# Did the RN win the Battle of Britain?



## syscom3 (Sep 15, 2006)

Saw this article.

Personally I think its a crock. RN without air cover vs German navy with air cover would be a disaster of monumental proportions.

Telegraph | News | Battle of Britain was won at sea. Discuss

The Battle of Britain was not won by the RAF but by the Royal Navy, military historians have concluded, provoking outrage among the war's surviving fighter pilots.

Challenging the "myth" that Spitfires and Hurricanes held off the German invaders in 1940, the monthly magazine History Today has concluded that it was the might of the Navy that stood between Britain and Nazi occupation.

The view is backed by three leading academics who are senior military historians at the Joint Service Command Staff College teaching the future admirals, generals and air marshals.

They contend that the sheer numbers of destroyers and battleships in the Channel would have obliterated any invasion fleet even if the RAF had lost the Battle of Britain.

The idea that a "handful of heroes saved these islands from invasion" was nothing more than a "perpetuation of a glorious myth," the article suggests.

"Many still prefer to believe that in the course of that summer a few hundred outnumbered young men so outfought a superior enemy as solely to prevent a certain invasion of Britain. Almost none of which is true," reports Brian James, the author.

Dr Andrew Gordon, the head of maritime history at the staff college, said it was "hogwash" to suggest that Germany failed to invade in 1940 "because of what was done by the phenomenally brave and skilled young men of Fighter Command".

"The Germans stayed away because while the Royal Navy existed they had not a hope in hell of capturing these islands. The Navy had ships in sufficient numbers to have overwhelmed any invasion fleet - destroyers' speed alone would have swamped the barges by their wash."

Even if the RAF had been defeated the fleet would still have been able to defeat any invasion because fast ships at sea could easily manoeuvre and "were pretty safe from air attack".

While admitting it was an "extremely sensitive subject", Dr Christina Goulter, the air warfare historian, supported the argument. "While it would be wrong to deny the contribution of Fighter Command, I agree largely that it was the Navy that held the Germans from invading," she said.

"As the German general Jodl put it, so long as the British Navy existed, an invasion would be to send 'my troops into a mincing machine'." Any challenge to the long-held theory that the 2,600 pilots of Fighter Command defeated the might of Germany would be subject to "more than a modicum of hostility", she added.

The Battle of Britain was "a sacrosanct event" for the RAF, like Waterloo for the Army and Trafalgar for the Navy.

It inspired Churchill to say: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Although six destroyers were lost during the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 this was due to them being stationary as they picked up troops.

Tackling capital ships would have been an even greater task because at the time the Luftwaffe, unlike the Japanese during the destruction of the fleet at Singapore, did not have armour-piercing bombs, the article says.

It has been argued that German minefields strung across the Dover Straits would have prevented the Home Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, from destroying slow troop barges.

But Dr Gordon disputed this saying that Britain had 52 minesweepers and 16 minesweeping trawlers arrayed against four German minelayers.

The disparity between the navies was huge with Britain having 36 destroyers close by and a similar number two days away. The Navy also had five capital ships on hand, whereas the Kriegsmarine had lost or had damaged their battleships.

"Anyway, in an emergency, the Royal Navy steams straight through minefields as they did when pursuing the Scharnhorst," Dr Gordon said. "They have a drill, following line astern. 'Each ship can sweep one mine' is the rather grim joke."

Can you imagine the RN's targets? An invasion fleet of Rhine barges, moving at about two knots over the water, with a freeboard of a few feet. . . an absolute field day for our navy. So that was the nightmare for the German navy. They knew it just couldn't happen."

Prof Gary Sheffield, the JSCSC's leading land warfare historian, said while some Germans might have got ashore it would have been near impossible for them to be re-supplied with the Navy so close by.

The article also argues that while the RAF had 644 fighters to the Luftwaffe's 725 at the beginning of the battle by October 1940 Britain was far out-producing the enemy.

It also said that after the defeat in France in early 1940 it was vital for Britain to have a victory to reassure the public it was winning the war and the RAF fighter pilots were an obvious choice. "In 1940, the total acceptance of the story's simple broad-brush strokes was very necessary," the historian Richard Overy said.

Dr Gordon added: "The RAF's was a substitute victory - a substitute for the certain victory over Sealion, had the Germans been mad enough to attempt invasion."


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## plan_D (Sep 15, 2006)

To some extent, it's true. The RAF did win the battle, but the Royal Navy could have held off the invasion. The Luftwaffe wouldn't have been able to sink the entire Royal Navy.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 15, 2006)

Agreed pD.


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## Gnomey (Sep 15, 2006)

Yep, I agree as well pD, the Germans would of been hard pressed to sink the whole of the RN, especially with the determination they would of had to stop the invasion.


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## syscom3 (Sep 15, 2006)

I disagree.

As events in the PTO proved (and the MTO as well), any type of ship without aircover was a ship waiting to be sunk.

The Repulse and POW are classic examples of it.

When you consider that shipboard AAA was woefully inadequate in 1940, there is little chance the RN (or USN or IJN or KM for that matter) could have held off a determined air force with plenty of aircraft to throw into the battle.


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## Hunter368 (Sep 15, 2006)

syscom3 said:


> I disagree.
> 
> As events in the PTO proved (and the MTO as well), any type of ship without aircover was a ship waiting to be sunk.
> 
> ...



Well I have to agree with both syscom and PlanD on this one. Let me explain.

RN with no aircover would of been hit hard, very hard by the Luftwaffe. See the Mediterranean area of operation as an example. LW there did very well vs RN and part of the time RN had aircover. 

Now LW did not have alot of units trained vs ships, like the Japan did when they sunk so many ships. LW would of still been able to sink ships just not at such a high % as the Japanese or the LW anti shipping units did.

But the RN had soooo many ships that LW would not have been able to sink them all in a short amount of time fast enough to stop them from sinking the landing craft or from destroying the beach heads. The landings would of still failed I think with a high cost to the RN.

Plus what is not mentioned is this....how many ships in the RN would they use? If the RN used her whole fleet from around the world well damn that was huge. Or are we talking that RN only used her home fleet to defend the landings.

I think obviously if the UK viewed Germany as a actual threat to invade she would of drawn all her available ships to defend her homeland. Had UK done that I don't think German would of been able to simply sink them fast enough to win the battle. RN would of lost alot of ships, but won and the LW would of lost her fleet and a fair amount of planes also.

Damn it would of been one bloody fight and alot of men would of died on both sides. Both sides would of been badly hurt from the battle, these wounds would of seriously hindered their ability to fight the rest of the war like they actually did in WW2.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 15, 2006)

let me put my thoughts accross............

it was the RAF that stopped the Invasion, without destroying our air force Jerry knew he couldn't carry out an invasion as we'd use our planes and Navy to stop it in the channel. if the RAF had been defeated and an invasion were attempted then the remainer of the RAF simply wouldn't just not show up, there'd still be some fighters, which would be called on simply to defend our capital ships from the LW, or atleast the few units that were able to attack ships, often just Ju-87s, remembering syscom the English channel aint like the med or pacific, it's very narrow meaning fighters can patrol its entire width, providing cover for ships, which the remaining RAF, however small, would be trying to do, the LW would've sunk some of our ships of that there can be no doubt, but they wouldn't be totally unchallenged, and besides that the Navy would be so quick in making mince meat of the invasion it wouldn't be in the channel long, to conclude, the RAF won the battle, but the Navy also could have if the RAF hadn't..................


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## Hunter368 (Sep 15, 2006)

the lancaster kicks *** said:


> let me put my thoughts accross............
> 
> it was the RAF that stopped the Invasion, without destroying our air force Jerry knew he couldn't carry out an invasion as we'd use our planes and Navy to stop it in the channel. if the RAF had been defeated and an invasion were attempted then the remainer of the RAF simply wouldn't just not show up, there'd still be some fighters, which would be called on simply to defend our capital ships from the LW, or atleast the few units that were able to attack ships, often just Ju-87s, remembering syscom the English channel aint like the med or pacific, it's very narrow meaning fighters can patrol its entire width, providing cover for ships, which the remaining RAF, however small, would be trying to do, the LW would've sunk some of our ships of that there can be no doubt, but they wouldn't be totally unchallenged, and besides that the Navy would be so quick in making mince meat of the invasion it wouldn't be in the channel long, to conclude, the RAF won the battle, but the Navy also could have if the RAF hadn't..................



Agreed


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 15, 2006)

Well when put the same way as Hunter put it, I have to agree with syscom as well. That is a good point, without aircover any Navy is vulnerable. I dont care whos Navy it is.


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## trackend (Sep 15, 2006)

My opinion is that the RAF proved beyond doubt that an invasion was untenable. The invasion of Briton was never a real proposition in the first place although the German airforce would have undoubtedly caused catastrophic losses amongst the naval fleet it would only have required a few vessels even destroyers or smaller to survive just a short time to decimate what was after all a hoch poch of improvised landing vessels that where to even the most poor gunnery officers very easy slow targets add to this the Raf who would be out in force it was doomed to failure. The Raf however stopped it from getting to this stage by proving the Luftwaffe in capable of ruling the sky's over the channel and thus making the chance of a successfull invasion impossible.


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## Glider (Sep 15, 2006)

I think we agree that to invade the Germans would have had to destroy the RAF and then beat the RN.
They didn't destroy the RAF and didn't get to the second hurdle, taking on the RN. I am with Lanc in my belief that the Germans wouldn't have destroyed the RN.

The Germans didn't have many dive bomber squadrons trained for attacking ships. When they did attack the RN in 1940 they didn't do very well. I believe the RN and French lost eight destroyers off France, all of them stationary when picking up survivors. 
In the period leading up to and including the BOB itself the Germans attacked a number of convoys of colliers that sailed up the Channel to deliver coal to the power stations of London. No convoy was ever turned back. If you cannot hit on a regular basis a collier in daylight with a max speed of around 3-4 kts that is unable to manoeuver or fight back, then how are you going to decimate a number of destroyers intent of death and destruction? 
Off Norway we lost a number of ships but again normally when stationary.

There is no doubt that in the Med after the Germans had been through the required training they were deadly, no question at all, but not in 1940 off the coast of the UK.

On point that is often missed. Navies operate 24 hours a day, airforces (in 1940) daylight hours only. The Channel at night belonged to the RN.
Remembering that the Germans had eight operational destroyers and the RN forty on anti invasion duty (plus reserves), plus seventy MTB's operated by RN reserve captains who were often experienced amature yachtsmen who knew the channel well. The odds are definately in the favour of the RN. .


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## Tony Williams (Sep 15, 2006)

Agree with Glider's summary.

The invasion force would have consisted of a very large number of small and extremely slow vessels, spread out over a large area, and taking a very long time to get to their objective. Their crossing would have to have been partially at night, when the RN could have operated at their leisure. The RN destroyers wouldn't even have had to sink them all by gunfire - just passing close by a low-freeboard river barge at high speed would have swamped it.

If Fighter Command had clearly been losing, they just would have withdrawn to bases out of reach of the German fighters, and waited for the invasion to be committed before returning in force. The Luftwaffe would have had a serious headache, since they did not have a big advantage in fighter numbers. If the RAF fighters had concentrated on providing cover for the RN ships, then the Luftwaffe fighters would have had to concentrate on providing cover for their bombers attacking the ships - leaving the sky clear for Bomber Command to attack the invasion fleet. Alternatively, the Luftwaffe fighters could have protected the invasion force, resulting in their unescorted bombers being chewed up by Fighter Command as they tried to attack the RN. The Luftwaffe couldn't be everywhere at once, and if they tried to be they would be spread too thin to be very effective.

There is nothing new in this article, it's just a mixture of hype and misunderstanding. The Battle of Britain *was *the air war and that was won by the RAF, but the main deterrent to invasion was the RN. That was well known at the time, and is beyond dispute.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## mosquitoman (Sep 17, 2006)

But... if Sea Lion did go ahead and the RN was called in, it would have lost a lot of ships- ships that would've been urgently needed elsewhere for convoy escort- meaning that the Battle of the Atlantic would've been a much more close-run thing or it might have even been lost by the Allies


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## 102first_hussars (Sep 17, 2006)

With all do respect to the Royal Navy, but during that time perioud i think the RCN and those peice of sh*t Corvettes did more and suffered the most too, now when i learned that the RN had completely wiped out the German Destroyers of of Scandinavia before the BOB i was f*cking ipressed


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## Glider (Sep 17, 2006)

They would have lost some ships and no doubt taken damage on a number of others but there are two key points.

1 Tactical Situation
We couldn't take the chance of letting the Germans gain a bridghead in the UK. It would have been a situation where to all intents and purposes our losses wouldn't matter if the german landings could be beaten. The RN proved a number of times that they would take considerable risks to close and destroy the enemy. 
In the battle of Narvik the Battleship HMS Warspite took on destroyers in the fjiords at almost suicidal ranges considering that the Germans had torpedo's well within range.
When the Germans broke through the Channel the British Destroyers went through known minefields to close. 
Its a question of priorities and defeating the invasion would come first on the list.

2 Types of Ships
The destroyers, cruisers and MTB's to be used in the Channel are not the best convoy escorts. 
The destroyers cannot use their speed, they don't carry large numbers of anti submarine depth charges, they lack range and LA guns are of no use against aircraft. 
Cruisers cover convoys from surface attack but the Germans would have been tied up with the invasion. 
Most of the convoy escorts would have been retained as a 16kt escort with 1 x 4in would have been of limited value in taking on an invasion. 
I agree that the convoys would have been less well protected and losses would have increased but I don't think the Battle of the Atlantic would have been lost because of it.


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## daishi12 (Sep 22, 2006)

It must also be remembered that the RN did not just have Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers and Corvettes. There were also large numbers of trawlers that could and would have been converted to armed trawlers. Armed trawlers would have had the duty of laying and clearing mines which would have meant that the Kriegsmarine would have suffered losses before they could get to the beach heads.

If the Germans had attempted to invade, remember there would have been a change of priority with the Luftwaffe, they would have needed to change from bombing the mainland to trying to defend the invasion barges and surface ships from aerial attack, this means that bombers attacking RN surface ships would by default be lightly or unescorted.

The English Channel would have been red with blood for months.

I agree that the RAF won the BoB, but the RN prevented the invasion.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 22, 2006)

The RN played a big part but the RAF kept it all a very distant thought to begin with.


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## Soundbreaker Welch? (Sep 23, 2006)

*If Fighter Command had clearly been losing, they just would have withdrawn to bases out of reach of the German fighters, and waited for the invasion to be committed before returning in force. The Luftwaffe would have had a serious headache, since they did not have a big advantage in fighter numbers. If the RAF fighters had concentrated on providing cover for the RN ships, then the Luftwaffe fighters would have had to concentrate on providing cover for their bombers attacking the ships - leaving the sky clear for Bomber Command to attack the invasion fleet. Alternatively, the Luftwaffe fighters could have protected the invasion force, resulting in their unescorted bombers being chewed up by Fighter Command as they tried to attack the RN. The Luftwaffe couldn't be everywhere at once, and if they tried to be they would be spread too thin to be very effective.*


That's true but if both sides had almost the same amount of fighters couldn't they do half and half? If the Luftwaffe had divided itself with one half to defend the bombers, and the other half to defend the invasion fleet, the RAF would also have to divide itself to attack them both at once. And if the RAF decided to concentrate itself to attack just one half, say just the Luftwaffe bombers, with odds of maybe 2 to 1, then the German fighters guarding the invasion fleet could come right back to support fighters guarding the bombers. If the RAF switched all it's fighters then to the Invasion fleet the Luftwaffe could have backtracked and ect, ect, ect. 

It would have been a bloody wild goose chase of the two fighter sides and it's likely the RAF would find one part of the German Invasion force unprotected but they would. But it's also likely the Luftwaffe would find one part of the RN unprotected as well! 

But the English have the advantage of defending a beach head and battle ships, while the German had the Landing Craft and Bombers. It's more likely the German Bomber would be shot down by flak attacking the RN fleet than the RAF fighter would have been in shooting down the transport boats. And the German fleet would have sunk faster than the RN fleet simply because it was vulnerable to both the RAF Fighters and Navy. Amid this almost even sided hail storm the poor seasick German infantry would have had slim chance of hoping to break through the RN to the beach. Perhaps with an Air Path provided by the Luftwaffe they could do it. Still, on both sides the RN would be pounding the surviving german invasion fleet going single file through their ranks. And having to navigate through the sinking RN ships in their path their chances wouldn't be good. 

And the English soldiers on the beach would likely be drinking tea since the Luftwaffe would be too busy to bomb them. The few surviving germans who made it onto the beach head would surrender and join them under guard. 

I agree, the germans would have lost.


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## davparlr (Sep 23, 2006)

I think this topic is deeper than what has been discussed. First of all, with the demise of the RAF in eastern Britain, the entire focus of both forces would have been on the invasion. Germany would not have to defeat the RN, only prevent its incursion into the English Channel. Since the battle of the Atlantic would be irrelevant with the demise of Britain, the entire U-boat fleet would have been made available to intercept RN forces as they approached the area. Also, I don’t know much about the depth of the English Channel other than an average of 120 meters, but I suspect that heavy mining could have severely hindered the movement of RN ships into the channel. And that is not even talking about the German airpower.

At the beginning of WWII, Japan was, without a doubt, the most knowledgeable nation in regards to air-sea warfare and fully understood the impact of air power on naval warfare, specifically unprotected warships. With this understanding, it must be noted here that Yamamoto was not willing to engage the forces surrounding Midway after his loss of air power. This, in spite of fact that he knew that only two carriers and no more than 200 combat aircraft was available to the Americans and that he had destroyed all reinforcements at Pearl Harbor. His remaining fleet, by the way, consisted of 11 battleships (including the Yamato), 12 cruisers, 1 light carrier and 45 destroyers. Now it is true that German pilots did not have the anti-shipping skills of the Japanese or probably the Americans, but they would learn fast. And, while the Dauntless was better than the Stuka, it would certainly be effective in that environment. I don’t know about German torpedo planes but they certainly had the light bombers that could adapt. Of course, the RAF planes from west Britain would have been thrown into the mix with desperation.

All in all, it would have been a ferocious fight that was completely avoided by the BOB. And yes, it was the RN that would have prevented any invasion for certain with RAF air cover, without RAF air cover, it is not so obvious.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 24, 2006)

i think you're giving jerry a bit _too_ much credit, the RAF wouldn't allow itself to be totally wiped out anywhere, if things got so bad they were about to be destroyed they would pull back a bit and bought in fighters from all over the country, the BoB wasn't just fought over Kent and there were plenty of other squadrons around, all of which could be used to defend the Navy, so do not be fooled into thinking the navy would've got no air cover, they would have at the very least a bare bones defensive cover..............

next quite how do you propose the Germans keep the Navy out of the channel, two of Britain's biggest naval dockyards Plymouth and Portsmouth are already in the channel! There were known routes through the mine feilds and as demonstrated by Dunquirke (i think that's the French spelling  ) they posed little problem once known, next to the issue of how jerry lays the mines? in the original article Dr. Gordon says they had only 4 minelaying vessels, and that the navy had 52 minesweepers! and there's only so many arial mines you can drop, but you cirtainly wont drop enough to completely block off the east end of the channel, and any ships coming from the north/east coast would be escorted by, amoung other vessels, minesweepers! 

and as for the air power would i be correct in saying that at this point in the war the German's didn't have the ability to air drop torpedos? even if they could there's not much room in the channels to use them anyway, and as for arial bombing crews had little or no training against ships and during dunquirke stukas only really managed to sink stationary ships, furthermore the key to defeating the invasion would not be so much in the big capital ships but more with the smaller, faster vessels that're harder to hit from the air anyway..............


