT but nothing big. So a landing would be limited to troops with no horse or lorry transport, no heavy artillery, no effective AT, and no tanks. All supply would have required manhandling on to the beach and then moved manually.

Larger ships can help by delivering men to the barges but moving between large ships and barges in poor weather is risky. It does nothing to help get any heavy equipment on to a beach.

To use large ships to land equipment you need to not just take a port but secure it against any attacks.

If you actually read any history. The German army and navy planned for Sealion because Hitler told them to. It is clear they had no belief it would work.

[crankedup5]

Anyway, back to the thread any prospect of another referendum for at least a generation; are almost impossible for any political Party to put forward as a serious election mandate. Even the Lib Dem’s are shying away from the idea of hitting the electorate with such a policy idea. For them it is now a four stage implementation project, even if they get anywhere near being elected into Government.
The ‘brexit bad’/brexit good’ argument is dead and buried, even Blair admits that now.

[Mrr T]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Lots more nonsense .

There are many other ways things could have gone. If the UK had fallen its is likely the Royal family and the government would have been moved to Canada. Therefore the UK colonies would have forght on.

By the way Britain did not stand alone in 1940 unless you discount all the other countries like, India, NZ, Canada etc etc.

We know Japan would have attacked Pearl Harbour no matter what happened to the UK. Since German declared war on the US we can assume the US would have been at war with Germany. The obvious route would have been via Egypt and N Africa. At one time there was a lot of discussion amongst military historians as to whether Overlord was the right decision compared to a landing in the south of France.

[Mrr T]

crankedup5 said:

Anyway, back to the thread any prospect of another referendum for at least a generation; are almost impossible for any political Party to put forward as a serious election mandate. Even the Lib Dem’s are shying away from the idea of hitting the electorate with such a policy idea. For them it is now a four stage implementation project, even if they get anywhere near being elected into Government.
The ‘brexit bad’/brexit good’ argument is dead and buried, even Blair admits that now.

Yes good to be back on topic. A generation is either 15 or 20 years. Certainly no referendum within 5 years from now. Anything bejond that is impossible to predict but it might happen.

A referendum on rejoining is nothing to do with the brexit good/bad discussion which is far from dead and buried.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Mrr T said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

Lots more nonsense .

There are many other ways things could have gone. If the UK had fallen its is likely the Royal family and the government would have been moved to Canada. Therefore the UK colonies would have forght on.

By the way Britain did not stand alone in 1940 unless you discount all the other countries like, India, NZ, Canada etc etc.

We know Japan would have attacked Pearl Harbour no matter what happened to the UK. Since German declared war on the US we can assume the US would have been at war with Germany. The obvious route would have been via Egypt and N Africa. At one time there was a lot of discussion amongst military historians as to whether Overlord was the right decision compared to a landing in the south of France.

How would they gone via North Africa if Britain had sued for peace?

eta
btw the other countries you mention aren't in Europe, but may be in Eurovision.

also, *fought

[crankedup5]

Mrr T said:

crankedup5 said:

Anyway, back to the thread any prospect of another referendum for at least a generation; are almost impossible for any political Party to put forward as a serious election mandate. Even the Lib Dem’s are shying away from the idea of hitting the electorate with such a policy idea. For them it is now a four stage implementation project, even if they get anywhere near being elected into Government.
The ‘brexit bad’/brexit good’ argument is dead and buried, even Blair admits that now.

Yes good to be back on topic. A generation is either 15 or 20 years. Certainly no referendum within 5 years from now. Anything bejond that is impossible to predict but it might happen.

A referendum on rejoining is nothing to do with the brexit good/bad discussion which is far from dead and buried.

It will take some going for any Political Party to win a convincing argument that another referendum is the way to go. Look how it has divided the Country, twenty years from now may have healed the Country if it transpires the U.K. are doing well outside of the EU. As you mention nobody knows what may lay ahead.
I think that’s where ‘brexit good’. / brexit bad will form the basis of a conversation in the future regarding the prospect of a referendum. If we are doing well why would we want to rejoin and that would be the argument I expect.

