Brussels keeps plans for EU army secret until after referendum

[Kalis]

The kriegsmarine were outgunned by the royal navy in 1940? Are you high? The main losses for the kriegsmarine were between 1943 and 1945.

The commanders of both the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine thought so, no offence but I am going to go with their opinions.

Yeah, so? That doesn´t suddenly make the UK defending operation sea lion.

They could not get the air superiority to launch the invasion, ergo Britain defended itself from German invasion.

Sitting on an island after being overrun on mainland europe. True heroes at that time. We couldn´t do much and did not enough.

Not enough? Austria fucking helped them.

British troops fought against Nazi Germany, not waved flags at them and cheered.

It was postponed prior to the end of the battle of britain.

Due to realising that they could not get air superiority and that the invasion was therefore a dead duck, just as their troops would have been if they had launched an invasion without air and naval superiority.

[Pengekaer]

Sitting on an island after being overrun on mainland europe. True heroes at that time. We couldn´t do much and did not enough.



It was postponed prior to the end of the battle of britain.

Yes, but the heavy casulties among the german air cavalry had something to do with it, though. Even before the BoB was over, it was pretty obvious that the Luftwaffe couldn't win and that they lost far more material than they wanted to. You make it sound like they could just ignore those casulties and move on. They couldn't. BoB was pricey defeat for the nazies.

[Swizzington]

"333,0000" what kind of number is that?

Btw, what language would this super EU army speak?

[Mayhem]

The commanders of both the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine thought so, no offence but I am going to go with their opinions.

I can´t find anything of that sorts. Nothing mentioning that the kriegsmarine was outgunned. The only thing i could find was a memorandum from july that states:"invasion would be vulnerable to the Royal Navy, and autumn weather could prevent necessary maintenance of supplies".

They could not get the air superiority to launch the invasion, ergo Britain defended itself from German invasion.

Yeah. So why did you mention operation sea lion?

Not enough? Austria fucking helped them.

British troops fought against Nazi Germany, not waved flags at them and cheered.

Austrian resistance was a thing.

Due to realising that they could not get air superiority and that the invasion was therefore a dead duck, just as their troops would have been if they had launched an invasion without air and naval superiority.

No due to not getting it ready in time, hence why they didn´t cancel it but postponed it.

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Yes, but the heavy casulties among the german air cavalry had something to do with it, though. Even before the BoB was over, it was pretty obvious that the Luftwaffe couldn't win and that they lost far more material than they wanted to. You make it sound like they could just ignore those casulties and move on. They couldn't. BoB was pricey defeat for the nazies.

No i´m simply separating the BoB and operation sea lion to highlight how one was won by the UK and the other by Germany. Hence why the UK needed the support from the US to fight against the kriegsmarine.

[Kalis]

I can´t find anything of that sorts. Nothing mentioning that the kriegsmarine was outgunned. The only thing i could find was a memorandum from july that states:"invasion would be vulnerable to the Royal Navy, and autumn weather could prevent necessary maintenance of supplies".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion#Navy

Yeah. So why did you mention operation sea lion?

The Battle of Britain was supposed to be the prelude to Operation Sea Lion, the two are linked.

Austrian resistance was a thing.

The entirity of Britain resisted, what a few Austrians did is not even remotely comparable.

No due to not getting it ready in time, hence why they didn´t cancel it but postponed it.

Postponed indefinitely is effectively cancelled.

They could obtain neither the required air nor naval superiority, due to the Battle of Britain and the size of the Royal Navy respectively, so how were they going to launch an invasion? Dig a tunnel?


You need to show how Britain did not save themselves from German invasion, which is going to be impossible as that is exactly what happened. The US came into the war shortly after and turned it from a purely defensive war into one where the Allies could go on the offensive and eventually liberate continental Europe.

[Jessicka]

No i´m simply separating the BoB and operation sea lion to highlight how one was won by the UK and the other by Germany. Hence why the UK needed the support from the US to fight against the kriegsmarine.

Sea Lion never happened, because Germany couldn't get the necessary air and naval superiority it required for it's ad-hoc arrangement of Rhine barges they intended to use for landing equipment. The German forces were woefully under-equipped for any kind of naval landing and invasion and needed absolutely overwhelming superiority to make it work; things it quickly became apparent it was never going to get and so those plans were abandoned.

I think you're confusing Sea Lion with the Battle of the Atlantic, which heated up after the Americans joined because the Germans weren't going to attack US flagged ships, because they neither wanted to drag them in to the war, and were still receiving supplies from the US themselves until that war was declared.

It's also very quickly forgotten/ignored, that the UK at the time had an enormous Empire from which it was drawing troops and equipment which was allowing it to fight across North Africa and the Far East. Not just for this tiny little island.

[Acidbaron]

Belgium conquered Europe via diplomacy.