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## mosquitoman (Sep 24, 2006)

I think He111s and 115s were equipped for torpedo ops by that time, definitely the 115


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## pbfoot (Sep 24, 2006)

I'm pretty sure the Kriegsmarine would 've brought all the U boats into the channel and this would have caused havoc especially since ASW was in its infancy . The RAF would have been forced to cover naval ASW operations and also forced to position fighters further south to enable coverage of the RN


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## Glider (Sep 24, 2006)

Three points. 
1) U Boats have never worked well in the Channel during WW! or WW2. Its got strong currents, limited width and would of course be covered by the British.
2) The Germans couldn't have it both ways. If you want to lay lots of mines to stop the RN by default you are going to significantly limit the ability of your U Boats to attack the RN.
3) Seeing that the night belongs to the RN we would be able to lay far more mines than the Germans, plus as has already been stated, we have more minesweepers.


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## Tony Williams (Sep 24, 2006)

The RN also had lots of anti-submarine escorts and aircraft which they could switch to the North Sea if the U-boats all left the Atlantic.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## davparlr (Sep 24, 2006)

the lancaster kicks *** said:


> i think you're giving jerry a bit too much credit, the RAF wouldn't allow itself to be totally wiped out anywhere, if things got so bad they were about to be destroyed they would pull back a bit and bought in fighters from all over the country, the BoB wasn't just fought over Kent and there were plenty of other squadrons around, all of which could be used to defend the Navy, so do not be fooled into thinking the navy would've got no air cover, they would have at the very least a bare bones defensive cover..............



I think Britain was throwing all it had at the Germans during the BOB, and that, at times, pilot assets were dangerously low. It is reasonable to believe that, if Germany had succeeded in eliminating the RAF as an effective force in the BOB, all that would have been left of the RAF is a skeleton force. And remember, with the battle being over the Channel, the limited range of Luftwaffe planes would not be an issue.



> next quite how do you propose the Germans keep the Navy out of the channel, two of Britain's biggest naval dockyards Plymouth and Portsmouth are already in the channel!



These ports would be bomb mercilessly. Any ships in Portsmouth would probably not be a factor. Aerial bombing, mines and blockading submarines should have severely hampered any sorties from these ports.



> There were known routes through the mine feilds and as demonstrated by Dunquirke (i think that's the French spelling ) they posed little problem once known, next to the issue of how jerry lays the mines? in the original article Dr. Gordon says they had only 4 minelaying vessels, and that the navy had 52 minesweepers! and there's only so many arial mines you can drop, but you cirtainly wont drop enough to completely block off the east end of the channel, and any ships coming from the north/east coast would be escorted by, amoung other vessels, minesweepers!



And they would be enduring aerial attacks all the way.

See comments at the end



> and as for the air power would i be correct in saying that at this point in the war the German's didn't have the ability to air drop torpedos? even if they could there's not much room in the channels to use them anyway,



See note in a previous entry about German torpedo bombing. The Japanese had little problems with torpedoes in confines of Pearl Harbor.



> and as for arial bombing crews had little or no training against ships and during dunquirke stukas only really managed to sink stationary ships,



They would learn fast in a congested target rich environment. The Dunkirk evacuation only lasted a couple of weeks so little learning took place. Still, 243 vessels were sunk even with RAF cover! Imagine the toll if there was only token to none RAF presence.



> furthermore the key to defeating the invasion would not be so much in the big capital ships but more with the smaller, faster vessels that're harder to hit from the air anyway..............



Smaller, faster vessels are more susceptible to the lighter caliber weapons of fighters an fighter bombers.

[Glider=QUOTE]

Three points. 
1) U Boats have never worked well in the Channel during WW! or WW2. Its got strong currents, limited width and would of course be covered by the British. [/QUOTE]

Subs would not need to be in the Channel just the entrances.



> 2) The Germans couldn't have it both ways. If you want to lay lots of mines to stop the RN by default you are going to significantly limit the ability of your U Boats to attack the RN.



Mines would be in the Channel, U Boats at the entrances like defensive fighter planes staying out of the Flak



> 3) Seeing that the night belongs to the RN we would be able to lay far more mines than the Germans, plus as has already been stated, we have more minesweepers.



Germans would contest that with flares and searchlights. Nobody said it wouldn’t be a hard fight.

[Tony Williams=Quote]The RN also had lots of anti-submarine escorts and aircraft which they could switch to the North Sea if the U-boats all left the Atlantic. [/QUOTE]

I think anti-submarine warfare was not up to stopping subs at that time of WWII.

However, in order to be successful, the Germans would have had to have a well thought out plan and proper preparation. This would include mines and minelayers, torpedoes and torpedo planes, coastal artillery, and it would also have required landing training. Just look at the D Day preparations and training (true, France was better defended than Britain but still). I do not think Germany would have executed the proper preparation due to lack of sea invasion experience. But even without proper preparation, without air power, the Brits would have sustained massive losses to it fleet. That is why Yamamoto did not press home his attack!


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## pbfoot (Sep 24, 2006)

The RN lauched corvettes without guns in 1939/40 as they were not available or short supply and actually sailed some with a fake wooden gun and the tactics for ASW were woefully inadequate


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## Tony Williams (Sep 24, 2006)

davparlr said:


> I think Britain was throwing all it had at the Germans during the BOB, and that, at times, pilot assets were dangerously low. It is reasonable to believe that, if Germany had succeeded in eliminating the RAF as an effective force in the BOB, all that would have been left of the RAF is a skeleton force.


I think you are mistaken. As has already been pointed out, only about half of Fighter Command was engaged in the BoB at any one time. And if the RAF's losses had become too severe, they would have withdrawn to bases outside the range of German fighters and marshalled their resources ready to repel the invasion.



> These ports would be bomb mercilessly. Any ships in Portsmouth would probably not be a factor. Aerial bombing, mines and blockading submarines should have severely hampered any sorties from these ports.


While the RAF and RN were sitting around doing nothing?



> And they would be enduring aerial attacks all the way.


Unlike the (much slower, much more vulnerable) invasion fleet?



> See note in a previous entry about German torpedo bombing. The Japanese had little problems with torpedoes in confines of Pearl Harbor.


They learned from the British attack on Taranto, and practice intensively for Pearl Harbor, in every detail, for many weeks.



> They would learn fast in a congested target rich environment. The Dunkirk evacuation only lasted a couple of weeks so little learning took place. Still, 243 vessels were sunk even with RAF cover! Imagine the toll if there was only token to none RAF presence.


Just how long did you expect it would take the invasion fleet to get across the Channel? More than two weeks????

As has already been pointed out, only a handful of destroyers were sunk, and only when stationary. The vast majority of vessels sunk were small boats - not unlike the invasion fleet would have been.



> Smaller, faster vessels are more susceptible to the lighter caliber weapons of fighters an fighter bombers.


Destroyers would find such attacks no more than irritations. Unlike the barges of the invasion fleet, packed with soldiers, which would be highly vulnerable to machine gun attacks.



> Mines would be in the Channel, U Boats at the entrances like defensive fighter planes staying out of the Flak


Mines were placed wherever they needed to be. And the further you get away from the Channel, the wider the North Sea becomes, the harder it woud be for U-boats to find their targets, and the easier it would be for anti-sub planes and escorts to operate without fear of air attack. U-boat attacks against warships travelling at 25+ knots (while they could only manage 7 knots submerged) were a totally different ball game to attacking 7-knot merchant convoys.



> Germans would contest that with flares and searchlights. Nobody said it wouldn’t be a hard fight.


I don't think you have any concept of the difficulties of locating anything in a body of water the size of the Channel, in which flares and searchlights are the merest glimmers. 



> I think anti-submarine warfare was not up to stopping subs at that time of WWII.


All the anti-sub forces had to do was keep the U-boats submerged below periscope depth, in which state they could see nothing and only move at a crawl.



> However, in order to be successful, the Germans would have had to have a well thought out plan and proper preparation. This would include mines and minelayers, torpedoes and torpedo planes, coastal artillery, and it would also have required landing training. Just look at the D Day preparations and training (true, France was better defended than Britain but still). I do not think Germany would have executed the proper preparation due to lack of sea invasion experience. But even without proper preparation, without air power, the Brits would have sustained massive losses to it fleet. That is why Yamamoto did not press home his attack!



The British would have had air power, as has been repeatedly pointed out. 

For the Germans to launch a successful invasion, they would have had to do everything right, and been very lucky, the British would have had to do everything wrong, and been very unlucky. War isn't like that.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Tony Williams (Sep 24, 2006)

P.S. sorry about the double post - the first one suddenly posted itself before I had finished, and my edit came up as a new post (very odd).

TW


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## Glider (Sep 25, 2006)

Tony's post makes a lot of sense and should be read and considered before replying. In particular the comments about the size of the channel.
I live on the coast and have sailed in the North Sea so have some idea as to what we are looking at.
Flares and searchlights would be next to useless. Coastal Artillery wouldn't hit a thing, lacking range, ROF and those that existed tended to be ex WW1 weapons.
As for the bombers remember that the Germans at the time were unable to stop very slow convoys of Colliers sailing into the Thames so what make you think they would be able to hit fast moving destroyers?


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## bomber (Sep 25, 2006)

My thoughts are this...

1) The RAF constists of fighter and bomber command, at a push fighter command could call on trained pilots.

2) Just how many German infantry would we be talking about on the beachhead ?... opposed by how many British infantry..

German armour in the blitzkrieg rolled over Mainland Europe.. this just wouldn't work in the home counties...

Airsupremacy was just the initial requirement of the Germans for an invasion it was by no means everything...

A successfull siege would have given greater results.

Regards

Simon


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 25, 2006)

> blockading submarines should have severely hampered any sorties from these ports.





> Subs would not need to be in the Channel just the entrances.



you've contradicted yourself within one post 

because they used highly modified torpedos which were considdered the best in the world with, as has been said, much training, and there is of course the factor that all the ships in pearl harbour were stationary 



> Mines would be in the Channel



mines are eequal oppertunity weapons, they could damage either fleet, the difference being we were far better equipt to sweep mines than you were to lay them, and mines would do just as much to hamper the invading fleet than ours, and if you don't mine the approach routes to the beaches you'll be landing on- Bingo! we know where you'll be landing.......



> Germans would contest that with flares and searchlights



as has been pointed out in the Channel this would prove to be an impossible task.......


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## Soren (Sep 25, 2006)

I don't mean to get involved in this discussion (Cause I've had similar ones before  ), but there are just a few comments I'd like to address.



Tony Williams said:


> Destroyers would find such attacks no more than irritations. Unlike the barges of the invasion fleet, packed with soldiers, which would be highly vulnerable to machine gun attacks.



Yes Tony, but what makes you believe that the LW fighters and fighter-bombers would attack the Destroyers only with machinegun and small caliber cannon fire ?? Fighter's could carry bombs, bombs big enough to sink a Destroyer in one go. Besides the Stuka was very much available at this point as it had earlier been suspended from flying over Britain because of its losses to RAF fighters, and it would have been more than good enough to carry out anti-ship duties - being capable of carrying large torpedoes and bombs and delivering them VERY accurately. 



Tony Williams said:


> Mines were placed wherever they needed to be. And the further you get away from the Channel, the wider the North Sea becomes, the harder it woud be for U-boats to find their targets, and the easier it would be for anti-sub planes and escorts to operate without fear of air attack. U-boat attacks against warships travelling at 25+ knots (while they could only manage 7 knots submerged) were a totally different ball game to attacking 7-knot merchant convoys.



All the U-boats had to do was wait for the warships to come to them, once that was achieved the warships were pretty much sitting ducks for the 45 knot torps. Anti-submarine measures were by then not very sophisticated and a carefully handled sub could easily sneak up on a Destroyer un-noticed.



Tony Williams said:


> All the anti-sub forces had to do was keep the U-boats submerged below periscope depth, in which state they could see nothing and only move at a crawl.



All they had to do ?! That would've been all but impossible for the British at that point ! As long as the U-boat is submerged it can't be seen, and that includes periscope depth. And no, a periscope was NOT easy to spot at all ! Like you said yourself: "_I don't think you have any concept of the difficulties of locating anything in a body of water the size of the Channel, in which flares and searchlights are the merest glimmers._ "


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## Jabberwocky (Sep 25, 2006)

I wonder how the Kriegsmarine would of dealt with the dozen or so RN Home Fleet submarines , particularly in the confines of the Channel, when around 20 surface vessles were tasked with protecting in excess of 700 smaller craft? Evening and morning operations would of been something of a "target rich envirnoment" I'd imagine.


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## Tony Williams (Sep 26, 2006)

Soren said:


> Yes Tony, but what makes you believe that the LW fighters and fighter-bombers would attack the Destroyers only with machinegun and small caliber cannon fire ?? Fighter's could carry bombs, bombs big enough to sink a Destroyer in one go. Besides the Stuka was very much available at this point as it had earlier been suspended from flying over Britain because of its losses to RAF fighters, and it would have been more than good enough to carry out anti-ship duties - being capable of carrying large torpedoes and bombs and delivering them VERY accurately.


Fighter-bombers could carry bombs, but they were very inaccurate in dropping them. In 1944 RAF Typhoons, which specialised in ground attack, were assessed by Operational Research to have an average miss distance of 110m when dropping bombs. LW fighters did not have as much practice. And especially not by night.

Stukas were certainly accurate, but again, not by night. And (for at least the third time) their record against _moving _warships at Dunkirk was most unimpressive. I am not aware that Stukas had ever dropped torpedoes in anger by 1940 - that's a specialised skill all of its own.



> All the U-boats had to do was wait for the warships to come to them, once that was achieved the warships were pretty much sitting ducks for the 45 knot torps. Anti-submarine measures were by then not very sophisticated and a carefully handled sub could easily sneak up on a Destroyer un-noticed.


 _All _they had to do? I suggest that you look at the number of torpedoes fired by U-boats which missed their targets when these were slow merchant ships, let alone fast warships. The only sitting duck would have been a stationary vessel. And even then, the Germans had their problems with torpedo reliability, just as the RN and USN did. 

For a U-boat to hit a warship travelling at normal cruising speed, it had to follow exactly the right track close to the U-boat (check out the width of the North Sea), and avoid zig-zagging (which was the standard tactic when U-boats were around) so the U-boat commander could calculate the correct lead angle. 

Perhaps you could explain how a 7-knot U-boat could "sneak up on" a 25+ knot warship? The RN ships would not have been hanging around, with an invasion force to counter.



> All they had to do ?! That would've been all but impossible for the British at that point ! As long as the U-boat is submerged it can't be seen, and that includes periscope depth. And no, a periscope was NOT easy to spot at all !


Standard operating procedure for a U-boat spotting an aircraft was to submerge. if it didn't, it was risking not only being bombed, but also the aircraft calling in an anti-sub ship. Once submerged, a U-boat had a very poor view through a periscope. And it would have to travel very slowly, because although a periscope was difficult to see, the plume of water it threw up when the boat was moving was not. And (depending on the weather) it was possible to spot U-boats travelling just underwater from the air, even if they didn't have their periscopes up.

The biggest contribution made by Allied anti-submarine aircraft was not in sinking U-boats, it was in keeping them underwater so they could hardly move and could see very little. Most of the time the aircraft didn't even realise that they were achieving this, because the U-boat saw them first and immediately dived.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Vassili Zaitzev (Sep 26, 2006)

Well with these theories about the RN fighting Sealion I can see it now. The English Channel packed with ships, aircrafts, and debris. It would be a bloody fight, maybe more bloody than the battles near Guadacanal near Savo Island or Iron Bottom Sound. If the Germans did manage to land on their target beaches the British army better stop them on the beaches or they're in for a tough fight.


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## Meteor (Sep 26, 2006)

An interesting topic this.

It has been wargamed back in the 70's using actual players from the time. A precis of it can be found on this site:

British Army Rumour Service > > Forums > > Military History and Militaria

Look for the post from Windin.

Some of the posters here have picked out some very salient points for me and some have equally displayed, in my opinion, a bit of niavety. I dont think Bf-109's could carry bombs in 1940 and I'm sure even if they could they werent trained to hit ships.

Also the Germans didnt have a proper anti ship bomb in this time or even a fully fledged aerial torpedo. Again, they just didnt train for it either.

A very interesting scenario though and I have learned lots about capabilities of 1940's aircraft just through this discussion.

Cheers....


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## davparlr (Sep 26, 2006)

[Tony Williams=QUOTE]
I think you are mistaken. As has already been pointed out, only about half of Fighter Command was engaged in the BoB at any one time. And if the RAF's losses had become too severe, they would have withdrawn to bases outside the range of German fighters and marshalled their resources ready to repel the invasion.


> Remember the assumption is that the RN had been defeated. What this implies is that the Germans, flying at the limit of their range, was able to inflict damage on the RAF over its home airspace to the point that it could not maintain a force. Now you are telling me that the same defeated RAF force, flying at the limit of their range, could turn that around over German home base airspace, which the Channel crossing would have been! This is difficult to accept.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Coastal artillery would work fine in protecting the departure points.



> As for the bombers remember that the Germans at the time were unable to stop very slow convoys of Colliers sailing into the Thames so what make you think they would be able to hit fast moving destroyers



But then those convoys had air cover from the RAF. As I have stated, I don’t believe the RAF would be much help here.

[Bomber=QUOTE]The RAF constists of fighter and bomber command, at a push fighter command could call on trained pilots[/QUOTE]

Bomber pilots turned into fighter pilots, hmmm, well, training could be accelerated but throwing partially trained bomber pilots into the fight against experienced German fighter pilots would not be a pretty sight.



> German armour in the blitzkrieg rolled over Mainland Europe.. this just wouldn't work in the home counties...



I am not sure why this would be different than the Low Countries, France or Poland. Britain lost a lot of heavy equipment at Dunkirk.




> Just how many German infantry would we be talking about on the beachhead ?... opposed by how many British infantry..
> 
> Airsupremacy was just the initial requirement of the Germans for an invasion it was by no means everything...
> 
> ...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 26, 2006)

> RAF force, flying at the limit of their range, could turn that around over German home base airspace, which the Channel crossing would have been!



you seem to think that the channel is closer to France than it is to England, well it's in between  fighters from both sides would have about equal time over target, but they would've been able to get over target so i don't see how fighter range has much of an impact here, and our fighters only need to be up when the invasion's coming and our ships are out in the channel.........



> I don’t know what the RN would do except try to maneuver and use AAA.



for a small fast moving ship this is a very effective tactic..........



> I think you are underestimating German capability



how many units did the LW have that were fully trained in anti-shipping operations? how many units were trained with airial torpedos? how many airial torpedos did they actually have? if it's true that at this point only the He-115 was capable of dropping them you can forget that idea! and remember when that invasion fleet's going across the channel'll be full of lots of fast moving small ships, not only are these hard to hit but for the long time that the torpedo's running in the water there's a chance a German ship will get hit by mistake, very possible with so many ships around, so Jerry would be less willing to use them..........



> Coastal artillery would work fine in protecting the departure points



that's fine, keep it at your departure points, we'd just wait for you in the channel we're not stupid enough to go searching for you..........