[Mrr T]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

How would they gone via North Africa if Britain had sued for peace?

eta
btw the other countries you mention aren't in Europe, but may be in Eurovision.

also, *fought

My post was clear. If the UK had been invaded and defeated and the Royal family and government would have fled to Canada. It is likely the rest of the colonies including Egypt would have fought on.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Mrr T said:

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

How would they gone via North Africa if Britain had sued for peace?

eta
btw the other countries you mention aren't in Europe, but may be in Eurovision.

also, *fought

My post was clear. If the UK had been invaded and defeated and the Royal family and government would have fled to Canada. It is likely the rest of the colonies including Egypt would have fought on.

That's an impossible scenario

If Britain had fallen, Spain would have allowed Germany to take Gib therefore no protected supply route to North Africa from the West.

Would India have fought on? I doubt it, they would have taken independence and taken no further part, therefore no supply to NA from the East.

There's no way the British wouldn't have been forced out of North Africa, it was touch and go as it was.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

nikaiyo2 said:

Ivan stewart said:

Luckily for you guys we did get involved otherwise you would still be Germany’s parking lot ..

Lets be honest, if it was not for England the Netherlands would still be Spain's back garden.

Being even more honest, if it weren't for Dutch merchants sailing up the Thames to fight the great fire, London might not be our capital today. And how did with thank them, we granted them a licence to sell eels. And if it weren't for our crap weather doing in the Spanish Armada, we'd probably be speaking Spanish. We got seriously lucky winning that one, a war that we started and where we were the baddies.

Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Friday 1st July 17:51

[Pan Pan Pan]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

Mrr T said:

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

How would they gone via North Africa if Britain had sued for peace?

eta
btw the other countries you mention aren't in Europe, but may be in Eurovision.

also, *fought

My post was clear. If the UK had been invaded and defeated and the Royal family and government would have fled to Canada. It is likely the rest of the colonies including Egypt would have fought on.

That's an impossible scenario

If Britain had fallen, Spain would have allowed Germany to take Gib therefore no protected supply route to North Africa from the West.

Would India have fought on? I doubt it, they would have taken independence and taken no further part, therefore no supply to NA from the East.

There's no way the British wouldn't have been forced out of North Africa, it was touch and go as it was.

No point in trying to deal with facts with Mr T. He prefers to believe in the stories, and theories which exist only in his head,
As for applying logic to what `actually' happened, He seems to think that after defeating Poland, France (biggest military in Europe) Belgium, Holland, Norway etc with ease, that the Nazis would have been completely, and permanently stumped by the English channel.

[FiF]

To be honest I stopped reading all this balderdash when someone suggested part of the reason Sealion would have failed was because the Luftwaffe were "haemorraghing pilots." Yet the original premise offered was that Britain had capitulated.

So who would have been knocking out all these Luftwaffe pilots? Isle of Man?

Yes I am taking the piss. Some of you deserve it.

Deliberately kept short as people seem to have trouble with long posts.

[NerveAgent]

Personally, I think we are probably going to be in for another 10 years or so of both sides flopping their penises on the table, lots of empty threats, but people gradually getting bored of it all.

Once the current crop of politicians on both sides have been replaced we will probably start talking about more sensible relationships, I don’t think anyone can predict the appetite for a referendum at this point in the future.

[Mrr T]

Pan Pan Pan said:

No point in trying to deal with facts with Mr T. He prefers to believe in the stories, and theories which exist only in his head,
As for applying logic to what `actually' happened, He seems to think that after defeating Poland, France (biggest military in Europe) Belgium, Holland, Norway etc with ease, that the Nazis would have been completely, and permanently stumped by the English channel.

Still posting your usual rubbish I see. Operation Sealion was postponed because of a slight larger operation in the east. Once that started German never had the resources to launch an invasion of the UK. Nor did they make any attempt to develop the type of boats needed for such an operation.

[Mrr T]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

That's an impossible scenario

If Britain had fallen, Spain would have allowed Germany to take Gib therefore no protected supply route to North Africa from the West.

Would India have fought on? I doubt it, they would have taken independence and taken no further part, therefore no supply to NA from the East.

There's no way the British wouldn't have been forced out of North Africa, it was touch and go as it was.

It is certainly not impossible. Spain could have taken Gib at any time during the conflict but Franco was determined to maintain a semblance of neutrality. So if the UK had fallen he might have changed but its far from certain. As for India being taken by the independence party who were determined to remain pacifist. It would not have happened unless the british allowed it in return for support in restoring the UK independence.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Mrr T said:

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

That's an impossible scenario

If Britain had fallen, Spain would have allowed Germany to take Gib therefore no protected supply route to North Africa from the West.