The amount of stupidity noticed in just the first post on this topic is way too damn high, sometimes i really question if people believe that or are just trolling i hope for their life quality it's the later.


Brussels is merely the place they govern from beside that it has no connection. There's another place they all meet up and govern from but i can't recall it as it's being used less for several reasons. If you're american this is the equivalent of the comparison you just made just to point out how dumb that statement is, "Mexico conquered the US via diplomacy because a G8 summit was held on mexican soil"


Now as for the topic at hand, the EU has been combining forces for a long time and so have the military's this is nothing new, neither is the plan to build more a unified front on that level as it makes things more efficient and every country can focus -more- (keyword for the mouth breathers among you) on certain branches, no country will ever forsake their entire military.

All this is is more information spreading from the brats in London, the notion that this is all one big secret is proof of this since this plan has been around for a whole lot longer all this is fear mongering and i'm not surprised people easily fall for this, but if you had some common sense you would know statements like "cutting ourselves of from the US" should be greeted not by worry but by a facepalm since all the joint operations going on present, past and future, there's no nice way to say this then you have to be a real dumbass to fall for that.

[Mayhem]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion#Navy

I see what you mean.

The Battle of Britain was supposed to be the prelude to Operation Sea Lion, the two are linked.

I never said they weren´t. It´s still useless to mention as something done when it never happened.

The entirity of Britain resisted, what a few Austrians did is not even remotely comparable.

The British Union of Fascists was a thing. As i said, we couldn´t do much and certainly did not enough. I mean, we don´t have to go into ww1 and it´s aftermath to explain why austria wasn´t keen on fighting nazi germany.

Postponed indefinitely is effectively cancelled.

They could obtain neither the required air nor naval superiority, due to the Battle of Britain and the size of the Royal Navy respectively, so how were they going to launch an invasion? Dig a tunnel?

Postponed to early next year is not indefinitely.

You need to show how Britain did not save themselves from German invasion, which is going to be impossible as that is exactly what happened. The US came into the war shortly after and turned it from a purely defensive war into one where the Allies could go on the offensive and eventually liberate continental Europe.

Without US support Britain couldn´t hold on for these many years. The german submarines where destroying an unbelievable amount of ships and convoys.
http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/war_losses.html

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Sea Lion never happened, because Germany couldn't get the necessary air and naval superiority it required for it's ad-hoc arrangement of Rhine barges they intended to use for landing equipment. The German forces were woefully under-equipped for any kind of naval landing and invasion and needed absolutely overwhelming superiority to make it work; things it quickly became apparent it was never going to get and so those plans were abandoned.

I think you're confusing Sea Lion with the Battle of the Atlantic, which heated up after the Americans joined because the Germans weren't going to attack US flagged ships, because they neither wanted to drag them in to the war, and were still receiving supplies from the US themselves until that war was declared.

It's also very quickly forgotten/ignored, that the UK at the time had an enormous Empire from which it was drawing troops and equipment which was allowing it to fight across North Africa and the Far East. Not just for this tiny little island.

You´re right, i confused the two, operation sea lion never happened.

[Kalis]

I never said they weren´t. It´s still useless to mention as something done when it never happened.

The Battle of Britain stopped Operation Sea Lion, hence why it gets mentioned.

The British Union of Fascists was a thing. As i said, we couldn´t do much and certainly did not enough. I mean, we don´t have to go into ww1 and it´s aftermath to explain why austria wasn´t keen on fighting nazi germany.

Austria could have stood up. Greece did, they paid for it, but nevertheless they stood up to be counted.

The BUF were never powerful in Britain and they did not fight against Britain as an organisation anyway.

Postponed to early next year is not indefinitely.

It was postponed indefinitely because the criteria needed to launch it were never met.

Without US support Britain couldn´t hold on for these many years. The german submarines where destroying an unbelievable amount of ships and convoys.
http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/war_losses.html

Britain would not have been conquered though, the two sides would have had to come to terms.

[Rumred]

The kriegsmarine were outgunned by the royal navy in 1940? Are you high? The main losses for the kriegsmarine were between 1943 and 1945.

The Royal Navy was far larger then the Kriegsmarine in terms of a surface fleet which is what you would of needed for a invasion. Most of the German naval operations outside of sub warfare was solo ships on convoy raid duty. As Germany became more desperate and German codes were broken their loses increased yes but the Kriegsmarine was never in any position to challenge the royal navy in open combat to do so it would of been crushed like a ant. I mean just look at what happened this day in 1941 the pride of the German Navy was sunk.

The whole idea for the Battle of Britain was to gain air superiority over southern England and the channel. If this was done it could of been possible tho still extremely hard to use the much smaller kriegsmarine to mine and hold the channel entryways to launch a invasion. Holding this would of been hard so supply lines would of been in danger but with air superiority it would of been possible but not a given.

[Mayhem]

Britain would not have been conquered though, the two sides would have had to come to terms.