> I am not sure why this [the blitzkrieg] would be different than the Low Countries, France or Poland. Britain lost a lot of heavy equipment at Dunkirk.



think on it, why did we loose a lot of heavy equiptment? because it was hard to get across, why wouldn't Blitzkrieg work in Britain? because you'd never get enough tanks across the channel before we destroyed any tiny foothold you may've got, no tanks, no Blitzkreig, welcome to conventional warfare against an entire nation looking to stop the invasion, unlike Normandy where the locals weren't German, the locals in Britain all wanted to see any german invasion fail.............



> It appears to me that Plymouth is barely in the Channel and likely not to have the tidal conditions that would have existed around the invasion fleet (but then, I don’t know anything about tidal patterns).



all you need to know about the tide in HMNB Devonport (Plymouth) is that the tide is always high enough for capital ships, even today the RN secure HMS Ocean out in the River Tamar with no problems, it's the first port of call for any ships in the Atlantic and is a major port without tide problems, although i don't know as much about Portsmouth's tides...........


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## Gnomey (Sep 26, 2006)

Large car ferries can get in and out of Portsmouth all day long so I don't think it would be too different from Plymouth.


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## davparlr (Sep 26, 2006)

the lancaster kicks *** said:


> you seem to think that the channel is closer to France than it is to England, well it's in between  fighters from both sides would have about equal time over target, but they would've been able to get over target so i don't see how fighter range has much of an impact here, and our fighters only need to be up when the invasion's coming and our ships are out in the channel.........



Remember, what RAF fighters were left were base outside Luftwaffe range so they were based in the western part of England and would have had to fly 100, 150, maybe 200 miles to reach the Channel.



> think on it, why did we loose a lot of heavy equiptment? because it was hard to get across, why wouldn't Blitzkrieg work in Britain? because you'd never get enough tanks across the channel before we destroyed any tiny foothold you may've got, no tanks, no Blitzkreig, welcome to conventional warfare against an entire nation looking to stop the invasion, unlike Normandy where the locals weren't German, the locals in Britain all wanted to see any german invasion fail.............



Well, certainly getting the necessary tanks across would be critical and difficult, but if they did, the German tactics should have been just as effective as it was in mainland Europe.





> all you need to know about the tide in HMNB Devonport (Plymouth) is that the tide is always high enough for capital ships, even today the RN secure HMS Ocean out in the River Tamar with no problems, it's the first port of call for any ships in the Atlantic and is a major port without tide problems, although i don't know as much about Portsmouth's tides...........



So, it appears that U-Boats would be able to operate in blockade of those two ports, which is what I was arguing.


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## Soren (Sep 26, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> Fighter-bombers could carry bombs, but they were very inaccurate in dropping them. In 1944 RAF Typhoons, which specialised in ground attack, were assessed by Operational Research to have an average miss distance of 110m when dropping bombs. LW fighters did not have as much practice. And especially not by night.



So you're comparing the RAF's results at the very well camoflaged terrain of Normandy with anti-ship bombing ?? Seriously Tony, there's no comparison. A vehicle the size of a tank can easily hide or make a hard target of itself in a place like the bocage, but a 350 feet destroyer located in open waters hasn't got the slightest chance. 

A good example of how effective air attacks are against warships, even massively defended ones, is the British Swordfish attack on the Bismarck which was packed with AA guns - A destroyer was dead meat if placed in the same situation.



> Stukas were certainly accurate, but again, not by night. And (for at least the third time) their record against _moving _warships at Dunkirk was most unimpressive.



The Stuka did VERY well against moving ships at Norway and in the Mediterranean, delivering devastating blows to the RN at both places.



> I am not aware that Stukas had ever dropped torpedoes in anger by 1940 - that's a specialised skill all of its own.



What they did doesn't matter, its what they could which matters.

Besides the He-111 and Ju-88 could do the job as-well.



> _All _they had to do? I suggest that you look at the number of torpedoes fired by U-boats which missed their targets when these were slow merchant ships, let alone fast warships.



No I suggest you should take a look at it ! :uboat.net - Special Sections - Attack Analysis

Some German U-boats had a hit-rate higher than 90% !



> The only sitting duck would have been a stationary vessel. And even then, the Germans had their problems with torpedo reliability, just as the RN and USN did.



Exactly what torpedo's are we talking about ?? Cause most German torpedoes were very reliable. The only problems I know of experienced with German torps occured early in the war close to Norway, where the magnetic-pistols were affected by the magnetic-interference of the northpole.



> For a U-boat to hit a warship travelling at normal cruising speed, it had to follow exactly the right track close to the U-boat (check out the width of the North Sea), and avoid zig-zagging (which was the standard tactic when U-boats were around) so the U-boat commander could calculate the correct lead angle.



Which was achieved quite often..



> Perhaps you could explain how a 7-knot U-boat could "sneak up on" a 25+ knot warship? The RN ships would not have been hanging around, with an invasion force to counter.



They wouldn't, they would wait for the warships to come to them, cause like you said the RN wasn't going to wait around with an invasion going on.



> Standard operating procedure for a U-boat spotting an aircraft was to submerge. if it didn't, it was risking not only being bombed, but also the aircraft calling in an anti-sub ship. Once submerged, a U-boat had a very poor view through a periscope. And it would have to travel very slowly, because although a periscope was difficult to see, the plume of water it threw up when the boat was moving was not. And (depending on the weather) it was possible to spot U-boats travelling just underwater from the air, even if they didn't have their periscopes up.



With no RAF ? I'd like to see that happen !

And the water would have to be unusually clear for you to spot a submerged U-boat from above, and I'm not talking "English channel" type of clear ! 



> The biggest contribution made by Allied anti-submarine aircraft was not in sinking U-boats, it was in keeping them underwater so they could hardly move and could see very little. Most of the time the aircraft didn't even realise that they were achieving this, because the U-boat saw them first and immediately dived.



But with no RAF how was that going to happen ?? And even if the RAF wasn't entirely beaten, the LW would occupy so much of it that its effectiveness against U-boat's would've been very small. Also hunting down U-boats wasn't danger-free, it was infact very dangerous business as this article explains:uboat.net - History - U-boat Successes against aircraft


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## Glider (Sep 26, 2006)

Soren can I ask you a few questions.
How many fully operational ships were sunk whilst operating off Norway? care to name a couple?
Germans were very dangerous in the Med after  they had received specialist training. That was well after 1940 so isn't a valid comparison.
If the Germans couldn't stop convoys of colliers sailing into the Thames, how are they going to hit destroyers?

How are the Germans going to stop the RN at night with no airforces, almost no destroyers, no cruisers, minefields that the RN are more than capable of sweeping faster than the Germans are at laying. Not forgetting the ones that the RN could lay as the night belongs to the RN.

You are relying on Submarines. As posted before, no submarine, ever, in WW1 or WW2 operated with any success in the channel. Think of all those juicy targets that existed before Dunkirk supplying the British Army and the Germans with those type II short range submarines which couldn't operate in the Atlantic. Why do you think they were not used?
What makes you think that things could suddenly turn around?

German torpedo's were very very unreliable in this period. I will dig around and find some details.


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## Jank (Sep 26, 2006)

With respect to aerial torpedoes, I have read that in the Mediteranian, the Germans actually preferred using Italian torpedoes which they thought were better.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 26, 2006)

> Well, certainly getting the necessary tanks across would be critical and difficult, but if they did, the German tactics should have been just as effective as it was in mainland Europe.



i will agree with you that it would've been effective over here _if_ they got the tanks and men over, but that's a very hard task getting all those tanks over they'd need to capture a big port, i believe they had their eyes set on Dover? never gonna happen we'd blow it sky high before letting you land tanks= months of repair works, also remember the command centers for the early part of the campain would still be back in France, the further from the action you are the harder it is to controll..............



> So, it appears that U-Boats would be able to operate in blockade of those two ports, which is what I was arguing.



yes this would sink some Navy ships it also eliminates the sole reason that the RN wouldn't be able to sink the U-boats, the problem of finding them! if you sit outside our ports not only do we know exactily where you are but when you have to surface at night there's nothing you'd be able to do against a dockyard full of ships.............



> So you're comparing the RAF's results at the very well camoflaged terrain of Normandy with anti-ship bombing ?? Seriously Tony, there's no comparison. A vehicle the size of a tank can easily hide or make a hard target of itself in a place like the bocage, but a 350 feet destroyer located in open waters hasn't got the slightest chance.



he wasn't talking about finding the target but hitting it! it's very hard to hit anything in a -109 with a single what, 500kg bomb? although granted -110s would be better, but a manouvering ship firing at the steadily approaching attacker will put a lot of pressure on the single pilot aiming by eye! furthermore you'd have to get a hit on the ship to do anything and many german bombs were too small and not specialist anti-shipping bombs..........



> Besides the He-111 and Ju-88 could do the job as-well



not at the time they couldn't and what about training?



> With no RAF ? I'd like to see that happen



you mean with a diminished fighter command? because the RAF still had a strong enough bomber command and the U-boat's enemy Coastal command and heck even aircraft like the Oxford and Anson were fighting over Dunquirke, they'd make great U-boat spotting aircraft 



> But with no RAF how was that going to happen ?? And even if the RAF wasn't entirely beaten, the LW would occupy so much of it that its effectiveness against U-boat's would've been very small. Also hunting down U-boats wasn't danger-free, it was infact very dangerous business



but we don't have to hunt you down, if you're suggesting the U-boats are used to blockade as you are doing, it's not gonna take us long to figure out where you are, and that very same night when the U-boats HAVE to surface we'll be over you like a bad rash, and if you're gonna say the U-boats should have, whilst submerged, gone back to the safety of France to surface they'd be on station for such a short time there'd be no point in using them! the U-boats were not designed to either blockade or operate in the channel and as has been pointed out no successful submarine operations had been carried out in the channel... now all of a sudden you're proposing that the entire German U-boat force sits, unoticed and untouchable, at the doorstep of the world's greatest Navy? which is annother point, with the size of our navy some losses are acceptable............


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## Soren (Sep 26, 2006)

*Glider Lanc,*

The RN destroyers HMS Afridi, Bison and Grom, as well as the anti-aircraft ship Bittern were all sunk off of Norway by Stukas. Bittern's sister ship, the Black Swan, was also hit by a Stuka, but the bomb was dropped too low and passed straight through the ship before exploding, only damaging the ship. 

Also on 10th January 1941, Stukas badly damaged the Royal Navy carrier HMS Illustrious, and sank the cruiser HMS Southhampton on the 11th January. The Ju-87 also made a very good name of itself in the capture of the Balkans and Crete in the spring of 1941. Stukas devastated Royal Navy vessels during the Crete campaign, helping to send the cruiser HMS Glouchester to the bottom, also sinking the destroyers Greyhound, Kelley and Kashmir, and badly damaging several other RN ships. 

And about the U-boats;

I wasn't suggesting that the U-boats were to operate in the channel, only that they were to close it - guarding the intrances, along with mines, waiting for the RN warships to appear. The remaining RN warships in the channel itself would be taken care of by the LW.

About German Torpedoes and their effectiveness: 
uboat.net - Special Sections - Attack Analysis
uboat.net - Technical pages


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## Glider (Sep 26, 2006)

Soren said:


> *Glider Lanc,*
> 
> The RN destroyers HMS Afridi, Bison and Grom, as well as the anti-aircraft ship Bittern were all sunk off of Norway by Stukas. Bittern's sister ship, the Black Swan, was also hit by a Stuka, but the bomb was dropped too low and passed straight through the ship before exploding, only damaging the ship.
> 
> ...



Cannot complain about your reply to the first question, How about the rest in particular the colliers.


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## Glider (Sep 26, 2006)

Forgot to mention that the references to the Med don't count due to the extra training received and admitted some time ago.

How can the LW deal with the RN at night?


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## Meteor (Sep 26, 2006)

SO in May 1940 were Nazi fighters equipped to carry bombs? If so did they train to drop them and were they the armoured piercing type.

We seem to be allocating capabilities to the nazis here that they didnt have in 1940.


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## syscom3 (Sep 26, 2006)

Didnt the Luftwaffe sink quite a few ships at Dunkirk just a few months prior to this "projected" invasion?


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## davparlr (Sep 26, 2006)

Meteor said:


> SO in May 1940 were Nazi fighters equipped to carry bombs? If so did they train to drop them and were they the armoured piercing type.
> 
> We seem to be allocating capabilities to the nazis here that they didnt have in 1940.



The Japanese used modified artillery shells as armour piercing bombs and blew the Arizona to pieces.

Dismissing the German pilots as being untrained in air-sea warfare is erroneous. Those pilots knew how to fly and how to drop bombs and had exerience in doing so. There expertise in air-sea tactics would grown in sorties not in days. 

The danger of unprotected warships to airborne attack is grossly underestimated here. Also, completely ignored here is that the most knowledgeable person in air-sea warfare, Yamamoto, refused to expose his overpowering fleet to two carriers and one airfield and only 200 warplanes with no reserves available to the Americans. He knew there was grave danger without control of the air. With the Germans controlling the airspace over Eastern Britain, at the least Britain would be sorely pressed. You cannot win a war with airpower alone, but it is very difficult to win without it.


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## syscom3 (Sep 26, 2006)

Didnt the Luftwaffe sink quite a few ships at Dunkirk just a few months prior to this "projected" invasion?


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## Tony Williams (Sep 26, 2006)

davparlr said:


> Dismissing the German pilots as being untrained in air-sea warfare is erroneous. Those pilots knew how to fly and how to drop bombs and had exerience in doing so. There expertise in air-sea tactics would grown in sorties not in days.


As I've said before, the Typhoons had an average miss distance of 110m (measured from post-raid photos). That's against targets they could see and were specifically aiming at. That means that 50% of the bombs dropped in an area of 40,000m2. A destroyer occupied about 1,000m2. Which gave a fighter-bomber a 1 in 80 chance of hitting a destroyer - when it's stationary.

Ju 87s were much better - a good crew had an average miss distance of just 30m. Say 50% of bombs hitting within 3,000m2. That gives them a 1 in 6 chance of hitting a stationary destroyer. Hitting a destroyer travelling at anything up to 35 knots is a different matter altogether - Ju 87s used to fly over the target then turn into a nice vertical dive - which is great if the target holds still, much less so otherwise. And a captain with any sense would wait until the Stuka was committed in its dive and then put the helm over....not an easy target to hit. And that's in broad daylight - the invasion fleet would have been too slow to make the crossing in a day.



> The danger of unprotected warships to airborne attack is grossly underestimated here.


Not. At. Night.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the RN would certainly have taken losses, but they would have been a long way from being "sitting ducks". And their losses would have been nothing like as much as those helpless low-freeboard barges stuffed with soldiers and gear. The crossing would have been extremely expensive for the invaders, and the worst would have been still to come, because the Germans would have had to send a continuous stream of vessels (aka targets) to keep those troops which made it ashore supplied. All the studies and war games I've read conclude that this couldn't have been done - it would have ended in the complete defeat of the invasion.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## pbfoot (Sep 26, 2006)

If the Germans had no real chance of victory over the Brits in the summer of 40 why is there all the hoopla over the Battle of Britain


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## davparlr (Sep 26, 2006)

pbfoot said:


> If the Germans had no real chance of victory over the Brits in the summer of 40 why is there all the hoopla over the Battle of Britain


Only because of 20 miles of water, the RN, and the RAF.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 27, 2006)

PB it's just as much about what the battle is symbolic of than what it did, it was the first time in the war that the Germans had suffered a major setback (trying not to use the term defeat), it was a symbol of Britain standing alone againt the entire might of the German war machine, our boys were defending and fighting for their home land to the death with their backs to the wall, making a last stand, and for the first time the war was no longer phoney but real for the British people and they got behind it! the invasion probably wouldn't have worked but it'd be a damn sight easier for Jerry with German local air superiority......


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## Tony Williams (Sep 27, 2006)

Agreed. And it is one thing to take a calm objective view now, which shows that the invasion almost certainly could never have succeeded, and quite another to be faced with the prospect of such an invasion at the time, especially since they did not know then what we know now. All they knew was that the Wehrmacht had smashed their way through Poland and France in an unbelievably quick time - the rest of the world was in shock.

In any case, before the war it was generally believed that "the bombers would always get through", and assumed that London would be destroyed in any air war - that's why children were evacuated at thhe start of the war. Just fending off the Luftwaffe and forcing them to stop their daylight attacks was a huge real and psychological victory by itself, quite apart from the fact that it made an invasion impractical.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Meteor (Sep 27, 2006)

davparlr said:


> The Japanese used modified artillery shells as armour piercing bombs and blew the Arizona to pieces.
> 
> Dismissing the German pilots as being untrained in air-sea warfare is erroneous. Those pilots knew how to fly and how to drop bombs and had exerience in doing so. There expertise in air-sea tactics would grown in sorties not in days.
> 
> The danger of unprotected warships to airborne attack is grossly underestimated here. Also, completely ignored here is that the most knowledgeable person in air-sea warfare, Yamamoto, refused to expose his overpowering fleet to two carriers and one airfield and only 200 warplanes with no reserves available to the Americans. He knew there was grave danger without control of the air. With the Germans controlling the airspace over Eastern Britain, at the least Britain would be sorely pressed. You cannot win a war with airpower alone, but it is very difficult to win without it.



The Japanese planned and trained for the Pearl Harbour attacks for months beforehand.

I'm sure it is not at all feasible to suddenly decide to stick a bomb on an Bf-109 and send the pilot off to sink a Destroyer with no training.

Maybe the Nazis could have gone the whole hog and simply crashed their aircraft into the Cruisers and Destroyers? This would have at least ensured a hit and would have been more effective than the Japanese were in 1945 as the ships AA was far less powerfull then.

I'm not erroneously dismissing the quality of the German aircrew, but it is a fact that they couldnt just simply switch tasks on the spot. I dont think that a Bf-109 could even carry a bomb in 1940. Does anyone know if they did this before 1941?


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## bomber (Sep 27, 2006)

It was the 'Indomitable British Spirit' that made the Germans sit up and take note.... the RAF, the RN and the Army are just the organised military arm of this spirit...the physical representative if it if you like.

An invasion of Britiain isn't a one round fight, it's multiple rounds going against different oponents with differing fighting capabilities..

On top of the 'fighting spirit' one has to look at the very geology of the UK, it's very shape and disposition...

Blitzkrieg work in the UK... not a cat in hells chance...

The German might well of after massive fighting have captured London, but where to from there ?

Devon and Cornwall.... not even us Brits would have control over this area if the people there didn't allow it.
Scotland.... no
Wales.... no
The Midlands... have you seen Derbyshire ?

So the only area I see as being feasible to hold onto would be the area south of the Thames.....

But the losses to achieve this would have been crippling

regards

Simon


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## Jabberwocky (Sep 27, 2006)

Was Sealion possible?

Would the RN surface fleet have taken damage if they sallied against a German invasion fleet? Yes.

Would the RN likely have crippled the capacity of the Kriegsmare to carry out an invasion? Yes.

Would air superiority make their job more difficult? Yes.

Would air superority help in darkness? No.


The Germans proposed this for Sealion:

Carrying out an 11 division (9 seaborne 2 airborne) invasion via a heavily contested sea lane over the course of 10 days. Carry an additional 7-10 divisions over another 40-50 days.

Compose your invasion fleet of 30% military and civilian transports and 70% river barges and other pressed into service craft.

