# BoB Mathematical Modeling of Alternative Outcomes



## NevadaK (Nov 30, 2020)

This was interesting and worth a share.

Mathematical model shows how the Nazis could have won WWII's Battle of Britain

Regards,

Kk

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## glennasher (Nov 30, 2020)

Didn't Dowding say the same thing? Anyone who watched the BoB movie can recall Olivier's character mentioning that switching targets saved the whole shootin' match. It was tough on London, but saved the airfields for the RAF.

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## RCAFson (Nov 30, 2020)

NevadaK said:


> This was interesting and worth a share.
> 
> Mathematical model shows how the Nazis could have won WWII's Battle of Britain
> 
> ...


It's a hard paper to follow, but I don't think it means much because it makes assumptions without regard to potential RAF countermeasures.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 30, 2020)

What assumptions?
It was fairly easy to follow and comprehend.

By changing times or dates, by keeping the bombing focus on RAF bases and aircraft manufacturing sites and not turning to population centers, Britian would have been in trouble.

Germany screwed up on many accounts:
They started by allowing the BEF and Allies to escape at Dunkirk.
They did not have a cohesive bombing strategy for Britain.
They did not have an effective bomber escort tactic.
They did not have long enough range for the fighters.
And they changed tactics mid-stream and started bombing cities, which steeled the resolve of Britain to whip Hitler's ass.

And lastly, so Germany wins the BoB airwar...then what? They had no effective means to invade and the U.S. is starting to provide aircraft and material to the U.K. meaning Britain is still in the game.

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## PFVA63 (Nov 30, 2020)

Hi,
I think I have to agree with RCAFson in that there are certain things that seem to me to be unclear from the Word Document paper. For instance in the example they give for a notional 100 day war they talk about choosing the order of the results of each 100 days in "random" from the list of actual events from a given 100 day period (if I am understanding correctly). However this would seem to suggest to me that each day is being treated as being able to happen independent of whatever may have happened on the days before it. But to me this seems to potentially be a suspect assumption in that if a squadron flies a number of high intensity sorties on any one given day they may not be able in reality to keep up that tempo on the next day. However, if they are choosing to apply the results of a given day as being "randomly" chosen then it would seem to me that you may be addressing whether the operational tempo that for given units is feasible.

Beyond that, although I have only been able to quickly look over the paper, there are also some statements made that I am not sure are fully supportable. Specifically a reference is made that if fighter command were to pull its forces back north of the Thames, that the Luftwaffe could potentially achieve "air supremacy" over an invasion in Southern England. While it would seem logical that withdrawing forces north would likely cede some advantage to the attackers the fact that the attackers are still having to fly from Northern France and Belgium or the Netherlands would still mean that they too have some distance to fly prior to entering the combat zone and as such would still be hard pressed to exert "air supremacy" over a given region.

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## PFVA63 (Dec 1, 2020)

Hi,
I had a chance to read the paper more fully and while a very interesting study I can't help but have concerns about two main underlying assumptions that the authors made.

1st off, as noted in my previous post they seem to treat each "day" as being fundamentally independent events, while as I noted before, I would have concerns that days with a higher optempo for some air units may result in the need for a lesser optempo (or partial down time days) in their aftermath to allow for aircrew to recoup, aircraft to be repaired and supplies to be refurbished. As such I am somewhat uncomfortable with the assumption that the "events" that they model (ie the different days of battle) are fully independent of each other.

This is especially of concern to me in that when talking about trying to address the impacts of alternate weather conditions the authors appear to specifically caution that "weather is time dependent" and as such potentially not fully suitable as a variable to analyze (if I am understanding correctly). As such I am left wondering whether "if" the ability to conduct certain missions on one day may be impacted by whatever missions may have been conducted on a preceding day (eg whether a high optempto on one day may necessitate lower optempos on other days) then the results of each day may be in some ways at least partially time dependent also.

My 2nd main concern is that the analyses appear to solely focus on RAF pilot strength, while not really appearing to address AXIS "strengths" (either in terms of pilots, planes, fuel or munitions) at all. My initial thoughts would be that these various AXIS strengths may ebb and peak throughout the battle based in part on the missions that they are undertaking and that as certain numbers rise or fall they ability to undertake certain missions on any given day may vary. In particular attacks on coastal areas, which would likely be much closer to AXIS airbases may potentially be undertaken more frequently, with perhaps even more than a single sortie per squadron per day, whereas an attack on a major city, further from airbases may be more limited (perhaps even to "only" being nightly raids) with each different type of ":daily attack" having different potential impacts on the number of pilots (and other aircrew) bombers, fighters, fuel and munitions consumed, etc.

Regards

Pat

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## GrauGeist (Dec 1, 2020)

The "assumption" of weather can have a major impact on an operation.
Case in point: the Battle of the Bulge offensive was partially successful because it was planned during a known period where weather grounded aircraft.
Had the Germans launched their offensive on either side if the weather window, the Allied air response would have been devastating.
Same can be said for Operation Overlord, where the difference was literally measured in days.
Had the invasion commenced on the 4th of June as originally intended, there would have been high winds and rough seas, which would have spelled disaster for the landing elements.


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## pbehn (Dec 1, 2020)

Dowding and Park could have done a better job, if they knew then what we know now. Just getting rid of Leigh Mallory would improve things. Start using the Polish/Czech squadrons sooner? Don't use the Defiant in the South? What would a victory for Germany in the BoB look like? Would Dowding hand such a victory to Adolf? What the LW did was based on what their intel told them and what they actually could do. By the time raids were switched to London the LW were themselves down to around 200 serviceable bombers and crews and some commanders were convinced the RAF were down to 50 fighters. The LW could have done with better (longer ranged) fighters but then the RAF could have done with some functioning belt fed cannons too.

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## PAT303 (Dec 1, 2020)

Too many if's but's and maybe's for me, the RAF could have moved from the coastal fighters bases to the inland ones if the bombing got too severe, history has shown that trying to knock out open fields used for fighters is an impossible task. As mentioned the article does not allow for the RAFs response to German tactics.


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## fastmongrel (Dec 1, 2020)

I don't think it's ever been disputed that the LW could achieve a temporary area of air superiority over the Kent and East Sussex coast. Then what do they do with it unless the German army has found a way of driving straight across the Channel.

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## Snautzer01 (Dec 1, 2020)

Not forgetting the chaps of the royal navy who would love the idear of blowing up floating stuff. And not only because they are good at it.

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## Admiral Beez (Dec 1, 2020)

GrauGeist said:


> And lastly, so Germany wins the BoB airwar...then what? They had no effective means to invade


Exactly. Goering succeeds, fibs or exaggerates, saying he can provide aerial superiority over Operation Seelöwe. Thus, Sept 1940, the barges are amassed in France, and loaded with the allocated 26 infantry and panzer divisions, left their French ports and entered the English Channel. Luftwaffe air cover was provided, and a KM escort consisting of, I suggest Scharnhorst (field repaired in June 1940), Admiral Scheer, Lutzow, Admiral Hipper, Prinz Eugen, Nurnberg, a dozen destroyers, 20 e-boats and 30 U-boats.







Britain knows they're coming and has been recalling her warships into ports across the south, and holding back her fighters (one reason Goering is so confident). When the Germans are almost mid-channel, they are met by the RN's battlecruiser squadron (Hood, Repulse, Renown), 30 cruisers, 85 destroyers, three flotillas of MTBs, 20 submarines (and their Perisher qualified COs), along with dozens of FAA, Bomber Command and Coastal Command strike aircraft, under the cover of over 500 radar-vectored Spitfires, Hurricanes and Whirlwinds (4x20mm in the nose). Behind them, coming down the coast at 25 knots, are HMS Nelson and Rodney, all five QE class battleships and further destroyers. The four slow Revenge class will eventually show up as well.

In short, it's a bloodbath. It's not all one sided, and there are significant losses to the RN, but the Royal Navy from its founding 394 years ago has *but one priority* in its existence, beyond escort duties, flag waving or colonial protection, and that task is defence of the homeland from invasion. Thus there's no chance any RN ship with a man and a gun operational will let the Germans pass. In the end, every single invasion barge is destroyed, along with all but one or two KM destroyers and the smallest of the escorts. The Luftwaffe air cover is smashed. This one day surpasses the Siege of Luknow in 1857 as the greatest number of Victoria Crosses awarded in a single action.

So, what is the impact on the war of a foolish German attempted invasion as I describe? Surely Goering is shot, Raeder or KM brass likely arrested. But Hitler just lost 26 divisions of top soldiers and tanks, along with the KM's surface fleet and much of the Luftwaffe. How does Gobbels spin this one? Are the French willing to return to the fight? What of Norway, Greece and North Africa? Mussolini must be questioning himself, especially once Taranto is attacked by the FAA's carriers that November. Japan may start muttering under its breath that they might have underestimated British fighting resolve. Stalin may be looking hungrily at a now weakened German frontier.

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## pbehn (Dec 1, 2020)

fastmongrel said:


> I don't think it's ever been disputed that the LW could achieve a temporary area of air superiority over the Kent and East Sussex coast. Then what do they do with it unless the German army has found a way of driving straight across the Channel.


Mit der BalkankrezuberkanalpanzerwagonFlugzoigQ (Bf109Q for short). Attaining air superiority over southern England long enough to bomb a port or London itself is a completely different issue to defending a bridgehead from sunrise to sunset, as the British found at Dunkerque and Dieppe. The weather was already playing a part in the battle in August - September, if the Germans had landed in September there would certainly have been a period of days or a week where their bridgehead and supply fleet had almost no air support or protection. Then the situation would be how much of your air force and navy are you prepared to lose to support the bridgehead.

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## Shortround6 (Dec 1, 2020)

"There's a difference between *air superiority* and *air* su- premacy, terms often used synonymously. *Air superiority* is defined as being able to conduct *air* operations “without prohibitive interference by the opposing force.” *Air supremacy* goes further, wherein the opposing *air* force is incapable of effective interference."

Actual definitions have changed over time. 
The Germans might well have achieved air superiority along the coast from Ramsgate to Brighton and south of London, allowing them to pretty much bomb targets at will. However preventing the British from attacking the landing zones and/or convoys is another thing entirely. That would be Air supremacy. The Germans have no early warning system to protect the beacheads and shipping. Knocking out the British radar in that area does not mean the Germans automatically get a radar system (and a control system) which means the Germans have to resort to standing patrols to intercept British raids, a very costly and not very effective method. Germans may have good radar coverage of Dover from Calais if they could set up radar in time but from Bexhill west things get iffy real quick if not downright impossible. British aircraft operating from North of London and west of Portsmouth could certainly conduct raids on German Beach Heads or shipping. 

Luftwaffe has only a few specialized anti-ship units in the fall of 1940, I don't believe any He 111 units with torpedoes were in service at this time leaving the He 115 Floatplane as the primary German torpedo bomber (assuming they had a decent supply of torpedoes). 

Starting the BoB several weeks early calls for a major change in logistics/supply in getting fuel and bombs (and spare parts) to the airfields supporting the air offensive. It doesn't matter how many planes survived the Battle for France if there is insufficient supplies to support a large scale campaign and not British style/penny packet raids (5 planes here, 8 planes there and 6 planes three days later) 

The German Navy is almost a non starter. 
 Scharnhorst (field repaired in June 1940), Field repair leaves starboard shaft out of service and some machinery still damaged. Actual repairs in dockyard took 6 months.
Admiral Scheer, Available.
Lutzow, HIt by torpedo April 11th, collapsed stern and steering gear heavily damaged. She is not recomishend until March 31st 1941, 
Admiral Hipper, Available.
Prinz Eugen???? Comishend Aug 1st 1940, spends the next 6 months training and having minor improvements (main guns might not have been fired for months) Sending her into combat when only 1 1/2 to 3 months out of builders yard is suppling the RN with target
Nurnberg, Available
a dozen destroyers? maybe, depends on how the repairs to 4-5 of them are going. 
20 e-boats Most of these would slightly smaller and slightly slower than the later boats. Gun armament of the early boats was one or two 20mm guns. 
and 30 U-boats.

There were some other assorted small ships (900 ton steam torpedo boats, escort-sloops, steam minesweepers).

However all the bigger ships and most of anything bigger than E-boats or motor minesweepers where in Germany and would need to go from Wilhelmshaven to the area/s were the barges were being formed up. 
Two can play the Submarine as escort/blocking ship as the Kriegsmarine had found out in the Norwegian campaign.

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## bada (Dec 2, 2020)

Shortround6 said:


> "There's a difference between *air superiority* and *air* su- premacy, terms often used synonymously. *Air superiority* is defined as being able to conduct *air* operations “without prohibitive interference by the opposing force.” *Air supremacy* goes further, wherein the opposing *air* force is incapable of effective interference."
> 
> Actual definitions have changed over time.
> The Germans might well have achieved air superiority along the coast from Ramsgate to Brighton and south of London, allowing them to pretty much bomb targets at will. However preventing the British from attacking the landing zones and/or convoys is another thing entirely. That would be Air supremacy. The Germans have no early warning system to protect the beacheads and shipping. Knocking out the British radar in that area does not mean the Germans automatically get a radar system (and a control system) which means the Germans have to resort to standing patrols to intercept British raids, a very costly and not very effective method. Germans may have good radar coverage of Dover from Calais if they could set up radar in time but from Bexhill west things get iffy real quick if not downright impossible. British aircraft operating from North of London and west of Portsmouth could certainly conduct raids on German Beach Heads or shipping.
> ...



cool, a what if scenario, i like that 

As i agree with most of being said above in this discussion, especially about the german navy and it's small numbers especially compared to the royal, but i still have to add that the kriegsmarine seems to have been equipped with radar in 40 on least on the capital ships, what means they "could" cover english land with them, serving as radar and control stations if placed at the right places.
The other point i see is the fact of forgetting the Stuka Staffels in such a scenario. Even if the Royal navy had a serious number advantage, they "would" be harrassed by hords of Stuka's leaving their offensive operations aside to defend themselves . Then we also have to take into account the He-111/Do-17 that even if only carpet bombing capable, they also could have been send against the navy, there is always a bomb that will hit the target, even if it's one of 200 .
So, if the LW had air superiority (or even supremacy if most of the southern airfields have been levelled by previous bombing, leaving the spits and hurris in the same position as the 109 qua fuel, because had to take off from further airfields) the Royal wouldn't be as strong as depicted in previous posts as it wouldn't be able to naviagte freely , being always under attack.
Now , the question is: did the moustache-guy really wanted to invade england or did he want to break them enough to sign a peace treaty so he could do what he wanted on the continent and the whole barge-operation whas just a bluff?
Just adding more whatif in the whatif scenario

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## nuuumannn (Dec 2, 2020)

Hmm, started reading this and got turned off by the string of symbols and numbers, but I like the gist of it. I feel it skirts around a few fundamentals, which are very rarely touched on, although the strategic aspects of these are mentioned, but are left hanging there without follow up on how they might affect the outcomes being proposed.

The first thing I know about the battle, and what we all know, is that the Germans lost as much as the British won. They did so because of their poor understanding of the strategic situation at any given time throughout the campaign. We can definitely credit the decisions made by Dowding, Park et al as being crucial to victory, and thus by placing their strategic implications against a different set of circumstances (as proposed in the paper) we can come up with the probability of victory to the British in most cases. Just because the timeline has been changed, why would the British approach be any different? All the key players are there or nearly there, advancing the timeline just brings about a state of initial unpreparedness that could be overcome by the eventual course of the traditional timeline.

Of course, this all depends on what the Germans do and if they realise midway through the thing that the way they were doing things was flawed to begin with. This is where the statistical modelling falls down. The presumption that on a particular day, a particular airfield was being attacked, but what decides whether or not that airfield is rendered completely useless or whether the aftermath is simply cleaning up the taxiways? This is the crux of the matter behind the German loss - they had no accurate means of quantifying their results in the real life battle, so why would this change in the fictional scenario - that is, without an enormous sea change in their approach, or to be more specific, being aware that their intelligence was faulty to begin with, what else could the result be?

With each air raid, a reconnaissance aircraft, usually a Do 17 or He 111 was sent out to photograph the target. These lone bogeys were detected and intercepted by fighters, often resulting in them not returning home. That means that other than the reports made by the bomber crews, the Germans have no way of deciding whether their attack on their target was successful or not. If not, then presumably to achieve their objective, they have to go back and attack it again. Ultimately, if they want to change the fact that their recon aircraft are not coming back, they need to re-think how they collect their intel, specifically, how to conduct aerial reconnaissance with a higher probability of the aircraft returning, and that requires them to come to the realisation that their intelligence they have was faulty to begin with - something they did not do.

In hindsight we know what to do and it is a measure the Germans ended up using, placing cameras in small fast machines, Bf 109s etc, and carrying out a high speed dash over the target area at low level or high level, depending on what the need requires. This kind of thinking was certainly not beyond the Germans, but the fact they were so easily swayed by flawed intelligence - fighter pilot kill claims are included in this too, as they allowed the Germans to believe the RAF had fewer aircraft available to them that what they actually had, meaning they believed they were doing better that they actually were. This, of course leads them to begin bombing London sooner than anticipated, and we know where that led. Perhaps a continuation of attacks against airfields and radar sites while bombing the capital by night might change the outcome?

The next question is that if the Germans become better aware of the strategic situation, then what? The dawning realisation that this was never going to be a quick campaign and that a longer campaign of attrition was what was needed to do what they wanted to achieve, might have changed their approach significantly. We'll probably never know and it's this imponderable that makes the statistical approach less plausible in bringing out a different conclusion to what actually happened.

I have to admit, I have not read through the entire Word document, and I will, but I suspect my questions regarding the Germans' strategic approach will not be answered.

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## pbehn (Dec 2, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> Hmm, started reading this and got turned off by the string of symbols and numbers, but I like the gist of it. I feel it skirts around a few fundamentals, which are very rarely touched on, although the strategic aspects of these are mentioned, but are left hanging there without follow up on how they might affect the outcomes being proposed.
> 
> The first thing I know about the battle, and what we all know, is that the Germans lost as much as the British won. They did so because of their poor understanding of the strategic situation at any given time throughout the campaign. We can definitely credit the decisions made by Dowding, Park et al as being crucial to victory, and thus by placing their strategic implications against a different set of circumstances (as proposed in the paper) we can come up with the probability of victory to the British in most cases. Just because the timeline has been changed, why would the British approach be any different? All the key players are there or nearly there, advancing the timeline just brings about a state of initial unpreparedness that could be overcome by the eventual course of the traditional timeline.
> 
> ...


All of German intelligence seemed to conspire against them. Their info and estimates of UK fighter production were way off mark, but who would tell Adolf that they were being out produced by around 2 to 1 in fighters, who would believe it? They attacked some airfields successfully but they weren't fighter fields, and their approach to Chain Home makes little sense. Just looking at the locations in the south east it is obvious you need to knock at least 3 stations out to make any sort of hole in the system, then you must keep attacking it. The LW just had a few goes and it didnt seem to have an effect so they gave up.

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## fastmongrel (Dec 2, 2020)

What a lot of these simulations do is allow side A to change the timeline. For example RAF Bumblemere is bombed on the 20th as per history but the simulation then allows side A to bomb RAF Bumblemere on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th completely knocking it out of action. Ignoring the fact that in the real time line on the 21st the LW bombed the Blodgett aircraft company destroying dozens of Blodgett Bullfire fighters and forcing the factory to disperse.

Having the LW cover a lot of large fields with holes doesn't work once RAF command and control is moved away from the large fields. A Spitfire or Hurricane with +12 psi boost and a constant speed propeller could use a not particularly large paddock.


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## nuuumannn (Dec 2, 2020)

fastmongrel said:


> For example RAF Bumblemere is bombed on the 20th as per history but the simulation then allows side A to bomb RAF Bumblemere on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th completely knocking it out of action. Ignoring the fact that in the real time line on the 21st the LW bombed the Blodgett aircraft company destroying dozens of Blodgett Bullfire fighters and forcing the factory to disperse.



Yup, it changes the timeline, but not the outcome, not if the Germans believe that their attacks on RAF Bumblemere was sufficient to destroy X amount of Bullfire aircraft, when in actual fact, the nominal squadron of fighters at that airfield had been dispersed to a satellite site. And how would they know that? Their Dorknocker Do 57 recon aircraft failed to return, again...

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## Koopernic (Dec 3, 2020)

bada said:


> cool, a what if scenario, i like that
> 
> As i agree with most of being said above in this discussion, especially about the german navy and it's small numbers especially compared to the royal, but i still have to add that the kriegsmarine seems to have been equipped with radar in 40 on least on the capital ships, what means they "could" cover english land with them, serving as radar and control stations if placed at the right places.
> The other point i see is the fact of forgetting the Stuka Staffels in such a scenario. Even if the Royal navy had a serious number advantage, they "would" be harrassed by hords of Stuka's leaving their offensive operations aside to defend themselves . Then we also have to take into account the He-111/Do-17 that even if only carpet bombing capable, they also could have been send against the navy, there is always a bomb that will hit the target, even if it's one of 200 .
> ...



The German Navy in fact invented radar. In 1933 nearly 1 year ahead of Watson Watt they were ranging ships and a little time latter picking up aircraft (a seaplane).
The Physicist who was head of the signals branch, a von Kunhold, who had been developing both echo location and passive sonar and working on using to fire artillery at ships.
This was unsatisfactory enough for him to try microwaves and radar (13.5cm) and 50cm. This resulted in Seetakt radar. (Sea Tactical). 

See "GEMA birthplace of German Radar" by Harry von Krogge for the dates. von Kunhold wanted to use microwaves incidently.

The 13.5cm microwave radar didn't succeed due to the low power output of the Barkhausen-Kurz Valves (600mw) but they did succeed at 50cm with a split anode magnetron and 60cm with acorn valves/tubes.

The aiming by sonar over several kilometres eventually succeeded though was used in the Type XXIII U-boat to aim without using a periscope. They used a passive array sonar accurate to 0.25 degrees then a final exact range and speed closing data from 3 quick doppler pulses that couldn't be direction found.


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## Milosh (Dec 3, 2020)

Radar and German ships, Radar Equipment of Germany - NavWeaps


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## pbehn (Dec 3, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> The German Navy in fact invented radar. In 1933 nearly 1 year ahead of Watson Watt they were ranging ships and a little time latter picking up aircraft (a seaplane).
> The Physicist who was head of the signals branch, a von Kunhold, who had been developing both echo location and passive sonar and working on using to fire artillery at ships.
> This was unsatisfactory enough for him to try microwaves and radar (13.5cm) and 50cm. This resulted in Seetakt radar. (Sea Tactical).


In truth RADAR was never invented it was developed, from the earliest days of radio transmission it was noted that signals bounced off things, were affected by weather and later interfered with by aircraft. The challenge was to develop this phenomenon into something useful. The first demonstration by Watson Watt of a system used a standard BBC short wave radio transmitter and Watson Watt had first become involved in the science as a way to track thunderstorms.


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## ClayO (Dec 3, 2020)

The Nazis couldn't have attacked earlier: they had put all their planning into the Battle of France, and when France collapsed unexpectedly, they had to pause to develop a plan to attack England.

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## Shortround6 (Dec 3, 2020)

ClayO said:


> The Nazis couldn't have attacked earlier: they had put all their planning into the Battle of France, and when France collapsed unexpectedly, they had to pause to develop a plan to attack England.



Agreed, and part of the plan would be to establish new airfields or take over suitable French ones for the bombers. A He 111 could hold 762 imp gallons (3460 liters) in it's wing tanks. 
36 He 111s could hold 27,400 Imp gal (124, 560 liters) so you need rail transport or a lot of trucks. A fighter field might not have enough fuel storage. You need bombs (and bomb storage), quarters for the men (including ground crew), again a bomber base might need more housing than a fighter base (Ok tents work for a while).

A bomber offensive involving hundreds of bombers is not something to be thrown together in a few days or even a few weeks. 

I believe the Germans were making sporadic attacks into eastern England before Aldertag.
Units also had to repair, reinforce, replace after the losses suffered in the Battle for France before starting the attack on England.

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## Token (Dec 3, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> The German Navy in fact invented radar. In 1933 nearly 1 year ahead of Watson Watt they were ranging ships and a little time latter picking up aircraft (a seaplane).
> The Physicist who was head of the signals branch, a von Kunhold, who had been developing both echo location and passive sonar and working on using to fire artillery at ships.
> This was unsatisfactory enough for him to try microwaves and radar (13.5cm) and 50cm. This resulted in Seetakt radar. (Sea Tactical).
> 
> ...



No nation or service "invented" radar. Radar was a technology who's time had come, the right supporting tech was in place at the right time, and the need was recognized at about that same time. So the development of radar happened independently in several nations at about the same time. The Germans, English, Americans, Russian, Japanese, French, and Italians all were working on radar, generally in secret or at least without much acknowledgment. It can certainly be discussed, and argued, who got there first, but since all of the efforts were isolated and independent that really does not matter. They all basically got there on their own, building from the work of the same people before them.

For example, the Japanese may not have developed radar until after the Germans, the British, the Americans, or the Russians, but they did develop working systems on their own, without the benefit of knowledge gained in the other nations developments. They "invented it" on their own, just like most other major players in the field did. And what is really odd is that in the very early days of radar it can be argued the Japanese had several advantages, and were ahead of every one else in several key areas. But for whatever reason they did not appear to recognize the military significance of it, and so it became less important than other things., slowing, in a relative way, the development by the Japanese.

However, I think you have some of the dates wrong, possibly confusing 1933 for 1934. Kuhnhold did not succeed in ranging a target (the 400 ton NVA research vessel Grille, detected at a range of 2100 meters) with a pulsed system until early May, 1934. And the only reason that target was detected was because it was in motion, the Doppler shift made it visible. Stationary targets were not detected. As new systems were developed and tried they pushed the detection range out further. By early November of 1934 they were detecting the Grille at 7 km. In an October, 1934, attempt to detect the Grille at 12 km they accidentally detected a Junkers W-34 flying boat. To the best of my knowledge this was the first German detection of a flying aircraft. However, it gave range only, and no other information.

Of course, this still pre-dates the British Daventry Experiment, which intentionally detected a flying Hendley Page Heyford bomber, by several months, since that event was late February of 1935.

In 1930 Hyland, Taylor, and Young detected a flying aircraft in US Navy testing. But this was not pulsed radar and range detection, this was Doppler based detection, they detected it but could not yet use the information. Several probable flying targets were detected using the pulsed ionospheric radar that Breit and Tuve had been using in the Carnegie Institute since 1924. However the first intentional and planned detection of a flying aircraft with a pulsed system giving range and location was by Page, Taylor, and Young in December of 1934. This was a month and a half after the accidental Junkers detection by Kuhnhold, however this was a more complete "track", with all the data required, it was intentional, and it was repeatable. For this reason they are often given credit for being the first to show the capability of pulsed radar.

National pride is all well and good, but realistically almost all of the large players in the game "invented" radar themselves.

T!

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## pbehn (Dec 3, 2020)

Token said:


> National pride is all well and good, but realistically almost all of the large players in the game "invented" radar themselves.


The only important issue at the time was what was in service and working. All nations had systems under development. Comparing various frequencies, PRFs and other metrics ignores many important issues. The Chain Home (and Chain Home low) system and the "Dowding System" behind it was in service in 1939-40, it was primitive by the technology of the day because technology was advancing quickly, but it worked. It was low tech. but that was part of what it was, it was expected to be attacked and needed to be readily replaceable.


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## nuuumannn (Dec 3, 2020)

And to add what Pbehn stated above, the radar was only a part of the overall GCI system, which included the Observer Corps, telephone networks, centralised and dispersed plotting system, prominent and strategically placed airfields and fighter squadrons etc. It was the first integrated air defence system incorporating modern technologies, such as radar and telecommunications network of its kind and was very up-to-date for the time.

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## pbehn (Dec 3, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> And to add what Pbehn stated above, the radar was only a part of the overall GCI system, which included the Observer Corps, telephone networks, centralised and dispersed plotting system, prominent and strategically placed airfields and fighter squadrons etc. It was the first integrated air defence system incorporating modern technologies, such as radar and telecommunications network of its kind and was very up-to-date for the time.


The UK had been thinking and working on it long before any RADAR system was developed. As soon as the Acoustic mirrors were installed on the Kent coast started the question "what do we do with the information". It obviously was behind any RADAR system so to actually make use of the information and get aeroplanes in the air to do anything time was "of the essence". The first operational acoustic mirrors were installed on the Kent coast in 1917. Three acoustic early warning devices 2360m east of Jack's Court, Lydd - 1005119 | Historic England


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## Shortround6 (Dec 3, 2020)

The idea that the Germans could cobble together such a system, especially using ship mounted radar sitting in French/Belgian ports takes an awful lot of Kool-aid. 

British aircraft are not approaching the target areas over water, they are approaching over land so they fly at even moderately low levels the Germans are blind until it is too late. 

This assumes the Germans can even get ship mounted radar to the desired areas. Radar on ships in Wilhelmshaven does them no good at all, ships spread out in penny packets along the French/Belgian side of the channel doesn't give the needed coverage and just invites destruction in detail, assuming they can even get from Wilhelmshaven to the desired areas, Some will/might, but all? 
RN subs did pretty well in the Norway campaign after all. 

Same if they try to put one/two ships off each invasion beach. The ships cannot detect the planes over land until it is too late and they cannot direct the German fighters to make intercepts in time.

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## nuuumannn (Dec 3, 2020)

pbehn said:


> The first operational acoustic mirrors were installed on the Kent coast in 1917.



Yup. this one is just outside of Capel le Ferne, on the cliff face off the road to Dover. That's its OP in the background.





2307 Kent Sound Mirror i 

For comparison, a few miles down the road on the other side of Dover at Swingate are these surviving Chain Home aerials, now repurposed as mobile towers and television transmitters.




2307 Swingate Chain Home towers

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## Admiral Beez (Dec 5, 2020)

pbehn said:


> All of German intelligence seemed to conspire against them. Their info and estimates of UK fighter production were way off mark, but who would tell Adolf that they were being out produced by around 2 to 1 in fighters, who would believe it? .


And the fools repeated this same mistake in preparing for Barbarossa, where they surmised that the Russians had about 4,000 combat aircraft, when they actually had over 10,000. The failures of situational awareness, accurate intelligence on enemy capability, shoddy/negligent planning, and weak cryptography led the Germans to make so many own goal errors.