Agreed, that´s far from

lost to Britain

[Kalis]

Agreed, that´s far from

They did lose to Britain though.

Not only did we win, but Britain supplied about 40% of the D-Day invasion force, so it can hardly be said we did not play our part. At one time Britain, the Empire, the remnants of the Czech and Polish forces, those were all who stood against Nazi Germany, and they never stopped fighting.

Thankfully FDR was the man, undoubtedly the greatest American who has ever lived and, most likely, ever will live.

[Mayhem]

They did lose to Britain though.

Yeah, never denied that, just that it was britain on its own.

Not only did we win, but Britain supplied about 40% of the D-Day invasion force. At one time Britain, the Empire, the remnants of the Czech and Polish forces, those were all who stood against Nazi Germany, and they never stopped fighting.

Thankfully FDR was the man, undoubtedly the greatest American who has ever lived and, most likely, ever will live.

Absolutely.

[Theodarzna]

Who says they had to conquer it, they just wanted to bomb it to force it into making a peace treaty.

They failed in that respect as well. I mean, you keep moving the goal post here. The last successful continental invasion of Britain was in 1066 CE.

Also a "United Europe," exists only in the fevered dreams of a few Europhiles. Does the public (The people actually doing the soldiering) actually support this or is this merely some wacko EU Commissioner who thinks the public will just go along with his or her whims like this is some game of Civilization?

[BatteredSausage]

Lost to Britain? If not for the United States and the Soviet Union, we'd all be speaking German now.

Thanks for sending in all that cannon fodder. The war would not of been won without British intelligence.

People should be infracted in this thread alone for being dumbass uneducated spastics.

[Berri]

Thanks for sending in all that cannon fodder. The war would not of been won without British intelligence.

People should be infracted in this thread alone for being dumbass uneducated spastics.

What? I don't even...

I never stated that the British didn't play an instrumental role in winning WW2 (and this also isn't the subject of this post). It goes without saying that British contributions (cracking ENIGMA - although technically this was done by the Poles, the development of Radar, and the support of European resistance movements) were significant.

But it's still the case that without the so-called 'cannon fodder' you couldn't have hoped to overpower Hitler's Germany. Forgive me for being a 'dumbass uneducated spastic', but I'll never come to the conclusion that intelligence won WW2. It played an important role in ensuring Britain's 'survival' before foreign intervention, but the war was ultimately won by the hundreds of thousands that stormed German lines (on both Eastern and Western fronts).

[Deleted]

Yes they did, they spent lots of resources in the preparation. They did not launch an invasion, but that is because it would have failed miserably, as their preparations showed.

Even had the Battle of Britain resulted in a German victory, the Royal Navy would have likely proved too much for the Kriegsmarine landing operations and the Germans could not hope to land enough men from air drops to conquer Britain.

Don't be ridiculous. The Germans spared the English army at Dunkirk in the hopes of tempering the aggression between the two. Hitler thought the UK could still be negotiated with, he was wrong. But if they hadn't spared the English there there wouldn't be enough airforce resistance to withstand the German luftwaffe. Germany could then have taken out the defences which would've made it possible to launch a ground assault.

The UK was able to withstand the German assault due to the Germans being merciful, hoping for the UK and Germany to mend their relations.

Anyway, about this EU army. I'm all for it. It's time we Europeans take matters into our own hands, and it would be good to have some power projection to counter the US. Right now the US pretty much dictates anything the EU does. If they say "jump" we say "how high?" It's time to take back some power for ourselves. By having an EU army we would have more political leverage and more influence in global issues.

[Kalis]

Don't be ridiculous. The Germans spared the English army at Dunkirk in the hopes of tempering the aggression between the two. Hitler thought the UK could still be negotiated with, he was wrong. But if they hadn't spared the English there there wouldn't be enough airforce resistance to withstand the German luftwaffe. Germany could then have taken out the defences which would've made it possible to launch a ground assault.

The UK was able to withstand the German assault due to the Germans being merciful, hoping for the UK and Germany to mend their relations.

The British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk was not defending Britain, the clue is in their name.

The Germans had virtually no landing craft at the time of Dunkirk, they could not possibly hope to get a sufficient invasion force across at that time.

[Kellhound]

They did lose to Britain though.

Not only did we win, but Britain supplied about 40% of the D-Day invasion force, so it can hardly be said we did not play our part. At one time Britain, the Empire, the remnants of the Czech and Polish forces, those were all who stood against Nazi Germany, and they never stopped fighting.

Thankfully FDR was the man, undoubtedly the greatest American who has ever lived and, most likely, ever will live.

FDR was also the man responsible for giving Eastern Europe to the Soviets. He may have made good decisions at the beginning of WWII, but by the end he lost it.

[Deleted]

They gave up on it because it wasn't worth conquering, can hardly plant any crops there, unlike Ukraine and beyond which was ripe for the taking.

Sounds like sour grapes to me.