Protect them while they transport 110,000 men and their equipment and supplies for a 10 day to 2 month period with a fleet that is outnumbered by 5:1 in captial ships, 4:1 in crusiers and 5:2 in destroyers, against an enemy operating in home waters from protected bases.

Land your outnumbered invasion force with no element of suprise and no prepatory bombardment against prepared costal defences and three rings of inland defences, bringing little organic heavy equipment with them (including no heavy artillery) until the second week of the campaign.



Logistically, they would of had to run a shuttle system of barges for 14-16 hours a day to keep the army supplied, assuming low levels of expenditure and the capture and return of Folkstone and Dover to full working conditions within 2 weeks. Any interferance from the RN send this into haywire mode, stranding those German troops that did land without fuel, ammunition, food and other supplies.


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## Soren (Sep 27, 2006)

What people obviously forget is that Germany at this time was preparing for an even larger objective - the invasion of Russia. Had Hitler concentrated on Britain alone, waiting with the overly large objective of an invasion of Russia, an invasion of Britain, if you ask me, was entirely plausible.

I'll be back later to address the rest.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 27, 2006)

the weather was soon turning against the Germans by this point too remember, land anytime in september/october and boy you'll have problems re-supplying in the winter months, here's a very informative link about the plane for the invasion, if everything they say here's true then the RN wouldn't even need to bother, i strongly suggest you read this............

Operation Sealion


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## Hunter368 (Sep 27, 2006)

Soren said:


> What people obviously forget is that Germany at this time was preparing for an even larger objective - the invasion of Russia. Had Hitler concentrated on Britain alone, waiting with the overly large objective of an invasion of Russia, an invasion of Britain, if you ask me, was entirely plausible.
> 
> I'll be back later to address the rest.



Soren,


Just a comment on this one. Do you think that Russia would not of attacked German before the time German armed forces were prepared to attack UK or shortly after Germany attacked UK? It would of taken German a long time to prepare for war with UK if they really were going to have a chance of winning it. During that time both UK and Russia would of built that armed forces up also.

Sure they gave a half hearted (meaning lack of intell from the Upper levels of German intell should of told the true fighter levels and production of UK, plus the lack of naval ability to actually pull off the invasion) in the BoB. But really they had no chance of winning that battle using the tools they had at the time.

They needed a better prepared AF and a better navy to be able to pull it off. Plus if UK saw Germany building those forces up she would of also built up her forces at the same time. UK was building more planes per month than Germany in BoB! Germany was losing more pilots than UK also during BoB! Germany was not prepared for a long war across the channel with UK. Germany was prepared for fast wars not long drawn out battles.

If UK was connected to mainland than yes Germany would of beaten her quickly. (fast war)....but UK is not connected to the mainland (slow war). 

It would of taken a long long time for Germany to out build UK to the point where Germany was truly prepared to invade successfully UK. Russia during this time would not of just sat there watching and doing nothing. There is many who believe that Russia was going to invade Germany in the not to distant future after 1941. Russia would of taken up arms vs German at some point IMHO. When who knows now.

All I am saying is you can't just look at UK and Germany and ignore all the other factors involved. Unless we are talking totally about fantasy world here we have to consider all other factors at the same time.


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## syscom3 (Sep 27, 2006)

A German invasion of Britain was covered in detail on another thread.

If it occured, it would have failed bigtime. The KM didnt have the specialized landing craft, amphib vessels *AND DOCTRINE FOR THEIR USE* that would have been needed to provide logistics support.

Just a slight daily attrition done on the landing barges by the RN and RAF would have been a very serious concern for the invading troops.

Quiet simply, even if a couple of divisions got ashore, they would have withered on the vine within a couple of days from lack of support.


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## Hunter368 (Sep 27, 2006)

syscom3 said:


> A German invasion of Britain was covered in detail on another thread.
> 
> If it occured, it would have failed bigtime. The KM didnt have the specialized landing craft, amphib vessels *AND DOCTRINE FOR THEIR USE* that would have been needed to provide logistics support.
> 
> ...



100% agreed. German could not of been much more unprepared to invade UK, lol. She had no hope of really successfully invading AND supporting those troops for any amount of time. No hope.


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## Soren (Sep 27, 2006)

People, remember a successful invasion does not mean a Victory. What this discussion is about is whether a partially sucessful invasion of Britain was possible, and it certainly was if Operation Barbarossa had been cancelled in favour of it. 



> If it occured, it would have failed bigtime. The KM didnt have the specialized landing craft, amphib vessels AND DOCTRINE FOR THEIR USE that would have been needed to provide logistics support.



Like the Normandy landings an invasion of Britain could be prepared for, esp. if Operation Barbarossa was cancelled, then Germany would suddenly have 3.3 million men at its disposal and lots more material than they ever had during the BoB. The barges necessary to carry the men across the channel could be build within months, it wasn't a design-obstical, and the logistics would've been taken care of as-well if Hitler would've allowed his General's to do so. - one of Hitlers many mistakes was not listening to his General's and their logistical plans, Hitler was for example directly responsible for German soldiers not having any winter-clothes to wear during the Russian winter of 41, eventhough the cloth had already been made and lay ready to be sent in massive piles back home in Germany. (A very deciding factor this would prove!)

Btw, a soldier can carry enough food for himself to survive atleast 10 days without any outside help, and when you're on land finding food won't prove the biggest of your troubles - Soldiers back then were also trained to live off of the land, and many of them were already used to it prior their military carrier. 

What I'm trying to point out here is that a invasion of Britain was possible, and also a successful one, but it would require by Hitler, amongst others, that mistakes like not sending the proper material forth eventhough its made and ready, were avoided. 


Now about Russia attacking Germany, well that definitely wouldn't have happened for the next 2 to 3 years as Stalin had no interest in attacking his "Ally", and definitely not an ally as strong and technologically advanced as Germany. Also Stalin wasn't even capable of it if he wanted to, as he seriously lacked officers and skilled leaders for him to even make it across the border - Had he tried, he would've lost. Germany's, at the time, recent successes, were also more than enough deturant for Stalin to not even think along those lines !


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## davparlr (Sep 27, 2006)

We are starting to go around in circles, but I mostly agree with Soren. If Germany won the BOB and had abandoned or delayed Barbarossa, it would have brought a massive, well armed, well trained and highly motivated force against Britain. Except for being highly motivated (although demoralized by the loss of the BOB) Britain could not be ready to match this force. I believe that, at that time, Britain was still in a desparate attempt to catch up. It was producing more planes but it started off at a four to one disadvantage. The Luftwaffe would have cordoned off the airspace around the beaches and approaches to the beaches. I also do not believe that Stalin was in any position to invade Germany and would have been happy to watch German and British forces expend themselves against each other. 

In the end, It would have failed. Hitler would not prepare properly or support efforts that would increase success. Nor were they knowledgeable or trained in land-sea operations. The British are historically great fighters and have never had to defend their homeland. They would tenacously defenders. The Germans and British would expend great resourses and blood in and over the Channel and on the shores of Britain. Stalin would jumping up and down with happiness and planning for his invasion of Europe.


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## syscom3 (Sep 27, 2006)

I have to disagree.

There is only a narrow window of opportunity to have a coss channel invasion. If it isnt done within the summer months, then forget it. If Hitler wanted to invade in 1941, it was going to be in the May-Sept time frame. 

Britains capability to defeat an invasion improved over time after the "emergency" of the BoB. The RAF was going to be far stronger in both fighters and bombers. The army was going to be fully stocked with armor and artillery. Plus...... the US was vastly increasing its war material production and could readily supply Britain.

The fact that Hitler had 3 million men available to invade means absolutely nothing. The size of your invading army is dictated solely by the size of your logistics base, and in this case, what amphibious transport is available. The thought that Germany would seize harbors and ports intact is madness. Any resupply of the army was going to have to be done by specialized amphib transports, of which none were in the inventory of the KM or Army. 

Did they have Higgins boats? DUKW's, LCI's, LST's? Nope. And they would have to be available in numbers. Forget about the "barges" they had. Just sitting ducks in the water, and none of them could handle rough sea's. And if you consider what would happen if only a small percentage of what they had was lost due to attrition, then their logistics capacity would be greatly diminished.

Also think of where the barges would be marshalled. Hundreds of them all docked up and ready to be bombed by the RAF. Maybe even a destroyer or cruiser make a quick night visit and blast them. RN MTB's and patrol boats would also get their sting in and take their toll.

The achillies heel of the Germans was always logistics. The math of resupplying divisions is unavoidable and woe is the army that doesnt have sufficent margins for worst case scenarios.

The simple fact is Germany only had a very narrow opportunity of invading Britain right after Dunkirk, and that was dependant on a lot of things happening right for them. After the summer of 1940, there was no chance for them to invade.


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## pbfoot (Sep 27, 2006)

Just a thought
I think if the Germans put a 5 mile beach head down with airborne and whatever the could get across with their limited naval resources the Luftwaffe probably could maintain air superiority while supplying and reniforcing the beachhead slowly I know if i wanted to control the airspace over the channel I would choose the Luftwaffe over the RAF the Germans had better equipment with the exception of the 109/Spit sawoff 
Does anyone know how many fully equipped and trained divisions the UK had in fall of 40 at home


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## Tony Williams (Sep 27, 2006)

Soren said:


> Like the Normandy landings an invasion of Britain could be prepared for, esp. if Operation Barbarossa was cancelled, then Germany would suddenly have 3.3 million men at its disposal and lots more material than they ever had during the BoB.


Yes, it could have been prepared for. But look at the enormous scale of the preparations for D-day (in which they STILL only had enough transport to land 5 divisions in the first wave). With no doctrine, no experience, and no suitable amphibious transports even designed, let along built, Germany would have needed a minimum of one year, probably two, to be fully prepared, rehearsed and ready for such a major amphibious operation.



> Btw, a soldier can carry enough food for himself to survive atleast 10 days without any outside help, and when you're on land finding food won't prove the biggest of your troubles - Soldiers back then were also trained to live off of the land, and many of them were already used to it prior their military carrier.



One word - ammunition.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## redcoat (Sep 27, 2006)

Soren said:


> What people obviously forget is that Germany at this time was preparing for an even larger objective - the invasion of Russia. .


While it may have been at the back of Hitlers mind, no preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union took place until after Operation Sea Lion had been postponed at the end of September


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## redcoat (Sep 27, 2006)

pbfoot said:


> Just a thought
> I Does anyone know how many fully equipped and trained divisions the UK had in fall of 40 at home



28 Infantry Divisions and 4 Armoured Brigades

The Infantry divisions were short of heavy weaponry, but that wouldn't have been too much of a disadvantage, because the 9 Infantry divisions the Germans were landing in the first wave had very little heavy equipment landing with them either.


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## Hunter368 (Sep 28, 2006)

Syscom I totally agree. The Germans even if we talk about that dream world where Germany never attacked Russia, even if German had 10 million more men it does not matter. Unless they all can swim like fish and carry packs on their backs at the same time it does not matter.

If Germany could of invaded UK they would of, it could not be done.


Soren, this thread is about did the RN win the BoB, not partially successful invasion of Britain was possible. If a invasion is not successful then who cares. Hell for that matter I could invade UK right now if I wanted but does that mean anything....nope. An invasion that is not successful is pointless, for the most part. If we are using your line of thought is 100 German paratroopers landing in UK a successful invasion? An invasion should be considered success if it leads to victory or achieves some REAL tactical goal.

It would of taken Germany years, if they ever could, of out produced UK in planes and ships to allow the invasion to be successful. Under the threat of a REAL invasion UK would of pulled back all or most of her fleet from around the world and brought thousands of troops from her Allies (India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand to name a few) back with her ships. IF Germany was ever able to out produce UK to the point where her AF and Navy could successfully land and resupply the invasion troops it would of been years.

Keep that in mind, years. Even after Germany totally blind sided and achieved massive successes in 41 vs Russia, Russia was able to turn the war around in 2 years and was beating the hell out of the German Armies in the East. From 43 on Germany had no hope what so ever, that was even after Germany dealt blow after blow to Russia in 41.

Had Germany not attacked Russia (fantasy world again) in 41. Russia seeing UK and Germany pummelling each other would of been happy I totally agree. But Stalin was no fool, he would of known when that battle/ war was over he would need a strong army to attack with. Russia could of been ready by 43 b/c it really was even after being pummelled early on by Germany in 41. Had it not been touched in 41 can you possable imagine what the Russian juggernaut would of looked like in 43 having taken no damage what so ever. There would of been some growing pains to be worked out but Russia really did work those pains out while waging war, so of course it could do it in this fantasy world. Those people who disregard out of hand Russia attacking Germany in 43 or later are crazy. Russia would not have sat back and watched Germany get all powerful by taken of all of Europe and UK, Russia would of been very concerned about her own well being and would of acted before it got to that point. They would of attacked Germany in 43 or later when Germany was weakened from war with UK, they would of attacked when it was most in their favor to do so. 

Had UK won the war, Germany would of been weaken badly. Stalin would of seen that and taken advantage of that and taken lands from Germany. You think Stalin would of honored that treaty if it was in his advantage to break it? You are joking right? If her weakened state Germany would not of been able to stop Russia and Russia and UK would of been Allies to beat Germany.

Had Germany some how been able to get the upper hand in the battle with UK, then Russia would Allied it self with UK and entered the war. You think Stalin wanted to see Germany controlling all of mainland Europe from Poland in the east all the way west including the UK island? Not in your dreams. If he allowed that to happen then Germany would of been far to powerful to try and defeat once she controlled Europe and UK. Russia would not of been too upset to see UK and Germany pummel each other, but if Germany was getting to close to winning Russia would of invaded Germany from the east. Keep in mind Germany would not of been able to wage this war in 40 or 41 it would of been later and by 43 Russia was near unstoppable.

Hell we are not even included USA in this fantasy world but if we did it would of been even harder for Germany to pull out any kind of win.

Germany had no navy or AF to pull off the invasion successfully. What do I mean by successfully? I mean achieved victory in the invasion that would lead to the defeat of UK. If you call throwing a few hundred or even 1-2 thousand troops on a shore to be slaughtered a successful invasion.....well I am glad you are not my General. (no offense meant)

Ifs and buts don't win wars so its very hard for us all to say this and say that, the best we can do is look at what really happened and make educated guessing what would happen in different scenario. Could Germany EVER out produce UK in planes and ships to make the invasion a success??? How long would of it taken??? If Germany never invaded Russia in 41, what would of Stalin done when he saw one side winning over the other in our alternate BoB we are talking about??? All these things we will never know for sure.....

Oh well there is my $0.02 for the night.


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## Meteor (Sep 28, 2006)

> Btw, a soldier can carry enough food for himself to survive atleast 10 days without any outside help, and when you're on land finding food won't prove the biggest of your troubles - Soldiers back then were also trained to live off of the land, and many of them were already used to it prior their military carrier.



Hmm, that may be true but ammunition would be more important than food. What were they to do after 3 days and their ammunition ran out?

Personnaly I cannot conceive of any situation in 1940-41 where the Nazis had a remote chance of conducting a successful invasion taking into account their actual capabilities instead of ones that some here have implied they could just make up as they went along.


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## Vassili Zaitzev (Sep 28, 2006)

Hmm, I seem to recall owning a book which went over this scenario. It was written by a retired British Colonel. It talked about the Germans attacking the RAF earlier and launching Sealion. I'll look for it tonight and tell you guys the title and author.


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## bomber (Sep 28, 2006)

The question of the thread is 'Did the RN win the BoB ?'

So reading this thread there's a conclussion and a varaible...

The variable is what defines a successful German invasion ?

And the conclussion is that as the RAF fought the BoB, they must have won it yet the German will to continue the BoB into a full scale invasion of the UK was erroded through the 'common sence' that because of multiple factors the invasion was simply not credible..
_these factors being but not exclussive to_
A)Air superiority
B)Time - Build up of the UK ability to fight a war
C)Equipment and training
D)Logistics/resupply
E)The Channel condition / weather
F)Home defense (4 - 1 lose rate)
G)UK Geology
H)The resulting effects a long drawn out BoB has with Russian capabilty to fight a war.

When you look at it the same things that hinders Germany from invading the UK also makes them safe from the UK... So if you can say to yourself 'these guys are bottled up, and are of no real harm to us. Lets now go after another target ie Russia' you would do...

Attacking Russia and bottling the UK up was the right thing to do... problem was the Russian campaign stumbled and sucked men away from the bottling up job.. This allowed the UK to first commit to a bombing campaign and latter the invassion...

If Russia had fallen with men then being available in Western Europe to defend against any allied invassion,, it's my belief that Normandy or whereever would have been a complete failure or not even contempated.

Ultimately the BoB and WWII was won by the fact that the Russians existed, and had the potential to wage war...

That threat had to be elimated first, or there could never be a German victory

Simon


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## Soren (Sep 28, 2006)

Hitler's biggest mistake = declaring war on the USA. Without this act of stupidity Germany could've taken Russia and afterwards concentrated on Britain. I still believe though, that the Germans could've conducted a partially successful invasion of Britain had Operation Barbarossa been postponed by 1 - 2 years. 



Hunter368 said:


> Had it not been touched in 41 can you possable imagine what the Russian juggernaut would of looked like in 43 having taken no damage what so ever.



Like a mess ! It was Germany's attack on Russia which had Stalin make a change of heart, cause up until that point Stalin had done nothing but deteriorate his army's ability to fight. Without Op. Barbarossa in 41 a Soviet invasion of Germany wasn't possible until at least 1944, and even then succes was very much not guaranteed, infact it was mostly doomed to fail.

Just take a look at how the Russians did on the offensive against the Finnish which didn't even have tanks !



Hunter368 said:


> Keep that in mind, years. Even after Germany totally blind sided and achieved massive successes in 41 vs Russia, Russia was able to turn the war around in 2 years and was beating the hell out of the German Armies in the East. From 43 on Germany had no hope what so ever, that was even after Germany dealt blow after blow to Russia in 41



Russia certainly didn't turn the war around, without the western Allies Russia was doomed to lose, the war was turned around by the US involvement. And at no point did the Russians beat the crap out of the Germans, the Germans did infact keep on beating the crap out of the Russians all the way back to Berlin ! 13.6 million Russian soldiers lost their lives fighting the Germans, 13.6 million ! Germany in all lost 3.25 million soldiers, approx. 75% fell in Russia.

Let us not forget on how many fronts the Germans were fighting, and all because Hitler was in too much of a hurry.


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## Tony Williams (Sep 28, 2006)

Soren said:


> Russia certainly didn't turn the war around, without the western Allies Russia was doomed to lose, the war was turned around by the US involvement. And at no point did the Russians beat the crap out of the Germans, the Germans did infact keep on beating the crap out of the Russians all the way back to Berlin !


Yep - those Russkies were totally thrashed, Stalin finally had to surrender in the ruins of their last remaining city, Vladivostok. That's why we've had a Nazi Europe these last 60 years!!    

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Meteor (Sep 28, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> Yep - those Russkies were totally thrashed, Stalin finally had to surrender in the ruins of their last remaining city, Vladivostok. That's why we've had a Nazi Europe these last 60 years!!
> 
> Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum



Well said brother. Hitler and his nazis lost the war because they were mad, plain and simple. If the Nazis kicked Stalins arse all the way to Berlin why did the Soviets win the war, and what has this got to do with the RN winning the BoB?