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## Token (Dec 5, 2020)

pbehn said:


> The only important issue at the time was what was in service and working. All nations had systems under development. Comparing various frequencies, PRFs and other metrics ignores many important issues. The Chain Home (and Chain Home low) system and the "Dowding System" behind it was in service in 1939-40, it was primitive by the technology of the day because technology was advancing quickly, but it worked. It was low tech. but that was part of what it was, it was expected to be attacked and needed to be readily replaceable.



It was "good enough" and it was there, no doubt about it. The British had the first, and best, in its day, integrated system of radar defense, I don't know too many that would argue against that.

The Germans also had an interesting ability in radar pretty early on. And the Klein Heidelberg was just flat out slick.

The Americans, at least during WW II, never really bought into the wall of radar protection the homeland or routes to the homeland approach of Germany and England. Generally, there was no need. They certainly integrated radar into their tactics and defense well enough, but never faced bombers striking home targets.

So US radar tended to be mobile, and tactical, sets. The SCR-268, SCR-270, CXAM, the SCR-584, things like that. Early prototypes were in the field and on ships by 1937 and 1938. The US certainly was in the same kind of timelines for development as the other nations, but because the pressures of war were not a thing yet there was less of a push to "get it out now!" Once a working model was developed there was little push to get it in production. The US had multiple working radars before it entered the war, and it had models on hand that were not yet in the troops hands but were 100% ready to go into large scale production. Once the build up started in 1940 they could, and did, start to push the new tech out, as rapidly as not-yet-in-the-war funding would allow.

T!

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## pbehn (Dec 5, 2020)

Token said:


> It was "good enough" and it was there, no doubt about it. The British had the first, and best, in its day, integrated system of radar defense, I don't know too many that would argue against that.
> 
> The Germans also had an interesting ability in radar pretty early on. And the Klein Heidelberg was just flat out slick.
> 
> ...


I was making a slightly different point. "Chain Home" started to be deployed in 1937 and was operational in 1938, but that is the first 5 stations. From the earliest days Dowding saw the real problem as not the technical aspect of detecting an incoming aircraft, but what is done with the information. From 1937 to 1940 the whole system was constantly upgraded changed improved or whatever word you care to use but without any major technical or scientific leap in tech. It takes longer than anyone wanted to get a technical improvement that works in a laboratory type experiment in service, reliably, 24 hours a day serviced by technicians with 3 months training not whiz kid engineers with years in electronics. The first Chain Home stations were on approaches to London. There are lots of towns there with road, electricity, water and what you need to live. The nearest CH station to my home was up on the top of a moor, there is nothing there except snow in winter. What they now call "rolling out" a RADAR system for defence took much longer than just the invention of a new technical "gizmo". Thousands of people had to be trained in some very demanding but boring "stuff". There is nothing at all remarkable about the Dowding system apart from the fact that it actually worked, it just needed a huge number of people with telephones and training, doing a specific job. To this end 1,300 people trained in electronics were imported from Canada alone (according to wiki) just to man and operate the system.

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## Koopernic (Dec 6, 2020)

Token said:


> No nation or service "invented" radar. Radar was a technology who's time had come, the right supporting tech was in place at the right time, and the need was recognized at about that same time. So the development of radar happened independently in several nations at about the same time. The Germans, English, Americans, Russian, Japanese, French, and Italians all were working on radar, generally in secret or at least without much acknowledgment. It can certainly be discussed, and argued, who got there first, but since all of the efforts were isolated and independent that really does not matter. They all basically got there on their own, building from the work of the same people before them.
> 
> For example, the Japanese may not have developed radar until after the Germans, the British, the Americans, or the Russians, but they did develop working systems on their own, without the benefit of knowledge gained in the other nations developments. They "invented it" on their own, just like most other major players in the field did. And what is really odd is that in the very early days of radar it can be argued the Japanese had several advantages, and were ahead of every one else in several key areas. But for whatever reason they did not appear to recognize the military significance of it, and so it became less important than other things., slowing, in a relative way, the development by the Japanese.
> 
> ...



In the United States radio echo location was used as early as 1925 in an experimental radio altimeter. There was an international geophysical year, I think 1930, where many folks were using it to take ionosphere soundings. The first 'proof of principal' test Watt did was to detect an aircraft flying between a transmitter and receiver.

The German Navy was running two radar development programs at once. One through the company Pintsch attempted to use 13.5cm microwaves using a Barkhausen Kurz Oscilator tube. This was the doppler based system but they were trying to use it as a pulsed system as well. The other program used a split anode magnetron, Initially from Phillips and then a more powerful unite from Telefunken. This produced a 50cm wavelength radar operating at 4kW. It was produced by the company GEMA which had started off producing sound recording equipment for sonar operators and then started making sonars for the German Navy which lead to the radar work. Here is an interesting aside: companies speciality in sound recording actually lead the director to travel to Malaysia to record Malay Folk songs.

The Split anode magnetrons (basically 2 cavity) were not entirely satisfactory due to instabillity and it was found using acorn tubes at 60cm was much better. This lead to the Famous Seetakt series that began deployment as a mass production product on Germany Navy Destroyers, Cruisers and Capital Ships from 1938. The short wavelength meant that a German Destroyer could detect a surface submarine or periscope.

The Japanese did receive help from the Germans. A Japanese delegation travelled to Germany in 1938 and was shown Seetakt and Freya equipment and told they better get a move on. Latter the Germans gave them designs for the calibration equipment needed to align aerials and range pulses accurately. This allowed the Japanese to move their equipment from Cruisers to Destroyers.

The Japanese also had the multicavity magnetron (with circular cavities and narrow slits) BEFORE Randall and Boot did by 1 year. They simply put a fraction of the effort into developing it. They even rationed the nickel needed for the magnets. Fairly silly as one magnetron would barely cost 1 ton of spall free armour steel. They also didnt tell the Germans.

The Germans did have multicavity magnetrons with narrow slits but the folks making the decisions didn't think to make radar out of them despite opposition by some such as Kunhold.

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## Token (Dec 6, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> The first 'proof of principal' test Watt did was to detect an aircraft flying between a transmitter and receiver.



Previous test involving aircraft or ships passing between the transmitter and receiver were primarily looking for interference. The Daventry Experiment was looking for that interference, but also basing detection on Doppler shift. If the Doppler shift was detected that meant the same technique could be used when the target was not flying between the transmitter and the receiver.

That is why shortly after the limited test at Daventry they had moved the range out to ~100 miles. The original test showed the concept was valid, and it was worth putting effort into developing some enhanced, specific, hardware, to see what kind of range could be had using similar techniques.

I have used the same detection techniques myself in showing the basics of the technique to various people. I can track aircraft in and out of Los Angeles International airport (LAX) from my location 100 miles away in the desert, using a local Los Angeles TV transmitter as my illumination source. Detecting only the Doppler shift results in a nice visual representation. 

The following image is the Doppler shift of various aircraft flying into LAX. This sample was taken from my house, at a range of about 100 miles from the area and aircraft in question. The illumination source is the KABC, Channel 7, Los Angeles, TV transmitter operating on 174 MHz. The geometry involved means that physically the aircraft are a significant distance on the far side of the transmitter facility from my location, although, naturally, much closer to the transmitter than I am. The transmitter is between me and the aircraft, but shaded by a range of mountains between us.









Koopernic said:


> The Japanese did receive help from the Germans. A Japanese delegation travelled to Germany in 1938 and was shown Seetakt and Freya equipment and told they better get a move on. Latter the Germans gave them designs for the calibration equipment needed to align aerials and range pulses accurately.



For some reason I thought that visit happened in early 1940. Regardless, by 1938 the Japanese already had the basics of radar figured out, the big problem was that they were not pursuing it with much emphasis. They had most of the individual pieces / parts, the major issues, figured out, but not in one big piece. The real result of the German visit was to press the importance of radar or related technologies.

T!

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## nuuumannn (Dec 6, 2020)

Admiral Beez said:


> The failures of situational awareness, accurate intelligence on enemy capability, shoddy/negligent planning, and weak cryptography led the Germans to make so many own goal errors.



You'd think that Wilhelm Canaris was a British Intelligence Double Agent!

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## DerGiLLster (Dec 8, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> You'd think that Wilhelm Canaris was a British Intelligence Double Agent!



Someone (his name isn't coming up to me now) believed that Hitler was a British Double Agent, for not pursuing the Mediterranean Strategy. 

I wonder how much better the Abwehr would have been with anyone else as the head.


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## Admiral Beez (Dec 8, 2020)

DerGiLLster said:


> Someone (his name isn't coming up to me now) believed that Hitler was a British Double Agent, for not pursuing the Mediterranean Strategy.


The General Staff must have scratched their heads when nearly 350,000 Allied troops were allowed to embark mostly unmolested at Dunkirk.

Is this BS?

_”Hitler later claimed, at the end of the war, that he had let the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to get away simply as a gesture of goodwill and to try to encourage Prime Minister Winston Churchill to make an agreement with Germany that would allow it to continue its occupation of Europe.”
Hitler’s Mistake at Dunkirk_


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## fastmongrel (Dec 9, 2020)

There were several reasons the BEF was rescued. 

1. The French army fought to the last round to cover the evacuation. Taking very heavy casualties.
2. The German Panzers were almost out of fuel after advancing too far from the logistics train.
3. The RAF and FAA flew thousands of sorties even sending obsolete biplanes to dive bomb the Germans.
4. The German generals were too keen to get to Paris.

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## yosimitesam (Dec 10, 2020)

Token said:


> No nation or service "invented" radar. Radar was a technology who's time had come, the right supporting tech was in place at the right time, and the need was recognized at about that same time. So the development of radar happened independently in several nations at about the same time. The Germans, English, Americans, Russian, Japanese, French, and Italians all were working on radar, generally in secret or at least without much acknowledgment. It can certainly be discussed, and argued, who got there first, but since all of the efforts were isolated and independent that really does not matter. They all basically got there on their own, building from the work of the same people before them.
> 
> For example, the Japanese may not have developed radar until after the Germans, the British, the Americans, or the Russians, but they did develop working systems on their own, without the benefit of knowledge gained in the other nations developments. They "invented it" on their own, just like most other major players in the field did. And what is really odd is that in the very early days of radar it can be argued the Japanese had several advantages, and were ahead of every one else in several key areas. But for whatever reason they did not appear to recognize the military significance of it, and so it became less important than other things., slowing, in a relative way, the development by the Japanese.
> 
> ...



Quite correct. The most important contribution to "radar" made by the British, IMO, is their realization that it can be the basic tool to create an entire "air defense system." The administration, communication, and control structures they set up, practiced, and perfected was nothing less than a "mini NORAD." This showed great foresight and was followed with excellent execution of the first complete air defense "system." As important as it was, radar alone was not the "winner". The "system" that FC created and practiced gets the technical laurels, in my opinion.

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## yosimitesam (Dec 11, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> You'd think that Wilhelm Canaris was a British Intelligence Double Agent!


He probably wasn't a double agent, but he was VERY anti-Nazi. From what I've read, Canaris thought the entire Nazi hierarchy was a bunch of unsophisticated clods and thugs, starting from the very top.


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## Koopernic (Dec 21, 2020)

The idea that had the Luftwaffe been employed differently it could have won the so called “ Battle of Britain “ which then allows a seaborne and paratrooper invasion is a bit like saying a one armed man with a knife can defeat an man with a sub machine gun. Yes it can happen but the probability is against it. The equipment is all wrong to begin with.

At a very minimum the Luftwaffe needs drop tank capability on every Me 109 and Me 110. It needs specialised high speed reconnaissance aircraft (unarmed unarmored Me 109 maybe) to give it the intelligence that would allow it to make better decisions. Drop tanks allow the Luftwaffe to daylight escort to the shadow aircraft factories near Bristol, Birmingham, Coventry and airfields nearby. Even drop tanks on Me 109 allow these fighters over less than half of Britain. Probably the only aircraft that might have done this is the Fw 187 equipped with DB601 engines.

I believe the Luftwaffe could have stopped the Royal Navy. Land based bombers supported by land based fighters are too powerful.


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## PAT303 (Dec 23, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> I believe the Luftwaffe could have stopped the Royal Navy. Land based bombers supported by land based fighters are too powerful.



What about at night?

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## fastmongrel (Dec 23, 2020)

PAT303 said:


> What about at night?



If Sealion happens at the planned time in late September there's 11 1/2 hours of night for the Royal Navy to come out to play. The longer the invasion goes on the less daylight.

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## PAT303 (Dec 23, 2020)

What aircraft does the Luftwaffe have to sink capital ships, do they have big enough AP bombs and torpedoes'?.

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## Shortround6 (Dec 23, 2020)

The basic conclusion is the Luftwaffe could sink some ships, but stop the entire RN that was in British waters at the time?

Even if British ships are exposed for several hours in daylight that certainly does not mean the Luftwaffe automatically sinks them.

The Germans certainly had bombs that would work, however their standard torpedo carrier of the time was what???It was not the He 111. Germans were using Italian torpedoes? 

Much is made of the Germans performance against the RN at Crete. Which was impressive but some british ships survived a number of hours of air attack. The British supply point was alexandria Egypt, hundreds of miles away. Ships in home waters can restock ammunition much easier. Ships in home waters can resupply in defended harbors/bases. 
And the Luftwaffe of May 1941 was not the Luftwaffe of Sept 1940. 

Some people seem to think that forcing the RAF out of south east England means that the RAF is incapable of mounting sorties (and escorting ships ) from Plymouth and/or Portsmouth in the south and from Hull or Harwich from the north.

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## fastmongrel (Dec 23, 2020)

Much of the damage would have been done by light naval forces. A flotilla of motor boats and inshore trawlers armed with a WW1 3 or 6 or 12 pounder gun a couple of WW1 machine guns and maybe a few small depth charges would cause absolute carnage amongst the river barges. 

If they are amongst the invasion fleet the LW can't bomb or strafe them without killing their own men. A motorboat in the dark is virtually invisible. In daylight it will look like a German motorboat.

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## pbehn (Dec 23, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> The idea that had the Luftwaffe been employed differently it could have won the so called “ Battle of Britain “ which then allows a seaborne and paratrooper invasion is a bit like saying a one armed man with a knife can defeat an man with a sub machine gun. Yes it can happen but the probability is against it. The equipment is all wrong to begin with.
> 
> At a very minimum the Luftwaffe needs drop tank capability on every Me 109 and Me 110. It needs specialised high speed reconnaissance aircraft (unarmed unarmored Me 109 maybe) to give it the intelligence that would allow it to make better decisions. Drop tanks allow the Luftwaffe to daylight escort to the shadow aircraft factories near Bristol, Birmingham, Coventry and airfields nearby. Even drop tanks on Me 109 allow these fighters over less than half of Britain. Probably the only aircraft that might have done this is the Fw 187 equipped with DB601 engines.
> 
> I believe the Luftwaffe could have stopped the Royal Navy. Land based bombers supported by land based fighters are too powerful.


Drop tank capability allowed the Bf 109 to fight for a short time over London from the Pas de Calais, they wouldn't allow escort to Bristol or the Midlands. Twin engined fighters were poor at bomber escort, one large raid on a Birmingham factory may have had some success, it may also have been a massive wipe out, a repeat certainly would have been.


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## Koopernic (Dec 24, 2020)

pbehn said:


> Drop tank capability allowed the Bf 109 to fight for a short time over London from the Pas de Calais, they wouldn't allow escort to Bristol or the Midlands. Twin engined fighters were poor at bomber escort, one large raid on a Birmingham factory may have had some success, it may also have been a massive wipe out, a repeat certainly would have been.




Below the distance Calais to Central London 160km/100 miles

An Me 109 at maximum cruise could fly 400 miles or 600 miles at economy cruise. Allowing 20% reserves, 100 miles for combat (probably only 50 miles at full combat power) and 20 miles for forming up leaves us an operational range radius of 100 miles.






Below the distance Calais to Birmingham/Coventry 320km 200 miles. With a drop tank adding 300L to the 400L internal fuel. We can probably operate at 320km or 200 miles from base so long as the drop tanks aren't dropped early.






As you can see the Luftwaffe stands no chance without a long range escort eg the the Fw 187 with DB601 engines.



PAT303 said:


> What about at night?



The Kriegsmarine have radar. Do the Germans need to use barges at night?



fastmongrel said:


> If Sealion happens at the planned time in late September there's 11 1/2 hours of night for the Royal Navy to come out to play. The longer the invasion goes on the less daylight.



The Kriegsmarine had Seetakt radar on all destroyers, cruisers and battleships. FuMO 22 had about 6 degrees beam width and an operator could localise a target to within 1 degree.

No enough for blind fire but enough to illuminate with star shell or a powerful searchlight. Latter versions of Seetakt (late 1940?) received lobe switching and could blind fire accurately.

The German Army could avoid using its most vulnerable vessels at night.

The German navy had fairly good night optics due to more optically clear glass and multi coat optics that minimised internal reflections in multi lens night fighting binoculars. They’d still be outnumbered by the RN.



PAT303 said:


> What aircraft does the Luftwaffe have to sink capital ships, do they have big enough AP bombs and torpedoes'?.



Good question. Its covered well on the NAVWEAPS website.

Ju 87 as dive bombers, Me 110 as slide bombers (quite accurate), Ju 88 as dive bombers and He 111 and He 115 as torpedo bombers. Do 17 as level bombers, probably throwing a stick of 4 x 250kg bombs from 1500m or so. Bombs fused for 5 second delay unless hard impact. If they hit ahead of the waterline they sink and blow up underneath causing more damage than a direct hit. The Me 109 could strafe. The British ships have very good fire control but the pom pom has bad ballistics and spoils this not solved till the boffors was used instead.

Of course by September 1940 I think the drop tank and bomb capable version of the Me 109E4B and Me 109E7B were turning up.



fastmongrel said:


> Much of the damage would have been done by light naval forces. A flotilla of motor boats and inshore trawlers armed with a WW1 3 or 6 or 12 pounder gun a couple of WW1 machine guns and maybe a few small depth charges would cause absolute carnage amongst the river barges
> 
> If they are amongst the invasion fleet the LW can't bomb or strafe them without killing their own men. A motorboat in the dark is virtually invisible. In daylight it will look like a German motorboat.



I imagine the Barges would have 1 or 2 sets of C30 or C38 20mm FLAK guns so not totally defenceless. German Torpedo Boats (about 900 tons) and e-boats would be around.

Again the Barges could avoid movement at night.

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## PAT303 (Dec 24, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> Again the Barges could avoid movement at night



So all the waterborne movement happens in daylight, the RN gets in amongst the transports troop carriers resupply vessels, if everything gets done in the daylight hours the channel will be packed and causes havoc, aircraft are not going to do torpedo runs or drop sticks of bombs at RN ships with their own craft nearby


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## fastmongrel (Dec 24, 2020)

Where do the barges go at night. You do know that most of the barges would be unpowered and even the ones with engines could do at best 6 knots, 4 knots when towing.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 24, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> The Kriegsmarine had Seetakt radar on all destroyers, cruisers and battleships. FuMO 22 had about 6 degrees beam width and an operator could localise a target to within 1 degree.





Shortround6 said:


> The German Navy is almost a non starter.
> Scharnhorst (field repaired in June 1940), Field repair leaves starboard shaft out of service and some machinery still damaged. Actual repairs in dockyard took 6 months.
> Admiral Scheer, Available.
> Lutzow, HIt by torpedo April 11th, collapsed stern and steering gear heavily damaged. She is not recomishend until March 31st 1941,
> ...



The Germans had no battleships available, they had two heavy cruisers and 1 or two light cruisers (counting the Emden for the 2nd) and the destroyers were as described.
All of the larger ships were in German ports. Granted they do not need to be in the Channel ports days before the invasion starts but they do have to get there by the start of the actual invasion. Can the British stop all of them? no, but planning radar coverage of the invasion fleets and landing sites on ships that may or may not reach their assigned positions seems a bit slapdash, even for operation sea lion.


Some of the longer routes to planned landing beaches/sites were two days. This does not count the time needed to load and form up or the time to unload. No sea born invasion is a one shot deal, there is constant resupply. Two days each way and loading unloading times?
Given the currents, tide, and wind average speed of the barge convoys was figured to be closer to 2-3 knots.

While the luftwaffe is going after the British ships it is NOT providing support for the troops on shore who have little artillery support in the first few days (none in the first few hours) and no interdiction (stopping/slowing British reinforcements/supply of defending troops) is being performed (or very little).

No matter how good the Luftwaffe was it couldn't be everywhere doing everything that needed to be done, especially after the losses in the BoB.

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## Shortround6 (Dec 24, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> gine the Barges would have 1 or 2 sets of C30 or C38 20mm FLAK guns so not totally defenceless. German Torpedo Boats (about 900 tons) and e-boats would be around.


I imagine the germans could just conjure up several thousand C30 or C38 20mm FLAK guns that weren't being used elsewhere in a a few weeks? 

The German 900 ton torpedo boats were down to a max of 8 (of the twelve built 4 were already sunk) at the end of the BoB. AS built they had two 20mm guns each. British destroyers were weak in AA but German Destroyers and steam torpedo boats in 1940 weren't much better. 
British 2pder pom pom may have had poor ballistics and a poor rate of fire but at least it fired over 3 times faster than the German navies 37mm AA gun of the time (up to 30 rounds per minute per barrel, depending on crew).


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## fastmongrel (Dec 24, 2020)

Come on Sr6 don't you know that at the toot of a Nazi bugle the High Seas Fleet will rise up from the bottom of Scapa Flow where it has been rusting for 20 years and sail away to the English channel.

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## Admiral Beez (Dec 24, 2020)

Snautzer01 said:


> Not forgetting the chaps of the royal navy who would love the idear of blowing up floating stuff. And not only because they are good at it.


It would be a bloodbath, as described post # 12.

The Royal Navy from its creation almost 400 years before has been waiting for this movement, to repeat the Spanish Armada and destroy another invasion attempt. The Russian winter and English Channel, two geographic hinderances the Germans never bothered to plan against.

Plus or minus losses to date and adjusting for inaccuracies, here‘s the fleet that‘s awaiting the invasion barges. This would be terrifying.

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## pbehn (Dec 24, 2020)

fastmongrel said:


> Where do the barges go at night. You do know that most of the barges would be unpowered and even the ones with engines could do at best 6 knots, 4 knots when towing.


The current in the channel runs at up to 6kts which is why a towed barge would struggle to land anywhere near where it aimed to and then couldn't get back to where it came from. Since the current and tide depend on the position of the Moon and Sun if you launch the invasion in the best condition then in two weeks time they are at the worst.


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## Vincenzo (Dec 24, 2020)

HMS Prince of Wales was not available at time


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## Koopernic (Dec 24, 2020)

pbehn said:


> The current in the channel runs at up to 6kts which is why a towed barge would struggle to land anywhere near where it aimed to and then couldn't get back to where it came from. Since the current and tide depend on the position of the Moon and Sun if you launch the invasion in the best condition then in two weeks time they are at the worst.



The modern Rhine is a fast flowing river. It averages 8kmh 4.5 knots and is 10kmh 5.5 knots at its fastest point. In order for a barge to travel up river it must travel substantially faster than 5.5 knots. The 6 claimed knot maximum speed of a Rhine barge seems fishy to me as an their ability to deal with fast flowing flows and tides must be better than stated. Straightening a river increases its speed and narrows it. That makes the river less navigable in some ways and increases upward journey time. It also requires evasive maneuverability heading downstream. It may be that the 1940 Rhine was substantially slower but I think that the abominations done to it had already been done. I’ve seen an 1420 woodcut of a circa 200 ton medieval cog moored in Cologne 300km up stream. It had sailed there and probably been towed using tow paths at points. Europe for 1500 years from Britain, through Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Russia etc were criss crossed by thousands of kilometers of river with little canals added to the side. An Englishman should understand what the Severn could be like. They are not calm either up or down stream.


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## Vincenzo (Dec 24, 2020)

This could be in theme lecture https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/GERMAN PLANS FOR INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1940_0001.pdf

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## pbehn (Dec 24, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> The modern Rhine is a fast flowing river. It averages 8kmh 4.5 knots and is 10kmh 5.5 knots at its fastest point. In order for a barge to travel up river it must travel substantially faster than 5.5 knots when travelling up stream. The 6 claimed knot maximum speed of a Rhine barge seems fishy to me as an their ability to deal with fast flowing tides and points must common and is better than stated. Straightening a river increases its speed and narrows it. That makes the river less navigable in 2 ways and increases upward journey time. It may be that the 1940 Rhine was substantially slower but I think that the abominations done to it had already been done. I’ve seen an 1420 woodcut of a circa 200 ton medieval cog moored in Cologne 300km up stream. It had sailed there and probably been towed using tow paths. Europe for 1500 years from Britain, through Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Russia etc were cruss crossed by thousands of kilometers of river with little canals added to the side. An Englishman should understand what the Severn could be like. They are not calm either up or down stream.


All true, but we are talking of crossing that current. I have crossed the English Channel more times than I can remember on many types of ferry. Some days and times it is like a pond completely smooth and flat and you can see the cliffs of Dover from Calais. On other days the visibility is down to 100 meters and the ferry is rising and falling at its moorings in the harbour so much they stop loading. Towing across a 6kt current is one thing when you can see where you are going, it isn't always the same current, it doesn't always flow in the same direction, any description of channel currents are very general. Dover was never "blacked out" when I crossed the channel but frequently you didn't see it until a couple of miles away either by day or night and I once spent 4 hours stuck in the channel waiting for the fog to clear in daytime. Hitler and some of his followers made a big mistake thinking it is just a big river crossing. it just isn't for many reasons, I have been on two ferries that were swept into the harbour wall going out of Dover, if you look at a modern ferry doing the route they all have massive reinforcement around the water line because it happens quite often going in, going out and while mooring.

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## Admiral Beez (Dec 24, 2020)

IMO, Germany’s plans for invasion of Britain should have focused on neutralizing the RN, not the RAF. If the RN is neutralized, the Luftwaffe can be concentrated against whatever the RAF can throw against the invasion fleet. And that’s the crux of the matter, it’s the RN that will destroy the invasion force, and the Germans have no real means to stop the RN.


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## pbehn (Dec 24, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> Below the distance Calais to Central London 160km/100 miles
> 
> An Me 109 at maximum cruise could fly 400 miles or 600 miles at economy cruise. Allowing 20% reserves, 100 miles for combat (probably only 50 miles at full combat power) and 20 miles for forming up leaves us an operational range radius of 100 miles.
> View attachment 606164
> ...


I know the distances, I have travelled the route many times. I was not quoting from stated performance of individual aircraft but from what actually happened on the daylight mass raids on London. Fighters had to form up, then form up with the bombers and then proceed to the target. The actual raids were cursed with head winds that reduced ground speed to as low as 120MPH, and the escorts had to stay with them zig zagging or circling to keep their air speed up in case of attack. A Bf 109 taking off from Calais climbing and flying at its most economical settings has not reached escort height by the time it crosses the English coast. The Bf 109 was so marginal on fuel that even a small error on timing, or some change in weather could and did send the mission FUBAR, it would be much worse on a mission to Birmingham and a twin engine escort is no solution at all. The fighters which first engaged any attack would have time to land and re fuel re arm or just jump into another plane and have another go at the attackers as they withdrew.

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## pbehn (Dec 24, 2020)

Admiral Beez said:


> IMO, Germany’s plans for invasion of Britain should have focused on neutralizing the RN, not the RAF. If the RN is neutralized, the Luftwaffe can be concentrated against whatever the RAF can throw against the invasion fleet. And that’s the crux of the matter, it’s the RN that will destroy the invasion force, and the Germans have no real means to stop the RN.


I agree, then when they realised they couldn't they should have said "I think we made a mistake, anyone fancy a game of football"?


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## fastmongrel (Dec 24, 2020)

One of my favourite facts about the invasion plan was the requirement to land 57,000 horses on the beaches. I don't know much about horses but I know one end bites, the other end kicks and the middle bit doesn't like boats.

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## pbehn (Dec 24, 2020)

fastmongrel said:


> One of my favourite facts about the invasion plan was the requirement to land 57,000 horses on the beaches. I don't know much about horses but I know one end bites, the other end kicks and the middle bit doesn't like boats.


It is a long way from Aintree, Ascot and Epsom what were they thinking?


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## Shortround6 (Dec 24, 2020)

pbehn said:


> It is a long way from Aintree, Ascot and Epsom what were they thinking?



They wouldn't have to transport fuel for trucks as the Horses could eat English grass????

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## pbehn (Dec 24, 2020)

Shortround6 said:


> They wouldn't have to transport fuel for trucks as the Horses could eat English grass????


Any horse that wants to eat its way to Aintree should be left in France because of its terminal stupidity.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 24, 2020)

Ground cover is ground cover right?

Just like some posters want the British to build more Mosquitos because they are made out of wood and trees grow in England. 
Wood is wood...........right........?????????

Not the horse, it's the owner/operators


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## pbehn (Dec 25, 2020)

Shortround6 said:


> Ground cover is ground cover right?
> 
> Just like some posters want the British to build more Mosquitos because they are made out of wood and trees grow in England.
> Wood is wood...........right........?????????
> ...


It was just a Christmas joke, this is what happens at Aintree, frequently carnage.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 25, 2020)

Sort of like rugby for horses. Start with 15 a side and if you have 10 left that can walk at half time it is a good game.

Not sure the horses want to be there, jockeys either.

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## pbehn (Dec 25, 2020)

Shortround6 said:


> Sort of like rugby for horses. Start with 15 a side and if you have 10 left that can walk at half time it is a good game.
> 
> Not sure the horses want to be there, jockeys either.


Sometimes the Grand National race is worse, less than half finish I think the lowest was a quarter. The jockeys certainly like it, you cant really say about the horses but one horse "Red Rum" won the Grand National 3 times and was second twice, as far as anyone can tell from animal traits he enjoyed every moment he was at the course and he knew what he was there for.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 25, 2020)

Getting somewhat back on track with the "German" Barges (of the 2400?? collected less than 900 were German)
One discussion board says " Only 860 out of 2,400 barges came from Germany*.* The invasion barges also came from France (350); and Holland and Belgium (1,200). 

we have this photo.




and this chart. 




Obviously there is a huge variation in the barges in size and capability. Barges built to haul coal and iron ore are going to ride high when load with men and military supplies. 
Helps when beaching if trimmed by the stern so the soldiers don't have to wade through 1.75 meter water. Helps with reduced flooding with waves coming over the side. 
Does increase side area exposed to the wind and reduce the "grip" on the water (cross wind blows the barge sideways easier) 

Some of the German Rhine river self propelled barges might well have been able to to do 6kts or better if lightly loaded. However with so many of the barges unpowered the powered ones may have (or may not?) have been tasked with towing one or more unpowered barges. Germans had also collected a number of tug boats for towing duties. 

