What alternatives to sealion could Hitler have pursued to get Britain out of the war after the fall of France
OTL the problem of the U-boats was basically solved before US entry, actually... But having the sinkings come in a rush (i.e. the U-boats are committed in one big go in late 1940 or something) might help the morale panic effect.I don't know if blockading Britain the same way the Allies successfully blockaded Japan would work though, as the US was participating (unofficially) in the Atlantic War.
Except that in that case the Allies cut off the rubber supply, thus buggering the ability of both powers to make trucks and gaskets and the like. Thus, economic warfare. (Buna doesn't work well enough yet in 1945 - it has to be eked out by the real stuff, which is why the 262's tires often exploded.)Actually the best chance might rest with something the British considered doing; declaring war on the USSR during the Winter War:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War#Franco-British_intervention_plans
If they had done that it might have radically changed the balance of forces in favour of the Axis.
What alternatives to sealion could Hitler have pursued to get Britain out of the war after the fall of France
How? It's not just a matter of trying.
In that case, Franco starts losing food and oil, as the RN starts interdicting his shipping. Spain, being war-weary after a really nasty civil war, isn't going to take this well and there may be further unrest.Operation felix? This forum seems to think Felix is unfeasible but I don't see why that has to be the case. Hitler just has to lie to Franco and promise him the vichy possessions in North Africa he so desperately craves. Alternatively Hitler can ask for military access through Spain.
In that case, Franco starts losing food and oil, as the RN starts interdicting his shipping. Spain, being war-weary after a really nasty civil war, isn't going to take this well and there may be further unrest.
(This is why Franco wouldn't go for it in the first place. He was a bastard, but he was a canny bastard.)
Operation felix? This forum seems to think Felix is unfeasible but I don't see why that has to be the case. Hitler just has to lie to Franco and promise him the vichy possessions in North Africa he so desperately craves. Alternatively Hitler can ask for military access through Spain.
In that case, Franco starts losing food and oil, as the RN starts interdicting his shipping. Spain, being war-weary after a really nasty civil war, isn't going to take this well and there may be further unrest.
(This is why Franco wouldn't go for it in the first place. He was a bastard, but he was a canny bastard.)
Gibraltar was not doable, not without Franco, who has every reason to stay out of things. Malta, however, was. If the Italians had a plan in place and declared war while sending an invasion force, the RN wouldn't be able to interrupt it quickly enough. And once the Italians have Malta, the British aren't trying some amphibious assault to get it back in an area where they have no air superiority. You CANNOT do an amphibious assault without control of the skies.
And honestly, if Mussolini plays his cards right, he can take Cairo. He needs to appoint a capable commander in Libya and make sure that logistics do not become a problem, which they wouldn't be, if the advance into Egypt was deliberate and continuous rather than full of stops. The Western Desert Force would be annihilated in combat if the Italians took their advance seriously and with more professionalism.
Quickly, not much. Most importantly, force the Luftwaffe to co-operate with the navy properly (Goering hated the navy and did everything possible to reduce the marine air force and cause them trouble), provide a decent anti-shipping force (i.e. better than the single squadron of Condors actually used) and do everything possible to stop British coastal shipping and damage the port facilities. Pretty much the Channel Battles/Kanal Kampf on steroids. Get the Italians to supply 100 SM 79 torpedo bombers instead of 100 rubbish bombers, sooner. Delay introduction of the magnetic mine until large numbers are available and mine the ports. Upgrade the U-boats with schnorkels (invented by the Dutch in the 1930s) and ramp up the U-boat production. Fix the torpedos and get a good supply of aerial torpedos.
Decide that it's going to be a long war and prepare for that instead of shutting down research projects, stopping new aircraft designs, demobilising etc. Pursue an indirect strategy: Take Malta and Gibraltar and make a decent effort in North Africa.
This would have been a decisive blow, on the level of Operation Starvation against Japan, had the mines been delayed; the British IOTL were horrified at how effective the new German mines were and made it priority #1 to capture one; luckily the Germans mislaid one in the first couple months of the war right next to a British ordnance disposal facility on the Thames and for some reason the early versions of the German mines lacked anti-tamper triggers, so the Brits were able to disable and disassemble the mine and develop counter measures right at the beginning of the war. Had that not happened and the navy waited until May 1940 to deploy them en masse they would have likely cut off British shipping in all the Channels they were used in until one was captured; given that the 1940 vintage versions had anti-tamper triggers that would have been very hard to do.
As it was even with counter measures the British still lost well over 1 million tons of shipping to German mines in WW2.