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## Meteor (Sep 28, 2006)

> Russia certainly didn't turn the war around, without the western Allies Russia was doomed to lose, the war was turned around by the US involvement. And at no point did the Russians beat the crap out of the Germans, the Germans did infact keep on beating the crap out of the Russians all the way back to Berlin ! 13.6 million Russian soldiers lost their lives fighting the Germans, 13.6 million ! Germany in all lost 3.25 million soldiers, approx. 75% fell in Russia.



13.6 million soldiers? I would wonder how many of that figure were actually civilians murdered by the Nazis? Then there are the Millions of Soviet prisoners either executed or worked to death by the Nazis! 

Anyway, did the nazis lose the war because they failed to knock out the UK?


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## Gnomey (Sep 28, 2006)

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
Status: Independent
Type of Government: Communist
Religion: Atheist
Population: 190,000,000 (1939)
Russians - 100,000,000
Ukrainians - 15,400,000
Uzbekis - 10,000,000
Kazakhs - 5,000,000
Byelorussians - 4,400,000
Azerbaijanis - 2,500,000
Tajiks - 2,500,000
Georgians - 2,100,000
Turkmen - 2,000,000
Jews - 1,907,000
Kyrgyz - 1,500,000
Armenians - 1,300,000
Kabardins - 700,000
Ossetians - 600,000
Chechens - 350,000
Volksdeutsch - 340,000
Tatars - 300,000
Bulgars - 200,000
Greeks - 125,000
Gagaus - 100,000
Others - 38,678,000 Alignment (1939 - 1945):
Neutral
1st Sep 1939 - 22nd Jun 1941
Allied Partner
22nd Jun 1941 - 8th May 1945
Neutral
8th May 1945 - 9th Aug 1945
Allied Partner
9th Aug 1945 - 2nd Sep 1945 Casualties (1941 - 1945):
Soldiers (Allied) - 13,300,000 Killed
Soldiers (Axis) - 408,000 Killed
Civilians - 6,500,000 Killed
Jews - 1,000,000 Killed

Germany
Status: Independent
Type of Government: Dictatorship
Religion: Christian
Population: 73,000,000 (1938)
Germans - 70,990,000
Poles - 1,000,000
Jews - 707,000
Russians - 200,000
Danes - 30,000
Gypsies - 28,000
Wends - 20,000
Frisians - 15,000
Lithuanians - 10,000 Alignment (1939 - 1945):
Axis Partner
1st Sep 1939 - 8th May 1945 Casualties (1939 - 1945):
Soldiers (Axis) - 3,350,000 Killed
Civilians - 3,043,000 Killed
Jews - 205,500 Killed
Gypsies - 20,000 Killed

Germany included for comparison. Source: World War 2 Casualties - Worldwar-2.net


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 28, 2006)

Im still trying to figure out what a partially successful invasion is.

It is either successful or not!


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Im still trying to figure out what a partially successful invasion is.
> 
> It is either successful or not!



I made the same point also....either it is or is not a success.....what is partially mean??? Does it mean landing a for hundred or a few thousand troops just to get them killed??? Dropping some paratroops to get slaughtered? What?


I said earlier if I drop myself out of a plane with a parashoot over UK is that called a partially successfully invasion of UK?


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> Yep - those Russkies were totally thrashed, Stalin finally had to surrender in the ruins of their last remaining city, Vladivostok. That's why we've had a Nazi Europe these last 60 years!!
> 
> Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

Hunter368 said:


> I made the same point also....either it is or is not a success.....what is partially mean??? Does it mean landing a for hundred or a few thousand troops just to get them killed??? Dropping some paratroops to get slaughtered? What?


On that score, Dieppe was reasonably successful - we even managed to get quite a few tanks ashore!

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Soren said:


> Hitler's biggest mistake = declaring war on the USA. Without this act of stupidity Germany could've taken Russia and afterwards concentrated on Britain. I still believe though, that the Germans could've conducted a partially successful invasion of Britain had Operation Barbarossa been postponed by 1 - 2 years.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




While Hitler made a heck of alot of mistakes in the war and before the war, not sure if I agree that declaring war on the USA was the biggest mistake. It was a mistake but make no mistake about it USA was going to come into the war, just when was the question. Japan and Hitler just speeded it up is all.

You said: Without Op. Barbarossa in 41 a Soviet invasion of Germany wasn't possible until at least 1944, and even then succes was very much not guaranteed, infact it was mostly doomed to fail. Just take a look at how the Russians did on the offensive against the Finnish which didn't even have tanks !

Russian invasion until 1944??? 1944 or 1943 which ever I will give you 1944 sure what the heck. It would still make little to no difference in the end. Russia would of still steam rolled (like it really did) Germany, b/c Germany was juggling to many balls at the same time. USA entered the war in 41 and UK could of and would of held out b/c Germany could not get to it, so 44 or 43 it does not matter. Germany would of been facing UK and USA forsure, then even if Germany never invaded Russia, by 43 or 44 or 45 Russia would of seen Germany in major trouble. Russia would of then taken land from Germany just like she did vs Japan near the end of the war. 

Sure lets look at Finnish war, IN 1939-1940!!! We are talking about Russia in 1943-1945 she was a much more polished war machine with near limitless man power and production (when comparing to Germany that is, USA still could out produce her).

Then you said: Russia certainly didn't turn the war around, without the western Allies Russia was doomed to lose, the war was turned around by the US involvement. 

I will agree with you there to a point. How would of Russia faired if it was one on one with Germany in 1941, if we are saying at this point Germany is at war with no one else? You are right on that point Russia would of been in big trouble.

But I will also say this, where would of UK and USA would of been without Russian involvement? Think about all those men, planes, tanks Germany had fighting Russia. Think about all those tanks, planes, men that Russia destroyed between 1941-1945?? Russia was a HUGE factor in the Allies winning the war. Russian juggernaut ground up the Germany army between 41-45.

You said then: And at no point did the Russians beat the crap out of the Germans, the Germans did infact keep on beating the crap out of the Russians all the way back to Berlin ! 13.6 million Russian soldiers lost their lives fighting the Germans, 13.6 million ! Germany in all lost 3.25 million soldiers, approx. 75% fell in Russia.

Yes Russia lost more soldiers then Germany, but Russia outlasted and beat down her enemy into ruins. Last time I checked the last man standing in a fight was the victor, I don't care if you landed 10 shots on me, as long as I am the last man standing after the fight, then I win. Last man standing was Russia!


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> On that score, Dieppe was reasonably successful - we even managed to get quite a few tanks ashore!
> 
> Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum



Agreed to a point, we got slaughtered but we did learn alot and learnt what not to do the next and last time we landed troops in 44.


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

Hunter368 said:


> Yes Russia lost more soldiers then Germany, but Russia outlasted and beat down her enemy into ruins. Last time I checked the last man standing in a fight was the victor, I don't care if you landed 10 shots on me, as long as I am the last man standing after the fight, then I win. Last man standing was Russia!


Quite so.

Thinking around issues raised in this thread, perhaps the term "Second World War" isn't helpful - it's a portmanteau or umbrella phrase covering several different conflicts. 

September 1939 is taken (in most countries) as the starting point because that's when the major west European powers were formally at war with each other. However, that phase was really a Franco-British v Germany war which resulted in the defeat of France. 

Then from mid-1940 to mid-1941 it was a Germany/Italy v Britain war - still quite limited in scope, with ground fighting only in N Africa.

The invasion of the USSR kicked off what might be called the Great European War, in which the major players were Germany and the USSR. Several other nations got involved in supporting roles, of which the USA and UK played the most important parts.

The Great Asian/Pacific War was of course primarily between Japan and the USA, with the UK playing an important supporting role.

The question as to whether the USSR could have won without US/British aid (initially Lend-Lease, then strategic bombing, then in the final year with ground troops) is an interesting one, to which there is no definite answer IMO. 

Lend-Lease was undoubtedly helpful in the initial phases, when the USSR struggled to replace their initial heavy equipment losses while at the same time relocating their armaments factories far to the east. Could they have hung on without Lend-Lease? Probably, I think, although they would certainly have suffered more. But the country was just too huge, and the environment too brutal, for Hitlers "short-term-dash" military focus to deliver victory. 

Once the new factories were in full production, Lend-Lease just became a nice-to-have extra but not critical.

Allied strategic bombing helped the USSR by diverting German resources to the defence of its homeland, and the Anglo-US invasion of Europe also helped. However, I think the Soviets would still have won without either, although it would have taken a year or two longer and the war would have been that much bloodier. 

We in the west tend to focus on D-day and all that, and rather forget that in the last year of the war the vast Soviet Army simply dwarfed the US/UK ground forces in Europe. What is quite certain IMO is that, while the question of whether the USSR could have won alone is debatable, the USA/UK could definitely not have beaten Germany without the USSR.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## syscom3 (Sep 29, 2006)

> ...The Great Asian/Pacific War was of course primarily between Japan and the USA, with the UK playing an important supporting role....



The US completely dominated the war in the Pacific (including the CBI, which was a side show).

Untill middle 1943, The ANZAC forces were important contributors, but once the US war machine went into high gear, their contributions became less important.


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

syscom3 said:


> The US completely dominated the war in the Pacific (including the CBI, which was a side show).
> 
> Untill middle 1943, The ANZAC forces were important contributors, but once the US war machine went into high gear, their contributions became less important.


Note that I said "Asian/Pacific", not "Pacific". Considerable BCE forces were involved in SE Asia.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 29, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> On that score, Dieppe was reasonably successful - we even managed to get quite a few tanks ashore!
> 
> Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum



For learning purposes yes it was successful but it was a complete failure therefor it was not successfull...


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## Vassili Zaitzev (Sep 29, 2006)

Okay I've found the book. The title is Invasion: The German Invasion Of England July 1940. It was written by retired Major Kenneth Macksey.


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> For learning purposes yes it was successful but it was a complete failure therefor it was not successfull...


I was not being serious...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> Quite so.
> 
> Thinking around issues raised in this thread, perhaps the term "Second World War" isn't helpful - it's a portmanteau or umbrella phrase covering several different conflicts.
> 
> ...




Good post Tony could not have said it better myself. Well done.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 29, 2006)

syscom you can't simply dismiss the Commonwealth's involvement in the CBI as meaningless............


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## davparlr (Sep 29, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> Allied strategic bombing helped the USSR by diverting German resources to the defence of its homeland.



This simple statement totally ignores the massive infrastructure impact on Germany of strategic bombing and interdiction, especially in 1944 and 45. A ridiculous argument is made that strategic bombing was ineffective in that Germany produced more weapons during this onslaught than before. This may be true but totally ignores the amount of weapons Germany could have built if bombs were not falling on their heads everyday and their cities were being burned to the ground. By the time the Russians reached Germany, it was a waste land of bombed-out cities, ruined rail lines, and dry fuel tanks. All compliments of strategic bombing and interdiction.



> We in the west tend to focus on D-day and all that, and rather forget that in the last year of the war the vast Soviet Army simply dwarfed the US/UK ground forces in Europe.



I agree. Any invasion would be much later with the Italian campaign playing much more important role.



> What is quite certain IMO is that, while the question of whether the USSR could have won alone is debatable, the USA/UK could definitely not have beaten Germany without the USSR.



This makes no sense. The British by themselves outproduced the Germans. Even with a healthy industry, German would quickly fall further and further behind the allies in materiel as the war went on (the US alone produced almost twice the aircraft that Russia produced, nearly three time the Germans), which was the primary reason they lost in the first place. Besides, by the end 1946, the western allies would have had enough atomic bombs to destroy Gemany and Russia combined. Germany would have lost even without the A Bomb. They had an idiot for a leader.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum[/QUOTE]


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

davparlr said:


> This simple statement totally ignores the massive infrastructure impact on Germany of strategic bombing and interdiction, especially in 1944 and 45. A ridiculous argument is made that strategic bombing was ineffective in that Germany produced more weapons during this onslaught than before. This may be true but totally ignores the amount of weapons Germany could have built if bombs were not falling on their heads everyday and their cities were being burned to the ground. By the time the Russians reached Germany, it was a waste land of bombed-out cities, ruined rail lines, and dry fuel tanks. All compliments of strategic bombing and interdiction.


That is true, and I was not trying to belittle the Allied bombing effort (in fact, I am usually on the "other side" of the argument, making just the points you have). But while the strategic bombing was making life very difficult for Germany, the fact is that military production _was _maintained at a high level. The bombing was not going to defeat Germany by itself. To do that required the Soviet Army - if that hadn't existed, Germany could have focused almost entirely on the threat from the UK and USA, making D-day effectively impossible. Germany could also have switched more resources to the air war, making the bombing campaign much more costly (and maintaining a far more aggressive bombing campaign against the UK). 

The bombing campaign helped, as I said, but it wasn't decisive. The Soviet Army was.



> This makes no sense. The British by themselves outproduced the Germans. Even with a healthy industry, German would quickly fall further and further behind the allies in materiel as the war went on (the US alone produced almost twice the aircraft that Russia produced, nearly three time the Germans), which was the primary reason they lost in the first place.


We have been discussing why Germany could not have successfully invaded Britain - well, this time the boot would be on the other foot. Even with most of the German army on the Eastern Front, with mostly second-line troops stiffened by some good units on R&R in France, and with no air cover whatsoever, all leading to a virtually unopposed landing, the Allies did not have an easy trip through Normandy. Can you imagine what it would have been like if Germany _hadn't _been fighting the USSR at the same time?



> Besides, by the end 1946, the western allies would have had enough atomic bombs to destroy Gemany and Russia combined. Germany would have lost even without the A Bomb. They had an idiot for a leader.


You are right that the atom bomb is the "wild card", although it did in fact take a long time to built up a sizeable stockpile of the weapons. I think that there would have been a very much more intense debate about the morality of dropping the bombs on Germany than there was in the case of Japan - there was a lot of racism involved on both sides of the Asia/Pacific war, which did not exist between the UK/USA and Germany.

Unless the Allies did decide to use the A-bomb, (in which case Hitler would presumably have unleashed his chemical and biological warfare stockpile, and things would have got very unpleasant indeed), I don't see the Allies succeeding in defeating Germany without the Soviet Army on their side.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

davparlr and Tony,

You both make good points. But I have to say I think the Allies could of beaten the Germans without Russia (if Russia never was in WW2 ever) but it would of been a much much harder fight with many more Allied soldiers killed. Many more civilians would of also died in UK (France and Italy also) and a heck of alot more in Germany would of died.


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## davparlr (Sep 29, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> We have been discussing why Germany could not have successfully invaded Britain - well, this time the boot would be on the other foot. Even with most of the German army on the Eastern Front, with mostly second-line troops stiffened by some good units on R&R in France, and with no air cover whatsoever, all leading to a virtually unopposed landing, the Allies did not have an easy trip through Normandy. Can you imagine what it would have been like if Germany _hadn't _been fighting the USSR at the same time?



Time was not on Germany's side. With limited men under arms (non-German forces were either mostly not reliable or not as well committed) and not as efficient arms manufacturing or logistic capablity, Germany would soon be significantly out manned (the US had vast amounts of manpower to tap) and out armed. Unlike Germany for operation Sea Lion, the allies would have total control of sea power and probably local control of the airspace due to total quantity of allied airpower available. Every day the Allies would get stronger at a faster rate than the Axis. In a matter of time, the allies could have generated three or four D-Day level invasions with supporting aircraft carriers and warships (Okinawa had 548k troops available, more than D-Day). They would have to defend Italy, Southern France, Calais, Normandy and other places, all silmultaneously against greater number of aircraft, tanks, ships, men, etc. Eventually, the Allies could overwhelm Germany with shear mass. The math is inescapable. Determination, however is something else.




> You are right that the atom bomb is the "wild card", although it did in fact take a long time to built up a sizeable stockpile of the weapons. I think that there would have been a very much more intense debate about the morality of dropping the bombs on Germany than there was in the case of Japan - there was a lot of racism involved on both sides of the Asia/Pacific war, which did not exist between the UK/USA and Germany.



I think A-bomb build up would accerate in 46 with desparation. I agree with your comments about the usage. They may have continue to use it against Japan and start negotiations with Germany, who would probably be very interested in ceasing hostilities once the A-bomb had been demonstrated.



> Unless the Allies did decide to use the A-bomb, (in which case Hitler would presumably have unleashed his chemical and biological warfare stockpile, and things would have got very unpleasant indeed), I don't see the Allies succeeding in defeating Germany without the Soviet Army on their side.



See above. Also, don't forget the idiot leader.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum[/QUOTE]


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Agreed 100%


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## syscom3 (Sep 29, 2006)

the lancaster kicks *** said:


> syscom you can't simply dismiss the Commonwealth's involvement in the CBI as meaningless............



The CBI was meaningless.

The war against Japan was determined by who controlled SE Asia and the central Pacific.

As events proved, it didnt matter how many troops were tied up in China and Burma, because the Japanese didnt have the logistics to support them elsewhere.


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## Gnomey (Sep 29, 2006)

Yes the Pacific was the main area but I wouldn't call over a million Japanese soldiers in theatre a meaningless theatre of operations but each to his own...


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## syscom3 (Sep 29, 2006)

Gnomey said:


> Yes the Pacific was the main area but I wouldn't call over a million Japanese soldiers in theatre a meaningless theatre of operations but each to his own...



The Japanese didnt have the transport to move them around, little alone supply them.

The IJA in the CBI were essentially useless in the strategic way of things.


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## Gnomey (Sep 29, 2006)

syscom3 said:


> The Japanese didnt have the transport to move them around, little alone supply them.
> 
> The IJA in the CBI were essentially useless in the strategic way of things.


Agreed but they still where there and the still hand to be defeated, they weren't go to surrender on orders from Tokyo necessarily. Still it tied down men that the Japanese (although the couldn't move them) needed elsewhere. What the could move was sunk en-route. Later on to replace/reinforce the Pacific Islands they replaced them with troops from Japan who were without (not all) battle experience. Had they been able to send the divisions in China who were battle hardened, I doubt the ending would of been different but the cost may of been higher.


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## syscom3 (Sep 29, 2006)

Gnomey said:


> Agreed but they still where there and the still hand to be defeated, they weren't go to surrender on orders from Tokyo necessarily. Still it tied down men that the Japanese (although the couldn't move them) needed elsewhere. What the could move was sunk en-route. Later on to replace/reinforce the Pacific Islands they replaced them with troops from Japan who were without (not all) battle experience. Had they been able to send the divisions in China who were battle hardened, I doubt the ending would of been different but the cost may of been higher.



Japan still needed troops in China to guard against Russia.

And again, the logistics of supplying troops throughout the Pacific dictated the size of the force. Just putting another 100,000 troops in the Mariana's just means theres 100,000 more troops to feed.


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## daishi12 (Sep 29, 2006)

Syscom, where does the statement about the Pacific come into the argument about whether the RN won the BoB?

Surely the original argument was did the RAF steal all the glory from the RN? 

As I see it the RAF managed to deny air superiority to the LW at a local level whilst the RN made Operation Sealion a tactical impossibility.

With regard to number of divisions available to the army, there would have been the 14 infantry divisions and 2 armoured, but there would also have been the Home Defence Force ( "Dad's Army" ), admitedly, they would have been poorely equiped but a bullet from a 1914 issue rifle will kill you as dead as a 1939 issue rifle.

I think it would have been all about whether the Luftwaffe would have been able to prevent the RAF/RN from destroying significant numbers of invasion barges (which where mainly flat-bottomed, low freeboard river vessels). It is probably worth noting that during the majority of Allied landings the landing craft went in from no more than 5 miles offshore, and the troops usually where seasick. I'd like to see a flat-bottomed, low freeboard river vessel trying to go between 12 and 35 miles in even moderate seas without the troops being incapacitated, bombed, shelled, mined or swamped.