Another photo

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## PAT303 (Dec 25, 2020)

Simple question, if you had a line of barges towed by a powered barge or tug boat how was the powered craft going to land the unpowered ones on the beach?, was the tug going to make a sharp turn at the last minute and then hope they drift to shore in an orderly way to allow the men to disembark after they finish arse ending one another?. How were they going to be recovered?, was the tug them going to sail back in and drag the line of barges back off the beach and tow them back to France, not forgetting all this will be done fighting waves, current, wind, machine gun fire, destroyers cruisers half a dozen 14'' 15'' and 16'' armed battleships, hundreds of Spitfires Hurricanes Wellingtons only to do it all over a gain the next day and for every day after that for weeks on end?. I'm game if you are.


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## Koopernic (Dec 25, 2020)

PAT303 said:


> Simple question, if you had a line of barges towed by a powered barge or tug boat how was the powered craft going to land the unpowered ones on the beach?, was the tug going to make a sharp turn at the last minute and then hope they drift to shore in an orderly way to allow the men to disembark after they finish arse ending one another?. How were they going to be recovered?, was the tug them going to sail back in and drag the line of barges back off the beach and tow them back to France, not forgetting all this will be done fighting waves, current, wind, machine gun fire, destroyers cruisers half a dozen 14'' 15'' and 16'' armed battleships, hundreds of Spitfires Hurricanes Wellingtons only to do it all over a gain the next day and for every day after that for weeks on end?. I'm game if you are.





Vincenzo said:


> This could be in theme lecture https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/GERMAN PLANS FOR INVASION OF ENGLAND, 1940_0001.pdf



These are the landing craft the Germans are developing.
Landing Crafts

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## PAT303 (Dec 26, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> These are the landing craft the Germans are developing.
> Landing Crafts



None were available for the invasion of England and only 700 were made over the entire war, the article says river barges will be used for sealion.


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## ThomasP (Dec 26, 2020)

Joining this thread a little late. After doing a bit of research  re 'was radar invented or developed?' and 'who invented it?', I found this:

"https://ieee-aess.org/sites/ieee-aess.org/files/documents/paper_v4.pdf"

Note in particular the description of the patent content. Although I was aware of Hulsmeyer having developed an early crude radar detection device in the early-1900s, I was not aware of the depth of his ideas until now.

IEEE = Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
AESS = Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (not Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences)

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## fastmongrel (Dec 26, 2020)

ThomasP said:


> Joining this thread a little late. After doing a bit of research  re 'was radar invented or developed?' and 'who invented it?', I found this:
> 
> "https://ieee-aess.org/sites/ieee-aess.org/files/documents/paper_v4.pdf"
> 
> ...



Everyone was working on some variation of radar during the pre war period. Britain however was the only country that invented the integrated system of detection and control still used by almost every plane in the air today.


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## Koopernic (Dec 26, 2020)

ThomasP said:


> Joining this thread a little late. After doing a bit of research  re 'was radar invented or developed?' and 'who invented it?', I found this:
> 
> "https://ieee-aess.org/sites/ieee-aess.org/files/documents/paper_v4.pdf"
> 
> ...


Husselmeyers radar worked. It was of such high frequency it had a search light like narrow beam. By placing it in the mast of a ship and pointing down it could triangulate to any object up to a few km away. Apparently it false alarmed occasionally and the investors got cold feet and Admiral Tirpitz deigned to support it. All this before the invention of the vacuum tube. A few years or development probably would have given us reliable radar before titanic fateful voyage.


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## Koopernic (Dec 26, 2020)

fastmongrel said:


> Everyone was working on some variation of radar during the pre war period. Britain however was the only country that invented the integrated system of detection and control still used by almost every plane in the air today.



i wouldn't really agree. Everyone had an extensive air reporting service that relied on visual, acoustic and sometimes radio emissions. The German Freyas integrated into this existing system. They had I believe 12-25 operating by the battle of France. What was unique was that the British had developed a reasonable IFF system. I think they’d had 1 maybe 2 goes at it before getting it right but ofcourse kudos for recognizing the importance of the issue. You will remember the excellent US SCR-272 picked up the incoming Japanese Perl Harbour raid but mistook it as B17 on ferry flights. The lack of IFF was the issue. The Germans under Telefunken had developed a system called FuG 25 for Wurzburg A radar that was a failure after thousands had been produced. . It was modified by GEMA (Seetakt maker) to create FuG 25a Erstling using existing cabinets. These IFF transponders systems then became the basis of Oboe and the German EGON blind bombing system.

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## Koopernic (Dec 26, 2020)

Shortround6 said:


> Getting somewhat back on track with the "German" Barges (of the 2400?? collected less than 900 were German)
> One discussion board says " Only 860 out of 2,400 barges came from Germany*.* The invasion barges also came from France (350); and Holland and Belgium (1,200).
> 
> we have this photo.
> ...



The schematic image of “barges” is actually of many of propellor ships. The word “Schiff” means “Ship” and has an engine and the word “Kahn” means barge. These are mostly powered ships. If it’s not got the work Kahn or Schiff in it then it’s a type been commandeered from the Dutch. I dont accept the speed as being limited to 6 knots. First I think speed and distance on german rivers is measured in km. You don’t use celestial navigatio. Secondly a speed of 6 knots is too low. I suggest a Rhine river ship would have a speed of 18kmh (9 knots) in water that was 9m deep. This would reduce to about half that in 4-5 meter water due to bow wave interaction with the river bed. 4 knots would maybe represent the “land” speed when traveling upstream against the flow and 6 knots the down stream speed. The 4-6 numbers don’t make sense. I suggest a max speed of 18 km/h makes sense, that’s 9 knots. So a cruise of 7-8 knots. I suggest soldiers would be high value cargo on powered ships. I think the normal FLAK that accompanied German battalions would be positioned on the barges defensively. I also suggest an MG42 is an effective weapon against British boats getting within 1200m.


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## pbehn (Dec 26, 2020)

Shortround6 said:


> Getting somewhat back on track with the "German" Barges (of the 2400?? collected less than 900 were German)
> One discussion board says " Only 860 out of 2,400 barges came from Germany*.* The invasion barges also came from France (350); and Holland and Belgium (1,200).
> 
> we have this photo.
> ...


They are called "invasion barges" but they are just barges, does anyone know what taking around 2,000 of them off north Europe's waterways did for the economy there? I am sure it was very popular in Belgium and Netherlands, a great way to win friends.


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## Snautzer01 (Dec 26, 2020)

pbehn said:


> They are called "invasion barges" but they are just barges, does anyone know what taking around 2,000 of them off north Europe's waterways did for the economy there? I am sure it was very popular in Belgium and Netherlands, a great way to win friends.


It gets better. A lot were returned to the countries to be shot to pieces by the allied fly boys.

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## Juha3 (Dec 26, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> ... I also suggest an MG42 is an effective weapon against British boats getting within 1200m.



Might well have been, but as it designation indicates no MG 42s were around in 1940, it began appear in 1942, but MG 34 was the standard GP mg of the Heer in 1940.

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## Admiral Beez (Dec 26, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> I suggest a max speed of 18 km/h makes sense, that’s 9 knots. So a cruise of 7-8 knots. I suggest soldiers would be high value cargo on powered ships. I think the normal FLAK that accompanied German battalions would be positioned on the barges defensively. I also suggest an MG42 is an effective weapon against British boats getting within 1200m.


Goodness, over a hundred men, unaccustomed to the sea, seasick and tossed around on flat bottomed barges trying to use their AA cannon and their infantry machine guns whilst running flat out at 9 knots against a flotilla of determinedly-captained RN destroyers does not look like good odds for the Wehrmacht.

Here’s the most powerful barge intended for Sealion, the German Siebel artillery support ferry. 







Facing each of the few ferries will be a flotilla of RN destroyers.






And what about the regular barges? These poor buggers will never make the beach.


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## Juha3 (Dec 27, 2020)

On Siebel ferries Siebel ferry - Wikipedia
How good or poor they were in real life Battle of Sukho Island - Wikipedia
One of their mightiest opponent during the Sukho operation Gunboat "Aunus"

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## nuuumannn (Dec 28, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> I believe the Luftwaffe could have stopped the Royal Navy. Land based bombers supported by land based fighters are too powerful.



Too powerful? The Germans didn't have that much experience bombing ships - yes, they could do it, Luftwaffe He 111s sank two of the Kriegsmarine destroyers at the beginning of the war, but against the _entire_ Royal Navy? The Home Fleet destroyer squadrons had more destroyers than the Kriegsmarine's entire surface fleet and let's not forget that the 'RAF' is not just 11 Group Fighter Command squadrons, let's remember that 13 Group squadrons were largely out of reach of Bf 109s, so could (and did) operate with impunity against German bombers that ventured that far north. This meant that in the event that 11 Group in the south east couldn't cope, there were other units that could be relied on as back up - something the Germans failed to reconcile with and was the foundation of Park and Dowding's strategy of putting smaller numbers of fighters up at any given time to attack bombers (it worked, by the way). Let's also not forget that German torpedoes in 1940 were terrible and very rarely worked, and the number of torpedo droppers the Luftwaffe had available to it was small in 1940; the Luftwaffe had a total of 135 torpedoes available to it in March 1940, and by the end of September, 1/ Kustenfliegergruppe 106 and its He 115s had fired 16 torpedoes and reported only two hits, which doesn't equate to efficiency, so being realistic, this statement of yours is pure hogwash.

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## nuuumannn (Dec 28, 2020)

If anyone has any pretensions as to whether Sealion was going to work, here's a quote from one of those involved in its planning and execution, one Heinrich Bartels, who was responsible for assembling the invasion barges at Dunkirk. During a visit by Raeder to the port on the eve of the invasion, he asked Bartels, "Do you think we shall make it across to England? Are you optimistic about it?"

Bartels, slightly taken aback by the questions from his superior, replied with, "Without optimism, Herr Grossadmiral, the thing will be a flop from the start..."


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## Greyman (Dec 28, 2020)

I always like how Derek Robinson got it across in 'A Piece of Cake'.

I used my phone to take snapshots of the relevant pages and used text recognition software to get it in a more presentable form. Any typos are mine.

Quick explanation of characters in the excerpt:
*CH3* - RAF fighter pilot from the USA​*Jacky Bellamy* - journalist from the USA​*Skull *- Squadron intel officer​*Quirk *- RAF fighter pilot drafted from the FAA​​

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## The Basket (Dec 28, 2020)

The best way to deal with any military question is this.

***AND THEN IT ALL WENT HORRIBLY WRONG*****

if Sealion goes horribly wrong then you have German soldiers stranded in a barge. And that's called target practice.

If Sealion goes wrong then lordy lordy it is going to be a total humiliation.

German forces and going to be cut off without any resupply on the south coast. Dieppe Landings proved that wisdom.

The charge of the light brigade is a better bet.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 28, 2020)

Exact borders of the group areas may be subject to debate or changed with time.
Pushing the RAF out of No. 11 Group area (the landing sites) does not mean the RAF has totally disappeared. No 12 Group (even if somewhat depleted) will cover the naval bases on the east coast within easy steaming distance of the invasion sites. No 10 Group is covering both Plymouth and Portsmouth (on the border of No 10 and 11 group).

This map is of _fighter command. _Bomber command and Coastal Command both still exist. 
Granted No 9 and 13 groups may consist of units rebuilding, resting or working up and not at full efficiency. 

Best thing the British could have done was let the Germans land 30-60,000 troops, annihilate the Barge fleet that was left and trap the Germans with little food or ammunition along the coastal strip with no way to resupply or evacuate. 

A suggestion has been made that the German troops can use their 20mm AA guns and Squad machine guns to defend themselves while in the barges. WIthout being fastened down in some way effective range would be short. Ammunition used in transit would not be available once on the beaches, barges would be defenseless on return trip. 
Germans planned on three or more waves or round trips to get all the troops ashore with more trips need for supply. 

The Luftwaffe wasn't that much better at sinking ships in Sept/Oct of 1940 than it was in May/June of 1940. RN will take losses in daylight. Losses does not mean being obliterated any more then a the Luftwaffe obliterated the DUnkirk evacuation ships.

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## The Basket (Dec 28, 2020)

Germans would need

Air Supremacy
Sea Supremacy
Time to bombard fixed defences.
Couple of months of good weather.

Invading USSR was considered easier.

So that's a plus.


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## nuuumannn (Dec 28, 2020)

Just a wee example of how difficult it was for the Luftwaffe to sink shipping in 1940. On the afternoon of 10 July Dornier Do 17s of KG 2, escorted by Bf 110s of III/ZG 76, with Bf 109s from JG 51 high above the formation were sent to destroy a convoy sailing through the Channel, which had been spotted earlier in the day by a Dornier recon aircraft escorted by Bf 109s of I/JG 51, which had been attacked by six Spitfires of 74 Sqn, but managed to return damaged for two Spits damaged by the escorts. At 1pm, the German formation of Do 17s and Bf 110s were detected at 60 plus aircraft by the defences and Flights from three squadrons were sent up to meet them. Attacked from head on, the Do 17 formation was split up and in disarray. By the end of the afternoon, three Bf 110s and three Do 17s were lost and one Bf 109 and pilot lost and one damaged, for the loss of one Hurricane and pilot to the RAF, although four aircraft were damaged. On that afternoon, the RAF achieved a six to one kill ratio, worst of all for the Germans, only one ship in the convoy was hit, despite KG 2 dropping some 160 bombs and even then, the 700 t sloop that sank was empty. Not a good day for the Luftwaffe.

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## nuuumannn (Dec 28, 2020)

To add to SR6's post above, a breakdown of Fighter Command squadrons as of 1 July 1940 within each Group, illustrating the value that Dowding placed on reserves:

11 Group had a total of 30 squadrons, 8 Spitfire, 17 Hurricane, 5 Blenheim; 12 Group had 11 squadrons, 5 Spitfire, 3 Hurricane, 2 Blenheim and 1 Defiant; 13 Group had a total of 17 squadrons, 6 Spitfire, 9 Hurricane, 1 Blenheim and 1 Defiant. Note that 13 Group's totals are greater than 12 Group's; this is because its squadrons were largely reserves and kept out of harm's way, not to mention the fact that Bf 109s could not reach cities in the North and Scotland from mainland Europe and so the bomber units that operated within 13 Group's area of interest were escorted by Bf 110s only.

Information from Stephen Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy (Aurum, 2009).


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## Shortround6 (Dec 28, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> I also suggest an MG42 is an effective weapon against *British boats* getting within 1200m.



One of the British 'Boats"





During the war (but not by the summer of 1940) about 800 trawlers were taken into RN service from the Hull and Dovercourt Fisheries. Other areas of The UK also had substantial numbers join the RN

See Trawlers – World War 2 | Harwich & Dovercourt | History, Facts & Photos of Harwich

Not all had 4 in guns. 

It was the hundreds of these "boats" available that made Sealion such an impossibility. They were available for minesweeping, mine laying (not very well, anti sub use, and as small gun boats. The Germans did have similar but not in anywhere near the numbers the British did. Much like the larger ships , the Germans are outnumbered by very large amounts.


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## pbehn (Dec 28, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> To add to SR6's post above, a breakdown of Fighter Command squadrons as of 1 July 1940 within each Group, illustrating the value that Dowding placed on reserves:
> 
> 11 Group had a total of 30 squadrons, 8 Spitfire, 17 Hurricane, 5 Blenheim; 12 Group had 11 squadrons, 5 Spitfire, 3 Hurricane, 2 Blenheim and 1 Defiant; 13 Group had a total of 17 squadrons, 6 Spitfire, 9 Hurricane, 1 Blenheim and 1 Defiant. Note that 13 Group's totals are greater than 12 Group's; this is because its squadrons were largely reserves and kept out of harm's way, not to mention the fact that Bf 109s could not reach cities in the North and Scotland from mainland Europe and so the bomber units that operated within 13 Group's area of interest were escorted by Bf 110s only.
> 
> Information from Stephen Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy (Aurum, 2009).


I would have to re read the book, but at some stage Bungay argues that the British created a pilot shortage. "British" being the RAF or Dowding or a combination of all in the organisation. For Dowding and his "Dowding system" a squadron had to exist for his controllers to make use of it. In the worst case scenario, where squadrons are scrambled repeatedly during a day, at the last scramble they must have as close to 12 planes in the air as at the start, if they don't, they are losing. I think Stona posted that in some cases a scrambled squadron was down to 7 planes but that wasn't normal, it is what the LW expected to be normal after just a few days heavy activity. The keeping of reserves was a part of the Dowding system, after each day losses could be compensated for by moving men and machines around, such that the next day the enemy would be confronted with the same in numbers, if not in exact quality. Both Dowding and Park had experience of WW1 aerial warfare and what happens to a squadron when its members were shot down. If you only have 12 aircraft and 12 pilots as a fighting unit you can be lost in a day, just by minor injuries, running out of fuel or getting battle damage and being forced to land somewhere else.


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## Koopernic (Dec 29, 2020)

I think the discussion is going a little wrong. It's worth reading the article on operation sealion in Wikipedia on this much as that source is now severely corrupted.

*Some facts about the modified barges to invasion barges and river ships (powered barges).*
1 They were to be modified by cutting of the bow and attaching a ramp to drive trucks, tanks etc on and off. They also were to have concrete poured in to strengthen floors to handle tanks. Its a fairly daunting amount of modification work.
2 Square bottoms roll less in heavy seas than round. This is not a problem for barges.
3 Unpowered barges after landing tanks were to be marshalled and escorted back to France after 2 days.
4 Unpowered barges could be towed or pushed by either a river ship or the 400 tugs collected for operation sea lion.
5 Over 260 Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks were converted to 'tauchpanzers' or diving tanks. They were sealed and could drive along the ocean floor to a depth of 15m by way of a 16m air intake hose with an radio aerial. Apart from sealing the tanks had bilge pumps and rebreather escape systems for the crew as well as a gyrocompass and navigation system. I don't think these would have been dropped into water that deep, maybe 5m but they would be impervious to fire till they surfaced. They were actually used during operation Barbarossa.
6 The smaller Panzer II modified as a schwimmpanzer (with 20mm canon) would float via way of caissons and fire their gun during their swim ashore.

*Dealing with the Royal Navy:*
1 The invasion corridor would be cordoned off with a dense mine field from the Royal Navy.
2a Coastal Artillery, based in France, would also cordon of the invasion corridor from the Royal Navy out to much of the distance. The 8.8cm FLAK 37 is a deadly anti shipping weapon due to its fire control and ability to FLAK burst. I imagine 105mm, 6 inch, 8 inch and 11 inch coastal artillery would be set up by the German Navy (who had troops and division for harbour defence). That should protect the invasion fleet half way if not the whole way across the channel in some areas
2b Luftwaffe FLAK 37, FLAK 38 and FLAK 39 8.8 cm, 10.5 com and 12.8 cm guns would be highly effective against shipping and craft.
3 Luftwaffe would have had time to reassess its performance at Dunkirk and change its anti shipping attack methods. *We KNOW they became effective*. Briefings, notes to crew and a little bit of practice against towed targets. They will learn quickly and they will also be undistracted by campaigns elsewhere.

4 One thing I need to research more is the state of German radar in mid 1940. Seetakt Shipborne radar was definitely available on anything from destroyer up plus a few of the larger torpedo boats. SeeArt (See Artillery) is essentially Seetakt converted for coastal anti shipping use, FuMo 1 Calais A and B and FuMO 2 Calais.

The shore based Seetakt peformed better than ship based because it had a larger antenna, more powerful transmitter and could afford more complicated circuitry that didnt require the same lever of minurisation, marinisation and shock resistance.

This means that a few radar equipped Kriegsmarine ships half way across the channel can detect the Royal Navy and either open fire using night vision optics or illuminate with star shell or search lights while smaller craft attack. The shore based artillery would take care of the rest.

*Achieving Air Superiority.*

I don't see this as a matter of strategy or tactics by the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe didn't have the right equipment.
Required would be the following:
*1* All Me 109 and Me 110 equipped with ability to carry a jetisonable fuels tank or a bomb with the necessary modifications to the altimerter (altitude alarm) and Revi Reflector sight (second reticule for the toss angle). The Me 109E4B and Me 109E7B had this facility as the BoB ended and would have been available in fair numbers. It was needed before the BoB stated. The earlier Me 109E1B could carry a bomb but no drop tank. (fixed drop tank for ferrying only)

The additional range should increase penetration depth 60%, it should increase the area of Britain under which the Luftwaffe operated fighters by 2.5 and it should double or treble the number of Luftwaffe fighters over the UK.

*2 *The Focke-Wulf Fw 187 with DB601 engines and 1300 Litres internal fuel needs to be built, if necessary by sacrificing an equal number of Me 110, around half the force.

It is NOT correct to say that the Fw 187 would not be an excellent dog fighter. Manoeuvrability depends on power to weight ratio of the twin engine aircraft being the same or better than a single fighter. The Fw 187 had that. Wing loading is important but a larger wing may reduce turning circle will also reduce speed so its a trade of.

The Fw 187 would have had far better speed than Me 109, Spitfire and about 65%-70% more range. Likely enough to roam over half of Britain.

*3* A high speed reconnaissance aircraft is needed. Either unarmed, unarmoured Me 109 or the Fw 187 to gather intelligence.

RAF losses would be higher, Luftwaffe bomber losses much lower.




Admiral Beez said:


> Goodness, over a hundred men, unaccustomed to the sea, seasick and tossed around on flat bottomed barges trying to use their AA cannon and their infantry machine guns whilst running flat out at 9 knots against a flotilla of determinedly-captained RN destroyers does not look like good odds for the Wehrmacht.
> 
> Here’s the most powerful barge intended for Sealion, the German Siebel artillery support ferry.
> 
> ...



That Siebel barge was quite stable and used not only as an armed barge but a landing craft. It was improvised using Army Pontoon Bridge Pontoons and this made it transportable by road an rail, hence it was used in inland lakes and seas and could be used for a river crossing before a pontoon bridge was set up. It could get tiger tanks across a water crossing.











The Siebel Ferrys had a draft of only 1.2m and a little calculation shows that with a 5m ramp (dont know what it actually was) would mean any solider or tank would find himself in 70cm of water assuming a 10:1 beach slope. Fording depth of a Standard Panzer IV at the time was 0.8m latter increased to 1.2 but i imagine special modifications would be made similar to the schwimmpanzer so that fording depth would be ate least half way up the turret.


Noe also the Kommandogeret 40 FLAK predictor. This computed a continuous firing solution so long as the men: the trainer, the layer(elvation) and range finder operator tracked the the targeted enemy ship. If the ship moved the solution would instantly update and the guns would repoint viag their guages If the 'ferry' moved due to swells so long as the layer/trainer maintained track and the fire order was given right it would hit. A RN MTB could be directly targeted by 30-45 rounds per minute of 8.8 cm fire either bursting above them or inside them.



nuuumannn said:


> Too powerful? The Germans didn't have that much experience bombing ships - yes, they could do it, Luftwaffe He 111s sank two of the Kriegsmarine destroyers at the beginning of the war, but against the _entire_ Royal Navy? The Home Fleet destroyer squadrons had more destroyers than the Kriegsmarine's entire surface fleet and let's not forget that the 'RAF' is not just 11 Group Fighter Command squadrons, let's remember that 13 Group squadrons were largely out of reach of Bf 109s, so could (and did) operate with impunity against German bombers that ventured that far north. This meant that in the event that 11 Group in the south east couldn't cope, there were other units that could be relied on as back up - something the Germans failed to reconcile with and was the foundation of Park and Dowding's strategy of putting smaller numbers of fighters up at any given time to attack bombers (it worked, by the way). Let's also not forget that German torpedoes in 1940 were terrible and very rarely worked, and the number of torpedo droppers the Luftwaffe had available to it was small in 1940; the Luftwaffe had a total of 135 torpedoes available to it in March 1940, and by the end of September, 1/ Kustenfliegergruppe 106 and its He 115s had fired 16 torpedoes and reported only two hits, which doesn't equate to efficiency, so being realistic, this statement of yours is pure hogwash.



A Mine corridor and coastal artillery based in France greatly simplifies the problems the German Navy and Luftwaffe would face.

The Luftwaffe was clearly focused on land warfare. The problems at dealing with the Royal Navy evacuation at Dunkirk were clearly used as lessons learned and the Luftwaffe's anti shipping capabillity improved though it took improvements in equipment. It doesn't take much. A few officer would know, the Japanese might provide tips and the training material passed on. Bombs on the Me 109 would help as the 109 was successful of crete as an anti shipping craft. Destroyers are certainly difficult targets.

I suspect the Luftwaffe's main MTB and ship killer would be the Me 110 due to its frontal fire power and heavy bomb load as well as accuracy (as good as the Ju 87 during BoB)



nuuumannn said:


> If anyone has any pretensions as to whether Sealion was going to work, here's a quote from one of those involved in its planning and execution, one Heinrich Bartels, who was responsible for assembling the invasion barges at Dunkirk. During a visit by Raeder to the port on the eve of the invasion, he asked Bartels, "Do you think we shall make it across to England? Are you optimistic about it?"
> 
> Bartels, slightly taken aback by the questions from his superior, replied with, "Without optimism, Herr Grossadmiral, the thing will be a flop from the start..."



I worked in Germany in the early 1990s for a year. That's pretty much their sense of humour. It would have been said with a straight face. The laughs at the pub afterward.

The Germans planning operation sealion were intelligent, determined but knew they were up against it. They came up with a plausible plan and when the conditions of the plan were impossible to meet cancelled it.

It should be pointed out that for a nation absurdly accused of planning 'world conquest' the lack of long range aircraft, amphibious craft and the fact that they invaded the Soviet Union knowing they lacked the capability of invading more than 1/4 of the way in (they drew a vertical line to the limit of their logistical and opperational capability, the High Command and Hitler knew) shows something else was going on.


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## Koopernic (Dec 29, 2020)

Deleted Duplicate post


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## Koopernic (Dec 29, 2020)

Deleted duplicate post


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## RCAFson (Dec 29, 2020)

German attempts for a seaborne invasion of Crete didn't succeed despite the complete absence of RAF or FAA fighters. RN casualties due to shipborne weapons was minimal.


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## pbehn (Dec 29, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> 3 Unpowered barges after landing tanks were to be marshalled and escorted back to France after 2 days.
> .


The discussion starts to go wrong when statements like this are made. If you believe the Channel is just a wide river the statement will not be challenged. I would like to see a few hundred unpowered barges being marshalled on a shingle beach for 2 or more days in September with a tidal drop of 5 to 7 meters. Repeatedly stating that an aircraft that wasn't built would win the day isn't a convincing argument.

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## pinehilljoe (Dec 29, 2020)

The original post is interesting. Didn't Dowding know that he just had keep Fighter Command a Force in Being until the end of September, after which the weather would end any threat of an invasion until the following Spring.


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## pbehn (Dec 29, 2020)

pinehilljoe said:


> The original post is interesting. Didn't Dowding know that he just had keep Fighter Command a Force in Being until the end of September, after which the weather would end any threat of an invasion until the following Spring.


It is or was common knowledge, not only weather but daylight. However this is just statistical probability of bad weather. Four years later at D-Day the invasion was postponed because of bad weather in June while a later storm completely swept away one of the Mulberry harbours on June 19th which should be the very height of summer. The Mulberry harbours had a design life of 3 months which takes them up to September, the remaining harbour was actually strengthened and lasted for 8 months in use.


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## Juha3 (Dec 29, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> ...
> 
> *Dealing with the Royal Navy:*
> 1 The invasion corridor would be cordoned off with a dense mine field from the Royal Navy.
> ...



Now, do you really think that the RN would have just sit and watch if the KM had begun to laid those dense minefields? Or might the RN and RAF attack those minelayers?

On coastal arty, maybe it is better to check what those German coastal guns achieved between 1940 and 1944, 
Dover Strait coastal guns - Wikipedia
_British coastal convoys had to pass through the bottleneck of the Dover strait ... Although the German guns regularly fired on these slow moving convoys from 1940 to 1944, with an interlude in 1943, they only sank two ships (both in 1944) and damaged several others._

On Siebel ferries, for their effectiveness or lack of it in real life, even only on a big lake, see the links in my message #85 Sukho Island, they were rather ineffective even against Soviet auxiliary gunboats.


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## fastmongrel (Dec 29, 2020)

The Channel guns were pretty rubbish. In 4 years of shooting they hit two ships sinking one and damaging the other so she had to be beached as her cargo of 2800 tons of petrol in cans was on fire


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## Admiral Beez (Dec 29, 2020)

Here’s the alternative outcome that, IMO stands the best chance of success over Britain for Germany, and puts Hitler in the best position to successfully invade Russia. 22 June 1940, France surrenders. 23 June 1940, Hitler announces a unilateral armistice and end of hostilities with Britain. Churchill refuses, says Britain will fight on, but to what end? Churchill is now under pressure from the Opposition parties and his own MPs to accept. Now what? One wildcard is the Italians, they’ve already invaded France and commenced offensives against Britain in North Africa. Mussolini must be forced to stand down.


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## Koopernic (Dec 29, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> Just a wee example of how difficult it was for the Luftwaffe to sink shipping in 1940. On the afternoon of 10 July Dornier Do 17s of KG 2, escorted by Bf 110s of III/ZG 76, with Bf 109s from JG 51 high above the formation were sent to destroy a convoy sailing through the Channel, which had been spotted earlier in the day by a Dornier recon aircraft escorted by Bf 109s of I/JG 51, which had been attacked by six Spitfires of 74 Sqn, but managed to return damaged for two Spits damaged by the escorts. At 1pm, the German formation of Do 17s and Bf 110s were detected at 60 plus aircraft by the defences and Flights from three squadrons were sent up to meet them. Attacked from head on, the Do 17 formation was split up and in disarray. By the end of the afternoon, three Bf 110s and three Do 17s were lost and one Bf 109 and pilot lost and one damaged, for the loss of one Hurricane and pilot to the RAF, although four aircraft were damaged. On that afternoon, the RAF achieved a six to one kill ratio, worst of all for the Germans, only one ship in the convoy was hit, despite KG 2 dropping some 160 bombs and even then, the 700 t sloop that sank was empty. Not a good day for the Luftwaffe.





Shortround6 said:


> One of the British 'Boats"
> View attachment 606657
> 
> 
> ...