Would India have fought on? I doubt it, they would have taken independence and taken no further part, therefore no supply to NA from the East.

There's no way the British wouldn't have been forced out of North Africa, it was touch and go as it was.

It is certainly not impossible. Spain could have taken Gib at any time during the conflict but Franco was determined to maintain a semblance of neutrality. So if the UK had fallen he might have changed but its far from certain. As for India being taken by the independence party who were determined to remain pacifist. It would not have happened unless the british allowed it in return for support in restoring the UK independence.

In the event of a neutralised Britain, Spain would have come off the fence and definitely have taken Gib, it was considered as a high threat even in the real time lines. No Gib, Malta neutralised or occupied, there is absolutely no way Britain could have held North Africa...where are the munitions or food coming from?

Where is the food to support India coming from? There would be a bigger famine than actually happened, this would soon change the most ardent pacifist's mind.

[Mrr T]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

In the event of a neutralised Britain, Spain would have come off the fence and definitely have taken Gib, it was considered as a high threat even in the real time lines. No Gib, Malta neutralised or occupied, there is absolutely no way Britain could have held North Africa...where are the munitions or food coming from?

Where is the food to support India coming from? There would be a bigger famine than actually happened, this would soon change the most ardent pacifist's mind.

I do find such speculation fun but my last post in this since this is a major thread hijack.

Spain remained largely neutral because they where heavily dependent on US imports. The military was very poor are the civil war. So unlikely they could have taken Gib. Its unlikely they would have been able to hold Spanish Morroco or the Canary Islands. Which would have given the US and the UK military in Egypt a staging post mid Atlantic and access to the Med.

Spain remained neutral out of weakness. If it had joined the Axis it could not have defended it borders even with German support.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Mrr T said:

I do find such speculation fun but my last post in this since this is a major thread hijack.

Spain remained largely neutral because they where heavily dependent on US imports. The military was very poor are the civil war. So unlikely they could have taken Gib. Its unlikely they would have been able to hold Spanish Morroco or the Canary Islands. Which would have given the US and the UK military in Egypt a staging post mid Atlantic and access to the Med.

Spain remained neutral out of weakness. If it had joined the Axis it could not have defended it borders even with German support.

US was neutral at this point.

Germany offered to assist with taking Gib, it would have been fairly easy.

So Britian would have evacuated a large army to Canada and then would be able to do an invasion by sea launching from Nova Scotia to take the Canaries? This would have been impossible even with the US involved....ships full of troops across the Atlantic with German subs patrolling? Madness.

Edited by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Saturday 2nd July 12:14

[Pan Pan Pan]

Mrr T said:

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

How would they gone via North Africa if Britain had sued for peace?

eta
btw the other countries you mention aren't in Europe, but may be in Eurovision.

also, *fought

My post was clear. If the UK had been invaded and defeated and the Royal family and government would have fled to Canada. It is likely the rest of the colonies including Egypt would have fought on.

Fought on!!!! What with, you idiot? If the UK had been invaded, or had capitulated, what aircraft would the commonwealth countries have had to fight on with? Where would the UK Navy have been based? How could Nazi Germany be bombed, from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to mention just a few of the `colonies'. What would have happened to all the military personnel in the UK, had the UK fallen to the Nazis in 1940? At the time the Nazis only had the UK front to focus on, because at the time, Stalin's Russia was `still' supplying war materiel to Nazi Germany, and the `planning' for operation Barbarossa began in July 1940 , but it did not `actually' start until June `1941'.
It seems `you' believe that the Nazis (After defeating Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, and most other European countries) would have been permanently stopped, by the English Channel, (Even when they had almost a year before only commencing operation Barbarossa to figure out a way of getting themselves across) and with the UK having just a SINGLE heavy gun per mile of coastline, to repel a Nazi invasion.
So in your ridiculous view, the Nazis, even with at least half a year to play with, could not have worked out how to get their military across the tiny English Channel, but that `somehow' the UK could have (after leaving their families behind to face life under the Nazis) shipped millions of UK service personnel and their weapons, including war manufacturing, aircraft production, weapons research, and development. across the Atlantic, (and in the case of Australia, and New Zealand) to the other side of the world, it seem you have a `highly selective' view of what each of the countries involved, were capable of in 1940.
Since you seem unable to apply `any' kind of logic to your weird rants, there is no point in discussing this with you further. you will just make things up in head to justify your weird fantasies about WW2.