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## syscom3 (Sep 29, 2006)

daishi12 said:


> Syscom, where does the statement about the Pacific come into the argument about whether the RN won the BoB?
> 
> Surely the original argument was did the RAF steal all the glory from the RN?



I started the thread.


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## Soren (Sep 29, 2006)

*Tony Hunter,*

Without an invasion of the USSR in 41 Stalin would've just kept up his trend eliminating his army's ability to fight, and by 1943-44 the Soviet army would've been in disarray. It was War which lighted the spark in Soviet industry, not Stalin.



> Yep - those Russkies were totally thrashed, Stalin finally had to surrender in the ruins of their last remaining city, Vladivostok. That's why we've had a Nazi Europe these last 60 years!!



What a meaningless remark...

The way the USSR contributed to the final victory over Germany was not by outfighting the Germans, cause it couldn't, it just simply bled the German army white while Britain and the USA took the fight to Germany itself. .

Did the USSR conduct a bombing campaign against German industry ? No. Could they have done it ? No. Did the USSR conduct any major seaborne campaign against the Germans ? No. Could they have done it ? No. Without either of these there would be no way of winning against the Germans, pure and simple. With no bombing of German industry Russia was going to fall guaranteed ! 

Without Britain and the USA there is simply no way Stalin could've won over the Germans. I mean come on, even while simultanously fighting the western Allies Germany came damn close to putting an end to the Soviet army ! Stalin himself even considered surrendering at one point !

The German army, despite fighting on many fronts and being on the defensive, in terms of losses dealt to each other kept on beating the crap out of the Soviets until the end of the war.


Oh and about the "partially successfull" invasion, well, what I meant was establishing a foothold on British soil, cause had that been done the Germans would've achieved Objective #1 in a victory over Britain.


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## Soren (Sep 29, 2006)

double post...


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## Jabberwocky (Sep 29, 2006)

Soren said:


> Without an invasion of the USSR in 41 Stalin would've just kept up his trend eliminating his army's ability to fight, and by 1943-44 the Soviet army would've been in disarray. It was War which lighted the spark in Soviet industry, not Stalin.




The Red Army and Stalin were doing exactly the opposite. 

Under new leadership the Red Army was in the middle if a reform and repair porgramme in 1940-1941, undergoing a serious and comprehensive revision of its structure and doctrine. The purges of the mid 1930s were a thing of the past, particularly give the harsh lessons learnt in the Winter War.

Armour and aircraft (the modern and dynamic arms of the Red Army at the time) were being improved with an eye on the latest developments elsewhere, although infantry tactics and equipment, as well as artillery production and design were quite laggard, mostly due to intransigence from several older generation generals who delayed new programs and carved out their own little kingdoms. Training was also on the rise, according to John Erickson's 'The Road to Stalingrad' the infantry training budget in 1941 was double that of 1939. 

The goal was to have a thoroughly reformed Red Army by 1943, possibly with an eye to expanding south into the Balkans. 

When Germany hit Russia in 1941 they hit them at the beginning of a modernisation cycle, where equipment and doctrine were changing. If Germany had delayed another 12 months, I believe that they would of had a much harder time of things, being presented with a better organised and slightly better trained Red Army that was slowly divesting itself of some of its weaknesses.


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## davparlr (Sep 29, 2006)

Jabberwocky said:


> The Red Army and Stalin were doing exactly the opposite.
> 
> Under new leadership the Red Army was in the middle if a reform and repair porgramme in 1940-1941, undergoing a serious and comprehensive revision of its structure and doctrine. The purges of the mid 1930s were a thing of the past, particularly give the harsh lessons learnt in the Winter War.
> 
> ...



I disagree with this. Stalin was hyper paranoid. He placed lackies in positions of command and anyone who showed initative was eliminated. Great aircraft designers were thrown in jail, tank designers the same. I believe Tupelov (?) was one, the creater of the T-34 was another. More time without a threat would have made Russia even weaker. In fact, I think that, with better, meaning sane, planning and preparation, and launching the invasion earlier in the year (maybe early 42), Germany may have succeeded in putting Russia out of the war like in WWI.


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## pbfoot (Sep 29, 2006)

I just found these interesting letters from Stalin in the US Archives and I think they pertain


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

davparlr said:


> Time was not on Germany's side. With limited men under arms (non-German forces were either mostly not reliable or not as well committed) and not as efficient arms manufacturing or logistic capablity, Germany would soon be significantly out manned (the US had vast amounts of manpower to tap) and out armed. Unlike Germany for operation Sea Lion, the allies would have total control of sea power and probably local control of the airspace due to total quantity of allied airpower available. Every day the Allies would get stronger at a faster rate than the Axis. In a matter of time, the allies could have generated three or four D-Day level invasions with supporting aircraft carriers and warships (Okinawa had 548k troops available, more than D-Day). They would have to defend Italy, Southern France, Calais, Normandy and other places, all silmultaneously against greater number of aircraft, tanks, ships, men, etc. Eventually, the Allies could overwhelm Germany with shear mass. The math is inescapable. Determination, however is something else.


Even as it was, Churchill was extremely nervous about D-day and put it off for as long as he could, by trying to emphasise operations in the Med. The reason is not hard to see. Opposed amphibious landings are always a terrible risk, with overwhelming superiority being required (Gallipoli was burned into the memory of the BCE). And the number of troops available for the assault is not the critical factor (the German Army was vastly stronger than the British in 1940) - it's the means of getting them across and supplied when there. Despite the huge resources put into D-day, IIRC there were still only 5 Divisions in the first wave. There would have been little scope for the Allies to increase that, they would still have been tied up in the Pacific as well. It would have taken, at the very least, an extra year or two before an invasion would have been contemplated as they would probably have waited for the end of the war with Japan so they could shift the amphibious resources over.

With no Eastern Front to worry about, Germany could have multiplied the forces available for defence several times over. I think your final point is right - the Allies would have been well aware that an attempted invasion would, at the very least, have been terribly costly and might very well have failed (they were very afraid of this even with most of the German Army in Russia - Ike had his "failure" speech already written).

In this scenario, I agree that the Allies would have pointed to the use of the bomb in Japan, and a negotiated end to the war with Germany would have been the most likely outcome, without the risk and cost of an invasion. The problem is, of course, that unconditional surrender would have been unlikely, and that Hitler's atom scientists would promptly have been put back to work...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

daishi12 said:


> It is probably worth noting that during the majority of Allied landings the landing craft went in from no more than 5 miles offshore, and the troops usually where seasick. I'd like to see a flat-bottomed, low freeboard river vessel trying to go between 12 and 35 miles in even moderate seas without the troops being incapacitated, bombed, shelled, mined or swamped.


I think you meant to type 21 miles (not 12) as that's the minimum distance across the Channel.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

Soren said:


> *Tony Hunter,*
> The way the USSR contributed to the final victory over Germany was not by outfighting the Germans, cause it couldn't, it just simply bled the German army white while Britain and the USA took the fight to Germany itself. .
> 
> Did the USSR conduct a bombing campaign against German industry ? No. Could they have done it ? No. Did the USSR conduct any major seaborne campaign against the Germans ? No. Could they have done it ? No. Without either of these there would be no way of winning against the Germans, pure and simple. With no bombing of German industry Russia was going to fall guaranteed !
> ...



I emphatically disagree with you. 

When Germany came closest to defeating Russia (but not very close) in 1941/2 they had no UK/US land forces facing them, except for the sideshow in the Med., so they were focusing the vast majority of their forces on beating the USSR. They failed. Allied bombing at that time was totally ineffective, but Germany still failed. There was no way that Germany was going to beat the USSR, they did their best and simply couldn't do it.

The US/UK bombing campaign was built up to such a pitch simply because they had no other way of attacking Germany until after D-day. It was partly a political move to buy off Stalin's pressure for a second front. Stalin was well aware that the war would be decided on the ground, by armies - the bombing campaign was helpful but was never going to win the war. In fact, the Allied bombing only started to become effective in 1943, by which time the Soviets had finally stopped the Germans (Stalingrad, Kursk) and moved onto the start of the offensive which swept all the way into Berlin. The bombing campaign certainly speeded up the German collapse, but after 1943 it was going to happen anyway.

Exactly in what way was the lack of Soviet experience in amphibious landings a disadvantage? There are no seas between Russia and Germany.

The losses suffered by the USSR relative to Germany are completely irrelevant - because they could afford them. The Germany/USSR fight was rather like a middleweight boxer fighting a heavyweight. The middleweight is faster, lands far more punches and does some damage but in the end it is all for naught - he gets battered into the canvas. If he then protested that he ""beat the crap" out of the heavyweight he would just be laughed at.

Putting troops ashore in an invasion is not "partially successful" if it leads to their subsequent surrender - it's a disaster.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## pbfoot (Sep 29, 2006)

Well Churchill must have gun shy about landings after his attempt at it at Gallipoli which was a fiasco but as to whether shallow draft boats could move troops across the channel the only reason the Brits had a army left is because of small ships at Dunkirk if the stories are to be believed .


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## Tony Williams (Sep 29, 2006)

pbfoot said:


> Well Churchill must have gun shy about landings after his attempt at it at Gallipoli which was a fiasco but as to whether shallow draft boats could move troops across the channel the only reason the Brits had a army left is because of small ships at Dunkirk if the stories are to be believed .


Only because Germany did not have a navy capable of disrupting the operation - which brings us back to where we started!

They also didn't face a hostile reception when they arrived in England - they had friendly troops on both sides of the Channel.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## Jabberwocky (Sep 29, 2006)

davparlr said:


> I disagree with this. Stalin was hyper paranoid. He placed lackies in positions of command and anyone who showed initative was eliminated. Great aircraft designers were thrown in jail, tank designers the same. I believe Tupelov (?) was one, the creater of the T-34 was another. More time without a threat would have made Russia even weaker. In fact, I think that, with better, meaning sane, planning and preparation, and launching the invasion earlier in the year (maybe early 42), Germany may have succeeded in putting Russia out of the war like in WWI.




Erickson tends to disagree with you, as did the German Army in December 1940. At the start his history of the Great Patriotic War he goes into a 40+ page examination of the reforms that the Red Army was going through. Incompetence, particularly from the old guard, was being fairly ruthlessly weeded out. There was a powerful group of reformers in the Red Army: Zukhov, Pavlov and Yermenenko (amour, although Pavlov was a bit up and down), Karavchenko (aircraft), Smirnov and Meretskov (infantry). Erickson's general conclusion is that although there were definate steps in the right direction, it was too little, too late. 

Similarly, German intelligence for 'Otto' (the pre-Barbarossa code name) conducted in Dec-1940 noted that the reorientation of the Red Army would not bring any substantial improvements before Spring 1941 i.e. that in the German view it was reforming and improving.


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Jabberwocky said:


> The Red Army and Stalin were doing exactly the opposite.
> 
> Under new leadership the Red Army was in the middle if a reform and repair porgramme in 1940-1941, undergoing a serious and comprehensive revision of its structure and doctrine. The purges of the mid 1930s were a thing of the past, particularly give the harsh lessons learnt in the Winter War.
> 
> ...




100% agree, well said.


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Jabberwocky said:


> Erickson tends to disagree with you, as did the German Army in December 1940. At the start his history of the Great Patriotic War he goes into a 40+ page examination of the reforms that the Red Army was going through. Incompetence, particularly from the old guard, was being fairly ruthlessly weeded out. There was a powerful group of reformers in the Red Army: Zukhov, Pavlov and Yermenenko (amour, although Pavlov was a bit up and down), Karavchenko (aircraft), Smirnov and Meretskov (infantry). Erickson's general conclusion is that although there were definate steps in the right direction, it was too little, too late.
> 
> Similarly, German intelligence for 'Otto' (the pre-Barbarossa code name) conducted in Dec-1940 noted that the reorientation of the Red Army would not bring any substantial improvements before Spring 1941 i.e. that in the German view it was reforming and improving.



Damn !!! Wellsaid again, you are on a roll.


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## Hunter368 (Sep 29, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> I emphatically disagree with you.
> 
> When Germany came closest to defeating Russia (but not very close) in 1941/2 they had no UK/US land forces facing them, except for the sideshow in the Med., so they were focusing the vast majority of their forces on beating the USSR. They failed. Allied bombing at that time was totally ineffective, but Germany still failed. There was no way that Germany was going to beat the USSR, they did their best and simply couldn't do it.
> 
> ...



Damn this is a easy night for me, everyone is saying what I think before I get to type it. I have nothing to add to this post b/c it says it all.


PS Soren, just for the record I never said Russia could of beaten Germany by herself. What I said was that in WW2, which is closest to what you are hinting or thinking I said was, is that Russia played a HUGE role in the Allies victory over Germany. I also said that without Russia being on the side of the Allies killing, capturing and tying up huge numbers of German soldiers, planes and tanks was that UK and USA would of still won the war but it would of cost UK and USA many many many more dead (not to mention the many many many more dead civilians on both sides dead). 

Soren, if you are asking me who I would think would of won between Russia and Germany (if it was just them and no one else involved).......well then I would say it depends on the year the war started and if their was surprise attack involved and who did the surprise attack. Then I would give you an answer to that question, once you provided me that information. But you have not asked that question so I have never said.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 30, 2006)

Tony Williams said:


> I think you meant to type 21 miles (not 12) as that's the minimum distance across the Channel.
> 
> Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum



that's nothing, the maximum distance the germans wanted to take their troops in their barges was 85 miles... at the 3 knots these things were capable of they'd be at the mercy of the channel for well over a day! 



> as to whether shallow draft boats could move troops across the channel the only reason the Brits had a army left is because of small ships at Dunkirk if the stories are to be believed .



the British used fishing vessels at dunquirqe, fishing vessels that are out in the channel all of their working lives and the fishermen knew the channel well... their invasion force was made up of Rhine barges mostly, baisically flat bottomed canal boats! anything more than sea state two and these things would go over... the wake from a small destroyer causes worse than that... the invasion force could be sunk without firing a shot! i very strongly suggest you read the link i posted before................


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## davparlr (Sep 30, 2006)

Jabberwocky said:


> Erickson tends to disagree with you, as did the German Army in December 1940. At the start his history of the Great Patriotic War he goes into a 40+ page examination of the reforms that the Red Army was going through. Incompetence, particularly from the old guard, was being fairly ruthlessly weeded out. There was a powerful group of reformers in the Red Army: Zukhov, Pavlov and Yermenenko (amour, although Pavlov was a bit up and down), Karavchenko (aircraft), Smirnov and Meretskov (infantry). Erickson's general conclusion is that although there were definate steps in the right direction, it was too little, too late.
> 
> Similarly, German intelligence for 'Otto' (the pre-Barbarossa code name) conducted in Dec-1940 noted that the reorientation of the Red Army would not bring any substantial improvements before Spring 1941 i.e. that in the German view it was reforming and improving.




Reforming, maybe, but Stalins ego would not let a reformer succeed to the point of being a possible threat. If anyone began to show promise and stood out, they would disappear. That is until the war, when Stalin knew he needed those men. After the war, Russia's greatest general, Zukhov, was banished to low level work and basically disappeared because he was becoming too famous. This would have prevented any real reformation. And beside, wasn't Russia always reforming to correct the problems of the previous reformation?


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## pbfoot (Sep 30, 2006)

Didnt the Dutch,Belgians and French also have fishing boats that the Germans held sway over . If the Germans had desired they could've controlled a least a searoute to the south of England not the whole Channel with an aerial umbrella.


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## syscom3 (Sep 30, 2006)

Fishing boats are fishing boats. Not transports you need to to bring troops over to a defended beachhead.

The only thing the Germans would have used the fishing boats for would be to "fish" the drowned soldiers out of the channel


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## daishi12 (Sep 30, 2006)

syscom3 said:


> Fishing boats are fishing boats. Not transports you need to to bring troops over to a defended beachhead.
> 
> The only thing the Germans would have used the fishing boats for would be to "fish" the drowned soldiers out of the channel



I agree Syscom, the use of fishing and leisure boats at Dunkerque was an act of desperation, the use of river barges and small fishing boats to force a beach head would have been an act of lunacy.

I seem to remember from somewhere (not sure where) that the admirals of the Kreigsmarine were not happy with Hitler because they would have preferred at least 2 more years of peace to bring the navy up to a minimum war footing operational status.

As I have said previously in this thread, the RAF would only have needed to prevent the LW from achieving total air superiority. This in turn would allow the RN to achieve naval superiority.


As an aside, if an invasion of Britain had been done it is my opinion that Roosevelt would have pushed the USA to declare war on Germany towards the end of 1940.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 30, 2006)

> The only thing the Germans would have used the fishing boats for would be to "fish" the drowned soldiers out of the channel



oh very good


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## pbfoot (Sep 30, 2006)

Well a boat is a boat there were very few transports or specialized landing ships at that time I think it would've have been close .The Brits had less then spectacular leaders in the ground arena if you put 10000 troops on the beach with the air support the Luftwaffe used to smash the French and BEF in France. I am sure you could reinforce and resupply using JU52's at night or fishing vessels. I dont think the majority of RN ships had radar at the time so I'm assuming the "fishing boats " would rome fairly unscathed at night .These troops using them as a judas goat to draw the RN into the channel to prevent resupply. The Raf would now find the shoe on the other foot as the RAF would be assigned the task of guarding the Senior Service from air attack putting them at the disadvantage of being tethered .


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## syscom3 (Sep 30, 2006)

Now how are those fishing boats going to get the supplies and troops to the beach? Do you honestly believe that that any port will be left intact when an invasion warning is issued?

And the RN didnt need radar for a night battle in the channel. Just throw up some flares or use night binoculars and you could find plenty of targets.

In the Pacific, the USN PT boats were devestating against the Japanese barges and I would see no reason why the RN MTB's wouldnt have a field day with slowly moving barges and fishing trawlers.

Its all about logistics. And the Germans did not have it for a large amphibious assualt.


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## pbfoot (Sep 30, 2006)

maybe the Germans realized something the allies didn't figure out til Dieppe that its hard to take a port intact . The British Army was pretty lame after France and in shock with not a lot of heavy weapons . I've read mostly in Canadian history books so there might be a bias that the only fully equpped unit was the 1st Canadian Division. The Brits were concerned enough that they moved most of liquid assets out of the country. The USMC performed a similar mission in Guadalcanal when they were left without any heavy equipment


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Oct 1, 2006)

> if you put 10000 troops on the beach



as i recall after several _years_ planning not months "only" 11,000 troops were landed in normandy on the first day, and not all in the first wave, there was absolutely no way jerry was gonna land 10,000 troops on the first day with months of planning..............



> I am sure you could reinforce and resupply using JU52's at night



dropping troops at night is just about possible at this time, but not supplies, they have no controll over where they fall and as Jerry would only occupy a very thin strip of land on the coast if they did land most supplies would end up in the sea or in the hands of tommies, and 10,000 troops use up a whole heap of supplies...........