Opperation SeaLion required Air Dominance, the term used in German documents. If they had of achieved that, which I contend they could have with Drop tanks on all Me 109/Me 110 and 50% of the Me 110 repplaced by equal numbers of Fw 187 they could have. All these fighters would need to be fitted with the approprate REVI and altimeter alarms to allow slide bombing. That would substantially increase the Lufwaffe's anti shipping capability.

Your example above of the Luftwaffe suffering losses trying to sink a convoy shows them being thwarted by RAF land based fighters. It doesn't really count in the even of Luftwaffe total air superiority.

The slow but seaworthy trawler isnt a great military ship but would tend to overwhelm. It looks very vulnerable to Me 110 strafing and could be dealt with by sufficient e-boats. The Siebel Ferrys would provide a basic perimeter defence, allowing e-boats or trawlers to detach to intercept RN small craft.




RCAFson said:


> German attempts for a seaborne invasion of Crete didn't succeed despite the complete absence of RAF or FAA fighters. RN casualties due to shipborne weapons was minimal.



And the German Navy and Military are rather over extended and they went with a paratroop based invasion that was compromised by ENIGMA decrypts revealing the drop zones.
These conditions dont apply near Calais.



pbehn said:


> The discussion starts to go wrong when statements like this are made. If you believe the Channel is just a wide river the statement will not be challenged. I would like to see a few hundred unpowered barges being marshalled on a shingle beach for 2 or more days in September with a tidal drop of 5 to 7 meters. Repeatedly stating that an aircraft that wasn't built would win the day isn't a convincing argument.



Maybe read the plan, I think they'd be moored and to a degree the barges are semi disposable.




Juha3 said:


> Now, do you really think that the RN would have just sit and watch if the KM had begun to laid those dense minefields? Or might the RN and RAF attack those minelayers?
> 
> On coastal arty, maybe it is better to check what those German coastal guns achieved between 1940 and 1944,
> Dover Strait coastal guns - Wikipedia
> ...



Coastal artillery works maybe half way through the channel not on the English side of it. Its being assesed 

The ferry's had their limitations. They were slow and couldn't position themselves rapidly to gain surprise, disengage or intercept. What they could so is escort a slow convoy and provide FLAK and firepower at its perimeter. e-boats would need to take care of the interception. It's no surprise they were vulnerable to faster gun boats but emplyed properly as perimeter guards supported by faster boats i think it would be a different story.



fastmongrel said:


> The Channel guns were pretty rubbish. In 4 years of shooting they hit two ships sinking one and damaging the other so she had to be beached as her cargo of 2800 tons of petrol in cans was on fire



The RN without air cover would be severely compromised in its mine laying and mine sweeping operations. The RN would be severely compromised when within range of German coastal artillery

Most of the coastal artillery didn't have the range to hit near the English coast so evading German coastal artillery was merely a matter of skirting the coast on the English side outside of accurate range of German Coastal Artillery in appropriate weather conditions or at night or when jamming worked, which it tended to at the fringes. The convoys are not going straight through the middle. If they sailed within 15000 yards of the French coast it would be different story.

Clearly coastal artillery can protect the German invasion fleet to maybe 1/3rd of the way out. More or less depending on target size and speed. The rule of thumb is that artillery is accurate to 1/3rd of the distance it could shoot when shot at 45 degrees.

That means the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and the Barges only need to take care of the final half of the journey across the channel. German destroyers, with radar, would need to detect British small craft and then illuminate them for other craft.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 30, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> I think the discussion is going a little wrong. It's worth reading Wikipedia on this.



we will see.



> *Some facts about the modified barges to invasion barges and river ships (powered barges).*
> 1 They were to be modified by cutting of the bow and attaching a ramp to drive trucks, tanks etc on and off. They also were to have concrete poured in to strengthen floors to handle tanks. Its a fairly daunting amount of work.
> 2 Square bottoms roll less in heavy seas than round. This is not a problem for barges.
> 3 Unpowered barges after landing tanks were to be marshalled and escorted back to France after 2 days.
> 4 Unpowered barges could be towed or pushed by either a river ship or the 400 tugs collected for operation sea lion.



1. How many were converted in the *time available*?
2. True but square bottoms will still roll, and pitch and yaw. It is a question of degree, square bottoms do not grant immunity from rolling. Riding high (low weight of cargo) means the roll a bit more than when riding low. 
3. shows that a lot of towing was going on and the "invasion" was not a one or two day deal but was going to need well over a week to get the desired number of men on shore.
4. As above, but speed of river barge when towing unpowered barge is???? 




> 5 Over 260 Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks were converted to 'tauchpanzers' or diving tanks. They were sealed and could drive along the ocean floor to a depth of 15m by way of a 16m air intake hose with an radio aerial. Apart from sealing the tanks had bilge pumps and rebreather escape systems for the crew as well as a gyrocompass and navigation system. I don't think these would have been dropped into water that deep, maybe 5m but they would be impervious to fire till they surfaced. They were actually used during operation Barbarossa.
> 6 The smaller Panzer II modified as a schwimmpanzer (with 20mm canon) would float via way of caissons and fire their gun during their swim ashore.


 
How many were actually ready in Sept of 1940 (one source says the MK III production continued into October) and how well trained were the crews of either the tanks or the landing craft/vessels. A few trial runs does not equal large numbers of trained crews. 
[/QUOTE]
*Dealing with the Royal Navy*
1 The invasion corridor would be cordoned off with a dense mine field from the Royal Navy.
2a Coastal Artillery, based in France, would also cordon of the invasion corridor from the Royal Navy out to much of the distance. The 8.8cm FLAK 37 is a deadly anti shipping weapon due to its fire control and ability to FLAK burst. I imagine 105mm, 6 inch, 8 inch and 11 inch coastal artillery would be set up by the German Navy (who had troops and division for harbour defence). That should protect the invasion fleet half way if not the whole way across the channel.
2b Luftwaffe FLAK 37, FLAK 38 and FLAK 39 8.8, 10.5 and 12.8cm guns would be highly effective against shipping and craft.
3 Luftwaffe would have had time to reassess its performance at Dunkirk and change its anti shipping attack methods. *We KNOW they became effective*. Briefings, notes to crew and a little bit of practice against towed targets. They will learn quickly and they will also be undistracted by campaigns elsewhere.[/QUOTE]

1.Where do the mines come from???
What ships are going to lay the mines????
Both ends of the proposed invasion corridor need to be mined. 
British have hundreds of minesweepers. British can also lay mines to tie up German ships/minesweepers so they can't be laying mines at the same time.

2. German superguns????
German 8.8cm FLAK 37 is near useless. It is 20-21 (33.8km?) miles across the channel at the narrowest point. The 8.8cm FLAK 37 had a max range against land targets of about 14,800 meters or just a bit _under half way_. This involves fring at around 40 degrees of elevation with a decent angle over 50 degrees. Flak burst is an illusion against ground targets at this range. 
Standard German time fuse had a max 30 second run time. If time of flight exceeds 30 seconds to the intended target the shell won't reach it. Nose percussion fuses were standard fuses against surface targets. 

Ranges of German guns from "German Artillery of World War Two (Ian Hogg)
37mm AA. 6565 meters
88mm AA....14,800 meters
10.5cm AA...17600 meters
12.8cm AA...20475 meters.

A few notes, The 10.5cm was only finalized for production in 1939, numbers available in fall of 1940 are???????
The 12.8cm AA gun was only placed in mass production in 1942 although prototypes and trial did exist in the late 30s. The 12.8cm gun may never have been used in the surface role? 

German divisional guns include the Schwere 10cm Kanone 18 with a range of 19075 meters. every other divisional gun in service in 1940 was much shorter ranged.
German heavy artillery units did have 15cm guns which could range to 24700 meters for the best of them (ex turkish guns). 

Even the German rail road guns would be hard pressed. The 28cm Cannon 'Kurz Bruno' had a max range of29500 meters and had the problem of only 1 degree of traverse on the carriage. Only eight were built, Only eight of K 5 28cm guns were in service at the start of the French campaign. a few suffered split barrels. 

GO to google maps and see the distances for other parts of the Channel other than the Dover straits. German shore batteries would be useless. 

More later.

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## RCAFson (Dec 30, 2020)

Admiral Beez said:


> Here’s the alternative outcome that, IMO stands the best chance of success over Britain for Germany, and puts Hitler in the best position to successfully invade Russia. 22 June 1940, France surrenders. 23 June 1940, Hitler announces a unilateral armistice and end of hostilities with Britain. Churchill refuses, says Britain will fight on, but to what end? Churchill is now under pressure from the Opposition parties and his own MPs to accept. Now what? One wildcard is the Italians, they’ve already invaded France and commenced offensives against Britain in North Africa. Mussolini must be forced to stand down.



What opposition parties? Churchill was the head of a coalition government.


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## fastmongrel (Dec 30, 2020)

We should start a Sealion bingo game. One point for every use of a weapon that didn't exist wasn't available.

I did think of a Sealion drinking game one drink for every use of a weapon that didn't exist but I don't want to kill off half the forum and put the rest in hospital.

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## Shortround6 (Dec 30, 2020)

Returning



> ="Koopernic, post: 1606638, member: 60966"]
> 3 Luftwaffe would have had time to reassess its performance at Dunkirk and change its anti shipping attack methods. *We KNOW they became effective*. Briefings, notes to crew and a little bit of practice against towed targets. They will learn quickly and they will also be _undistracted by campaigns elsewhere_.



Yes they did become effective. But not in 3 months and not while distracted by fighting the Battle of Britain. 



> 4 One thing I need to research more is the state of German radar in mid 1940. Seetakt Shipborne radar was definitely available on anything from destroyer up plus a few of the larger torpedo boats. SeeArt (See Artillery) is essentially Seetakt converted for coastal anti shipping use, FuMo 1 Calais A and B and FuMO 2 Calais.



Just about *ALL* of the "destroyer up" ships were in German ports. No, they don't have to be used in a doubtful diversion scheme but they do have to get to the invasion sites, SOme will, some won't. 



> This means that a few radar equipped Kriegsmarine ships half way across the channel can detect the Royal Navy and either open fire using night vision optics or illuminate with star shell or search lights while smaller craft attack. The shore based artillery would take care of the rest.



Night vision optics??????
OK German binoculars may have been better than British ones but not that magnitude of better. German ships are out numbered by about 10 to 1. British have star shells, British have some radar even if not as good. British stay about 15 kilometers from the German held shore and the shore based artillery is pretty much useless. 



> *Achieving Air Superiority.*



requires separate posts or thread. fictitious planes are not a matter of strategy and tactics. 



> That Siebel barge was quite stable and used not only as an armed barge but a landing craft. It was improvised using Army Pontoon Bridge Pontoons and this made it transportable by road an rail, hence it was used in inland lakes and seas and could be used for a river crossing before a pontoon bridge was set up. It could get tiger tanks across a water crossing.
> 
> 
> View attachment 606661
> ...



Top photo shows ferry well after the BoB, The quad 20mm was not in service. While the lower "gunboat" is interesting it has some serious flaws in the Channel. 
The Siebel ferries (12-20??) available at the time of Sealion had one 88mm and two 20mm guns *plus *their prime movers (half tracks). 



> Noe also the Kommandogeret 40 FLAK predictor. This computed a continuous firing solution* so long as* the men: the trainer, the layer(elvation) and range finder operator tracked the the targeted enemy ship. If the ship moved the solution would instantly update and the guns would repoint viag their guages If the 'ferry' moved due to swells so long as the layer/trainer maintained track and the fire order was given right it would hit. A RN MTB could be directly targeted by 30-45 rounds per minute of 8.8 cm fire either bursting above them or inside them.


Bolded part was the hard part, even on land. This is why later war ships got RPC (remote powered control) so that the accuracy of fire was NOT dependent on two or more men trying to spin hand cranks one each and every gun connected to the predictor. This is also why some AA guns, which turned out to be successful, had short/low performing barrels. The long barrels have too much inertia and are hard to get moving, hard to stop and very hard to reverse direction on. Even local power control guns were harder to coordinate than the RPC guns, Manual guns were a whole different catagory. [/QUOTE]





> A Mine corridor and coastal artillery based in France greatly simplifies the problems the German Navy and Luftwaffe would face.


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## Greyman (Dec 30, 2020)

Isn't the Luftwaffe immaterial in a matter of speaking? The Royal Navy just has to pounce on the invasion / resupply craft at night.

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## pbehn (Dec 30, 2020)

Greyman said:


> Isn't the Luftwaffe immaterial in a matter of speaking? The Royal Navy just has to pounce on the invasion / resupply craft at night.


You cant do that, they have those crosses on the side.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 30, 2020)

Greyman said:


> Isn't the Luftwaffe immaterial in a matter of speaking? The Royal Navy just has to pounce on the invasion / resupply craft at night.


Won't work.

The Luftwaffe has better night vision.
The RN ships are too slow to steam 50-100 miles each way under the cover of darkness.
The Luftwaffe can sink the ships in port using very few bombs because they aren't moving. 
eight German destroyers can fight off 50-60 British destroyers using their radar and better night vision.


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## Admiral Beez (Dec 30, 2020)

RCAFson said:


> What opposition parties? Churchill was the head of a coalition government.


As Thatcher and May found out, in Westminster every MP is a potential opposition, and in Churchill’s case, especially in a coalition. In May 1945, for example Labour left the coalition, forcing an election and Churchill’s defeat.


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## tomo pauk (Dec 30, 2020)

Shortround6 said:


> Won't work.
> 
> The Luftwaffe has better night vision.
> The RN ships are too slow to steam 50-100 miles each way under the cover of darkness.
> ...



(this too: )
_A Mine corridor and coastal artillery based in France greatly simplifies the problems the German Navy and Luftwaffe would face. _ 

That's all true, you naysayer. BTW - I have the Brooklyn bridge on sale, real cheap.


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## fastmongrel (Dec 30, 2020)

In 1943 not all German Destroyers had radar, particularly the Torpedo Boat coastal vessels which were small versions of a Destroyer. In 1940 I doubt anything smaller than a large fleet Destroyer had radar.


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## pbehn (Dec 30, 2020)

Nothing so far has persuaded me that if Sealion went ahead it would not be like Omaha beach with the Germans controlling the air and Tirpitz sitting off shore.


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## Admiral Beez (Dec 30, 2020)

pbehn said:


> Nothing so far has persuaded me that if Sealion went ahead it would not be like Omaha beach with the Germans controlling the air and Tirpitz sitting off shore.


What? No chance, Tirpitz isn't in service yet, but if she was she'd sunk PDQ. There's no chance for the Germans - you're facing off against the largest navy on his home coastline, covered by one of the largest air forces.

Surely you're just exasperated by the fantasies and denialism thus far posted and pulling our leg.


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## pbehn (Dec 30, 2020)

Admiral Beez said:


> What? No chance, Tirpitz isn't in service yet, but if she was she'd sunk PDQ. There's no chance for the Germans - you're facing off against the largest navy on his home coastline, covered by one of the largest air forces.
> 
> Surely you're just exasperated by the fantasies and denialism thus far posted and pulling our leg.


The Tirpitz was in service in 1944 when the allies landed in Normandy, Omaha was close to a disaster with the Allies completely in control of the air and the sea. The landing beaches in Kent and Sussex had many more obstacles, booby traps, mines and other defences than Normandy had. The idea of landing with towed barges when you don't control either air or sea is fantasy. Any ship with a gun heavier than a light machine gun can take out a barge or a tug which is most of the German invasion fleet. If there are any British ships in the Channel then they have to be eliminated before any support can be given to the landing. The whole thing is fantasy based on weapons that didn't exist working 100% while those opposing have what was historically there taken from them and what is left doesn't work at all.

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## Marcel (Dec 30, 2020)

The barges were hardly seaworthy and had to be towed. I read somewhere that it would take the barges 1.5 days at least to cross the Channel. The Royal Navy only had to send a couple of destroyers to sail through the formation at full speed in order to sink a substantial amount of German barges. 
I the end, to say the Germans were ill prepared to conquer the UK is an understatement. The BoB while impressive in it’s own right was a mere sideshow and a nice propaganda victory for the the British. It was t device for the invasion whatsoever as the Germans had defeated themselves in this regard so to speak, long before they reached Dunkirk.


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## Admiral Beez (Dec 30, 2020)

Marcel said:


> T
> I the end, to say the Germans were ill prepared to conquer the UK is an understatement.


The Germans ignorance or neglect of geography was their undoing. The English Channel and Russian Winter, these are known geographic challenges that have defeated previous invasion attempts, challenges that need to be planned for in advance.

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## fastmongrel (Dec 30, 2020)

The weather late September early October 1940 was surprisingly good with a lot of sunshine and not a lot of rain. Fog was a major problem though a warm day and a cool night bring lots of fog and there were days when Fog banks lasted until well into the afternoon. On the days when the Fog is not a problem there were fresh south westerly breezes of up to force 5. Sea States of 4.Sea winds and waves

There's a tide table somewhere on the internet that shows tides for the period but I can't find it.


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## pbehn (Dec 30, 2020)

Marcel said:


> The barges were hardly seaworthy and had to be towed. .


I am not a barge expert, but I don't think a barge can ever be sea worthy, you have to choose sea conditions that the barge can cope with, something hardly understood by those who thought the channel is just a wide river.


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## pbehn (Dec 30, 2020)

fastmongrel said:


> There's a tide table somewhere on the internet that shows tides for the period but I can't find it.


I just found this in wiki, "One complication was the tidal flow in the English Channel, where high water moves from west to east, with high water at Lyme Regis occurring around six hours before it reaches Dover. If all the landings were to be made at high water across a broad front, they would have to be made at different times along different parts of the coast, with the landings in Dover being made six hours after any landings in Dorset and thus losing the element of surprise. If the landings were to be made at the same time, methods would have to be devised to disembark men, vehicles and supplies at all states of the tide. That was another reason to favour landing craft."

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## nuuumannn (Dec 30, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> Opperation SeaLion required Air Dominance, the term used in German documents. If they had of achieved that, which I contend they could have with Drop tanks on all Me 109/Me 110 and 50% of the Me 110 repplaced by equal numbers of Fw 187 they could have. All these fighters would need to be fitted with the approprate REVI and altimeter alarms to allow slide bombing. That would substantially increase the Lufwaffe's anti shipping capability.
> 
> Your example above of the Luftwaffe suffering losses trying to sink a convoy shows them being thwarted by RAF land based fighters. It doesn't really count in the even of Luftwaffe total air superiority.



Luftwaffe total air superiority??? Not even a thing. Never was. Never could have been, even with Bf 109s with drop tanks - hindsight is wonderful and in this case erroneously misplaced. The reasons why are obvious and pointed out before in this thread. *The Germans never knew how well or badly they were doing against the RAF*. On 30 August, General Stapf reported to Gen Fritz Halder that the British had lost 800 fighters since 8 August out of a frontline strength of 915. At the time, Oberst Beppo Schmid had estimated production capacity to be around 2 to 300 fighters, so the assumption was that the RAF had around 3 - 400 fighters left and it was predicted that by the end of the first week of September, the RAF must have been down to their last 2 - 300 machines. The facts were quite different and illustrate the errors in German analysis - they believed their own hubristic claims, as you seem to be doing, Koopernic, on the evening of 6 September, Fighter Command had over 750 serviceable fighters and 1,381 pilots available, of around 950 flew Spits and Hurris.

'Onkel Theo' Osterkamp pointed out right at the start that in order to subdue the RAF (specifically Fighter Command, presumably) the Luftwaffe Jagdgruppen needed a very high kill ratio (Osterkamp and Kesselring were by far the best of the German strategists and both were realistic about their chances, as opposed to the likes of Fink and Goring himself), but the figures speak for themselves. Although the Bf 109 pilots achieved favourable kill ratios, it wasn't enough and in terms of actual losses Fighter Command wasn't suffering nearly as much as the Germans were claiming or had estimated they would in pre-planning (there's that hubris again).

Between mid July and the end of September the Luftwaffe only achieved a favourable kill to loss ratio on 5 days fighting, the highest being 4:1 on 28 September, with 16 RAF losses against 4 Luftwaffe ones, and of those five days, the average being a 1.3 to 1 ratio. Otherwise,_ every other day _within that time period Fighter Command had a greater kill to loss ratio, which means that overall, throughout the majority of the Battle of Britain period, bar those five days,* the British shot down more German aeroplanes than the Germans shot down British ones*.

Stephen Bungay, whose numbers I'm quoting here - they come from among other things monthly Luftwaffe personnel records for fighter units, so German ones, not just British, has this to say in his analysis; (P.370) "The Luftwaffe was soundly beaten in the air-fighting. The defences never weakened in their ability to meet any raid in whatever strength was necessary, whilst the German fighter arm was wearing itself out."

As for the example of the Germans failing to stop the convoy, the point still stands, it wasn't as easy as anyone thought at the time. The Luftwaffe came out well below expectations, with greater losses than its commanders predicted and the convoy went unscathed. That is far more telling than any presumption on your part.

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## nuuumannn (Dec 30, 2020)

The one question I have, Koopernic, with all your optimism and belief in the superiority of the German machine over the British, tell me, why didn't the Germans win? 

If Sealion was going to be successful, why were its most senior commanders, Raeder and his sub commanders - it wasn't a sense of humour, mate, don't kid yourself; you misunderstand that very German characteristic of being blunt and obtuse in the face of authority, when the authority is wrong about something - all claiming it would have been a disaster? It always makes me cringe when I read that back in 1940 even those planning it could see that it was a disaster waiting to happen, yet Nazi fanboys round the world today in front of their computers insist it would have worked!


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## pbehn (Dec 30, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> The one question I have, Koopernic, with all your optimism and belief in the superiority of the German machine over the British, tell me, why didn't the Germans win?
> 
> If Sealion was going to be successful, why were its most senior commanders, Raeder and his sub commanders - it wasn't a sense of humour, mate, don't kid yourself; you misunderstand that very German characteristic of being blunt and obtuse in the face of authority, when the authority is wrong about something - all claiming it would have been a disaster? It always makes me cringe when I read that back in 1940 even those planning it could see that it was a disaster waiting to happen, yet Nazi fanboys round the world today in front of their computers insist it would have worked!


Once you impose a requirement of achieving air superiority then your other plans can be as fanciful as you like. The RAF were never going to hand a victory on a plate and if they had an attempt would be made to bomb London into a political settlement. Supplies landed to support the allies in Normandy averaged at 1 ton per month for each soldier. I cant see that Sealion could have worked even if the UK had no air force or navy. Once the initial landings have taken place how do you land the ammunition fuel and everything else needed from barges, how do you get the injured back? Once you involve the UK navy it has no chance. If you involve the RAF it has no chance, the front line strength of monoplane fighters was one thing, the number of planes and pilots military and civilian who were capable of taking off and strafing a beach is another.

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## nuuumannn (Dec 30, 2020)

pbehn said:


> Once you impose a requirement of achieving air superiority then your other plans can be as fanciful as you like.



Yup, I know this, so do you. It appears that so many do not despite the fact that even the German commanders involved thought it ridiculous.


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## special ed (Dec 30, 2020)

I normally don't participate in these discussions, so I only want to throw in the experiences of the Japanese trying to reinforce Guadalcanal with barges. The Cactus air force slaughtered the troops even to the point of one pilot throwing hand grenades into the barges. The Japanese navy and Air Force were still a viable adversary.


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## pbehn (Dec 30, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> Yup, I know this, so do you. It appears that so many do not despite the fact that even the German commanders involved thought it ridiculous.


If someone like Adolf or uncle Joe tell you to come up with a plan, you come up with a plan, it may change your life chances if you don't. So they came up with a plan that put everything on Herman's ability to do what he boasted he would and could do. It is as much politics as it is military planning, what would have happened if the RAF made a tactical retreat, as William did at Hastings, the carnage could have put paid to Barbarossa because Hitler would have to choose which branch of the military he would sacrifice to save other branches, as he did at Stalingrad later but pretty much lost the lot. The problem is that now we have maps and plans produced and hard copy makes things seem real. Some of the plans with arrows and lines even naming armies divisions and commanders overlook the nonsense of using tugs and barges some of them towed on journeys in open sea of 100 miles or a 200 mile round trip with hours taken to embark and disembark.


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## Koopernic (Dec 30, 2020)

Admiral Beez said:


> The Germans ignorance or neglect of geography was their undoing. The English Channel and Russian Winter, these are known geographic challenges that have defeated previous invasion attempts, challenges that need to be planned for in advance.



The Germans were very aware of both. Fully aware at all levels.


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## Admiral Beez (Dec 30, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> The Germans were very aware of both. Fully aware at all levels.


Aware? Perhaps. But they made no plans for either. Sealion‘s success assumed the Channel and the RN waiting therein would let the barges pass. Barbarossa‘s success assumed the Russians would roll over before the rasputitsa and winter. But the Germans made no plans to bring these assumptions, as flawed as they were to reality.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 30, 2020)

There is no reason that the original German plans could not have been changed. Size and number of landing sites for example. Greater use of German warships instead of the big diversion. 
However there were certainly limits to the changes that could have been made in forces available. 

Germans had about 3 months after the fall of France to get their act together in regards to the ships/boats available. 
The 9 divisions (or more or less) alloted to the invasion need some time to rebuild, re-equip and resupply depending on losses in French campaign. Yes they can do some preliminary training during this time. Germans did one daylight landing exercise and it was a fiasco. 

Most of the Luftwaffe is trying to defeat the RAF during this time period, not trying to turn into an anti-shipping force although they did get some practice in the _Kanalkampf_ .
And again, the Luftwaffe can only do so much. 

There is a lot of talk about mining the Channel, a lot less talk about how mines would be needed, how long and what was going to lay them, assuming of course that the thousands of mines (or tens of thousands) are actually available. 

Much has been argued about German shore batteries. While the channel is 21 miles wide at it's narrowest it gets bigger quicker.
to the North of Dover it is 36.4 miles from Ramsgate (14.4 miles from Dover) to Grand-Fort-Philippe (11 miles east of Calais) 
From the easternmost point above Ramsgate it is 64.4 miles to Ostend. 
going the other way it is 67 miles from Eastbourne to Dieppe 
it is 79 miles from Brighton to Etretat (14 miles north of Le Havre. 

German shore batteries would have influence on a very small part of the Channel and only a small number of rare guns are able to shoot across the even the Dover Straight. 
BTW trying to shoot moving ships with rail road guns requires a lot of luck or divine intervention. Most railroad guns have such limited traverse on carriage that only a few shells could be fired at a ship without the railroad gun having to be shifted along a curved track with either a locomotive or winches.

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## PAT303 (Dec 31, 2020)

The only thing the Germans would have achieved if they went ahead with operation Sealion is cause the war to end in 1941 instead of 1945.

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## Snautzer01 (Dec 31, 2020)

PAT303 said:


> The only thing the Germans would have achieved if they went ahead with operation Sealion is cause the war to end in 1941 instead of 1945.


Certainly not. Germany suffered distruction of complete army groups, was pushed out of Africa etc and kept fighting. So a lost big battle so early will not make the reich fall apart. Nor will England be capable to do much at this time. Dieppe was not a glorious victory now was it. And that was 1942.


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## fastmongrel (Dec 31, 2020)

PAT303 said:


> The only thing the Germans would have achieved if they went ahead with operation Sealion is cause the war to end in 1941 instead of 1945.



It would be a defeat for Germany but they are only going to lose say 150,000 men plus equipment. Compared to the Russian campaign that's barely a statistic worth writing down.

What I can see it butterflying away is any German troops in Africa.


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## Koopernic (Dec 31, 2020)

Admiral Beez said:


> Aware? Perhaps. But they made no plans for either. Sealion‘s success assumed the Channel and the RN waiting therein would let the barges pass. Barbarossa‘s success assumed the Russians would roll over before the rasputitsa and winter. But the Germans made no plans to bring these assumptions, as flawed as they were to reality.



That's right. They made no plans for invading Britain because they had no intention to do so, that is why they had no long range aircraft or amphibious assault landing craft at all. Likewise they made no serious plans to invade the Soviet Union because they also had no intention to. No, they weren't dumb or unaware. Every German Officer studied Napoleons very similar defeat. Prussian Officers such as the von Clausewitz himself worked with the Tsars Armies in defeating Napoleon. The weather, raspadura and logistical difficulties were understood. Before Barbarossa it was understood that German Forces and Germany had the resources to get no further than about 1/4 of the way into the USSR before running into manpower resource and logistical impossibilities. Halder was hoping for a political collapse by capturing Moscow, Hitler was focused on Grozny/Crimea to get the oil and resources needed to sustain a war, even that oil wouldn't have produced a victory.

Conflict with the Soviet Union and Bolshevism was a legitimate fear, not an intention. I realise I'm beyond the pale here has far as the narrative of p the haughty establishment historians but as Henry Ford noted History is Bunk. By which he meant its as much manipulated for the common masses as the current media narrative.


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## Koopernic (Dec 31, 2020)

Marcel said:


> The barges were hardly seaworthy and had to be towed. I read somewhere that it would take the barges 1.5 days at least to cross the Channel. The Royal Navy only had to send a couple of destroyers to sail through the formation at full speed in order to sink a substantial amount of German barges.
> I the end, to say the Germans were ill prepared to conquer the UK is an understatement. The BoB while impressive in it’s own right was a mere sideshow and a nice propaganda victory for the the British. It was t device for the invasion whatsoever as the Germans had defeated themselves in this regard so to speak, long before they reached Dunkirk.



A Rhine River Ship can have a displacement of as much as 1100 tons. These ships sometimes entered the Baltic or travelled even further, A Rhine Barge could carry several tanks and might be 150 tons. Medieveal Cogs of 180-250 tons travelled up the Rhine 300km to Cologne. I have the impression that people think its like the impressive system of British canals such as the one carrying barges across the *Pontcysyllte Aqueduct* . These were much bigger vessels with much more freeboard and several types likely built for the sea.
s.


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## pbehn (Dec 31, 2020)

Koopernic said:


> A Rhine River Ship can have a displacement of as much as 1100 tons. These ships sometimes entered the Baltic or travelled even further, A Rhine Barge could carry several tanks and might be 150 tons. Medieveal Cogs of 180-250 tons travelled up the Rhine 300km to Cologne. I have the impression that people think its like the impressive system of British canals such as the one carrying barges across the *Pontcysyllte Aqueduct* . These were much bigger vessels with much more freeboard and several types likely built for the sea.
> s.
> View attachment 606872


Whatever your impression is people are individuals. I have worked all over Europe especially northern Europe. I used to cross the Elbe Seiten canal and witnessed loading of cargo in Wittingen which went straight to Wick in North Scotland but on a sea going vessel not a barge, when shipping in winter the cargo went either by road and ferry or to Hamburg. The picture you show is a narrow boat, my brother has one, you can actually cross the channel in one and people have. You can swim across the channel or paddle in a canoe, you can also die if you get the sea state wrong. When I think of barges at the time I think of the pictures already posted here or of Thames sailing barges and Dutch coasters as used in the evacuation of Dunkirk.


