Blitzkrieg tactics

And yet their thoughts turned out to be quite close to reality.

And yet their thoughts turned out to be quite close to reality.

I don't think so....
Exept of beating up small or unorganized/nemilitaristic nations,when they came upon a stong one (UK) they couldn't do anymore.
The Blitzkrieg was good againd peace loving nations or Latin ?Balcanic ones.
When they had to fight against Anglo Saxons it turn to be diferent.

That's an oversimplification of facts IMO. It worked very well against the British army also in Norway and in France in 1940 and in 1941 and 1942 in North Africa. It also worked well in the first par of Operation Barbarossa. The Wehrmacht simply lacked the resources to be more effective.

In Norway,the Germans were loosing,when the British hight comand made a stupid retreat...
In N. Africa they had some succes but not for long,and in vain (never understood why to fight for some sand dunes).
The Kriegsmarine had not even a single aircraftcarrier and exept of a succes over the Hood,they almost always lost the sea battle.
They even with the help of the Italians couldn't take Malta!!!
Thousands of km from Britain,and just a few from Sicily.

Norway was lost by the Allies, even though they controlled the sea. The Blitzkrieg tactics proved effective for quite a while in the Lybian desert, but eventually the Afrika Korps was overwhelmed and pushed into Tunis.

As for the Kriegsmarine and Malta, I do not see what this has to do with Blitzkrieg tactics. However, the Deep battle tactics, similar to Blitzkrieg, employed by the Red Army in 1943-45 proved very effective, when there were enough resources available.

The British and the French expeditionary forces in Norway (including Foreign Legion troops) had to evacuate due to the situation in France.

Malta has nothing to do with the Blitzkrieg...
Just two tiny islands ,defended by a few Gloster Gladiators biplanes and a handful of Hurricanes,couldn't be taken and with hight costs.
The idea is that when not attaking by suprise and ataking a well organized and battle hardened nation,the Germans didn't do so well
It's no so hard defeting Belgium Holand and Lux.
Not so hard winning against Poland(especialy when colaborating with the Soviets).
In my opinion,the only real victory was against France,but I would't give them a lot of credit since they lost at Dunkink.

Not before beating the Germans on land and defeting them badly on sea.
The Germans couldn't belive that after such a desparate situation the were left as winners!

Not before beating the Germans on land and defeting them badly on sea.
The Germans couldn't belive that after such a desparate situation the were left as winners!

I doubt you can back up those statements with actual facts.

The initial German landing force, all over Norway was made up of 2 heavy cruisers, one pocket battleship, 7 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 28 submarines and 10,000 troops. The maximum number of soldiers at one point never exceeded 2,000 men. The invasion force was supported by approximately 800 aircraft. Teh German ships sneaked through the huge Allied navy and reached their destinations unharmed, even as far north as Narvik, some 1,930 kilometers from their supply base. The forces landed on 9 April managed to generally paralyze the Norwegian defenses, despite the fact that they were grossly outnumbered, by the speed with which they acted and moved around the country. True Blitzkrieg.

The southern part of the country were in German hands. In the north only Narvik had been taken. The Allies, although possessed superior numbers of ships and troops acted timidly and it took them a whole week to mount a serious counterattack, by attempting to seize Trondheim, a strategic port in the middle of Norway. The city and surroundings were held by a small force of 2,000 Germans, while the Allies landed 13,000 men at Namsos and Asdalsnes and started to advance towards their objective. However, it progressed very slowly due to the Luftwaffe attacks, heavy snow (which the Germans somehow managed to overcome) and haressment by small German detachments. The troops were eventually evacuated on 1 and 2 May 1940, before the breakthrough in France. With Trondheim in their hands, the Germans controlled southern and central Norway. The situation wasn't as desperate for the Germans as you protray it C-2, on the contrary.

The retreat caused by the events in France was the one from Narvik, up north. There some 24,500 Allied troops needed a month to take Narvik from 2,000 men of maj. gen. Eduard Dietl's 3rd Gerbirgsjaeger Division. Under the circumstances, the German force was far from being beaten, as it wasn't destroyed, just pushed out of the city.