> or fishing vessels



you're planning to support an entire invasion force with fishing vessels? it _might_ work for a night or two but, and evern the Germans knew this, any invasion needs a major port to get most of the supplies off and to the armythe two biggest ports in the area that the Germans were planning on landing in are Dover and Folkstone, not only would these be heavily defended but if things weren't going well they would be made useless to the point it would take several months to get working again, the allies knew full well this's what the germans would do when we invaded and our solution to there being a lack of ports? take our own of course 



> I dont think the majority of RN ships had radar at the time so I'm assuming the "fishing boats " would rome fairly unscathed at night



haha, we're talking about the world's most senior and experienced navy... they know how to operate at night, especially in home waters, not only would the sheer density of our small ships fill the channel by night to the point where we'd just about be able to fill parts of the channel but remember, these fishing vessels would be heading only for a few beaches where we know their army would be, thus we already know _exactily_ where they're heading and most of the route they'll take, don't you think that makes it a little easier for us? simply sitting of the beaches not only could we, with immunity, shell the forces on land but stop any of the poorly armed (if armed at all) fishing boats getting through?



> The British Army was pretty lame



not quite true... weaker than before we went to France yes but not lame, we were still a force several hundred thousand strong, well trained, many had experience from France and we still had mortars, light guns etc. etc. a force in their hundreds of thousands defending their home land will be able to repell an invasion force of 10,000 that the Germans weren't planning on re-inforcing in terms of troops for 10 days.........



> with not a lot of heavy weapons . I've read mostly in Canadian history books so there might be a bias that the only fully equpped unit was the 1st Canadian Division



well that's not a problem as the Germans wouldn't have _any_ heavy eqiptment, the heaviest equiptment the Germans had accounted on sending in in the first wave was 4,000 horses


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## daishi12 (Oct 1, 2006)

Hi PB, I don't think you appreciate the sheer scale of the planned invasion.

Hitler wanted to put 9 divisions to land across a 275 mile front.

There were only 170 cargo ships, just less than 1300 barges and just less than 500 tugs.

The tugs would tow the barges + improvised transports at an impresive 2-3 knots (think geriatric with a walking frame for speed comparison) assuming absolutely flat calm conditions. This gives a time of anything up to 30 hours just to cross the channel and does not take into account loading, unloading and forming convoy. The troops on the barges could be onboard for upto 40-48 hours. A high proportion of those troops would be seasick in even the calmest sea and sea sickness can incapacitate even the most hardened man.

Then there are 4000 horses to take across - but no heavy (essential) equipment. (mind you, plenty of food in the way of horse steaks)

Resupply by Ju52's - didn't work at Stalingrad, wouldn't work for Britain.
Resupply by fishing boats? - majority of fishing boats at the time where less than 50ft LOA and would be pushed to carry 10 tons - not really an option

LW providing total air superiority + bomber escort + barge escort + artillery + saturation bombing of London, Portsmouth etc - And where exactly would the RAF be taking their summer holidays?


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## plan_D (Oct 1, 2006)

The answer, in my opinion, to the original question _"Did the Royal Navy win the Battle of Britain?"_ is no. The term Battle of Britain refers to the aerial battle between the RAF and Luftwaffe, be it the RAF interceptors vs. Luftwaffe bombers, or the RAF bombers attacking the German airfields. 
The Royal Navy was the greatest force opposing the German invasion, however. Germany could not hope to achieve success without complete, and total, aerial and naval superiority over the Channel and surrounding seas. The Luftwaffe was not a capable anti-ship airforce, they relied on Stuka dive-bombers which generally only achieved success (in 1939-1940) against stationary targets. The ships attacking the German invasion 'fleet' would not stand still for long. 

That brings me on to the current discussion about German's possible invasion, was it going to be a success? No. 

Operation _Neptune_, the Allied invasion of Normandy, was in planning from 1942 'til the day of invasion. The Allies laid down the plans at the Casablanca Conference and COSSAC made the plans a reality. 

In June 1944, the Allies had total air superiority and naval superiority. The Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine had a presence but it had no hope of defeating the combined air and naval offensive. 

_"I am very uneasy about the whole operation. At the best it fall so very very far short of the expectations of the bulk of the people, namely those who know nothing of its difficulties. At the worst it may well be the ghastly disaster of the whole war. I wish to God it were safely over."_

*Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 5 June 1944.*

The Allies planned to land three air divisions (101st and 82nd US Airborne, and 6th Airborne). Utah Beach would be assaulted with U.S 4th Infantry Division, three companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion at Pointe Du Hoc, U.S 1st Infantry Division on Omaha Beach, British 50th Division on Gold Beach, Canadian 3rd Division on Juno Beach and British 3rd Division on Sword Beach. 

That's an assault of eight divisions, three by air and five by sea. For five divisions landing, the Allies had 1,213 Naval Combat Vessels, 4,126 Landing Ships and Craft, 736 Ancillary Ships and Craft and 864 Merchant Ships for a total of :

*6,939* ships. 

This was supported by RAF Bomber Command, 2nd TAF, 8th and 9th U.S Air forces in full. 

It cost the Allies in sea landed troops, 5,365 WIA, KIA and MIA. 

A total of 133,000 men were landed by sea on Normandy. And several times, especially Omaha, the threat of defeat was very real. The Allies supplied themselves with Mulberry ports that landed 231,315 men, 45,181vehicles , 628,000 tonnes of stores from 12 June - 28 November 1944. Also throughout June until Pluto became operational, the Allies received theoretically 8,000 tonnes of fuel a day via Tombola, a series of buoyed pipelines. 

The Germans had NONE of this. They hoped to achieve a landing of one extra division with 1,970 "vessels" which mostly were barely, if at all, seaworthy. They had no ports. No fuel line. No air superiority. No naval superiority. They had a few months planning. 

How can anyone seriously believe that Germany could maintain that kind of operation, with a third of planes and ships than the Allies had. And without the total superiority of air and sea the Allies maintained. AND without the heavy equipment the Allies landed, i.e TANKS!


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## Soren (Oct 1, 2006)

You're comparing the 1940-41 British army with the 1944 German army ??

The landing craft necessary to carry tanks over could be built shortly, it wasn't a major problem.

I'll be back later...


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## daishi12 (Oct 1, 2006)

Soren said:


> The landing craft necessary to carry tanks over could be built shortly, it wasn't a major problem.




You are of course having a laugh.

building landing craft to carry tanks would have been a massive problem .. you would need at least 200 vessels strong enough to carry either 1 or 2 Panzer 3s at 22 tons each. They would need to have a range of approx 250 miles as they would not have been supported by landing support vessels.

It is my understanding that there were just over 80 days from the start of planning to the preferred 'D-Day' so just over 2 boats a day would need to be completed.

Not only would they need to be built, they would need to be designed and tested. If the designers spent approx 20 days this leaves 60 days, so therefore the boat builders would need to complete just over 3 boats a day. Once the plants are fully tooled up this figure and producing the production figure would need to go up to 5-6 boats a day. U-boat construction and refit/repair would be affected as the U-boat dockyards would be the most logical place to build them.

The crews would need to be found and trained, I'd think about 3 crew per boat at a minimum, plus gunners if they were armed.

It is the very shortage of landing craft that forced the Kreigmarine into scrounging up river barges.


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## plan_D (Oct 1, 2006)

I have compared the transport and supply of each situation, Soren, not the armies that opposed them. The Germans wanted to carry one extra division over the Channel with a third of the transport vessels that the Allies had. Surely logic will prevail, it wasn't going to happen.


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## syscom3 (Oct 1, 2006)

And even if those barges were built, how were they going to work if there were no port facilities available? Run up on the beach like an LST, but in this case, get stuck till high tide to leave the beach?(if the hull wasnt damaged).

Pontoons you say?....... that takes specialized eqmt that works for high water states, not like a river.

Again and again, the Germans did not have the capacity to invade in numbers, expand the beachhead and resupply. 

If they couldnt do it in 1940, they sure werent going to do it in 1941 or 1942.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Oct 1, 2006)

I have to agree with you guys. Germany did not have the capability of it. I think Hitler was truely expecting England to stay out of it at first and then want a truce after Dunkirk. I dont think Hitler ever really had the vision of invading England.


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## daishi12 (Oct 1, 2006)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I have to agree with you guys. Germany did not have the capability of it. I think Hitler was truely expecting England to stay out of it at first and then want a truce after Dunkirk. I dont think Hitler ever really had the vision of invading England.



I think you're correct Eagle, the entire thrust of Hitlers war was to expand to the East and to expand the German empire by invading Russia


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## Soren (Oct 1, 2006)

daishi12 said:


> You are of course having a laugh.
> 
> building landing craft to carry tanks would have been a massive problem .. you would need at least 200 vessels strong enough to carry either 1 or 2 Panzer 3s at 22 tons each. They would need to have a range of approx 250 miles as they would not have been supported by landing support vessels.
> 
> ...



Well I was talking a period of 364 - 728 days, so there lies the difference. (Remember I'm not talking about Op. Sea Lion here, the deadline would be different...)

The landing craft could be VERY quickly designed, and with approx. a year to build them I'd say there was time enough. And with no war against Russia the German army would only grow stronger, so with atleast 3.3 million men at their disposal finding men to train wasn't going to pose a problem.

Since the Germans came so close to defeating the massive USSR, why shouldn't they be capable of defeating the no way near as massive British army ??

How well were the British shores defended ? How many troops did they have ? How many tanks ? How good were the defences compared to those of the maginot-line which was taken out by German paratroopers ?

In a very short space of time the Germans took France, Holland, Belgium, Poland, Denmark and Norway - Would you have thought this possible if it had never happened ?? 

[QUOTE="DerAdlerIstGelandet]I dont think Hitler ever really had the vision of invading England.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, he chose the Soviet Union instead.


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## Soren (Oct 1, 2006)

plan_D said:


> I have compared the transport and supply of each situation, Soren, not the armies that opposed them. The Germans wanted to carry one extra division over the Channel with a third of the transport vessels that the Allies had. Surely logic will prevail, it wasn't going to happen.



Well German air-superiority, which was a necessity if an invasion was ever going to be possible, certainly wasn't un-achievable. And could the KM with the help of the LW have cut off the channel, halting the RN trying to get in and pound the invasion fleet, I believe an invasion was possible.

Building the vessels needed to cross the channel wasn't the largest obstical, and could certainly have been done within a years time.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Oct 1, 2006)

Soren said:


> Agreed, he chose the Soviet Union instead.



Yes but it was never his intention from even before the war. He only was looking East....


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## Soren (Oct 1, 2006)

Yeah but I think we can agree that if Russia had fallen, then Britain was Hitler's obvious next choice - his goal was after-all to have Europe.


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## syscom3 (Oct 1, 2006)

After the summer of 1940, the RAF and RN grew measurably stronger and more capable.

No matter how many landing boats the Germans had, untill they had 100% control of the sky's and the sea, could they invade.

And again, untill they had the LST's, LCI's, LCM's, LCT's and an equivalent to the DUKW, they werent going to be able to invade anywhere.

Whether there was a war with Russia or not. There were some serious logistical issues that had to be dealt with, and the Germans didnt show any capacity to be able to solve them within a few years.

Remember, when the Allies invaded in June 1944, they had already performed several large amphib invasions in the MTO and PTO, and so were well versed on what is needed and what should be advoided. The Germans didnt have those opportunities, so the idea they were going to invade with no experience and do everything right is a bit far fetched.


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## Hop (Oct 1, 2006)

> Since the Germans came so close to defeating the massive USSR, why shouldn't they be capable of defeating the no way near as massive British army



For the same reason Napoleon couldn't. He too conquered much of Europe, he too had by far the strongest army of his day, he too had an inferior navy. (and he too came to grief in Russia after being repulsed by Britain, and suffered a defeat in a North African campaign)

The British didn't need to defeat the entire German army, they only had to defeat the portion the Germans could land and resupply in Britain.

Hitler had probably the perfect mix of forces for fighting in mainland Europe. He had precisely the wrong mix for attacking Britain. Incidentally, that was the wrong mix for fighting in Africa as well, and look at how that ended up. The British beat the German army, or rather the portion of it that the Germans could resupply in North Africa.

Germany was very good at tactics in WW2, but they proved poor at logistics, and it's excellent logistics you need to invade and support troops overseas.


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## daishi12 (Oct 1, 2006)

Soren said:


> Well I was talking a period of 364 - 728 days, so there lies the difference. (Remember I'm not talking about Op. Sea Lion here, the deadline would be different...)



That puts the invasion between early autumn 1941 and early autumn 1942



Soren said:


> The landing craft could be VERY quickly designed, and with approx. a year to build them I'd say there was time enough. And with no war against Russia the German army would only grow stronger, so with atleast 3.3 million men at their disposal finding men to train wasn't going to pose a problem.
> 
> Since the Germans came so close to defeating the massive USSR, why shouldn't they be capable of defeating the no way near as massive British army ??



It would not have been just the British army Hitler was facing, it would have been the US Army, Navy and Airforce as well.



Soren said:


> How well were the British shores defended ? How many troops did they have ? How many tanks ? How good were the defences compared to those of the maginot-line which was taken out by German paratroopers ?
> 
> In a very short space of time the Germans took France, Holland, Belgium, Poland, Denmark and Norway - Would you have thought this possible if it had never happened ??



As above, but there would have also have been the full might of the RN and the full might of the Commonwealth.


If the invasion had happened in 1941/42 the only good thing for the Wermacht would have been the ability for them to walk across the wrecked ships and corpses of the troops who had tried before.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Oct 1, 2006)

Soren said:


> Yeah but I think we can agree that if Russia had fallen, then Britain was Hitler's obvious next choice - his goal was after-all to have Europe.



The problem with that is by the time Hitler would have defeated Russia his forces would have been hurting and depleated. Germany would not have been a position to invade England still. During the time it would have taken Germany to prepare for that invasion, England would be preparing to repell it.


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## syscom3 (Oct 1, 2006)

daishi12 said:


> That puts the invasion between early autumn 1941 and early autumn 1942



I would be quite confident in saying that an invasion in the autumn, winter and early spring months would be courting disaster.

One or two good storms, and watch your small craft dissapear.


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## plan_D (Oct 1, 2006)

While Germany spent that year or two developing and constructing it's landing vessels Great Britain would be preparing the defence. Within a year's time, Soren, Great Britain could have produced thousands more planes, trained thousands more soldiers and deployed thousands more guns. Germany would have more men but that means nothing because they could not have been able to land their numbers in a day, or even a month. The Allies only managed to land 133,000 men by sea. 

Local air superiority was achievable for short spans of time, total air superiority was unachievable. The Luftwaffe did not have the range to have complete air superiority over the RAF. The RAF could rotate squadrons around the country to keep the numbers relatively high. All the while Germany would be losing pilots faster than they could replace them. And Britain was starting to out-produce Germany in aircraft production. 

Even if local air superiority was achieved, that means nothing in the darkness. The Royal Navy could slip in the smaller vessels by night and wreak masses of havoc on any German crossing of the Channel. 

The largest obstacle for Germany was creating an effective and continious supply line to any forces that did make it ashore. The Allies supplied their troops with pipelines and mulberry, the German invasion plan mentions capturing British ports. History shows us that capturing an intact port is practically impossible. 

_"Since the Germans came so close to defeating the massive USSR, why shouldn't they be capable of defeating the no way near as massive British army ??"_

The *ENGLISH CHANNEL*. It's hard enough for any army to cross a river the size of Caen Canal, left alone a 26 mile stretch of water which is prone to bad temper and throwing a fit. Whereas Germany was fighting the Red Army and VVS in Russia, it would be fighting the RAF and Royal Navy _then_ the British Army, RAF and Royal Navy while fighting Great Britain. The Royal Navy dwarved the Kriegsmarine, and the RAF proved to be a match for the Luftwaffe. 


_"How good were the defences compared to those of the maginot-line which was taken out by German paratroopers ?"_

I wasn't aware the Maginot Line was taken out by paratroopers. I thought it was standard infantry of the 1st Armee. One of the assaulting divisions was 197th Infantry Division of which Maj. Gen. Von Mellenthin was Chief of Staff:

_"They soon found that many of the French strongpoints were not proof against shells or bombs, and moreover, a large number of positions had not been sited for all-round defence and were easy to attack from the blind side with grenades and flamethrowers. Maginot Line lacked depth..."_

So, apparently, the Maginot Line wasn't that good at all. And it's hardly comparable to the situation the German troops running up the beaches would have encountered.


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## Jabberwocky (Oct 1, 2006)

Soren said:


> Well I was talking a period of 364 - 728 days, so there lies the difference. (Remember I'm not talking about Op. Sea Lion here, the deadline would be different...)
> 
> The landing craft could be VERY quickly designed, and with approx. a year to build them I'd say there was time enough. And with no war against Russia the German army would only grow stronger, so with atleast 3.3 million men at their disposal finding men to train wasn't going to pose a problem.
> 
> ...




But unlike attacking the Soviet Union with 3.3 million men ( which includes 10 divisions from Finland, 8 from Italy and 5 from Romania as well as Spanish, Slovak And Hungarian troops), Germany can only attack Britain in bite sized pieces of 100,000, without the element of suprise or air or naval superiority.

Achieving air superiority over the UK in 1941-1942, as a prerequisite to invasion, is a somewhat unrealistic notion. You have an RAF which, proportional to the LuftWaffe, has grown considerably in strength. Refighting the (daylight) BoB in 1941 against a Fighter Command of no less than 48-56 squadrons, who were just starting to feel the relief of major Lend Lease shipments, is going to be no less costly than fighting it in 1940 against a FC of 36-40 squadrons. Britain was still arming itself, still growing proportionally in strenght against German in 1941 and 1942 from the low point in 1940.

A night blitz against the UK is going to be equally costly, with the Beaufighter and Mosquito night fighters entering service, AI radar coming into its own and improved inland tracking from the new mobile and shortwave radars.

If the LuftWaffe can't gaurentee aerial superiority, then the Kreigsmarine can hardly secure the Channel, particularly given the advances made at Costal Command (strike Beaufighters, MAD gear Wellingtons, torpedo armed TB 1 Hampdens ) and the 50 additional (if admittedly ancient) 3 funnel destroyers the RN recieved from the US. 

Shore, port and interior defences all along the English coast were feversihly reinforced until the end of Autumn 1941. By mid 1941 28,000 pillboxes and anti-tank bunkers had been constructed in the Britain, with more in other parts of the UK. 17,000 of those were in the area of South east Britain where Germany planned to invade, between Brighton and Folkstone, froming defencive lines around London. Any German force landing and then procceding to link up and move inland would of encountered three static lines of defences, held primarily by the TA and Home Guard, designed to slow an advance inland while the regular Army assembled for a counter attack in force.


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## Soren (Oct 3, 2006)

Allot of my comments have been mis-understood and I simply don't have the time to discuss them, but I'll say this though; I might be wrong with some of my assumptions regarding the invasion, this is after'all one big "what if"... 

I don't believe that building the LST's, LCI's, LCM's and LCT's was to pose the Germans any problems as they were rather simpel designs (The Germans tended to over-design) and could be build rather quickly. The transport-boats which needed to be built to land up to 150,000 troops could be finished within 6-7 months, the problem after that would be how to support the troops landed - and I know the LW would have no problem dropping supplies on beachhead, but that in itself wouldn't be enough, most of the supplies would have to come via the sea.

Now onto the defence of the invasion force;

The KM would ofcourse have to support the invasion force, and with the Tirpitz and Germany's excellent pocket-battleships the KM was a mighty force, esp. when combined with the very large U-boat force which was the best in the world. Sure the RN had more battleships, but the KM had its U-boats with which they could stop the RN battleships from ever entering the channel. - Mines could be placed at the Channel intrances by Mine-laying subs while the attack-subs would slow down the RN and attempt to lead it into the minefield. 