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## JDCAVE (Dec 31, 2020)

I'll weigh in on this one. I am now retired from a career in quantitative Biology. I used Bayesian methods to estimate abundance of salmon and also build quantitative models of fisheries on migrating salmon. At one point I build a Monte Carlo based simulation model exploring variation in reproductive and exploitation rate parameters as well as run timing on possible outcomes.

First, as near as I have been, this model is not published, nor is it peer review. Furthermore, the authors do not describe the model, how it is parameterized, but in particular, HOW THE UNDERLYING UNCERTAINTY is parameterized. That's pretty critical. Without that information, I am left with a lot of questions.

But all the math, not withstanding RCAFson nailed the major issue: "I don't think it means much because it makes assumptions without regard to potential RAF countermeasures." For every action the German Command might take, there would be a reaction on the part of the RAF and other commands.

The Luftwaffe, had just finished a campaign to support the invasion of France, Holland and Belgium. They did so with aircraft best suited for the support of a land campaign. They immediately turned towards an air campaign over Britain. They were ill-prepared, the campaign was largely unplanned, and they lacked a capable "strategic bomber" fleet or a long-range fighter. Although the RAF had a greater task of conducting a strategic bombing campaign over Germany, it wasn't really until 1943 that they were able to achieve significant success and not until the fall of 1944 that they had the upper hand. And of course there were many failures along the way.

If the Luftwaffe continued attacks on airfield in the south of England they would have continued to suffer great attrition. Airfields are very small targets difficult to find at night and even harder to hit.

What about my "Monte Carlo based simulation model exploring variation in reproductive and exploitation rate parameters as well as run timing on possible outcomes?" It suffered from the same flaw that RCAFson described: it suffered from lack of reactions of fisheries managers to variation any particular parameter. Therein was its Achilles heel.

Jim

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## pbehn (Dec 31, 2020)

JDCAVE said:


> I'll weigh in on this one. I am now retired from a career in quantitative Biology. I used Bayesian methods to estimate abundance of salmon and also build quantitative models of fisheries on migrating salmon. At one point I build a Monte Carlo based simulation model exploring variation in reproductive and exploitation rate parameters as well as run timing on possible outcomes.
> 
> First, as near as I have been, this model is not published, nor is it peer review. Furthermore, the authors do not describe the model, how it is parameterized, but in particular, HOW THE UNDERLYING UNCERTAINTY is parameterized. That's pretty critical. Without that information, I am left with a lot of questions.
> 
> ...


Great post, as far as the bold part, German high command did try almost everything, re running the battle with differing tactics is almost always the same tactics but with experience learned from post war records. Attacking airfields is obvious but that is what the hardest day was about, both sides suffered their highest losses but the LW suffered most. Attacking radar is also obvious now, it wasn't at the time because you need to knock at least three probably 5 adjacent stations, they are difficult to actually knock out and you can invite the RAF to a Stuka party in the process. It is fair comment to suggest what the LW could have done better, it is not fair comment to assume Dowding and Park would be overcome with terminal stupidity and start doing things they never had done in the past. In any case in a "what if" , all the RAF had to do historically was to remove Leigh Mallory and forget talk of big wings under Bader.


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## fastmongrel (Dec 31, 2020)

If Germany wants to invade Britain successfully it needs to start preparing in 1935. They also need British intelligence to get a fatal attack of stupidity so as not to notice all the prototype landing craft being built and tested.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 31, 2020)

What landing craft??
In 1935 Germany starts digging a tunnel in the basement of a Belgian Nazi's house near the French border. 
By 1940 the Germans just march through the tunnel and pop up in Margate, no fuss, no muss. 
As construction advanced air tubes for ventilation were disguised as recue buoys.


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## PAT303 (Dec 31, 2020)

fastmongrel said:


> It would be a defeat for Germany but they are only going to lose say 150,000 men plus equipment. Compared to the Russian campaign that's barely a statistic worth writing down



A defeat that would totally change the outcome of the war, the world was scared of Germany in 1940 as they crushed every country in front of them, having there advance stopped and their army at the bottom of the channel would put them on the defensive, the Luftwaffe would take a beating, they were weaker after the BoB as the RAF became stronger and they would have to fight over British territory day after day because the RAF would be strafing the beach head day after day, the Luftwaffe would be ground into a pulp, the Kriegsmarine would be totally and completely destroyed, again they would have to fight and having destroyers and a couple of cruisers facing off against a battle line of 15'' and 16'' battleships means every German ship sunk, the RN would not let them get away once engaged, they would chase them all the way back to their home bases and destroy them. It's not a matter of loosing an Army, the Germans would be forced to commit their entire depleted Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine forces to protect the convoys and beach head, which means their complete and total destruction.


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## Koopernic (Jan 1, 2021)

Happy new year everybody,

I'm not attached to the idea that the Luftwaffe could have won "the Battle of Britain". Nor do I think it plausible that by continuing to attack RAF bases they could have attired the RAF to the point of a spiralling collapse due to pilot and aircraft losses *because* the bulk of Britain was out of reach of the Luftwaffe fighters which would always allow the RAF a space for training, harbouring resources, developing, testing and manufacturing aircraft. That would require the *Luftwaffe to get everything right all of the time* and the RAF to get *most decisions wrong most of the time. *

I also think that SeaLion was an logistical impossibility in 1940 given the Germans had only 3 months to prepare for it before extremely difficult winter weather set in and were starting with essentially zero amphibious landing craft. They did remarkably even respectably well improvising a plausible plan based on using large river barges and ships. In Spring 1941 they could have been ready with hundreds of specialised amphibious landing craft, Ju 52 and Me 321/322/323 Gliders but that was not possible since resources were now dedicated to operation Barbarossa. I can see that 200 Ju 52/3m could for instance transport about 20,000 men or 2000 tons of supplies per day, maybe 50% more.

If the narrative is that "the few" narrowly saved Britain by winning the "Battle of Britain" then it is legitimate to argue that minor changes in German strategy might have tipped the balance. I can't see that it was a problem in strategy since it was a problem of equipment rather than strategy.

The Germans used drop tank equipped He 51 during the Spanish civil war. The He 112 had this capability and the concept had been first implemented in Germany in WW1 with the Siemens-Schuckert D.VI. The first series production Emils the Me 109E1 had a variant known as the Me 109E1B which had a bomb rack and Me 109 could be fitted with non jetisonable external tanks.

With the flick of a bureaucratic pen it could have been decreed that all Me 109E2 or at least E3/E4 would be equipped with drop tank capability and it would not have cost the Germans any delays or resources of consequence. Indeed it would have immensely helped their campaigns in Poland, Norway and France as well.

So the question is where does this narrative or narrow defeat come from. Is it credible? Was it a politicking or posturing from Park or Dowding?

Increasing the fuel capacity of the Me 109 from 400L to 700L by 75% increases range about 60%. The time spent over the UK goes up much more, about 100% and the area over the US the Me 109 could operate goes up by 2-3. Twice as many Me 109 over the UK for their 2-3 times as long. That swings things quite a lot.

As far as the Fw 187 goes it could have been built in numbers as great as the Me 110 so long as the DB601 engines were allocated. The Fw 187 was much lighter than the Me 110 and would have been faster than the Me 109 or Spitfire and thus a competitive dog fighter.

There were significant impediments in getting ready for SeaLion.

It could only occur in 1941.

Coastal Artillery had to be set up, mine fields, air superiority maintained, the German Navy built up with suitable escort vessels.


Scharnhorst was 28,600 yds. distant at 1632 when she opened fire on the aircraft carrier Glorious
Her third salvo hit Glorious at 1638.
Scharnhorst was 26,465 yds. distant or slightly less from the Glorious between 1636 and 1638.
According to NAVWEAPS scharnhorsts guns had a range of 44760 yards at 40 degrees. So Scharnhorst could engage at 60% of her maximum range.


The 15 inch guns of Bismarck as (as coastal artillery firing a reduced projectile )45,932 yards (42,000 m) so one could assume that this type of gun could protect out to 30,000 yards given the infinitely better sighting, optics, range finding triangulation possible.

This protects the German Invasion force only 1/2 to 1/4 of the way across the channel.

By 1941 the German navy would be rebuilt. It only has to keep at bay Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boats and destroyers while the Luftwaffe deals with the Cruisers and Battle ships.


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## PAT303 (Jan 1, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> Her third salvo hit Glorious at 1638.



Your comparing an poorly handled aircraft carrier armed with AAA guns with a battleship armed with nine 11'' guns.


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## PAT303 (Jan 1, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> By 1941 the German navy would be rebuilt. It only has to keep at bay Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boats and destroyers while the Luftwaffe deals with the Cruisers and Battle ships



German navy rebuilt to a stage that it could match the RN in 12-18 months?, the Luftwaffe will deal with cruisers and battleships both day and night with over 700 Spitfires and Hurricanes on front line squadrons?.



Koopernic said:


> The 15 inch guns of Bismarck as (as coastal artillery firing a reduced projectile )45,932 yards (42,000 m) so one could assume that this type of gun could protect out to 30,000 yards given the infinitely better sighting, optics, range finding triangulation possible.



All that sighting equipment will achieve is to miss more accurately, the British will have PR Spit's over those positions within 24hrs and bombers not long after.


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## Koopernic (Jan 1, 2021)

pbehn said:


> Great post, as far as the bold part, German high command did try almost everything, re running the battle with differing tactics is almost always the same tactics but with experience learned from post war records. Attacking airfields is obvious but that is what the hardest day was about, both sides suffered their highest losses but the LW suffered most. Attacking radar is also obvious now, it wasn't at the time because you need to knock at least three probably 5 adjacent stations, they are difficult to actually knock out and you can invite the RAF to a Stuka party in the process. It is fair comment to suggest what the LW could have done better, it is not fair comment to assume Dowding and Park would be overcome with terminal stupidity and start doing things they never had done in the past. In any case in a "what if" , all the RAF had to do historically was to remove Leigh Mallory and forget talk of big wings under Bader.



The 2.5 meter Chain Home Low system was already operating at likely to plug many of those gaps as well. Some had quite small towers hard to spot.


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## pbehn (Jan 1, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> The 2.5 meter Chain Home Low system was already operating at likely to plug many of those gaps as well. Some had quite small towers hard to spot.


There were temporary and portable systems plus the system could be repaired fairly quickly, it was low tech deliberately so that it used many readily available parts. This was a new part of warfare, things like RADAR and oil production had to be continually attacked because the people operating them immediately started repairing the damage.


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## Koopernic (Jan 1, 2021)

fastmongrel said:


> If Germany wants to invade Britain successfully it needs to start preparing in 1935. They also need British intelligence to get a fatal attack of stupidity so as not to notice all the prototype landing craft being built and tested.



Germany was careful to not alarm Britain in any way.
1 The German Navy was thinking in terms of 12 inch or 13 inch guns for Scharnhorst. Hitler advised the German Navy to use 11 inches as it would not alarm the British and he wanted to get the Anglo-German Naval Treaty through. 11,12 and 15 are the traditional German naval calibres. The 12" was in fact developed but eventually only developed for coastal artillery.
2 Hitler explicitly forbade the German armed forces from making plans for an invasion of Britain as he said it would be an insult to his diplomatic skills. This may have had quite an effect if one thinks about it.
3 Prior to the war the e USA were claiming that the Luftwaffe could bomb the USA. American journalists in fact directly pressed Goering on the matter and he made mocked the idea as ridiculous pointing to the massive resources that would be required, that little result would be achieved for the expenditure and that US defences would not be expensive. I He was 100% sincere about this at the time. An interest in a bomber to reach the US only developed in 1940 after defacto US entry into the war. Nevertheless it suited some interests in the USA. The arrival of a Fw 200S (actually the modified Fw 200 V1) in a direct flight from Berlin to New York against prevailing winds was used by Happ Arnold to lobby for more funding for the USAAF saying it was only a matter of time (before bombers could reach the USA). 

German fears of provoking the UK or USA clearly had a significant effect in focusing German military preparations away from long range aviation and naval warfare.

They also made sense. France was a powerful adversary and the Battle of France a close run thing. Even Italy was an adversary over the Tyrol issue and Poland had huge potential as an adversary. Russia had attempted to invade in 1919 under Trotsky.

Any focus on preparing for warfare with the UK (amphibious assault capability, Ju 89's) detract from Germany's ability to defend itself from France (which had marched into the Rhineland) previously.






PAT303 said:


> A defeat that would totally change the outcome of the war, the world was scared of Germany in 1940 as they crushed every country in front of them, having there advance stopped and their army at the bottom of the channel would put them on the defensive, the Luftwaffe would take a beating, they were weaker after the BoB as the RAF became stronger and they would have to fight over British territory day after day because the RAF would be strafing the beach head day after day, the Luftwaffe would be ground into a pulp, the Kriegsmarine would be totally and completely destroyed, again they would have to fight and having destroyers and a couple of cruisers facing off against a battle line of 15'' and 16'' battleships means every German ship sunk, the RN would not let them get away once engaged, they would chase them all the way back to their home bases and destroy them. It's not a matter of loosing an Army, the Germans would be forced to commit their entire depleted Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine forces to protect the convoys and beach head, which means their complete and total destruction.



I though the premises is that the Luftwaffe has air superiority? That makes the RN task much more difficult.

Note also that the Germany Army or rather Luftwaffe FLAK that accompanied it in the early phases was well known to have been very well prepared with FLAK to protect its troops. The 2.0cm C30 canon was practical, quite accurate because of good ballistics, a stable solid had cranked base operated by men who had developed the art of cranking these weapons in elevation and train. FLAK was a significant factor in the defeat of the French Airforce and made life hard for the RAF in France. There were also 3.7cm guns 3.7cm FLAK 36 and the versatile 8.8 cm FLAK 37 but the 2,0cm guns would take a toll in any RAF attempts to straff. The Problem of FLAK is having enough guns to defend everything that might be attacked by roaming aircraft but if its a beach head the FLAK can be concentrated there.

Note also that the Luftwaffe had a demountable form of Freya that would be set up on the Invasion beaches within a day or two. They had used Frey LZ in the Norweighen campaign.

There would be no 'surprise' attacks.



PAT303 said:


> Your comparing an poorly handled aircraft carrier armed with AAA guns with a battleship armed with nine 11'' guns.



I'm not fighting the British on the side of the Germans. I was merely establishing that German Navy Coastal Batteries could be established that were capable of dealing with British Battleships and Cruisers out to 30,000 yards (27km). Again coastal guns are extremely difficult targets and premise is that the RAF has lost air superiority.

Whether or not about enough 15 inch and 11 inch guns could be put into service (I estimate 40-80 needed) is another matter. If they can the Coastal Batteries can keep RN Cruisers and Battleships 25km-30km from the French coast.

Within the minded of zone the German Navy and Airforce would need to protect the invasion fleet. Radar equipped German Navy Cruisers Destroyers would need to be there at night to detect and control interception of RN small craft. U-boats outside the mine fields perimeter would be a hazard to any major units of the Royal Navy. U-boats could be safe in the event of Luftwaffe air superiority.



PAT303 said:


> German navy rebuilt to a stage that it could match the RN in 12-18 months?, the Luftwaffe will deal with cruisers and battleships both day and night with over 700 Spitfires and Hurricanes on front line squadrons?.
> 
> All that sighting equipment will achieve is to miss more accurately, the British will have PR Spit's over those positions within 24hrs and bombers not long after.




The premise is that the RAF has lost air superiority but lets consider your postulate. Hitting a gun emplacement within bomb proof concrete is likely to be unsscessufull or very costly. The multipurpose FLAK would also make it costly to the RAF and help the Luftwaffe attrite the RAF. Yes destruction could be achieved but at what cost?

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## Koopernic (Jan 1, 2021)

pbehn said:


> There were temporary and portable systems plus the system could be repaired fairly quickly, it was low tech deliberately so that it used many readily available parts. This was a new part of warfare, things like RADAR and oil production had to be continually attacked because the people operating them immediately started repairing the damage.



The Germans captured a number of portable British radars in the Battle of France. This is how they knew of British radar.


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## PAT303 (Jan 1, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> I though the premises is that the Luftwaffe has air superiority?



How could the Luftwaffe get air superiority?, even with planes they never made and drop tanks for the ones they did the RAF could stay out of reach and attack on it's terms.


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## PAT303 (Jan 1, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> Again coastal guns are extremely difficult targets and premise is that the RAF has lost air superiority.



Extremely difficult compared to what, a maneuvering battleship 30,000 yards away?.


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## pbehn (Jan 1, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> The Germans captured a number of portable British radars in the Battle of France. This is how they new of British radar.


The Germans flew up the UK coast in a Zeppelin with sensing equipment plotting Chain Home before the war started, any German visitor to England could see the towers, it was not secret at all.


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## Graeme (Jan 1, 2021)

Shortround6 said:


> What landing craft??
> In 1935 Germany starts digging a tunnel in the basement of a Belgian Nazi's house near the French border.
> By 1940 the Germans just march through the tunnel and pop up in Margate, no fuss, no muss.



Or once dug - just plant a big bomb under London...

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## Koopernic (Jan 1, 2021)

pbehn said:


> The Germans flew up the UK coast in a Zeppelin with sensing equipment plotting Chain Home before the war started, any German visitor to England could see the towers, it was not secret at all.



i believe that Chain Home was switched of for maintenance that day but the German Navy had already gathered significant data. The claim that the Germans did not know of British radar is mythical. They may have under-appreciated its impact, which is fair enough. They did perhaps have initial problems determining its frequency Since their own sets operated at 50, 70 and 2.4m. I think the sets captured in France operated at half chain homes frequency.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 1, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> Increasing the fuel capacity of the Me 109 from 400L to 700L by 75% increases range about 60%. The time spent over the UK goes up much more, about 100% and the area over the US the Me 109 could operate goes up by 2-3. Twice as many Me 109 over the UK for their 2-3 times as long. That swings things quite a lot.


In Theory, yes. in practice???
Much like the Americans found out in 1943, you need a bunch of fighters operating in relays. It isn't going to take the defence (British here) very long to realise that if they engage the drop tank equipped escorts early in the flight they have to drop the tanks with useable fuel in them and thus shorten their range and endurance. Drop tanks will help the 109s considerably ( they can at least arrive over the coast with near full internal fuel ( warm and take off is always done on internal fuel) which will help quite a bit. If the British wait to engage then the operational radius does get better. But planning on being able to carry the drop tanks to near exhaustion is bad planning. 



Koopernic said:


> It could only occur in 1941.
> Coastal Artillery had to be set up, mine fields, air superiority maintained, the German Navy built up with suitable escort vessels.



Coastal artillery not only needs to be set up, it needs to be built (or dug out of storage). 
It took a number of weeks just to set the available German railroad guns. The Germans did have a number of battleship guns from WW I that were used for coastal defence. 
Construction of batterie Todt was begun in July of 1940, it was not completed until Jan of 1942. It may have been capable of firing at some point in 1941. 
The mine fields are a subject of debate and speculation. Both sides used mine fields in the channel for much of the war to either hinder the enemy shipping or protect their own. However local mine fields of a few kilometers or few dozen are not the same as a mine field intended to block the entire width of the channel at points removed from Dover. Coastal batteries can protect local (your side of the channel) mine fields from being swept (or raise the cost substantially). They can do very little for minefields laid near the enemy coast or in the "open" channel. The British have a huge advantage in numbers of available ships (fishing boats) available for mine sweeping. 

Escort vessels covers a huge range. Many of the British trawlers were considered escort vessels, One gun capable of dueling with a submarine deck gun, a few machine guns for AA defence (rather laughable but one or more 20mms were fitted later) a depth charge rack and perhaps sonar (primitive?) and you have an anti-sub escort, rather useless if the primary threat is aircraft. British have huge advantage in numbers of destroyers so any escort vessel intended to fight them needs a much better surface armament than a trawler or minesweeper conversion. two 105cm guns vs four 4.7in isn't going to cut it. How much AA is needed depends on how well the the luftwaffe can maintain air supremacy (not air superiority) 
British also have some semi-expendable C and D class cruisers. 
!940 S-boats are not as well armed as the later boats. 1941 armament? The early boats had one 20mm, the pre war boats had two 20mm and many of the early war boats (or rearmed 
ones had the German naval 37mm gun which was crap for this type of fighting. The Germans did have the 37mm Flak 36/37 but that required a different mount/deck space. It was done. The German 20mm guns weren't that great either for Naval AA or small craft night fighting. 

Building hulls from new is going to take time and compete with the landing craft program.

and the British are doing what over the winter of 1940/41 in regards to beach defences, equipping the land army and figuring out what they need for a bitter channel fight? 
Please note that the British added about 20 Hunt class escort destroyers to the fleet in 1940/early 1941, a few Black Swan type sloops and most of the N class destroyers and a few of the larger L and Ms. Four Dido class cruisers were completed in 1940 and a few more in the Spring of 1941. 

While the Germans might be a lot stronger in the spring/summer of 1941 (forgoing the Russian adventure) the British would also be much stronger. 




Koopernic said:


> According to NAVWEAPS scharnhorsts guns had a range of 44760 yards at 40 degrees. So Scharnhorst could engage at 60% of her maximum range.





Koopernic said:


> The 15 inch guns of Bismarck as (as coastal artillery firing a reduced projectile )45,932 yards (42,000 m) so one could assume that this type of gun could protect out to 30,000 yards given the infinitely better sighting, optics, range finding triangulation possible.



Land based guns can shoot accurately much further than ship mounted guns. They are not rolling, pitching and yawing and they are NOT moving hundreds of yards between shots. 
however this assumes a stable land mounting, which railroad guns were sometimes not. 
https://imgur.com/gallery/j7oQtkL





Koopernic said:


> By 1941 the German navy would be rebuilt. It only has to keep at bay Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boats and destroyers while the Luftwaffe deals with the Cruisers and Battle ships.



Really? 
Even in 1941 the German Luftwaffe does NOT have the capability of sinking Cruisers, Battleships and Destroyers at night. Even at 20 kts the British can start and end a mission 100NM from the target area at night and have 1-2 hours of engagement time. faster speeds increase either the distance to/from bases or increase time in target zone. 
While the Luftwaffe may very well dominate the air space over the invasion sites and approaches the idea they can dominate the air space over a 250-300 NM area to extent that British ships cannon be at sea in dawn or dusk conditions at the limits seems rather incredible. 

The rebuilt German navy would consist of what? 
Strength of the German Navy fluctuates rather widely depending on what historical missions were done or not done.

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## pinehilljoe (Jan 1, 2021)

In "With wings like Eagles" Michael Korda wrote that Milch had proposed the day after Dunkerque fell with the British Army in disarray, to immediately use every Ju-52 to fly as many troops over as possible nightly, secure an airfield and a port and follow up with more sea borne troops. Germany may not have been able to conquer Britain, but peace negotiations may have gone differently with several thousand German troops in Kent.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 1, 2021)

Or even differently with several thousand German prisoners of war in Kent. 
Unless they seize an airfield _first, _landing troops by Ju 52, STOL as it may have been was going to lead to a very high attrition rate of the JU 52s, trying to land and take off in Kent farm fields. 
The entire British army was NOT in France in May/June of 1940, although many of the units in England may have been under strength and not well trained. 

Seizing a Port for a few hours or a few days sounds a lot easier than it would have been. although the seizing would have been the easy part. Getting a decent number of German troops onto ships/large boats and getting them to the port that was seized without getting shot up by what was left of the Royal Navy after Dunkerque would be the hard part.


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## Admiral Beez (Jan 1, 2021)

fastmongrel said:


> It would be a defeat for Germany but they are only going to lose say 150,000 men plus equipment. Compared to the Russian campaign that's barely a statistic worth writing down.
> 
> What I can see it butterflying away is any German troops in Africa.


It will be the end for Hitler. To sail 150,000 men into the Channel where they are, almost to a man killed by the Royal Navy will be a massive blow to Hitler’s standing with the General Staff, especially after hundreds of aircraft and pilots have been wasted in the BoB. And then there’s a massive propaganda boost for the British, the huzzahs of the returning RN warships will be heard in Calais, and you can imagine Churchill’s radio broadcast announcing the national greatest naval victory since the Spanish Armada (or Trafalgar). German dead will be washing up upon on the shores of the UK and of occupied France for weeks. 

Hitler will look ridiculous to the German people, and weak to other leaders, especially Stalin, but also to FDR, Mussolini, plus Hitler’s intended allies the Finns, Romanians, Croats, etc. and to Japan. My guess, is Hitler is assassinated by the OKH (or a purged OKW) and most of the Nazi leadership (Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, Hess, Bormann, etc.) are arrested, tried and quickly shot by the General Staff. Barbarossa likely never occurs. Those 150,000 Germans drowned in the English Channel in 1940 might have saved millions from 1941-45.

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## pbehn (Jan 1, 2021)

pinehilljoe said:


> In "With wings like Eagles" Michael Korda wrote that Milch had proposed the day after Dunkerque fell with the British Army in disarray, to immediately use every Ju-52 to fly as many troops over as possible nightly, secure an airfield and a port and follow up with more sea borne troops. Germany may not have been able to conquer Britain, but peace negotiations may have gone differently with several thousand German troops in Kent.


It sounds like a plausible plan until you look at the losses Ju52s suffered just from ground fire and "operations" in Norway Netherlands and Crete. The other thing is that there isn't really a "night time" in Dover in June. Civil twilight, that is where it is light enough to do most things lasts from 4AM to midnight, it is only dark enough to give cover of darkness for about 2 hours. Floating transport planes towards the centre of UKs air and coastal defences is a great idea for someone else to try.

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## glennasher (Jan 1, 2021)

pinehilljoe said:


> In "With wings like Eagles" Michael Korda wrote that Milch had proposed the day after Dunkerque fell with the British Army in disarray, to immediately use every Ju-52 to fly as many troops over as possible nightly, secure an airfield and a port and follow up with more sea borne troops. Germany may not have been able to conquer Britain, but peace negotiations may have gone differently with several thousand German troops in Kent.



First you'd have to drop paratroops to seize the airfields before beginning an air-land excursion, and Crete put that idea to death. It seldom works against seasoned troops. It works in third world countries, sometimes, Grenada comes to mind, but the overall concept usually results in disaster. Paratroops are too lightly armed to make a good go of it. (I speak as a former 82nd Abn Trooper, BTW). In addition to losing most of the Ju-52s in inventory, you'd lose the paratroops AND the troops being airlanded. That idea ain't gonna fly.

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## Shortround6 (Jan 1, 2021)

Unless the Germans change their parachute doctrine/tactics in 1940 instead of AFTER Crete the suggested operations are going to be a disaster.
German paratroopers dropped with a 9mm pistol and two 8 round magazines and a few concussion grenades. Rifles, submachine guns, MG-34 machine guns, light mortars(?) and such normal company weapons were in containers that the Paratroopers had to find, open, sort through. This was the first priority on landing, ahead of linking up with unit members from the same plane let alone different planes. Initial ammo supplies were also light for the these weapons.

The glider landing troops do have light weapons but number of gliders available in June of 1940? 3-4 weeks after the attack on Holland?

Same for the Ju-52s. Numbers operational in the 2nd week of June after the losses in April and May are going to be much lower than what was available in Sept. after 3-4 months of intensive work by repair organizations.
Using them up doing combat landings as done in Norway and Holland (and later in Crete) is going to leave the reinforce/supply efforts well behind what is need to even engage the Home Guard. 

From Wiki on the battle for Holland
" German Ju 52 total losses in the entire battle amounted to 224, compared to 430 Ju 52s deployed by the airborne troops"

I don't know if that is final losses or if the losses include planes later repaired. However trying to stage an airborne assault on England with only about 200 JU-52s to start with sure seems like a recipe for disaster.


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## pbehn (Jan 1, 2021)

Shortround6 said:


> Unless the Germans change their parachute doctrine/tactics in 1940 instead of AFTER Crete the suggested operations are going to be a disaster.
> German paratroopers dropped with a 9mm pistol and two 8 round magazines and a few concussion grenades. Rifles, submachine guns, MG-34 machine guns, light mortars(?) and such normal company weapons were in containers that the Paratroopers had to find, open, sort through. This was the first priority on landing, ahead of linking up with unit members from the same plane let alone different planes. Initial ammo supplies were also light for the these weapons.
> 
> The glider landing troops do have light weapons but number of gliders available in June of 1940? 3-4 weeks after the attack on Holland?
> ...


The whole fanciful idea rests strongly on the LW taking and keeping open an airfield or just a field in Kent or Sussex and the RAF not doing anything about it, same with the army, navy and home guard. It is as if Kent is some obscure region on the north African coast, Churchill's house, Chartwell is between London and Brighton in Kent.


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## Koopernic (Jan 1, 2021)

Shortround6 said:


> Unless the Germans change their parachute doctrine/tactics in 1940 instead of AFTER Crete the suggested operations are going to be a disaster.
> German paratroopers dropped with a 9mm pistol and two 8 round magazines and a few concussion grenades. Rifles, submachine guns, MG-34 machine guns, light mortars(?) and such normal company weapons were in containers that the Paratroopers had to find, open, sort through. This was the first priority on landing, ahead of linking up with unit members from the same plane let alone different planes. Initial ammo supplies were also light for the these weapons.
> 
> The glider landing troops do have light weapons but number of gliders available in June of 1940? 3-4 weeks after the attack on Holland?
> ...



The Germans did change an evolve their Paratrooper tactics. The outstanding FG42 automatic rifle easily replaced both the MG34 squad machine gun and the K98 bolt action rifle and could be carried by the solider during the drop, of course they needed something in 1940, perhaps a semi-automatic carbine. German airborne forces were very innovative for their time. They could drop a 3.7cm or 5.0cm PAK by multiple parachute, they could land gliders, they could drop ammunition and fuel containers. The fuel container weighed around 250kg and featured 4 55 Litre flat drums that could easily be picked up by handles. they have 75mm and 105mm recoilless canon including hollow charge rounds, light weight aluminium 20mm FLAK and the kettenrad motor cycle half track could be transported by Ju 52 and be used as a tractor to tow artillery.