The naval losses on both sides were slightly equal:
1). The Royal Navy lost 1 carrier, 2 cruisers, 9 destroyers, 6 submarines and 17 auxiliary ships. 5 cruisers and 8 destroyers received heavy damage.
2). The French Navy lost 1 destroyer and 1 submarine and 1 cruiser was damaged.
3). The Polish Navy lost 1 destroyer and 1 submarine.
4). The Norwegian Navy lost two cruisers, all its smaller vessels and submarines (9)

The Kriegsmarine lost 1 heavy cruiser, 2 light cruisers, 10 destroyers, 8 submarines and 24 auxiliary ships. One pocket battleship, 2 battlecruisers and 2 heavy cruisers were damaged. Hardly "defeated badly at sea", when we compare the losses and the eventual result of the battle.

Define "battlehardened nation". I doubt such a thing exists. Your initial comment on Latin/Balkan nations and Anglo-Saxons sounded a bit racist IMO.

Dunkirk wasn't a military defeat, since the tanks weren't stoped by British troops, but by Hitler's unexplainable order. Without it, I doubt that any British soldiers would have reached the Atlantic shores.

1. Blitzkrieg is a doctrine for land warfare - with a significant tactical air support ingredient. Therefore, Norway (a complex sea-air-land campaign) and Malta (for obvious reasons) have nothing to do with it.

2. Strategic surprise helps Blitzkrieg but it's not a prerequisite. The British and French knew the attack was coming.

3. Great Britain was not a "battle-hardened nation", whatever that concept might mean. It was however a sea power, and on the sea there is no application of Blitzkrieg; and it had the best integrated air-defense system in the world in 1940, more than able to defeat the air component of Blitzkrieg, which was anyway unsuited for the task of an air-to-air campaign. So it's not surprising that the British largely won the sea battles, and defeated the Germans in the air-only campaign - but it proves nothing as to the effectiveness of Blitzkrieg against the British.

4. Now let's look at the cases in which Great Britain actually had to face Blitzkrieg: in the Battle of France and in the desert.
4a) In France they were well and truly beaten along with the French, Belgians and Dutch. There were extenuating circumstances and the British are no more culpable, on the contrary, they are less culpable than the French, but certainly one cannot say that Blitzkrieg did not work against them.
4b) In the desert the British took repeated defeats due to Blitzkrieg tactics. In the end, they learnt how to face it, got better tactically, and won - also because they were helped by two key factors that have nothing to do with tactical prowess: terrain and supplies. As to terrain, Blitzkrieg works well on relatively short distances, and on a good road network. These are, by the by, the same factors that limited the effectiveness of Blitzkrieg in Russia. As to supplies, when the British finally defeated the Axis, they had a very significant logistical advantage.

As a side note 1, it should be remembered that Rommel did his Blitzkrieg stunts with 2-3 German motorized/armored divisions and with 1-3 Italian motorized/armored divisions.
As a side note 2, if you don't know why the Germans were fighting for a few sand dunes, I'll tell you: to prop up Italy.

5. This is the first time I read that the Germans "lost at Dunkirk". I suggest you to check that.

Well, I wouldn't say that Norway had nothing to do at all with Blitzkrieg. The Germans did manage to move very quickly and neutralize Norwegian will and possibilities to resist and benefitted from a strong air support. I would say it has some elements of Blitzkrieg and that it wasn't fought with WWI tactics. It is true that it was a very complex operation involving all branches of the Wehrmacht, with a powerful accent on naval actions.

Well, I wouldn't say that Norway had nothing to do at all with Blitzkrieg. The Germans did manage to move very quickly and neutralize Norwegian will and possibilities to resist and benefitted from a strong air support. I would say it has some elements of Blitzkrieg and that it wasn't fought with WWI tactics. It is true that it was a very complex operation involving all branches of the Wehrmacht, with a powerful accent on naval actions.

In that case, we'd need to discuss what Blitzkrieg is. In my opinion, you cannot have Blitzkrieg without mobile armored forces that by concentration, mass, firepower and speed achieve a wide breakthrough through the enemy lines, preferably in a weak point, and exploit it in depth, to the limit, without due consideration for covering their own flanks. You also have other ingredients, but this is a must.
A series of bold, fast moves isn't necessarily a Blitzkrieg sample. Weserübung had such moves, but Norway is decidedly anything but a tankers' country.

Here is the entry on Blitzkrieg by Macmillan book:

Behind the sand dunes was the suez canal linking Britain to the rest of the commonwealth and the main British naval base in the mediterranean.

But anyway the Germans were over there essentially to prevent their Italian ally from crumbling.