But then there's the RAF, the British force which would prove the biggest obstical to a German invasion, its stations on Britain's South side would have to be eliminated (And almost were at one point), otherwise the RAF would have too good a coverage. But even if this was achieved the RAF would still be able to cover the south side beaches, true, but it would be facing a very large and determined LW.

Do I believe the Germans could've established a foothold on Britain ? Yes, but the odds of them pulling it off were against them alright - not that they werent used to this though...

*Plan_D,*

I'm going to get back to you about the FallschirmJaeger's.


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## Glider (Oct 3, 2006)

I wouldn't underestimate the challenge in designing and building LST's, LCM's etc. They look simple and in the end were, but all went through a number of iterations before they were correct. You are relying on the Germans getting it right first time which is very unlikely.
The RN had a much greater capacity to lay mines than the Germans so do not overlook what damage they could have inflicted. As mentioned before, we could also sweep more mines than the germans so why don't you always go on about the German Minefields stoping the RN and not the other way around?.
The RN also had a number of smaller submarines better suited to this area so do not ignore what they could do.
The RN as admitted had more BB's by a massive amount and well eqiuiped for night fighting. The Germans wouldn't have lasted long and couldn't afford major damage to any of their capital ships. The RN would trade a sunk KGV or Nelson for a damaged Tirpitz as we had plenty more to use.

Suggestion - if you want to improve the Germans chances, why not include the Italian Fleet.


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## Gnomey (Oct 4, 2006)

How are they going to get out of the Med with the British at Gibralter. Yes they could attempt to run past it but I suspect they would take severe losses if they were found. While it would give the Axis more ships the RN would probably be larger still and more comfortable operating in the waters of the channel than the Kreigsmarine or the Italian Navy.


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## bomber (Oct 4, 2006)

Well hyperthetically speaking the Germans could trial out their landing craft and invasion support systems on Gibralta

Rather than doing the Channel dash from Southern French ports they could turn south towards Gibralta.

The Italian Fleet and French fleets could mobilise and add their support.

The end result of all this with the RN southern Atlantic fleet and Channel fleet being mobilised in response would be a second battle of trafalga.

Simon


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## Soren (Oct 4, 2006)

Glider said:


> I wouldn't underestimate the challenge in designing and building LST's, LCM's etc. They look simple and in the end were, but all went through a number of iterations before they were correct. You are relying on the Germans getting it right first time which is very unlikely.



The designing process would be over quickly, the problem was building them on time as you're probably going to need new and special tools for the manufacturing process - Still a deadline of 6-7 months sounds reasonable to me.



> The RN had a much greater capacity to lay mines than the Germans so do not overlook what damage they could have inflicted.



But where and when were the British going to lay them ??



> As mentioned before, we could also sweep more mines than the germans so why don't you always go on about the German Minefields stoping the RN and not the other way around?.



Oh I wasn't suggesting that the mines alone were to stop the RN from entering the Channel, the U-boats would play the biggest role in avoiding this - However the mines would prove beneficial if the U-boats could lead the RN into them, something which I believe would've been a rather easy task. 



> The RN also had a number of smaller submarines better suited to this area so do not ignore what they could do.



Better suited ? How exactly ?



> The RN as admitted had more BB's by a massive amount and well eqiuiped for night fighting.



The Germans were equipped for night fighting as-well.



> The Germans wouldn't have lasted long and couldn't afford major damage to any of their capital ships. The RN would trade a sunk KGV or Nelson for a damaged Tirpitz as we had plenty more to use.



The RN would have to trade allot more even when trying to enter Channel itself, where the KM U-boats would waiting for them. 



> Suggestion - if you want to improve the Germans chances, why not include the Italian Fleet.



That is infact a good suggestion Glider, as the Italian navy could assist the KM in keeping the RN out of the channel and also help resupply the landed troops - the more the maryer as they say.


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## syscom3 (Oct 4, 2006)

Soren said:


> The designing process would be over quickly, the problem was building them on time as you're probably going to need new and special tools for the manufacturing process - Still a deadline of 6-7 months sounds reasonable to me.



Are you saying that the KM and German army will work together perfectly to come up with brand new amphibious designs and build them in mass production, emply them perfectly with no doctrine or tactics study and practice? I think you would be pressing your luck for everything to happen perfectly the first time. Not a way to launch a major amphib invasion.



> Oh I wasn't suggesting that the mines alone were to stop the RN from entering the Channel, the U-boats would play the biggest role in avoiding this - However the mines would prove beneficial if the U-boats could lead the RN into them, something which I believe would've been a rather easy task.



Mine fields work both ways too. The KM would be channelized by their own fields



> The RN would have to trade allot more even when trying to enter Channel itself, where the KM U-boats would waiting for them.



What makes you think the U-Boats themselves wouldnt be hunted by RN subs



> That is infact a good suggestion Glider, as the Italian navy could assist the KM in keeping the RN out of the channel and also help resupply the landed troops - the more the maryer as they say.



Its "merrier". And dont you think the straights of Gibraltar would be a slight issue for the Italian navy?

There is also the issue of naval gunfire support. The KM and Italians (if you want to include them) would not be able to to enter the channel due to their own minefields. So what will the landing troops have for gunfire support? Luftawaffe? that sure isnt going to do the job. Luftwaffe is limited to daylight hours and good visibility. Plus there wouldnt be enough of them to handle the multitude of targets that would need to be engaged on d-day.

Now if you say they will be able to enter the channel because they know where their minefields are, it still means they will be exposed to British counter attacks with little room for maneuver.


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## Hunter368 (Oct 4, 2006)

This is amusing, round and round we go. Soren leading a one man charge. Soren I will give you this........you are stubborn.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Oct 4, 2006)

i think he is placing far too much importance on minefeilds and U-boats, remember that for most of the war the channel was mined heavily along it's eastern entrance? so what? the KM still made it through at times and it was little more than a nusance to the RN, finding a minefeild is not hard and there would HAVE to be some safe passage into and out of the minefeilds/Channel for the KM to get in as you claim then can! not only would we use these safe routes but if we really wanted to be sneaky we had the ships to clear a safe route through the minefeilds with minesweepers! furthermore what makes you think we have to stop the Tirpitz in the Channel? not only can we attack with aircraft before she enters the channel but the North Sea Squadron can stop her before she even enters the channel! 

as for the U-boats, no successful submarine operations have ever been completed in the channel and blocking them at the entrances to the channel is difficult for U-boats not only because they would be hunted but a submerged U-boat is extremely slow! not only this but when they surface at night which they have to do they will be pounced upon as we're all agreed the night belongs to the RN........


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## redcoat (Oct 4, 2006)

Soren said:


> The designing process would be over quickly, the problem was building them on time as you're probably going to need new and special tools for the manufacturing process - Still a deadline of 6-7 months sounds reasonable to me.


The Germans did build a number of landing craft in WW2 they used them for transport duties in the Med. The first was launched in Dec 40 





> But where and when were the British going to lay them ??


Mines?
Where they laid them in real life, in area's suitable for amphibious landings 




> Oh I wasn't suggesting that the mines alone were to stop the RN from entering the Channel, the U-boats would play the biggest role in avoiding this - However the mines would prove beneficial if the U-boats could lead the RN into them, something which I believe would've been a rather easy task.


U-Boats in this period were highly sucessful in attacking slow under-escorted convoys, against fast destroyers which were zig-zaging they had little chance. 
Exactly how does a U-boat lead a destroyer into a minefield ?





> better suited ? How exactly ?


The U-Class submarines of the RN were small submarines designed to operate in the shallow waters of the North sea and Med. They were highly successful.





> The Germans were equipped for night fighting as-well.


But there were far less of them, and they would be spread out in a vain effort to try and cover all the possible routes of the RN





> The RN would have to trade allot more even when trying to enter Channel itself, where the KM U-boats would waiting for them.


In the Channel is too late, that's where the invasion fleet is. They have to stop them before they get into the Channel 




> That is in fact a good suggestion Glider, as the Italian navy could assist the KM in keeping the RN out of the channel and also help resupply the landed troops - the more the maryer as they say.


Why would the Italians wish to leave their coastline and convoy routes undefended from the attentions of the Royal Navy's Med fleet ?


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## Soren (Oct 4, 2006)

syscom3 said:


> Are you saying that the KM and German army will work together perfectly to come up with brand new amphibious designs and build them in mass production, emply them perfectly with no doctrine or tactics study and practice? I think you would be pressing your luck for everything to happen perfectly the first time. Not a way to launch a major amphib invasion.



How long did it take the Germans to prepare for Op. Barbarossa ? 

Tactics and doctrine was not a concern, cause every German soldier by then possessed this. Practice on seaborn invasions had already been done before, and was tought in the Hitler-Jugend as-well. 



> Mine fields work both ways too. The KM would be channelized by their own fields



Channelized ? All they had to do was avoid going into the channel, the RN on the other hand would have to go through the mine-field in order to reach the invasion force.



> What makes you think the U-Boats themselves wouldnt be hunted by RN subs



RN subs would've found that a VERY hard task to carry out ! How were they to successfully engage the better equipped German subs ?



> Its "merrier".



 Yeah thats right. 



> And dont you think the straights of Gibraltar would be a slight issue for the Italian navy?



Ofcourse it would, but it would occupy a good part of the RN at the same time.



> There is also the issue of naval gunfire support. The KM and Italians (if you want to include them) would not be able to to enter the channel due to their own minefields.



Only the KM warships would have to be inside the channel, the Italian navy (if it ever made it there) would help guard the intrances to the channel or act as a chicane for the RN while it tries to enter it.



> So what will the landing troops have for gunfire support? Luftawaffe? that sure isnt going to do the job. Luftwaffe is limited to daylight hours and good visibility. Plus there wouldnt be enough of them to handle the multitude of targets that would need to be engaged on d-day.



The KM warships would assist as-well as the LW. 



> Now if you say they will be able to enter the channel because they know where their minefields are, it still means they will be exposed to British counter attacks with little room for maneuver.



You're forgetting that RN can't see their most dangerous enemy - the U-boats. The U-boats would simply be spread out to guard the intrances, waiting for the RN to pass them - this was a tactic which proved effective against the fast Allied Destroyers in the Atlantic.

Just a single U-boat could cause havoc against even a large fleet of warships - remember what happened to the HMS Barham ?


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## redcoat (Oct 4, 2006)

Soren said:


> Tactics and doctrine was not a concern, cause every German soldier by then possessed this. Practice on seaborn invasions had already been done before, and was tought in the Hitler-Jugend as-well.


In the history of the German army how many amphibious landings have they undertaken ? 





> RN subs would've found that a VERY hard task to carry out ! How were they to successfully engage the better equipped German subs ?


In what way were the German subs better equipped ?






> You're forgetting that RN can't see their most dangerous enemy - the U-boats. The U-boats would simply be spread out to guard the intrances, waiting for the RN to pass them


So the RN would only have to pass one ot two U-boats in order to get to the invasion fleet


> - this was a tactic which proved effective against the fast Allied Destroyers in the Atlantic.


In the Atlantic it was the U-boats which were the hunted when destroyers were present.



> Just a single U-boat could cause havoc against even a large fleet of warships - remember what happened to the HMS Barham ?


Nonsense, the U-boat sank a single ship, that isn't going to stop a battlefleet intent on attacking the invasion fleet.


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## syscom3 (Oct 4, 2006)

Soren said:


> How long did it take the Germans to prepare for Op. Barbarossa ?



Huge difference between a land invasion against a foe that was ill prepared or trained and an amphib invasion against a well trained and equiped army.



> Tactics and doctrine was not a concern, cause every German soldier by then possessed this. Practice on seaborn invasions had already been done before, and was tought in the Hitler-Jugend as-well.



And how many "quality" amphib invasions did the Germans practice at against a defended beach? The Germans were a continetal army with no maritime skills. Note - paddling in a rubber dingy on a small stream or lake does not qualify as practice for a cross channel jaunt in the channel that could be expected to have high sea states.



> Channelized ? All they had to do was avoid going into the channel, the RN on the other hand would have to go through the mine-field in order to reach the invasion force.





> Only the KM warships would have to be inside the channel, the Italian navy (if it ever made it there) would help guard the intrances to the channel or act as a chicane for the RN while it tries to enter it.



What is it, German warships in the channel or not.



> RN subs would've found that a VERY hard task to carry out ! How were they to successfully engage the better equipped German subs ?



The RN subs would find plenty of German ships to shoot at, including subs. Besides, a torpedo doesnt care about the quality of a ship its shot at.



> Of course it would, but it would occupy a good part of the RN at the same time.



Youre putting a lot of faith in the Italian navy to successfully protect itself against air attack. This would end up just the same as the repulse and the POW.




> The KM warships would assist as-well as the LW.



The KM only had a mere handfull of BB's and CA's to use. You lose one or two for any reason, and youre fire support is *greatly* reduced. And I still cant figure out whether they are in the channel and bottled up by their own minefield, or out of the channel where they are of no use.



> You're forgetting that RN can't see their most dangerous enemy - the U-boats. The U-boats would simply be spread out to guard the intrances, waiting for the RN to pass them - this was a tactic which proved effective against the fast Allied Destroyers in the Atlantic.



And youre forgetting that MTB's, destroyers and other small craft will be hunting your subs and once they pass your picket line, they will have a field day smashing the unarmed and slow moving invasion fleet. And if the weather is bad, your U-Boats wont be seeing many of them.



> Just a single U-boat could cause havoc against even a large fleet of warships - remember what happened to the HMS Barham ?



And just a few aircraft can smash a large fleet just like the POW/Repluse and the Bismark.

Sorry Soren, your arguments assume everything will go exactly right for the Germans and everything will go spectaculary wrong with the Brits.

And if youre planning your invasion in 1942, forget it as the USN and USAAF would give the allies the qualitative and quantitavive superiority.


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## Hop (Oct 5, 2006)

Submarines are very bad at attacking fast moving ships. As evidence of that, look at the Queen's during the war. They carried up to 15,000 soldiers at a time, and usually did so without escort, because their speed made them all but invulnerable to U boats.


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## pbfoot (Oct 5, 2006)

they will be pounced upon as we're all agreed the night belongs to the RN........[/QUOTE said:


> Did the RN have better flares ? because not many RN ships had radar
> The Italian air force was probably as good as any in the spectrum of maritime warfare and working the channel would be a target rich enviroment with little transit time with very little chance of interception unless the RAF mounted a standing CAP as the radar available at the time was poor in its lo level capabilities but this would have strained the resources of the RAF and provided the Luftwaffe a target rich enviroment of their own . My tactic would have been similar in nature to Zeebrugge or St Nazaire but I would've beached a several large transports on the English shores in the initial assault to enable heavy equipment and supplies to be brought in .
> Now the RN would have shifted a bulk of their resources to the channel leaving the ports from which the Brits recieved the vital resource of oil open to a blockade of U boats .


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## Tony Williams (Oct 5, 2006)

The night belongs to the RN because aircraft cannot effectively attack ships at sea in the darkness. The Lufwaffe would therefore be nullified (and the U-boats wouldn't be able to see much either), and there would be nothing to stop the RN from wreaking havoc amongst the invasion force.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Oct 5, 2006)

furthermore as i keep saying, U-boats have to surface at night to recharge batteries- making them very nice targets for numerous RN ships in the area and with regards to U-boats stopping an entire navy- the RN would have small ships dropping more than enough depth charges if a U-boat was around to make the U-boat submerge drastically... a submarine below periscope depth is of no use to the Germans as a submarine below periscope depth can't see anything on the surface!


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## pbfoot (Oct 5, 2006)

Ok the aircraft factor would be nullified but the same restrictions that pertained to the U-boats would also pertain to the RN who used the type 79 and 279 radar
The Type 79 and Type 279 were similar, both using separate transmitting and receiving antennas mounted on their own masts but rotating in synchronization. The antennas were small, resulting in a wide beam, which was adequate for detecting aerial intruders at ranges of up to about 80 kilometers (50 miles), but not so good at targeting naval vessels. It was also not very good at picking up low-flying aircraft. 

The need for more precise targeting led Royal Navy researchers to hastily develop a 1.5 meter / 200 MHz radar, the "Type 286", based on the technology Bowen had developed during his AI work. The initial "Type 286M" used a fixed antenna, meaning the ship had to change direction to point the radar beam. The Type 286M could pick up a surfaced submarine at a distance of no more than a kilometer if the vessel carrying the radar was pointed in the right direction. 

In March 1941, a Royal Navy destroyer managed to spot a German submarine at night using the Type 286M and then rammed the submarine, sending it to the bottom. However, that was basically nothing more than a stroke of luck. A "Type 286P" with a steerable antenna would be introduced in mid-1941.
U boats could probably transit the whole channel submerged without fear of recharging


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## syscom3 (Oct 5, 2006)

Hop said:


> Submarines are very bad at attacking fast moving ships. As evidence of that, look at the Queen's during the war. They carried up to 15,000 soldiers at a time, and usually did so without escort, because their speed made them all but invulnerable to U boats.



Amphib craft are slow moving "targets".


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## syscom3 (Oct 5, 2006)

pbfoot said:


> ........ My tactic would have been similar in nature to Zeebrugge or St Nazaire but I would've beached a several large transports on the English shores in the initial assault to enable heavy equipment and supplies to be brought in .
> ......



They would be sitting ducks for the RAF and then artillery.

This tactic would bring complete destruction to any force attempting this type of attack.

The invasion of Britain would be similar in scope and complexity as D-Day. Many different forces all with specialized amphib craft would need to assault the beaches simultaneously, with complete air and sea control. Plus the Germans must have the necessary amphib reserves available to make good the inevitable loss's that would occur.


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## pbfoot (Oct 5, 2006)

The Brit land forces in the fall of 40 were not in very good shape lacking much of there heavy weaponry with few fixed positions the RAF at night would have been non existent . If the Luftwaffe had continued to attack the airfields instead of switching to urban areas the RAF would have been in the reverse position of aircraft operating on the extremes of their range over the battle field as they would have been moved further north even possibly losing some of the radar stations due to ground action . The Italians had specialized torpedo aircraft SM79's and Cant's that would have caused havoc in the channel for the RN. I think it could've been done but not without heavy costs but it was do able. Also I think panic would have ensued in the UK with the same effects as in France and the Low countries.
The CAF never realized my tactical genius


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## syscom3 (Oct 5, 2006)

In the fall of 1940, the British army was in a far better position of being reorganized, tained and equiped as opposed to the situation after Dunkirk.

As has been said many times, the RAF fighters would have been dispersed out of range of the German fighters and could attack the invading forces when those fighters covering the invasion HAD to return for refueling. And that doesnt take into account the bombers that would have attacked with impunity. 

As was proven in the course of the war, you simply cant shut down every airfeild all the time, and its relatively simple to keep the airfields operational for simple tasks such as refueling and rearming.

There is also ample evidence that the Luftwaffe did not have enough fighters and bombers to handle the scope of work it would have if the invasion occured in this time frame. The Luftwaffe had not planned for the attritional losses that was occuring and their forces would be in decline by the fall of 1940.

And all of this is moot as it has been shown the KM didnt have the resources to invade and support a large invasion.


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## Meteor (Oct 6, 2006)

Still debating this one I see, here is an interesting Link I found;

Operation Sealion


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Oct 8, 2006)

i link i have already posted just one or two pages back........


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