Of course dropping paratroopers on top of a fully armed soldiers that are prepared (as happened in Crete due to enigma decrypts) is also a disaster as it was when British troops were dropped on top of an SS division in Arnhem. The issue in Holland seems to have been that the Ju 52 were shot up by Dutch FLAK on the ground in many cases. The loss of pilots was devastating to the war effort as these Ju 52 pilots were also flight training instructors and may just have saved Britain it is said by Mosier. I'm not sure why do many Ju 52 were lost in Holland, it seems they just landed at defended Dutch airfields.

The Ju 52 was the best transport available in the world at the time excluding the DC3 but the Ju 52 would serve Germany poorly because of its slow speed and limited range, ineffcient because they were too short of resources to build the Ar 232 or Ju 252.

Used properly over short distances the Ju 52 was effective. I'm assuming each Ju 52 could carry about 2.5 tons or 20 troops per flight to Britain. Allowing for an optimistic 6 flights per day that's 120 troops or 15 tons of cargo per aircraft per day over short distances (100miles/160km). Some 500 Ju 52 were available for the invasion of the Low countries of which 125 were lost. One could thus potentially transport 500 x 15 = 7500 tons of cargo per day or 120 x 500 = 60,000 troops. That's with airfields established, safe from the RAF and everything tightly organised. No refuelling in UK and no loading up apart from wounded.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 1, 2021)

More wonder weapons from 1942/43 to show how the Germans could have won in 1940?

Yes the FG42 automatic rifle was a clever and innovative weapon, it is just two years too late to make a difference in invasion plans for 1940.

AFTER Crete the German paratroopers dropped with rifles and submachine guns in their personal kit, Crete was a disaster for a number of reasons and the British basicly handed the Island over to the Germans through several really dumb mistakes. they did drop 37mm guns in trials in 1940, most if not all of the guns were broken or damaged in the trials. Things got better later. Yes the Germans developed recoilless rifles for their paratroopers but again, first operational use was in Crete too late for this discussion. 

The JU 52s were trying to take the dutch airfields or relieve the paratroops that were supposed to have taken the dutch airfields. The initial parachute assaults had failed for the most part.
The Germans actually had a rather limited number of parachutists. the scholl only graduated about 130 men per month (later there would be 4 schools? and requirements were lowered)
To get the needed number of troops into the combat areas the Germans relied on gliders and the JU 52s to land on supposedly secured airfields. Too often in the early operations the parachutists failed to totally secure the airfields and running short of ammunition and supplies desperately needed reinforcement/supply.


there is a lot of dispute about the Ju 52 losses, "Junkers Aircraft and their Engines" by Antony Kay says (page 119) that 430 Ju 52/3ms and 45 DFS 230s were used in Holland (how many in Belgium?) it also says about 2/3rds were never returned or were badly damaged. About 100 were later repaired or used for spare parts.

This is rather imprecise but does show that having even 250 JU 52s operational just after Dunkirk wasn't close to reality and having 500 in Sept wasn't going to happen either.

See above. The Germans could not have replaced the man power losses in the Dutch/Belgian operations to anywhere near full strength just after dunkirk and even late Sept was doubtful.

Some of the JU 52s that landed at one of the airfields became bogged down. The airfield was not operational yet and the water level in the area had not been lowered.

Edit, BTW in Norway it took 3,018 sorties to deliver 29,289 personnel, 2,376 tons of supplies and equipment (including artillery) and 1,170,000 liters (259,130 gal) of aviation fuel.


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## Glider (Jan 2, 2021)

The British also learned from what happened in France. One of the changes made to the AA defences of the airfields was a requirement that the AA guns should be able to fire at ground targets.
A load of Ju52's would simply be massacred both in the air (remembering that the Luftwaffe were exhausted after the Battle for France) and on the Ground by the defences.

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## Koopernic (Jan 2, 2021)

PAT303 said:


> How could the Luftwaffe get air superiority?, even with planes they never made and drop tanks for the ones they did the RAF could stay out of reach and attack on it's terms.



-I'm just carrying out a what if analysis whose constraints are the the Germans make slightly different decisions that do not require any more resources. 
-If the Luftwaffe had of continued to attack the RAF and radar it wouldn't have made a difference to gaining air superiority over the British Isles since most of Britain and therefore most of its airfield was out of reach of the German fighters.
-If the Luftwaffe had of had drop tanks fitted on all the Me 109E and Me 110 as they were produced (they had the technology and experience) it would have made a big difference. It would have cost no more resources.

The Focke-Wulf Fw 187A with Jumo 210G engines weighed 3400kg and the Me 110B with the same engines weighed 4400kg.
The latter Fw 187B with DB605 engines had a range of 1200km (744 miles) and with drop tanks 2100 (1302 miles). Assuming the operational radius is 30% of of 2100km/1302 miles is 630km/400 miles.

Pretty much all of Scotland is reachable from Calais with that range and it is also accessible from Stavanger in Norway.

All it takes is for Ernst Udet to 1 allow development of the Fw 187 with DB601 instead of Jumo 210 and 2 for him to allocate engines and allow production of Fw 187 at about the same time Ju 88 production is starting by removing a few engines allocated to the Me 110.


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## glennasher (Jan 2, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> The Germans did change an evolve their Paratrooper tactics. The outstanding FG42 automatic rifle easily replaced both the MG34 squad machine gun and the K98 bolt action rifle and could be carried by the solider during the drop, of course they needed something in 1940, perhaps a semi-automatic carbine. German airborne forces were very innovative for their time. They could drop a 3.7cm or 5.0cm PAK by multiple parachute, they could land gliders, they could drop ammunition and fuel containers. The fuel container weighed around 250kg and featured 4 55 Litre flat drums that could easily be picked up by handles. they have 75mm and 105mm recoilless canon including hollow charge rounds, light weight aluminium 20mm FLAK and the kettenrad motor cycle half track could be transported by Ju 52 and be used as a tractor to tow artillery.
> 
> Of course dropping paratroopers on top of a fully armed soldiers that are prepared (as happened in Crete due to enigma decrypts) is also a disaster as it was when British troops were dropped on top of an SS division in Arnhem. The issue in Holland seems to have been that the Ju 52 were shot up by Dutch FLAK on the ground in many cases. The loss of pilots was devastating to the war effort as these Ju 52 pilots were also flight training instructors and may just have saved Britain it is said by Mosier. I'm not sure why do many Ju 52 were lost in Holland, it seems they just landed at defended Dutch airfields.
> 
> ...




None of that matters without some heavy weapons to back up the Airborne. Even with neatest, newest wonderweapons, what happens when you can't resupply them with ammo? What happens when the lightly armed paratroopers run into armor? Airborne gets slaughtered. We're not talking about all the natural defense points like in the Ardennes, we're talking about Kent and southern England, no mountains or forests, no bridges to drop and deny the opposition. As noted, when you drop the First Airborne on to SS Panzer divisions, they're gonna lose. All the recoilless rifles and pack cannon won't change that, once you're out of ammo for them, then what? The troops will die in place. The Germans, if your numbers are right, lost a quarter of their Ju52s in the low countries, who didn't have the RAF, what would happen to them in Kent with the RAF? 
This is a non-starter from the git-go. 
No fevered fantasy can rival the whole silly idea.


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## glennasher (Jan 2, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> The Germans did change an evolve their Paratrooper tactics. The outstanding FG42 automatic rifle easily replaced both the MG34 squad machine gun and the K98 bolt action rifle and could be carried by the solider during the drop, of course they needed something in 1940, perhaps a semi-automatic carbine. German airborne forces were very innovative for their time. They could drop a 3.7cm or 5.0cm PAK by multiple parachute, they could land gliders, they could drop ammunition and fuel containers. The fuel container weighed around 250kg and featured 4 55 Litre flat drums that could easily be picked up by handles. they have 75mm and 105mm recoilless canon including hollow charge rounds, light weight aluminium 20mm FLAK and the kettenrad motor cycle half track could be transported by Ju 52 and be used as a tractor to tow artillery.
> 
> Of course dropping paratroopers on top of a fully armed soldiers that are prepared (as happened in Crete due to enigma decrypts) is also a disaster as it was when British troops were dropped on top of an SS division in Arnhem. The issue in Holland seems to have been that the Ju 52 were shot up by Dutch FLAK on the ground in many cases. The loss of pilots was devastating to the war effort as these Ju 52 pilots were also flight training instructors and may just have saved Britain it is said by Mosier. I'm not sure why do many Ju 52 were lost in Holland, it seems they just landed at defended Dutch airfields.
> 
> ...




None of that matters without some heavy weapons to back up the Airborne. Even with neatest, newest wonderweapons, what happens when you can't resupply them with ammo? What happens when the lightly armed paratroopers run into armor? Airborne gets slaughtered. We're not talking about all the natural defense points like in the Ardennes, we're talking about Kent and southern England, no mountains or forests, no bridges to drop and deny the opposition. As noted, when you drop the First Airborne on to SS Panzer divisions, they're gonna lose. All the recoilless rifles and pack cannon won't change that, once you're out of ammo for them, then what? The troops will die in place. The Germans, if your numbers are right, lost a quarter of their Ju52s in the low countries, who didn't have the RAF, what would happen to them in Kent with the RAF? 
This is a non-starter from the git-go. 
No fevered fantasy can rival the whole silly idea.

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## Koopernic (Jan 2, 2021)

Shortround6 said:


> Unless the Germans change their parachute doctrine/tactics in 1940 instead of AFTER Crete the suggested operations are going to be a disaster.
> German paratroopers dropped with a 9mm pistol and two 8 round magazines and a few concussion grenades. Rifles, submachine guns, MG-34 machine guns, light mortars(?) and such normal company weapons were in containers that the Paratroopers had to find, open, sort through. This was the first priority on landing, ahead of linking up with unit members from the same plane let alone different planes. Initial ammo supplies were also light for the these weapons.
> 
> The glider landing troops do have light weapons but number of gliders available in June of 1940? 3-4 weeks after the attack on Holland?
> ...




In Luftwaffe terminology if a assessment of a checklist determined greater than 50% damage it meant the airframe was scrapped by removing salvageable parts and then melting the airframe down. Total loss sounds too dramatic as if the aircraft and and all souls were lost. I would say this refers to 50% or greater loss however the loss of Ju 52 pilots was the real issue and it was apparently very significant

This thread and you yourself have proven something to me.

Dozens of haughty pompous pop historians have earned a living claiming that the Germans were incompetent in their implementation of planning and strategy around the battle of Britain. One of these shibboleths that has been demolished is that Changing the from bombing of airfields to harbours, docks and industrial targets (like aircraft plants) generally referred to as "London" lost the Battle of Britain for the Germans. In fact it was a strategy that was supposed to compliment the U-boat commerce war. Yes in "the fog of war" they made mistakes and had flaws in their system of assessment. Bit it seems it is simply jingoistic grand standing.

The reality is that they simply did not have the right equipment. That is all.

*The procurement decisions made by the Luftwaffe in 1937, 1938 determined the battle of Britain. * In order to gain air superiority the Luftwaffe would need
1 Drop tanks on all Me 109 and Me 110. Could have easily been done.
2 A long range escort. The Fw 187 could have done this in time simply by sacrificing some Me 110 production to obtain the required engines. The aircraft was flying in May 1937. Maybe only 10% of the fighter force.

That probably wouldn't be enough. A relatively long range reconnaissance bomber needs to be available to put pressure on all of Britain's coast to force her to to spread her defences and help the u-boat campaign. Something better than a few Fw 200 commandeered from the Japanese. Probably 50 Ju 89 or Do 19 powered by the 1000hp BMW radial that powered the Do 17Z. The He 177 isnt needed.

The assault on Britain seems hard to imagine not because the use of River Ships, large Rhine barges and tugs is not workable but because it couldn't be done in 1940. Operation Sea Lion would only happen from mid 1941 I suspect. I would also require keeping the US out of the war except in the form of massive military aid which is unlikely.

Regarding Coastal Artillery. It is not railway guns. Costal artillery uses tachymetric computers to compute a firing solution to aim at the target, it has special optical instruments to analyse shell splash and correct aim (there bey compensating for windage). Apart from the use of coincidence or stereoscopic range finders triangulation from remote sighting stations can be used that are connected electrically.

The Luftwaffe was probably not going to repeat the mistake of the aerial assault in Holland. That is relying paratroops to capture Dutch airfields and then land Ju 52 on them. It was an excessively risky strategy with too many moving parts.

They would just land a DFS230 with its retro rocket and ribbon parachute in a field of Barley in Kent.


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## Glider (Jan 2, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> The reality is that they simply did not have the right equipment. That is all.
> 
> *The procurement decisions made by the Luftwaffe in 1937, 1938 determined the battle of Britain. * In order to gain air superiority the Luftwaffe would need
> 1 Drop tanks on all Me 109 and Me 110. Could have easily been done.
> 2 A long range escort. The Fw 187 could have done this in time simply by sacrificing some Me 110 production to obtain the required engines. The aircraft was flying in May 1937. Maybe only 10% of the fighter force.



Lets take it one step at a time
1 - Drop tanks on all Me109 and Me110 - Result The Me109 and Me110 would be hugely vulnerable when intercepted in that all important first moment of combat. The RAF had the advantage of Radar interception and German fighters had less freedom of movement. Yes they would have a good increase in range but and its a big but, they still only had 60rpg for the 20mm and the RAF fighters were well armoured against 2 x LMG so their room for combat would still be restricted.
2 - Fw 187 - Feasable certainly but with the same limitation of 60rpg for the 20mm.


> That probably wouldn't be enough. A relatively long range reconnaissance bomber needs to be available to put pressure on all of Britain's coast to force her to to spread her defences and help the u-boat campaign. Something better than a few Fw 200 commandeered from the Japanese. Probably 50 Ju 89 or Do 19 powered by the 1000hp BMW radial that powered the Do 17Z. The He 177 isnt needed.


50 x Ju89 would probably not equal more than 20 in front line service at any one time, 30 at a push. All you would do is give the Blenhiem IVF a job it could actually do, long range fighter missions against large, slow, unescorted, poorly defended bombers.


> The assault on Britain seems hard to imagine not because the use of River Ships, large Rhine barges and tugs is not workable but because it couldn't be done in 1940. Operation Sea Lion would only happen from mid 1941 I suspect. I would also require keeping the US out of the war except in the form of massive military aid which is unlikely.


As long as you only have about 12 destroyers in your entire navy Sea Lion was doomed to failure. In 1941 the British defences were considerably stronger than in 1940 which brings us to the next point


> The Luftwaffe was probably not going to repeat the mistake of the aerial assault in Holland. That is relying paratroops to capture Dutch airfields and then land Ju 52 on them. It was an excessively risky strategy with too many moving parts.
> 
> They would just land a DFS230 with its retro rocket and ribbon parachute in a field of Barley in Kent.



I find your comment slightly bemusing. The idea that flying large number of gliders into a combat zone where you do not have control of the skies, where the defences in 1941 are far stronger in every way, where the AA guns are placed so they can fire at ground targets and are set up in such a way that they support each other, is less risky than dropping paratroopers first and then following up with the Ju52 hard to imagine. They are both as mad as each other


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## pbehn (Jan 2, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> Dozens of haughty pompous pop historians have earned a living claiming that the Germans were incompetent in their implementation of planning and strategy around the battle of Britain. One of these shibboleths that has been demolished is that Changing the from bombing of airfields to harbours, docks and industrial targets (like aircraft plants) generally referred to as "London" lost the Battle of Britain for the Germans. In fact it was a strategy that was supposed to compliment the U-boat commerce war. Yes in "the fog of war" they made mistakes and had flaws in their system of assessment. Bit it seems it is simply jingoistic grand standing.
> .


This is just wrong, repeatedly posting it does not make it a fact. The LW did attack shipping, coastal targets, airfields and aircraft production but that is not London. The attack on London was just that, an attack London and its docks. Planning to do something you cant do because you don't have the equipment is folly. If you postpone Sealion to 1941 you can forget any use of barges, by 1941 the RAF fighters have cannon.


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## fastmongrel (Jan 2, 2021)

The superb German coastal guns didn't manage to hit anything till June 44. They were mostly shooting at convoys consisting of small coal carrying coasters of about 2000 tons capable of 10 knots. If you're not hitting those targets how are you going to hit naval vessels.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 2, 2021)

Well, I sure don't earn a living at this, I don't even make enough for a fish and chip dinner once a year  

Some of the questions for me are could the Germans, _with what they had available at the time, _come up with a better plan or plans.

No aircraft, radars, small arms, or artillery from 1941 or later. 

Cherry picking features from certain aircraft without acknowledging some of the shortcomings doesn't do more than get into long arguments. 

I have a love/hate relationship with the FW 187. I like the looks, I think it was an interesting aircraft that quite possible could have contributed more if produced in numbers. 
I hate it because in many of these discussions it is made of rubber and keeps changing shape/form to suit the the argument of the moment. 
The Germans have several problems with this hypothetical aircraft _in *1940.*_
They are stuck with the drum feeds on the MG/FF cannon. The 110 got around this by having the man in the back (the radio operator) change the drums, much like the first 400 Beaufighters (except that guy had to keep up with four cannon, which didn't happen much in real life.) 
The Guy in the back if the 110 had the same radio as the He 111 so the 110 could communicate with it's base and with the bomber formations. At least it was possible, how much it was done I don't know. The 109 (of 1940) had a short ranged radio with limited channel options. Flying over the North sea with the same radio as the 1940 109 may not have been a very good idea? Later 109s may have gotten better or different radios, Perhaps I am wrong. But lets try to stick to 1940 guns and radios when talking about long range escort fighters. 
Performance of a two seat Fw 187 with conventional DB 601 engines is certainly subject to question. It is obviously going to be slower than the prototype using experimental engines and cooling systems, It should be faster than the 109Es using the same engine as they were pretty poor aerodynamically. 
Where on the spectrum does it fall? Some people want the speed and maneuverability of single seat version but don't seem to want to accept the limited ammo and communications problems. 

The 110 actually could play a number of rolls in the BoB even if not very good as an escort fighter. It could carry the standard Luftwaffe recon camera/s and was going to be faster than recon versions of any of the twin engine bombers. It could play the role of light bomber at low level fairly well. A few units did do this. A few score more bomb rack sets? 

The 900lb Gorilla in the room is what do the Germans do about the Royal Navy in the invasion scenarios. The German Navy in 1940 cannot challenge it as they have to sink 4-6 British ships for everyone they loose. It doesn't matter if the British loose 15-20 destroyers and smaller craft and cruiser in proportion if they stop the invasion.

Common answer is the Luftwaffe will stop the entire British Navy. But there is no evidence to back up that claim, cause losses yes, eliminate the majority of British ships in the British Isles in the summer/fall of 1940????? 

The Luftwaffe also has many jobs.

1. Keeping the RAF at bay.
2. Better recon.
3. Acting as flying artillery for the invasion forces. 
4. Keeping the RN at bay.
4a, in some scenarios by dropping large numbers of aerial mines. 

They have to do this all at the same time. 

haven't even gotten to the barges and/or logistics.

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## fastmongrel (Jan 3, 2021)

5. The LW has to supply the bridgehead. See Stalingrad for how well that can go.


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## pbehn (Jan 3, 2021)

It took six weeks for the allies to capture Cherbourg and get it working, despite having a port and landing area just down the road.


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## Koopernic (Jan 3, 2021)

Glider said:


> Lets take it one step at a time
> 1 - Drop tanks on all Me109 and Me110 - Result The Me109 and Me110 would be hugely vulnerable when intercepted in that all important first moment of combat. The RAF had the advantage of Radar interception and German fighters had less freedom of movement. Yes they would have a good increase in range but and its a big but, they still only had 60rpg for the 20mm and the RAF fighters were well armoured against 2 x LMG so their room for combat would still be restricted.
> 2 - Fw 187 - Feasible certainly but with the same limitation of 60rpg for the 20mm.
> 50 x Ju89 would probably not equal more than 20 in front line service at any one time, 30 at a push. All you would do is give the Blenhiem IVF a job it could actually do, long range fighter missions against large, slow, unescorted, poorly defended bombers.
> As long as you only have about 12 destroyers in your entire navy Sea Lion was doomed to failure. In 1941 the British defences were considerably stronger than in 1940 which brings us to the next point



1 I think the drop tanks make you vulnerable is overstated. Otherwise the US 8th Airforce would have been massacred. There is not much of a speed drop, 10%, and they are ejected immediately on contact with the enemy which leads to an immediate acceleration.

2 The MG FF/M on the Fw 190 outer gun stations could be fitted with a 90 round magazine though it produced underside bulges. There was no space problem with a 90 or 120 round magazine in the fuselage for the Fw 187 and it probably would have been used. Big magazines are awkward to change out. (Oerlikon had a 120 round magazine) The aircraft also had 4 x MG17 rifle calibre machine guns which is still lethal for its time.

3 I'm thinking a Do 19 (or Ju 89) with 1000hp BMW/Bramo radials as per the Do 17 would produce a bomber of about 258mph (about the same as the Do 17 and 10% more than the prototypes which had 750hp). There would be an aerodynamic clean-up. No bracing struts, some curved glass etc. In 1940 the tail armament is a 20mm MG/FF with a 30 round clip.
If a Blenheim or Hurricane approaches tail gunner opens up at 600m. One second latter the rounds are at the Blenheim's range. The clip will last 3.5 seconds so the gunner has 2.5 seconds to march the tracer into the RAF fighter. The 30 round clip ejects, the gun remains cocked and a new clip is slammed in, probably takes 3 seconds. The gunner opens up again. By now the RAF fighter is at 400m, if it hasn't been hit when the gunner opens up again. The dorsal and ventral gunner are likely firing their rifle calibre weapon.

Its a lot better than a Fw 200 could do due to the tail gun and extra speed. A lone Do 19/Ju 89 could deal with a Vic of Fulmars, Hurricanes or Blenheim's at lot better due to the speed.

There might even be a few DB601 powered versions as there was the Do 215 that was much faster. I'm assuming the entire or half the Do 17 program would be sacrificed in favour of the Do 19.



Glider said:


> I find your comment slightly bemusing. The idea that flying large number of gliders into a combat zone where you do not have control of the skies, where the defences in 1941 are far stronger in every way, where the AA guns are placed so they can fire at ground targets and are set up in such a way that they support each other, is less risky than dropping paratroopers first and then following up with the Ju52 hard to imagine. They are both as mad as each other















I'm glad you are amused. I did say it somewhat glibly.

The DFS 230 assault glider had a steep 8 degree about 8:1 glide angle with a high 18:1 glide ratio so it could be released far away. Due to this and a high speed ribbon braking parachute that could be deployed a moment before touchdown the DFS 230 could be landed within a 20m length. Some versions (DFS-230C1) had retro rocket. Looks like about 20kg-30kg of propellant would pretty much produce 1G deacceleration for 2 seconds and bring it to a stop in another 10-20m with the parachute. The latter Go 242 had much higher capacity and could deliver artillery or a Kubelwaggen/Schwimwaggen.

The point is gliders give a lot of options and create a lot of problems that complement an amphibious assault. The DFS 230 could be towed by Ju 52, He 111 in pairs, Ju 87, Me 110 and even Me 109.



pbehn said:


> This is just wrong, repeatedly posting it does not make it a fact. The LW did attack shipping, coastal targets, airfields and aircraft production but that is not London. The attack on London was just that, an attack London and its docks. Planning to do something you cant do because you don't have the equipment is folly. If you postpone Sealion to 1941 you can forget any use of barges, by 1941 the RAF fighters have cannon.



RAF Hispano Canon are nasty but if Hitler postpones Barbarossa 41 in favour of Sealion 41 and doesn't declare war on the USA over its lend lease and neutrality patrols after Pearl Harbour the the Germans might have air supremacy. Then the canon don't matter so much.

The u-boats are better supported.

Britain has to use merchant ships that cruise at greater than 15 knots or more.




fastmongrel said:


> The superb German coastal guns didn't manage to hit anything till June 44. They were mostly shooting at convoys consisting of small coal carrying coasters of about 2000 tons capable of 10 knots. If you're not hitting those targets how are you going to hit naval vessels.



A 15" gun would be capable of hitting a battleship or cruiser 30km out. Not a coaster that is 10 times smaller a target and further out.

High calibre Coastal Artillery can keep the RN capital ships about 25km from the French coast. They can still stay out of range and shell but it limits their options.



Shortround6 said:


> Well, I sure don't earn a living at this, I don't even make enough for a fish and chip dinner once a year
> 
> Some of the questions for me are could the Germans, _with what they had available at the time, _come up with a better plan or plans.
> 
> ...



I'm referring to Trenkel (book only in German) Well they had Wurzburg A in early 1940, they had Wurzburg C with conical scan in Feb 1941 and Wruzburg D with conical san, better range accuracy (25m) and direct connection to the FLAK predictor about 3 months after that. This means in service and dozens coming of the production line every month. Wurzburg D and Wurzburg Riesse in service in signicantly numbers by June 1941. Freya A/N with lobe switching may have been coming in at the same time as were Seetakt with lobe switching.. Lobe switching like conical scan allows blind fire. I think FuMO 27 was the first lobe switching Seetakt in late 1940 on Prince Eugen. (To late for the battle of Denmark straights)

Seetakt radars without lobe switching were still good. Narrow beam could find a target including a periscope and a conning tower, it could range accurately to better than 70m and spot shell splash. Could locate a ship to within 1 degree.

The ones with lobe switching could blind fire. The range might be 25km for a battleship and 15km-20km for a destroyer ie not quite to the horizon.

Either way in 1940 they had radar and could detect motor torpedo boats.

In 1942 the power of the Seetakt modulator was increased 16 fold to 120kW by going from grid modulation to High Voltage Anode modulation which allowed detection of any ship out to beyond the visual Horizon. However the Germans didn't get the equipment into service on ships, only on land due to issues with high voltages at sea and resources fighting the RAF night offensive. The Tirpitz probably got a one of set which is why she herself spotted the RAF raid at 150km. This is why PoW was said to have had better radar than Scharnhorst. The Scharnhorsts rear radar at 8kW likely could see PoW but not spot her own shell splash at long range.



Shortround6 said:


> I have a love/hate relationship with the FW 187. I like the looks, I think it was an interesting aircraft that quite possible could have contributed more if produced in numbers.
> I hate it because in many of these discussions it is made of rubber and keeps changing shape/form to suit the the argument of the moment.
> The Germans have several problems with this hypothetical aircraft _in *1940.*_
> They are stuck with the drum feeds on the MG/FF cannon. The 110 got around this by having the man in the back (the radio operator) change the drums, much like the first 400 Beaufighters (except that guy had to keep up with four cannon, which didn't happen much in real life.)



We have the ability to compare the Me 110B with the Fw 187A with the same Jumo 210G engines and the Fw 187 is clearly much much faster and 30% lighter.
We can compare the Me 109D with Jumo engines (earlier slightly less powerful variant) but it tells us the Fw 187 was going to be seriously fast and agile. It did have a rather high wing loading.



Shortround6 said:


> The Guy in the back if the 110 had the same radio as the He 111 so the 110 could communicate with it's base and with the bomber formations. At least it was possible, how much it was done I don't know. The 109 (of 1940) had a short ranged radio with limited channel options. Flying over the North sea with the same radio as the 1940 109 may not have been a very good idea? Later 109s may have gotten better or different radios, Perhaps I am wrong. But lets try to stick to 1940 guns and radios when talking about long range escort fighters.
> Performance of a two seat Fw 187 with conventional DB 601 engines is certainly subject to question. It is obviously going to be slower than the prototype using experimental engines and cooling systems, It should be faster than the 109Es using the same engine as they were pretty poor aerodynamically.
> Where on the spectrum does it fall? Some people want the speed and manoeuvrability of single seat version but don't seem to want to accept the limited ammo and communications problems.



The DB601 engine version were seriously fast. Sceptics normally criticise saying the speed was due to the steam cooling but the steam cooling still had radiators (in this version) and doesn't make that much difference between a steam radiator and a pressurised one. It was going to be very fast since radiators improved. Surface cooling was proposed for the DB605 Fw 190B but even without it it would be fast. Plus we have the Me 110B/FW 187 comparisons.

The prototypes based around the DB601 essentially used an engine the same power as the second generation DB601N2 of the Me 109F or the DB601E (same power only C3 was needed for the N) when boost rating was 1.42 ata.

As far as the Oerlikon based MG/FF is concerned I know Oerlikon Made 90 and 120 round snail drums. These I suspect were just to heavy to easily change manually but either would be perfect for the Fw 187 and they would likely be introduced. They were around a long time before the. They would be unattractive for the Me 110 since they are difficult to manhandle.



Shortround6 said:


> The 110 actually could play a number of rolls in the BoB even if not very good as an escort fighter. It could carry the standard Luftwaffe recon camera/s and was going to be faster than recon versions of any of the twin engine bombers. It could play the role of light bomber at low level fairly well. A few units did do this. A few score more bomb rack sets?



Fighter bomber, reconnaissance would be in its wheel house. With a small esternal bombload (250-500kg) still fast enough to avoid interception I suspect. A night fighter able to have a reasonable chance against the Mosquito if given the kind of lightweight radar developed for the Fw 190 single seat fighter.

The Fw 187 was likely to be the fastest of all aircraft due to its small size and it must be said high wing loading. High wing loading is not bad if it gives the Fw 187 significantly superior speed. It reduces turning circle but not necessarily turning rate. The correct tactics would need to be used. No slowing down and trying to turn with a Hurricane or Spit ala Zero/P-38



Shortround6 said:


> The 900lb Gorilla in the room is what do the Germans do about the Royal Navy in the invasion scenarios. The German Navy in 1940 cannot challenge it as they have to sink 4-6 British ships for everyone they loose. It doesn't matter if the British loose 15-20 destroyers and smaller craft and cruiser in proportion if they stop the invasion.
> 
> Common answer is the Luftwaffe will stop the entire British Navy. But there is no evidence to back up that claim, cause losses yes, eliminate the majority of British ships in the British Isles in the summer/fall of 1940?????
> 
> ...



The Royal Navy is formidable.

The plan seems to have been mines and the Luftwaffe dealing with the RN during the day and mines and the Kriesgsmarine dealing with the RN at night.

Note that apart from Light cruisers, cruisers, destroyers and battleships the larger German torpedo boots had a radar that could turn +/-170 degrees or so (almost a completed turn) 
*1939 Type Torpedo-Boats *T22 - T36 with FuMO 21 antenna on a foremast.

These units would need to detect the hundreds of motor torpedo boats the RN would send at night that might penetrate the mine fields. The problem will be the lack of IFF on German Naval radar at this time which led to the mess up in the battle of barents sea.


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## Glider (Jan 3, 2021)

When you were young, did they have a show called Jackanory where you lived?

We now have
1) Drop tank that don't impact the aircrafts performance think climb and agility (drop tanks the Germans didn't have in 1940)
2) MGFF with 90 rounds that didn't exist in 1940 as if they had I am sure the Me110 would have had them
3) Totally redesigned Do19. Remembering that the 109E had bracing struts until the 109F which had a redesigned wing
4) a 1940 bomber that can fight off three fighters
5) Gliders that carry about 8-10 people with little space for any kind of equipment (that would be sitting ducks to AA fire) I also strongly suspect that 18/1 glide ratio with any load is wildly optimistic, I frankly don't believe it. Also you will be travelling in a straight line, unable to evade, going probably around 100 mph at low altitude, the very definition of a sitting duck.
6) All the stuff of cancelling Barbarosa and not declaring war on the USA. Can someone tell me how that impacts the war in late 1940 or 1941. Also it ignores the much stronger UK defences that would exist in 1940 both on land sea and air
7) 15in guns that were incapable of hitting merchant ships going about 5 kts (10 knots for a coaster is very fast) in a straight line, are now able to hit Naval vessels going much faster and can evade. 
8) Germany had little faith in their radar for gun ranging for the good reason that they had limited performance and their optics were better. Torpedo boats generally didn't get radar until 1943,
9) The idea that the Germany Navy could control the North Sea at night is a pipedream. They didn't have the ships, men training or Technology


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## Koopernic (Jan 3, 2021)

Glider said:


> When you were young, did they have a show called Jackanory where you lived?
> 
> We now have
> 1) Drop tank that don't impact the aircrafts performance think climb and agility (drop tanks the Germans didn't have in 1940)
> ...




The Luftwaffe had drop tanks during the battle of Britain. Me 109E4/B and Me 109E7N/B came into service towards the end of the battle of Britain.

The structural work had already been done on the Me 109E1/B but it had been for a bomb. It apparently could carry a fuel tank but it couldn't be jettisoned.

I've already dealt with the other issues such as why a 15" gun might hit a Battleship or cruiser 25-30km away but not a coaster that is 5% the size and 35km-50km away and below the horizon. The channel seems to be 35km at its narrowest.


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## Glider (Jan 3, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> The Luftwaffe had drop tanks during the battle of Britain. Me 109E4/B and Me 109E7N/B came into service towards the end of the battle of Britain.


The key words being _towards the end of the BOB_


> The structural work had already been done on the Me 109E1/B but it had been for a bomb. It apparently could carry a fuel tank but it couldn't be jettisoned.


I think we can agree that this would have been a really bad idea


> I've already dealt with the other issues such as why a 15" gun might hit a Battleship or cruiser 25-30km away but not a coaster that is 5% the size and 35km-50km away and below the horizon. The channel seems to be 35km at its narrowest.


Actually you haven't. There were a number of opportunities during the war for the 15 in (or any other gun) to open fire on naval targets but failed to hit anything. Dieppe was one chance, during the BOB itself RN forces ranging from MTB up to R class battleships sailed up and down the North Sea without being hit.


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## nuuumannn (Jan 3, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> That would require the *Luftwaffe to get everything right all of the time*



That's right, but it still wouldn't have guaranteed them victory.



Koopernic said:


> If the narrative is that "the few" narrowly saved Britain by winning the "Battle of Britain" then it is legitimate to argue that minor changes in German strategy might have tipped the balance. I can't see that it was a problem in strategy since it was a problem of equipment rather than strategy.



Nope, not at all, their entire strategy was at fault simply because even by 1 August none of the commanders nor Goering could agree on exactly what was the best way to go about destroying the RAF, and they had completely underestimated how many RAF fighters the British had. Regarding the German plans, they couldn't agree on what specific targets should be attacked or what approach they should take. This is evident in all the records surviving of German meetings held between commanders and Goering.

Sperrle wanted to destroy the RAF in passing while ports and supply lines were under attack, but Goering had excluded Channel ports from the list of targets stipulated on his document of 21 July because they were required for the invasion, while Kesselring thought that attacking ports would result in too high attrition. Kesselring, in fact was sceptical about attacking the UK at all and argued for attacking Gibraltar first, then attacking London. London, of course was initially off the table because Hitler had forbidden attacks on the capital, but junior commanders still supported the ideas of terror attacks on the civilian population. Of course, Goering rejected Kesselring's views because (once again, as I've said before) *he underestimated the number of fighters the RAF had up to that point* (which, I've been saying was the *biggest strategic blunder the Germans made*) and based his plans on a three-phase assault for destroying those fighters across lines of battle approaching the capital.

Osterkamp, the only one with his finger on the pulse correctly assessed that the RAF had more fighters than Goering was predicting and that experience by the bomber crews was proving him correct. At that meeting, Goering angrily interrupted him and told him that was nonsense, claiming that the Luftwaffe's intel was accurate and that Osterkamp himself had once stated the RAF was too cowardly to come up and fight, which Osterkamp _did not _state, and he corrected Goering and stated that the Listening service had heard that the British tactic was to refuse to be baited into coming out in force against masses of fighters, which was used as a tactic to lure the RAF into combat to whittle their numbers down.

All this does is prove beyond doubt that the Germans couldn't agree on the banalities of the task ahead, which hindered their approach going forward, particularly since Goering based his entire strategy on *faulty intelligence*.



Koopernic said:


> The claim that the Germans did not know of British radar is mythical.



I don't think anyone here has claimed that the Germans didn't know about British radar and you've raised this point before and you've been told exactly the same thing before; the Germans did not understand the entire Dowding system and how it worked.



Koopernic said:


> he reality is that they simply did not have the right equipment. That is all.



Nope, as I've said before, _as long as the Germans are insisting on basing their intel on combat reports alone, they were never going to be anything but *behind the curve*_. The Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain as much as Dowding's and Park's tactics won it. Experts who have written books on the subject acknowledge this, even the German commanders themselves were advising it was the case - Goering refused to listen to Osterkamp, who had a better idea of British tactics as any one else, and he was right to think the British had more fighters than Goering thought. Goering's numbers were out by around two to three hundred fighters available to the RAF.


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## nuuumannn (Jan 3, 2021)

The meeting I refer to in which Goering held and Osterkamp, Sperrle and Kesselring attended took place on 1 August and it was intended that Goering lay his plans down for the coming Eagle attacks, but he wasn't counting on his top three generals railing against him, or at least providing him with their own assessment of the situation as it was up to that point. Osterkamp, as the leader of JG 51 was in a unique position as he had flown in combat against the RAF even went as far as praising the Spitfire in combat, but Goering rubbished him and claimed the Bf 109 was superior. He wrote about this meeting and it is clear that the strategy for destroying the RAF was far from complete or even practicable. _Goering simply had no idea what he was up against and wouldn't listen to those who did_.

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## Glider (Jan 3, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> . _Goering simply had no idea what he was up against and wouldn't listen to those who did_.


Does this remind anyone of someone else?

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## Milosh (Jan 3, 2021)

I love revisionist history.


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## pbehn (Jan 4, 2021)

Postponing things to 1941 wouldn't just have advantages to the LW. Without the pressure to produce planes and engines immediately, Rolls Royce and Supermarine could have a better Spitfire and maybe RR could have the Vulture in service by 1941. At the fall of France the RAF had 500 Spitfires and Hurricanes with pilots, given a year to recover and train that would be at least 1,000 with much more effective planes and pilots. Germany had stolen a march in armament production but was being out produced by mid 1940, the passage of time was not on their side.


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## PAT303 (Jan 4, 2021)

pbehn said:


> Without the pressure to produce planes and engines immediately, Rolls Royce and Supermarine could have a better Spitfire



Without the pressure of production there is no need for the interim models, instead of MkV's and IX's the Luftwaffe would be facing MkIII's and MkVIII Spits, plane's that historically dominated the Me109 but 2 years earlier, there's even time to get the MkXII in large scale production, the FW190 wouldn't be the butcher bird, it'll be the one butchered.

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## Koopernic (Jan 4, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> That's right, but it still wouldn't have guaranteed them victory.
> 
> Nope, not at all, their entire strategy was at fault simply because even by 1 August none of the commanders nor Goering could agree on exactly what was the best way to go about destroying the RAF, and they had completely underestimated how many RAF fighters the British had. Regarding the German plans, they couldn't agree on what specific targets should be attacked or what approach they should take. This is evident in all the records surviving of German meetings held between commanders and Goering.
> 
> ...







nuuumannn said:


> The meeting I refer to in which Goering held and Osterkamp, Sperrle and Kesselring attended took place on 1 August and it was intended that Goering lay his plans down for the coming Eagle attacks, but he wasn't counting on his top three generals railing against him, or at least providing him with their own assessment of the situation as it was up to that point. Osterkamp, as the leader of JG 51 was in a unique position as he had flown in combat against the RAF even went as far as praising the Spitfire in combat, but Goering rubbished him and claimed the Bf 109 was superior. He wrote about this meeting and it is clear that the strategy for destroying the RAF was far from complete or even practicable. _Goering simply had no idea what he was up against and wouldn't listen to those who did_.



"Nope, not at all, their entire strategy was at fault"

This is a rehash of the same old claim that 'strategy' could have made the difference rather than equipment. It's also a rehash of the double standard where every piece of information the Germans are missing in the first 3 weeks of the Battle on British aircraft production and loses or the centralised Chain Home Radar system is proof of Germans are bumbling rather than just proof of British secrecy. Secrecy is what one tends to practice during a war.

In reality the 'faulty intelligence' Goering supposedly based his campaign on can be traced to inappropriate equipment: the lack of a high speed reconnaissance aircraft.

Thanks for using at least 1 date, the *1st of August 1940* when the meeting with Goering took place.

Let me get some dates down. Wikipedia states the Battle of Britain (really a campaign) started on *10th July 1940 (20 days before the meeting you base your argument on)*

The events prior to that are this:

*May 30 1940 *the Germans are still trying to make peace with Britain. Things start to change by *mid June 1940.*

The various Fuherer directives to destroy the RAF were issued by June 14th *and came not as part of the plan for a possible operation SeaLion but to stop the RAF's further bombing of the Ruhr Basin.*

*Hitler wants to get on with preparing for Operation Barbarossa. Doenitz's analysis of SeaLion highlights the extreme difficulties. SeaLion 1940 is seen as a last resort.*

When the *1 August 1940* meeting takes place the Luftwaffe had been flying against the RAF over Britain for *only 20 days.*

Now Goering comes across as a c*nt and his accusatory talking out of his ass style doesn't help analyse information as it comes in but the other commanders are clearly competent. They are not "bungling" for not understanding the extent or effectiveness of the RAF centralised control via CH radar. They are bringing up various strategies that might be employed and even Goering is thinking ahead that with SeaLion a possibility that docks might need to be preserved. These are the men that just successfully invaded Poland, France, Holland, Denmark, Belgium and Norway fighting of British forces in 2 of them. 

Remember the priority Fuhrer Directive is to destroy the RAF to protect the Ruhr from the RAF.

So the Germans didn't understand the capabilities of the Chain Home system. Why should they? No one else had such a system. German radar developed out of German Navy attempts for using radar for fire control going back to 1932. Despite impressive radar sets and trials from 1934-1936 onwards (including lobe switching and blind fire) Deployment of series produced Seetakt and Freya didn't begin till 1938 in part because Freya radars had operate over ground clutter. not the north sea, thereby compelling a more difficult high frequency technology to be developed. I counted 12 Freyas in service protecting German borders during the Battle of France, it could by 9 it could be 22. They were developed out of tactical needs and integrated within the existing air reporting service hence the Luftwaffe hadn't organically progressed to evolving them into a more integrated system yet.

Nevertheless German Signals Intelligence worked out what was happening regarding centralised control of British fighters even if a bad report that assumed that RAF fighters were locally controlled undermined them for a while.

The British were keeping their production of Fighters secret, their deployment secret, their damage aircraft list secret. It's not like Goering can get a curtesy copy at on the end of week RAF fighter command report listing all fighter assets and dispositions of damaged aircraft, production rates, pilots on call.

Setting up a espionage network is nigh impossible in Britain since the only people likely to be slightly sympathetic to the Germans (only in the sense of avoiding a war), British Fascists, are also exceedingly loyal to Britain. That's the nature of nationalism.

This leaves the Germans with nothing but aerial intelligence, signal intelligence, interrogations of prisoners.

Here we can see again the lacking in the required equipment and procurement of the Luftwaffe. German aerial intelligence was based around excellent cameras mounted on bombers (maybe a Me 110) and in the face of radar and fighters like the Spitfire they were often shot down.

There had been warnings from within the Luftwaffe and German Army ( I forget the name of the commander) that whomever had the best reconnaissance would win any war.

When the Me 109 was adapted as a recon the pilot had to use a hand held camera. Basically too crude.

Then we have the issue of RAF losses. The serious problem of over claiming by aircraft and pilots (deliberate or more likely through confused observation) was an equal problem in all air forces. RAF, GAF, USAAF. All of them. The solution was tighter procedures, gun cameras and a factor to compensate. Not well understood at the time I think. 

Destroying the RAF would need to be a battle of attrition. German forces are extremely poorly set up for this since a war of attrition always leads to the Germans loosing since they can be easily blockaded and starved of resources. The German armed forces are set up to win a two front war (Poland, France etc)

If destroying the RAF is the directive then bombing docks is a strategy to induce the RAF to defend them but it runs the risk of the RAF being wise to the ruse and harbouring their fighters (which the French and Polish Air forces did) and relying on docks out of reach (eg Liverpool) to take in shipping. If the British don't come up and fight then the Luftwaffe has to attack the RAF directly.

Again this is not 'bungling' since how are they too know how the RAF will react? The Germans tried both.

Unfortunately Goering's personality stands out here. He's highly intelligent, extremely sarcastic and this aspect means his own biases dominate decision making and analysis and biases his decisions for politics.

Still the problem is not German strategy. It is 1/ Lack of long range fighters, 2 lack of high speed photo reconnaissance and 3/ The preference for putting resources into Operation Barbarossa 1941 rather than SeaLion 40 or 41. Destroying the RAF would be a war of attrition that the Luftwaffe would need to be prepared to loose 2:1 since shot down Luftwaffe aircraft would crash in Britain and their pilots captured. This is why when unarmed Heinkel He 115 float planes with a red cross came to rescue down German pilots the British, under orders of Churchill, had them attacked.

If the Luftwaffe wanted to destroy the RAF it would need 1 different equipment and 2 the willingness to commit resources towards a war of attrition that would be initially expensive as it favoured the British.



pbehn said:


> Postponing things to 1941 wouldn't just have advantages to the LW. Without the pressure to produce planes and engines immediately, Rolls Royce and Supermarine could have a better Spitfire and maybe RR could have the Vulture in service by 1941. At the fall of France the RAF had 500 Spitfires and Hurricanes with pilots, given a year to recover and train that would be at least 1,000 with much more effective planes and pilots. Germany had stolen a march in armament production but was being out produced by mid 1940, the passage of time was not on their side.



You'll need to explain this logic to me? You are saying that had the Luftwaffe continued its campaign to destroy the RAF beyond *September 1940 *Instead of preparing for Barbarossa) there *would be less pressure* and The RAF would better engines and aircraft. I think it would be worse if anything.

The Spitfire broadly was produced in two airframe versions. The *Basic* unit produced in massive number at Castle Bromwich consisting of the Mk 1/II/III/V/IX and the *advanced *units consisting of the Mk VII(2 stage merlin),VIII(2 stage merlin), XII(single stage griffon), XIV(2 stage griffon) and the aborted Spitfire IV (single stage griffon, basically a Spitfire XII)

Here is the thing: the 'advanced' airframe was produced in small number throughout the war. 



PAT303 said:


> Without the pressure of production there is no need for the interim models, instead of MkV's and IX's the Luftwaffe would be facing MkIII's and MkVIII Spits, plane's that historically dominated the Me109 but 2 years earlier, there's even time to get the MkXII in large scale production, the FW190 wouldn't be the butcher bird, it'll be the one butchered.



Again, see above. If the RAF enters into a war of attrition over the British Isles it will be compelled to produce more basic spitfires.


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## pbehn (Jan 4, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> "
> You'll need to explain this logic to me? You are saying that had the Luftwaffe continued its campaign to destroy the RAF beyond *September 1940 *Instead of preparing for Barbarossa) there *would be less pressure* and The RAF would better engines and aircraft. I think it would be worse if anything.
> 
> The Spitfire broadly was produced in two airframe versions. The *Basic* unit produced in massive number at Castle Bromwich consisting of the Mk 1/II/III/V/IX and the *advanced *units consisting of the Mk VII(2 stage merlin),VIII(2 stage merlin), XII(single stage griffon), XIV(2 stage griffon) and the aborted Spitfire IV (single stage griffon, basically a Spitfire XII)
> ...


You will need to explain your "what if". Are you saying things would remain the same as they were historically up to September 1940 and then the LW starts again in the spring to have another go at Sealion in 1941? The LW couldn't continue its campaign after Sept 1940, it was running out of bombers to do it. The Mk III was not the same as others from Supermarine Spitfire Mk III
The Mk III was the first major redesign of the Spitfire. The new aircraft was based around the Merlin XX engine, a 1240 hp engine with a two-speed supercharger, which would have given much better high altitude performance. Other changes included a shorter clipped wing, which reduced the wing span to 32’7”, increasing the rate of roll. The bullet proof glass on the canopy was moved inside the cockpit, reducing drag. The tailwheel was made retractable. The universal “c” wing was used, which could take four 20mm cannon, eight .303in machine guns, or two cannon and four machine guns. Maximum speed increased to 385 mph.


However, although an order was placed for mass production of the Mk III, it was soon cancelled. The Merlin XX was in short supply, and was needed more urgently in the Hurricane II. Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce had developed the Merlin 45, a similar engine that could be used in a Mk I or Mk II fuselage. The Mk III was abandoned in favour of the Mk V, although many of the improvements first seen in the Mk III were used in later versions of the aircraft. The Mk III airframe was later used to test the Merlin 61 engine, becoming the ancestor of the Mk VII, VIII and IX Spitfires.


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## PAT303 (Jan 5, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> Again, see above. If the RAF enters into a war of attrition over the British Isles it will be compelled to produce more basic spitfires.



If Sealion was postponed 12 months to allow the Kriegsmarine to build invasion ships and the Luftwaffe to develope long range fighters the British will use the same time to build better Spitfires, instead of the interim models they would have the time to build the best models, you can't have your cake and eat it too.


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## PAT303 (Jan 5, 2021)

pbehn said:


> becoming the ancestor of the Mk VII, VIII and IX Spitfires.



And MkXIV and even later the Spiteful.

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## Koopernic (Jan 5, 2021)

pbehn said:


> You will need to explain your "what if". Are you saying things would remain the same as they were historically up to September 1940 and then the LW starts again in the spring to have another go at Sealion in 1941? The LW couldn't continue its campaign after Sept 1940, it was running out of bombers to do it. The Mk III was not the same as others from Supermarine Spitfire Mk III
> The Mk III was the first major redesign of the Spitfire. The new aircraft was based around the Merlin XX engine, a 1240 hp engine with a two-speed supercharger, which would have given much better high altitude performance. Other changes included a shorter clipped wing, which reduced the wing span to 32’7”, increasing the rate of roll. The bullet proof glass on the canopy was moved inside the cockpit, reducing drag. The tailwheel was made retractable. The universal “c” wing was used, which could take four 20mm cannon, eight .303in machine guns, or two cannon and four machine guns. Maximum speed increased to 385 mph.
> 
> 
> However, although an order was placed for mass production of the Mk III, it was soon cancelled. The Merlin XX was in short supply, and was needed more urgently in the Hurricane II. Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce had developed the Merlin 45, a similar engine that could be used in a Mk I or Mk II fuselage. The Mk III was abandoned in favour of the Mk V, although many of the improvements first seen in the Mk III were used in later versions of the aircraft. The Mk III airframe was later used to test the Merlin 61 engine, becoming the ancestor of the Mk VII, VIII and IX Spitfires.




Thanks for that information. I enjoyed your explanation. Merlin XX engines used for a hypothetical Spitfire III would presumably be taken from Wellingtons, Lancaster's, Hurricanes, Whitby' etc effecting bomber production (what the Germans want). The Spitfire III seems to belong to the same series as the Spitfire IV, VII, VIII, XII, XIV, XVIII i.e. enlarged fuselage tank and leading edge wing tanks, retractable tail wheel. It certainly seems to be a powerful aircraft but belonged to an airframe series that was only produced in modest numbers.

The Me 109F1 with the DBB601N2 engine using C3 fuel entered service in August 1940 at the close of the BoB. The Me 109F3 and Me 109F4 with the DB601E using B4 fuel a short time latter. By Feb 1942 both engines had been released to a 1350hp rating allowing a speed of 391 mph. There were intermediate increments as well. In essence in August at the close of the Battle of Britain not only were drop tank capable Me 109E4/B and Me 109E7N/B entering service so was the Me 109F1. The Me 109F1 had significantly enhanced range due to its better aerodynamics.

The more likely scenario I think is that the Merlin XX gets dropped straight into the Mk II or Mk V airframe and few Mk III actually get the engine.

I'm not sure what the Luftwaffe's response to the Spitfire Mk III would be. There were proposed Me 109F series beyond the F4 and plans for a more capable higher power levels for the Me 109E (heavier DB601 based engine) though the Me 109G1 with DB605A started entering service in Feb 1942.

Had the Luftwaffe persisted beyond the traditional end of the battle of Britain with the new longer range Me 109 there might be a significant capability to attrite the RAF if they confine daylight raids to only those in which the bombers can be fully escorted all the way to target by drop tank capable Me 109 (with those not fitted out yet protecting those that had drop tanks from early jettison). This can be combined with the night raids to strike industrial targets associated with aviation that actually did happen. My gut opinion is that this strategy would probably not attrite the RAF sufficient because I believe a long range escort fighter bomber such as the Fw 187 would still be needed.


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## pbehn (Jan 5, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> Thanks for that information. I enjoyed your explanation. Merlin XX engines used for a hypothetical Spitfire III would presumably be taken from Wellingtons, Lancaster's, Hurricanes, Whitby' etc effecting bomber production (what the Germans want). The Spitfire III seems to belong to the same series as the Spitfire IV, VII, VIII, XII, XIV, XVIII i.e. enlarged fuselage tank and leading edge wing tanks, retractable tail wheel. It certainly seems to be a powerful aircraft.
> 
> The Me 109F1 with the DBB601N2 engine using C3 fuel entered service in August 1940 at the close of the BoB. The Me 109F3 and Me 109F4 with the DB601E using B4 fuel a short time latter. By Feb 1942 both engines had been released to a 1350hp rating allowing a speed of 391 mph. There were intermediate increments as well. In essence in August at the close of the Battle of Britain not only were drop tank capable Me 109E4/B and Me 109E7N/B entering service so was the Me 109F1. The Me 109F1 had significantly enhanced range due to its better aerodynamics.
> 
> ...


 You havnt explained your what if? If the RAF suffers the same losses and difficulties in 1940 as they historically did then the LW must do also, your scenario has the RAF weakened in 1940 but the LW bright eyed, bushy tailed and stronger than ever. The following types were introduced in 1940 too late to be involved in the battle but there, Short Stirling, HP Halifax, Avro Manchester, Bristol Beaufighter, Westland Whirlwind. The war in 1941 was going to be different to 1940 and there is no possibility of fighting any war of attrition in winter, many missions were postponed or called off in September/October, meanwhile pilots from the Arnold Scheme and pilot training were arriving from USA Canada and those with only a few hours on type quickly increased them. As previously stated, at the fall of France the RAF had 500 front line fighters in service, this was the best chance for Germany to win, from then throughout the battle the number of front line fighters increased even if pilot quality dropped. The LWs war of attrition saw the RAF increase in numbers, things were not going to improve in 1941 when it would start with 1000 better planes with better pilots and lots more better bombers and mine layers. 

P.S. it wasnt my explanation, it is from the link I posted, other links are available saying the same thing.


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## pbehn (Jan 5, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> "
> The various Fuherer directives to destroy the RAF were issued by June 14th *and came not as part of the plan for a possible operation SeaLion but to stop the RAF's further bombing of the Ruhr Basin.*
> 
> *Hitler wants to get on with preparing for Operation Barbarossa. Doenitz's analysis of SeaLion highlights the extreme difficulties. SeaLion 1940 is seen as a last resort.*
> ...


This is revisionist apologist invention. Hitler didn't want bombing of the Ruhr or anywhere in Germany at any time because he was the head of the German political system and it meant the war he started coming home to roost. If he wanted to stop bombing of the Ruhr he should withdraw from Poland Netherlands Belgium Norway and France, that is what the war was all about. Goering wasn't just a bit of a c*nt, he was a killer, cold blooded murderer, and ruthless political operator. He was also a complete buffoon, a vain incompetent drug addict art collector and model for various uniforms, batons and pink boots. There was a meeting you should note on July 19 1940 where Mayer was presented with his second baton for his new position of Reichsmarschall and Hitlers second in command. On that day Hitler made a kind offering to halt hostilities with the UK which he claimed had already lost 150 aircraft and would be unable to withstand further attacks by German bombers. It was at the meeting on 1 August 1940 that Goering was advised what the ACTUAL strength of the LW was, approximately half what he thought it was, because he took little notice of losses throughout the campaigns in Poland Norway Netherlands , Belgium and France. This meeting of 1 Aug. was to plan and construct a strategy 3 weeks after the battle had actually started. The increasingly clueless duo were starting to enter their own fantasy world that would end in a bunker after magnificent victories in North Africa and Stalingrad.


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## fastmongrel (Jan 5, 2021)

How dare those effete, drunken Englishers get in the way of the glorious Charlie Chaplin impersonators campaign to rule de welt


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## pbehn (Jan 5, 2021)

fastmongrel said:


> How dare those effete, drunken Englishers get in the way of the glorious Charlie Chaplin impersonators campaign to rule de welt


At times Goering both in his style of dress and verbal outbursts could fit straight into a "Blackadder" sketch with no changes at all. Accusing front line airmen of cowardice while his boss was in a bunker and his mates were looking for routes to South America is black comedy Baldrick would admire.

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## nuuumannn (Jan 5, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> This is a rehash of the same old claim that 'strategy' could have made the difference rather than equipment. It's also a rehash of the double standard where every piece of information the Germans are missing in the first 3 weeks of the Battle on British aircraft production and loses or the centralised Chain Home Radar system is proof of Germans are bumbling rather than just proof of British secrecy. Secrecy is what one tends to practice during a war.
> 
> In reality the 'faulty intelligence' Goering supposedly based his campaign on can be traced to inappropriate equipment: the lack of a high speed reconnaissance aircraft.



No, not correct. Again, you are just not facing the facts, Koopernic. It has been stated to you on many occasions that the Germans underestimated their opponent's number. It's plainly stated in the meeting on 1 August, in Osterkamp's assessment of it and in other documentation and accounts of the battle that the Germans did this. This is the blunder and *they will not win* regardless of what equipment they have.



Koopernic said:


> Now Goering comes across as a c*nt and his accusatory talking out of his ass style doesn't help analyse information as it comes in but the other commanders are clearly competent. They are not "bungling" for not understanding the extent or effectiveness of the RAF centralised control via CH radar. They are bringing up various strategies that might be employed and even Goering is thinking ahead that with SeaLion a possibility that docks might need to be preserved. These are the men that just successfully invaded Poland, France, Holland, Denmark, Belgium and Norway fighting of British forces in 2 of them.



You're putting your own words on what is being posted here as I never said anything like what you are presuming I have done so. I never said Goering was a c*nt (is it really necessary to use that language?) and no one, other than you has stated that the Germans were 'bungling'; I certainly haven't.



Koopernic said:


> So the Germans didn't understand the capabilities of the Chain Home system. Why should they?



My constant pointing this out is because of your constant repetition, despite the fact no one is saying it, that the Germans didn't know about British radar. In two slightly related threads you have made the same claim, yet no one has actually said it!



Koopernic said:


> Again this is not 'bungling' since how are they too know how the RAF will react? The Germans tried both.



Again, who has said the Germans are bungling, apart from you? The simple fact is, that the way the battle actually played out, the Germans made serious errors of judgement and their lack of organisation and lack of clarity of purpose - you can put whatever spin you like on it, the commanders certainly were _not_ on the same page and _did not _have an overall strategy that they were in agreement with; all the surviving evidence contradicts what you are claiming in regard to this - contributed highly toward their downfall. As I have pointed out to you repeatedly, the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain, campaign or not, it's a semantic point barely relevant of clarification, because of its incompetent leadership, as much as the British won it. NOT because of the lack of range of the Bf 109.


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## Milosh (Jan 5, 2021)

Koopernic said:


> The Me 109F1 with the DBB601N2 engine using C3 fuel entered service in August 1940 at the close of the BoB.


The new version first saw action in Oct 1940 with Stab/JG51. The first know loss, WNr 5635, was Nov. 11 1940, Oblt. Georg Claus. of 1./JG51.

The BoB ended in August?

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## pbehn (Jan 5, 2021)

Milosh said:


> The new version first saw action in Oct 1940 with Stab/JG51. The first know loss, WNr 5635, was Nov. 11 1940, Oblt. Georg Claus. of 1./JG51.
> 
> The BoB ended in August?


Officially ended on 31 October, "Battle of Britain day" commemorates the 15 September when the massed raids on London were met, a few days later Hitler postponed Sealion, after that the attacks switched to the night time Blitz and sporadic day time activity with high altitude Me109s a fore runner to the Tip and Run raids.


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## Koopernic (Jan 5, 2021)

pbehn said:


> This is revisionist apologist invention. .



This is where you start the ad hominem.

Let the dates and facts speak for themselves.

*Fuhrer Directive 13, (still during the battle of France) so most of this is concerned with operations in France. *

*___________________________________________________-*

The Leader And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces.
Headquarters. *24th May, 1940. 7 copies*
der-fuehrer.org/reden/english/wardirectives/13.html (der-fuehrer.org) 

* "3. Tasks Of The Air Force.

(a) Apart from operations in France, the Air Force is authorised to attack the English homeland in the fullest manner, as soon as sufficient forces are available. This attack will be opened by an annihilating reprisal for English attacks on the Ruhr Basin.

Commander In Chief Air Force will designate targets in accordance with the principles laid down in Directive No. 9 and further orders to be issued by the High Command Of The Armed Forces. The time and plan for this attack are to be reported to me."*

Goering's orders to implement these attacks, with Reference to protecting the Ruhr, only occurred on June 30th and they did not take place immediately.

In "Directive No. 16 – On preparations for a landing operation against England" on 16 July 1940 Hitler required readiness by mid-August for the possibility of an invasion he called Operation Sea Lion, unless the British agreed to negotiations. 

As you can see the directives are initiated as reprisals and neutralising objectives (annihilating)

From Wikipedia.
"By the end of June 1940, Germany had defeated Britain's allies on the continent, and on* 30 June the OKW Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl issued his review of options to increase pressure on Britain to agree to a negotiated peace*. The first priority was to eliminate the RAF and gain air supremacy. Intensified air attacks against shipping and the economy could affect food supplies and civilian morale in the long term. Reprisal attacks of terror bombing had the potential to cause quicker capitulation, but the effect on morale was uncertain. Once the Luftwaffe had control of the air, and the UK economy had been weakened, an invasion would be a last resort or a final strike ("_Todesstoss_") after Britain had already been conquered, but could have a quick result. *On the same day (30 June), the Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief Hermann Göring issued his operational directive; to destroy the RAF, thus protecting German industry, *and also to block overseas supplies to Britain.[54][55] *The German Supreme Command argued over the practicality of these options*. "
_____________________________________________________________________________-



*Directive No. 17 -- For The Conduct Of Air And Sea Warfare Against England*
der-fuehrer.org/reden/english/wardirectives/17.html (der-fuehrer.org) 
The Leader And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces.
The Leader's Headquarters. *1st August, 1940. 10 copies*
*
"In order to establish the necessary conditions for the final conquest of England I intend to intensify air and sea warfare against the English homeland. I therefore order as follows:

1. The German Airforce is to overpower the English Airforce with all the forces at its command, in the shortest possible time. The attacks are to be directed primarily against flying units, their ground installations, and their supply organisations, but also against the aircraft industry, including that manufacturing antiaircraft equipment.

2. After achieving temporary or local air superiority the air war is to be continued against ports, in particular against stores of food, and also against stores of provisions in the interior of the country.

Attacks on south coast ports will be made on the smallest possible scale, in view of our own forthcoming operations.

3. On the other hand, air attacks on enemy warships and merchant ships may be reduced except where some particularly favourable target happens to present itself, where such attacks would lend additional effectiveness to those mentioned in paragraph 2, or where such attacks are necessary for the training of aircrews for further operations.

4. The intensified air warfare will be carried out in such a way that the Airforce can at any time be called upon to give adequate support to naval operations against suitable targets. It must also be ready to take part in full force in Undertaking Sea Lion.

5. I reserve to myself the right to decide on terror attacks as measures of reprisal.

6. The intensification of the air war may begin on or after 5th August. The exact time is to be decided by the Airforce after the completion of preparations and in the light of the weather.


The Navy is authorised to begin the proposed intensified naval war at the same time.*

*______________________________*

der-fuehrer.org/reden/english/wardirectives/16.html (der-fuehrer.org) 
The Leader And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces.

The Leader's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies"


*Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England
Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out.

The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely.

I therefore order as follows:

1. The landing will be in the form of a surprise crossing on a wide front from about Ramsgate to the area west of the Isle Of Wight. Units of the Airforce will act as artillery, and units of the Navy as engineers.

The possible advantages of limited operations before the general crossing (for example, the occupation of the Isle Of Wight or of the county of Cornwall) are to be considered from the point of view of each branch of the Armed Forces and the results reported to me. I reserve the decision to myself.

Preparations for the entire operation must be completed by the middle of August.

2. These preparations must also create such conditions as will make a landing in England possible, namely:

(a) The English Airforce must be so reduced morally and physically that it is unable to deliver any significant attack against the German crossing.

(b) Mine free channels must be cleared.

(c) The Straits Of Dover must be closely sealed off with minefields on both flanks; also the western entrance to the Channel approximately on the line Alderney-Portland.

(d) Strong forces of coastal artillery must command and protect the forward coastal area.

(e) It is desirable that the English Navy be tied down shortly before the crossing, both in the North Sea and in the Mediterranean (by the Italians). For this purpose we must attempt even now to damage English homebased naval forces by air and torpedo attack as far as possible.

3. Command Organisation And Preparations.

Under my overriding command and according to my general instructions, the Commanders In Chief will command the branches of the Armed Forces for which they are responsible.

From 1st August the Operations Staffs of Commander In Chief Army, Commander In Chief Navy, and Commander In Chief Airforce are to be located at a distance of not more than 50 kilometres from my Headquarters (Ziegenberg).

It seems to me useful that the inner Operations Staffs of Commander In Chief Army and Commander In Chief Navy should be placed together at Giessen.

Commander In Chief Army will detail one Army Group to carry out the invasion.

The invasion will bear the covername Seelöwe -- Sea Lion.

In the preparation and execution of this operation the following tasks are allotted to each Service:

(a) Army:

The Army will draw up the operational and crossing plans for all formations of the first wave of the invasion. The antiaircraft artillery which is to cross with the first wave will remain subordinate to the Army (to individual crossing units) until it is possible to allocate its responsibilities between the support and protection of troops on the ground, the protection of disembarkation points, and the protection of the airfields which are to be occupied.

The Army will, moreover, lay down the methods by which the invasion is to be carried out and the individual forces to be employed, and will determine points of embarkation and disembarkation in conjunction with the Navy.

(b) Navy:

The Navy will procure the means for invasion and will take them, in accordance with the wishes of the Army, but with due regard to navigational considerations, to the various embarkation points. Use will be made, as far as possible, of the shipping of defeated enemy countries.

The Navy will furnish each embarkation point with the staff necessary to give nautical advice, with escort vessels, and with guards. In conjunction with air forces assigned for protection, it will defend the crossing of the Channel on both flanks. Further Orders will lay down the chain of command during the crossing. It is also the task of the Navy to coordinate the setting up of coastal artillery -- that is, all artillery, both naval and military, intended to engage targets at sea -- and generally to direct its fire. The largest possible number of extra heavy guns will be brought into position as soon as possible in order to cover the crossing and to shield the flanks against enemy action at sea. For this purpose railway guns will also be used (reinforced by all available captured weapons) and will be sited on railway turntables. Those batteries intended only to deal with targets on the English mainland (K5 and K12) will not be included. Apart from this the existing extra heavy platform gun batteries are to be enclosed in concrete opposite the Straits Of Dover in such a manner that they can withstand the heaviest air attacks and will permanently, in all conditions, command the Straits Of Dover within the limits of their range. The technical work will be the responsibility of the Organisation Todt.

(c) The Task Of The Airforce Will Be:

To prevent interference by the enemy Airforce.

To destroy coastal fortresses which might operate against our disembarkation points, to break the first resistance of enemy land forces, and to disperse reserves on their way to the front. In carrying out this task the closest liaison is necessary between individual Airforce units and the Army invasion forces.

Also, to destroy important transport highways by which enemy reserves might be brought up, and to attack approaching enemy naval forces as far as possible from our disembarkation points. I request that suggestions be made to me regarding the employment of parachute and airborne troops. In this connection it should be considered, in conjunction with the Army, whether it would be useful at the beginning to hold parachute and airborne troops in readiness as a reserve, to be thrown in quickly in case of need.

4. Preparations to ensure the necessary communications between France and the English mainland will be handled by the Chief, Armed Forces Signals.

The use of the remaining eighty kilometres of the East Prussia cable is to be examined in cooperation with the Navy.

5. I request Commanders In Chief to submit to me as soon as possible:

(a) The plans of the Navy and Airforce to establish the necessary conditions for crossing the Channel (see paragraph 2).

(b) Details off the building of coastal batteries (Navy).

(c) A general survey of the shipping required and the methods by which it is proposed to prepare and procure it. Should civil authorities be involved? (Navy).

(d) The organisation of Air Defence in the assembly areas for invasion troops and ships (Airforce).

(e) The crossing and operation plan of the Army, the composition and equipment of the first wave of invasion.

(f) The organisation and plans of the Navy and Airforce for the execution of the actual crossing, for its protection, and for the support of the landing.

(g) Proposals for the use of parachute and airborne troops and also for the organisation and command of antiaircraft artillery as soon as sufficient English territory has been captured.

(h) Proposals for the location of Naval and Air Headquarters.

(i) Views of the Navy and Airforce whether limited operations are regarded as useful before a general landing, and, if so, of what kind.

(k) Proposal from Army and Navy regarding command during the crossing.*

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## pbehn (Jan 6, 2021)

What is Adolfs problem with attacks on the Ruhr? He had already occupied numerous countries and destroyed various cities, was the poor dear developing a victim complex, was he unaware that a state of war existed between Germany and UK

The meeting of August 1st and its declaration were typical of Adolf and Hermanns bumbling nonsense. 7 weeks after Dunkirk and 6 weeks before the planned invasion Herman is told what forces he has left and he with Hitler declare the strategy which obviously takes no account of the forces on both sides. Surely by August the 1st the pair of them had figured out things were not as easy as they thought they would be? I mean point 1 THE LANDING WILL BE IN THE FORM OF A SURPRISE. After 6 weeks of attacks (after the meeting) and having a fleet of barges in French and Belgian ports with time running out before winter there is no possibility of any surprise attack on a broad front in Kent and Sussex, saying it and printing it doesnt make it a reality or even a possibility. Ramsgate to the Isle of Wight by road is 156 miles, oh and just throw in Cornwall too. By the middle of September Goering had 200 serviceable bombers or approximately 1 per mile of coast that had to be supported.

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## Shortround6 (Jan 6, 2021)

A lot of stuff in there that seems to be of the same idea.
Print it and it will make it so.

_Just_ mine the English channel from Alderney to the Portland bill.

It is 56 miles and there were shore batteries on the Portland peninsula. British only need passage a few miles wide to get reinforcement ships through. British have mine sweepers (converted trawlers) in abundance. 
German mines are laid how? submarine? Aircraft? surface ships being shot at by shore batteries or ships operating out of British bases? 
Yes the Germans can lay the 20-30 miles closest to France pretty easy but leaving the 20 miles closest to England unmined means the mine field is pretty much worthless.

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## fastmongrel (Jan 6, 2021)

Shortround6 said:


> A lot of stuff in there that seems to be of the same idea.
> Print it and it will make it so.



I think that when a person starts posting reams of text in bold multicoloured fonts it means that person knows they're on the wrong horse.

Anyone remember shooter2000😔


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## pbehn (Jan 6, 2021)

fastmongrel said:


> I think that when a person starts posting reams of text in bold multicoloured fonts it means that person knows they're on the wrong horse.
> 
> Anyone remember shooter2000😔


There is some fine comedy in there. Surely taking Newfoundland and New York just involves two more trawlers and a He111?

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## Juha3 (Jan 6, 2021)

Shortround6 said:


> A lot of stuff in there that seems to be of the same idea.
> Print it and it will make it so.
> 
> _Just_ mine the English channel from Alderney to the Portland bill.
> ...



More than worthless, at least in the Baltic Germans had a nasty habit to drive their big destroyers (Zs) and late big torpedo boats (Ts) to their own minefields.
On the night of 17/18 August 1944 big 1,294 t Type 39 torpedo boats T22, T30 and T32. Out of four big Ts sent only T23 survived. Out of 545 crews of the sunken ships only 151 survived.
and on the night of 11/12 December 1944 two big 2,559 t Type 36B destroyers Z35 and Z36 out of three Zs and 2 big Ts. Only 67 crewmembers survived but ended up to Soviet PoWs.
In both cases the mission was to lay new mines very close/close to existing German minefields. In the first case, only a few new mines were laid before the disaster struck, in the latter none.

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## Thomas24999 (Apr 15, 2021)

sounds to me like the problem really started in 1939 when they went into Poland. Hitler hoped that england would sue for peace. In that time the Germans never prepared for the possibility that England would stay in the fight. The German's were effective at dealing with the opposing air power because their goals were the same as the ground forces and they worked better together then the rest. Now I have heard arguments that the French air army had better aircraft and more of it. There is some truth to that on paper. The French were behind in their engine manufacturing next to Germany and England. France had planes being delivered without props, engines, and armaments'. also France really didn't have a lot of fighters and used them as best they could to defend their interior from German bombing. Germany not getting much resistance from any other nation in the air for the first time had met their match. yes goring's hubris clouded his judgement but he was really a politician more then qualified air marshal. Also if I remember correctly the British were on the edge of loosing the battle for the air about the time the Germans shelved the bombing campaign. I do agree with what everyone else is saying I just believe that when they went into Poland both England and France had agreed to fight with Poland. They focused on France, went into Norway and Denmark and not until France was defeated did they look at England. This battle for Britain was born out of desperation and it smelled of it. England already had the initiative and Germany was reacting by attacking without any real intel. Moreover Germany's intel throughout the war was wrong. The soldiers understood but the people that made the decisions were never aloud to give intel that would change the direction that Hitler wanted to go.


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## pbehn (Apr 15, 2021)

Thomas24999 said:


> sounds to me like the problem really started in 1939 when they went into Poland. Hitler hoped that england would sue for peace. In that time the Germans never prepared for the possibility that England would stay in the fight. The German's were effective at dealing with the opposing air power because their goals were the same as the ground forces and they worked better together then the rest. Now I have heard arguments that the French air army had better aircraft and more of it. There is some truth to that on paper. The French were behind in their engine manufacturing next to Germany and England. France had planes being delivered without props, engines, and armaments'. also France really didn't have a lot of fighters and used them as best they could to defend their interior from German bombing. Germany not getting much resistance from any other nation in the air for the first time had met their match. yes goring's hubris clouded his judgement but he was really a politician more then qualified air marshal. Also if I remember correctly the British were on the edge of loosing the battle for the air about the time the Germans shelved the bombing campaign. I do agree with what everyone else is saying I just believe that when they went into Poland both England and France had agreed to fight with Poland. They focused on France, went into Norway and Denmark and not until France was defeated did they look at England. This battle for Britain was born out of desperation and it smelled of it. England already had the initiative and Germany was reacting by attacking without any real intel. Moreover Germany's intel throughout the war was wrong. The soldiers understood but the people that made the decisions were never aloud to give intel that would change the direction that Hitler wanted to go.


Welcome to the forum. Just a few points.
1 The Battle of Britain was between the UK (United Kingdom of GB and Northern Ireland, and the Commonwealth) and the Axis, not England against Germany. Although most fighting was over England, Scotland and Wales were also attacked. Italy also took part in attacks on south England. England is only a geographic entity, like the Islands of Hawaii. the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would not have been so serious if it was just Hawaii, it was also one of the United States which changes things more than a little.

2 The L/W obvious aim was to wipe out the RAF, so that is the first thing that Dowding and Park would make sure never happened, the aim of last resort was that the RAF still existed, even if much reduced.

3 At the time of the "Hardest Day" 18 August 1940 which saw the most intense fighting and biggest losses so far on both sides the RAF was under severe pressure, but so was the LW, so far they had made no real progress in destroying the RAF, its infrastructure or its factories. By the time the L/W raids were switched from airfields to London it was all the L/W could actually do, they were down to circa 200 serviceable bombers. Some squadrons were down to 3 serviceable planes and crew, the only thing that could be done at short notice was to give a meeting point, time and a target with basic instructions about formation.

4 Intel was wrong on both sides, the British swallowed a lot of Goerings propaganda about the strength of the LW while Goering and his assistants swallowed their own about the RAF. So the RAF always thought their enemy was stronger than it actually was and the LW thought the RAF was weaker, despite the reality both saw every day.

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## Milosh (Apr 17, 2021)

Lw OoB for BoB, www.oocities.org/sturmvogel_66/LWOB45.html
*Strength Summary *
*7 Sept 1940*

*NumberTypeStrength-Svcble*
43Kampfgruppen1291-798
4Stukagruppen174-133
2Schlachtgruppe59-44
27Jagdgruppen831-658
8Zerstörergruppen206-112
18Fernaufklärungsstaffeln191-123
6Seefliegerstaffeln52-33


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## Thumpalumpacus (Apr 17, 2021)

Right, the LW couldn't be everywhere at once. You want to attack the Home Fleet as it descends upon the barges? That's nice. Write off air support for the German invasion forces. Will those bombers be escorted? If so, write off air-cover for the resupply barges, leaving them open to air attack. You want to provide air cover for the barges? Then the bombers attacking the Home Fleet will be unescorted. Stukas, you say? They'd better have fighters covering them.

The German Navy was eliminated as a serious covering force by action in Norway. The LW was going to have to shepherd the barges across, and escort bomber which would at any rate have to choose between supporting the land assault or attacking the RN which would be attacking the fleet of barges. Consider that the barges probably had five-six days' turnaround time while you're making this calculation.

It looks to me like the Germans either land too small a force to take Britain, or land and then strand a large force.

The RN is a factor that cannot be ignored, and unlikely to be defeated by air alone. The British destroyers and patrol vessels based in south England, separate from the Home Fleet, could wreak havoc upon a transport force having very light naval defense, and do so in one-night sorties, returning to bases by morning ... where the Luftwaffe could choose to disperse its combat power further attacking them, while the Home Fleet sails in for the kill.

I'm not buyin' it. As ABC ordered later, in 1943, "sink, burn, destroy" would be the order of the day. The Germans ashore would be stranded for mopping-up, because the Germans simply did not have the strength to achieve the goal of the operation.

Those airplanes eaten up achieving air superiority cannot be in two places at one time.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Apr 17, 2021)

<edited, double-post>


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## Glider (Apr 18, 2021)

Shortround6 said:


> A lot of stuff in there that seems to be of the same idea.
> Print it and it will make it so.
> 
> _Just_ mine the English channel from Alderney to the Portland bill.
> ...



Laying mines is in some ways fairly straight forward. The problem is how do you stop the RN from clearing them when the RN have a good number of minesweepers, a much larger pool of trained seamen and pretty much the freedom of the seas during the night? Plus of course the same advantages would apply to the British laying mines

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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

Thumpalumpacus said:


> Right, the LW couldn't be everywhere at once. You want to attack the Home Fleet as it descends upon the barges? That's nice. Write off air support for the German invasion forces. Will those bombers be escorted? If so, write off air-cover for the resupply barges, leaving them open to air attack. You want to provide air cover for the barges? Then the bombers attacking the Home Fleet will be unescorted. Stukas, you say? They'd better have fighters covering them.
> 
> The German Navy was eliminated as a serious covering force by action in Norway. The LW was going to have to shepherd the barges across, and escort bomber which would at any rate have to choose between supporting the land assault or attacking the RN which would be attacking the fleet of barges. Consider that the barges probably had five-six days' turnaround time while you're making this calculation.
> 
> ...


Let's not forget that those barges were nowhere near as capable as Allied Higgins boats, LSD's, LST's, LCVP's, LCPL's, AMTRAC's et al. I believe that many of those invasion barges were unpowered and would have to be towed. I'm sure someone here would have an answer to that.

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## Thumpalumpacus (Apr 18, 2021)

SaparotRob said:


> Let's not forget that those barges were nowhere near as capable as Allied Higgins boats, LSD's, LST's, LCVP's, LCPL's, AMTRAC's et al. I believe that many of those invasion barges were unpowered and would have to be towed. I'm sure someone here would have an answer to that.



They already have. I'm one of those weirdos who reads an entire thread before posting in it. That info is disputed for a couple of pages, but I find it hard to credit most of the powered barges with more than ten knots or so, and obviously much less than that if (as likely) towing an unpowered barge as well. 

Marshalling, loading, and landing the troops -- and equipment! -- will add time to their turnaround, and they will be vulnerable to daylight air attack at all stages of operations unless plentifully equipped with flak (meaning fewer flak crews and guns ashore) or given fighter cover.

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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

I read the entire threads too but my independent research in psychoactive substances back in school left me er, what were we talking about?

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## special ed (Apr 18, 2021)

I've never indulged in psychoactive substances, and people tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

Well I did and I never know what I'm talking about!


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

pbehn said:


> The Battle of Britain was between the UK (United Kingdom of GB and Northern Ireland, and the Commonwealth) and the Axis, not England against Germany.



To be fair to the original poster, the Germans described the entire British Isles as _England_ En-Ge-Lahnd (much to the consternation of the Scots, Welsh and Irish)


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

A few notes about Sealion. It is worth noting that the Kriegsmarine, from Raeder down thought it a futile gesture, for good reason apart from the invasion barges being totally inadequate, the unpredictable weather, the timing of transit, Goring's relative failure to subdue the RAF etc. By July 1940 it had lost one armoured cruiser, the Adm Graf Spee, three cruisers and ten destroyers. Two battleships were not ready and the other two were in dry dock under repair after being torpedoed and its remaining two armoured cruisers were also in dock being repaired. This left one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers and nine destroyers facing five battleships, one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and 57 (yup, fifty-seven) destroyers _in British waters alone_, to say nothing of the Mediterranean fleet that quite probably would not have sat idly by whilst Britain was being invaded.

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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> To be fair to the original poster, the Germans described the entire British Isles as _England_ En-Ge-Lahnd



Having lived in Scotland and witnessing the natives' hatred for the English, I believe this is why the Scots hated the Germans and made such good soldiers and PT instructors.


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## pbehn (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> To be fair to the original poster, the Germans described the entire British Isles as _England_ En-Ge-Lahnd (much to the consternation of the Scots, Welsh and Irish)


Many did at the time and still do, Ive worked with Scots Welsh and Irish all over the world, most people in the world don't understand the difference between England Great Britain and UK. In Japan I worked with a Scot who had £500 in Scottish pound notes, which the Japanese wouldn't accept, he went BALLISTIC. When abroad, I used to tell local people to ask my Scottish colleagues whereabouts in England they came from, just for the laughs. It works with Americans too, I once asked my boss from Oregon whereabouts in Canada it is, his reaction was comedy gold.

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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

pbehn said:


> I worked with a Scot who had £500 in Scottish pound notes, which the Japanese wouldn't accept, he went BALLISTIC.



Every Scotsman (and more than a few gullible tourists) trying to buy a pint at an English pub...


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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

pbehn said:


> Many did at the time and still do, Ive worked with Scots Welsh and Irish all over the world, most people in the world don't understand the difference between England Great Britain and UK. In Japan I worked with a Scot who had £500 in Scottish pound notes, which the Japanese wouldn't accept, he went BALLISTIC. When abroad, I used to tell local people to ask my Scottish colleagues whereabouts in England they came from, just for the laughs. It works with Americans too, I once asked my boss from Oregon whereabouts in Canada it is, his reaction was comedy gold.


I'm seeing a side of you I've never seen before. I like the cut of your jib, Mister!

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## pbehn (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> Every Scotsman (and more than a few gullible tourists) trying to buy a pint at an English pub...


They actually have three "pound notes" how many 1 Dollar notes does the USA have? How many Yuan notes do the Chinese have? They have ONE because you only should have one, the Scots have three and claim it isn't toytown money. I suspect you went to Scotland in the post Braveheart era.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

pbehn said:


> I suspect you went to Scotland in the post Braveheart era.



Ah yes, the days before paywave, my friend. Still got a wee bit of blue facepaint encrusted under my left earlobe...

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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

Anyhoo. Another wee note about Sealion. on the night of 12/13 August, five Hampden bombers attacked an aqueduct on the Dortmund Ems canal and although the raid was considered a failure since the canal was not destroyed, it was blocked up sufficiently for ten days to cause a delay in the supply of equipment and barges for the invasion. This was the raid on which Flt Lt Learoyd earned himself a VC for sustaining his attack amid fierce AA fire and nursing his damaged aircraft home. This raid and its after-effects caused significant delay to preparations and forced Hitler to postpone Sealion from the 15th September to possibly the 21st, but a final decision was not going to be made until three days beforehand.

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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

pbehn said:


> They actually have three "pound notes"



That's because each Scottish bank prints its own notes. The Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Clydesdale Bank, each given to printing their own notes with their own pretty logos on them. They still have the same legal tender value as the English Pound Sterling as set by the Bank of England (this is another reason Scots want independence - autonomy from the Bank of England).


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## pbehn (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> A few notes about Sealion. It is worth noting that the Kriegsmarine, from Raeder down thought it a futile gesture, for good reason apart from the invasion barges being totally inadequate, the unpredictable weather, the timing of transit, Goring's relative failure to subdue the RAF etc. By July 1940 it had lost one armoured cruiser, the Adm Graf Spee, three cruisers and ten destroyers. Two battleships were not ready and the other two were in dry dock under repair after being torpedoed and its remaining two armoured cruisers were also in dock being repaired. This left one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers and nine destroyers facing five battleships, one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and 57 (yup, fifty-seven) destroyers _in British waters alone_, to say nothing of the Mediterranean fleet that quite probably would not have sat idly by whilst Britain was being invaded.


In a documentary on the Battle of Britain Adolf Galland himself said the LW preparations were "ridiculous".

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## pbehn (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> That's because each Scottish bank prints its own notes. The Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Clydesdale Bank, each given to printing their own notes with their own pretty logos on them. They still have the same legal tender value as the English Pound Sterling as set by the Bank of England (this is another reason Scots want independence - autonomy from the Bank of England).


When they are independent will they still have three banks issuing currency? RBS is bankrupt and owned by the UK state at present, its all a comedy.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

pbehn said:


> its all a comedy



One that the Scots take mightily serious. All British banking is conducted under the auspices of the Bank of England - it controls every financial transaction in the country, no matter where it takes place. The entire 'bankruptcy' of a banking institution is a farce in the UK as a result. It's smoke and mirrors to make a point.


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## pbehn (Apr 18, 2021)

SaparotRob said:


> I'm seeing a side of you I've never seen before. I like the cut of your jib, Mister!


On our very first meeting which was in a bar in Japan, the barmaid asked "Bob from Oregon" if we were engineers. Bob replied "watashi wa ingineeri, core was baka ingineeri" Which means "I am an engineer, these are stupid engineers". Bob didn't realise I had been in Japan before and spoke Japanese. So I burst out laughing and said "Anatta wa hoso bosu sukebe nohnbei kokan kensakan" Which means "you are a drunken lecherous pipe inspector who is making a poor living". Things kinda went down hill from there. "Bob" was from Oregon but he had been abroad for so long he had gone bush, nothing like any other American I have ever met, it was a pleasure falling out with him.

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## pbehn (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> One that the Scots take mightily serious. All British banking is conducted under the auspices of the Bank of England - it controls every financial transaction in the country, no matter where it takes place. The entire 'bankruptcy' of a banking institution is a farce in the UK as a result. It's smoke and mirrors to make a point.


RBS became the bankrupt institution that it is when the UK had a Scottish chancellor who wanted it to be the biggest bank in the world, I kid you not and I have a lot of almost worthless shares in it.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

Don't get me wrong, I don't especially think Scottish independence is a sensible thing, but such things are always driven by passion and it's kinda' hard to deny that instinct. Brexit, quite rightly has given the Scots something extra to get behind, remaining in the EU. It's a bit like following Scottish Football or the SRU (I had a mate who was a member of the SRU and we used to go watch internationals at Murrayfield, which was cool), you support them because they play with heart and passion even though they're guaranteed to fall short - a Scottish friend once said to me, the Scots follow the same formula every sports season, they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

pbehn said:


> RBS became the bankrupt institution that it is when the UK had a Scottish chancellor who wanted it to be the biggest bank in the world, I kid you not and I have a lot of almost worthless shares in it.



Blame the Bank of England. Honestly. EVERY financial transaction in the UK goes through its doors. Everything. Financially, things don't happen in the UK the way they do without its input.


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## pbehn (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> Blame the Bank of England. Honestly. EVERY financial transaction in the UK goes through its doors. Everything. Financially, things don't happen in the UK the way they do without its input.


I am more inclined to blame the Scottish Chancellor and his Scottish friend at the top of RBS, they managed to pay a fortune for a Dutch bank that wasn't worth a cent (Ibn Amro) Gordon Brown didn't believe in "regulation".


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

Ultimately it's semantics, but Gordon Brown doesn't/didn't control the Bank of England; it's privately run within the structure of the City of London, a city-state as a separate entity to the London City Council. The UK is the world's leading net exporter of financial services, making the Bank of England the most powerful financial institution in the world.

City of London - Wikipedia

I know its wiki but it illustrates the point. The City has its own mayor, police force, fire department, coat-of-arms, financial and cultural status as an independent entity - and it, not the government, runs the Bank of England.


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## stona (Apr 19, 2021)

At least one Luftwaffe commander did some 'mathematical modelling' of his own.

Theo Osterkamp actually bothered to do some sums. Osterkamp calculated that in order to protect the invasion beaches he would need two complete Geschwader (almost 150 aircraft) over the beach head at all times. By his maths this would require a strength of 12 Geschwader, almost 900 aircraft, more than the Luftwaffe started the Battle with. This implied that they could not sustain any *net *losses at all. This meant that a *gross* attrition rate of about 10% per month, say 75 aircraft, was the maximum acceptable. He further calculated that within these constraints and in order to reduce Fighter Command's strength by 50% the Luftwaffe fighters would have to achieve an exchange rate of 5:1. This was in fact the target he set JG 51 when it took up its position on the Channel coast in early July. He ordered his pilots only to attack when a tactical advantage assured them of success with minimal risk. 
The problem was that the Luftwaffe could never shoot down something like 100 British fighters a week without taking risks. If the British lost 100 fighters in five weeks, to the Germans 20, achieving a 5:1 exchange rate, they would still be able to fight over the beaches and the Luftwaffe would have failed. Essentially, the German plan was dependent on the British committing large numbers of fighters to large air battles, allowing themselves to be bounced and shot down by the Luftwaffe's aces in their Bf 109s. Further raids would then be made on British airfields to mop up anything that was left. Unsurprisingly, the British did not oblige and events, even before the official ‘Adlertag’, clearly showed the scale of the problem the Germans faced. It's just that the Germans ignored it.

I think the modelling in the original link largely misses the point. Going after airfields would have made no difference. The Luftwaffe consistently bombed the airfields operated by other Commands while missing Fighter Command's. It required a better informed and coordinated campaign against a relative few targets. With better intelligence concentrating on just a dozen Chain Home stations between the Thames Estuary and Isle of Wight and 11 Group's Sector Stations, *and maintaining the pressure on just these few targets, *Dowding might have forced to reconsider his options, maybe even to withdraw north of the Thames before an invasion. 

It's all moot, because the Luftwaffe decided very early that the RDF stations were not lucrative targets, and having no idea of how Fighter Command was controlled didn't realise the vital importance of Sector Stations, nor did it know which ones they were. You can't bomb something if you don't know what or where it is.

Welcome to the real world!

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