Dogwalker
Senior Airman
Having won the BoB
So, in case, the British minelaying had to be limited limited to aircraft operating in obstile skyes at night.
I think the Germans, operating by day under aerial cover, can do a little better.
If the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain
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So, in case, the British minelaying had to be limited limited to aircraft operating in obstile skyes at night.
I think the Germans, operating by day under aerial cover, can do a little better.
Dogwalker
Senior Airman
Obviously. Having the British won the BoB means that the two air forces had the upper hand on their respective shores, and the Channel was a no man land, but with the RN bein the strongest navy by far.
But having the LW won the BoB means that it has the upper hand on South England, and the Channel is it's backyard. A British minesweeper had to station out of LW reach at day, then steam a full force at sunset, reach it's area of operation (I can imagine accidents over freshy laid mines), sweep, and then withdraw at full force to reach a safe area first than dawn.
How many real hours of work every night? Or better, every night with not enough moonlight to be targeted anyway? How much possibilities, in a strait so narrow, than the explosion of a mine was not seen by an aerial patrol, a bengal launched, and the minesweeper become a sitting duck in the middle of a minefield?
Shortround6
Major General
Late summer/Fall of 1940 sees the Kriegsmarine at probably it's lowest strength of the war, or at least the first half of the war. The fleet has been reduced to a shadow due to losses and damages in the Norwegian campaign. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Lutzow are out of action with torpedo damage. They become available in the winter/spring of 1941. The destroyer flotillas were smashed with 12 out of 22 of the big destroyers sunk, how many of the remainder were fit for action I don't know but more as each week/month goes by. The eight of the Z-23 class are commissioned between Sept 1940 and Nov 1941. Commissioned basically means accepted by the Navy. The ship still needs a shake down cruise or two and the crew needs training.
The Germans also have a problem with air transport. This may be unknown to the British. Hundreds of Ju 52s were lost in the Norwegian Campaign and hundreds more in the attacks on Holland and Belgium. Many of these could be and were repaired but not in time for operations in the late summer/fall of 1940.
Getting captured ships into operation within a few weeks or months is also a major problem.
The Belgian navy was almost nonexistent with just a few left over German WW I steam torpedo boats,a single British WW I flower class sloop and a sail training ship.
The Dutch left more behind but the bulk of their effective ships were either in the far east or escaped to England ( 2 light cruisers, 1 destroyer, 9 submarines, 2 gunboats, 1 sloop, 6 old torpedo boats and 2 mine layers).
Any French ships were of a minor nature for the most part, the French have moved most anything of value that could be moved.
Even the invasion "fleet" that they did gather had to partially disbanded in order to restore carrying capacity to the coastal, river and canal traffic.
The Germans also have a problem with air transport. This may be unknown to the British. Hundreds of Ju 52s were lost in the Norwegian Campaign and hundreds more in the attacks on Holland and Belgium. Many of these could be and were repaired but not in time for operations in the late summer/fall of 1940.
Getting captured ships into operation within a few weeks or months is also a major problem.
The Belgian navy was almost nonexistent with just a few left over German WW I steam torpedo boats,a single British WW I flower class sloop and a sail training ship.
The Dutch left more behind but the bulk of their effective ships were either in the far east or escaped to England ( 2 light cruisers, 1 destroyer, 9 submarines, 2 gunboats, 1 sloop, 6 old torpedo boats and 2 mine layers).
Any French ships were of a minor nature for the most part, the French have moved most anything of value that could be moved.
Even the invasion "fleet" that they did gather had to partially disbanded in order to restore carrying capacity to the coastal, river and canal traffic.
Njaco
The Pop-Tart Whisperer
This link has pics of the invasion barges ....
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/day-battle-britain-25360-27.html
and a pic of the proposed routes....
.
Dogwalker
Senior Airman
Have I said it shows? I said Germans were able to deploy mines close to British shores, so that's possible. Having the control of the air, they would probably do better.
Have I said someone had to?
YOU said Invasion is a matter of weeks that's the time the minefiels had to endure.
Really, you have to explain for what reason Germans could deploy the mines only once in this scenario.
I said someone had to go to Brighton?
I said several of the routes are very close to the shortest distance.
Seize a port and an airfield using battle hardened troops counter newbies. If the Regia Marina could refurbish first Tripoli (587 km from Trapani to Tripoli, with Malta in the way), and then Tunis (271 km) with the RAF Active at Malta and in NA, with rates close to 90% (100% in 1940...)...
The Channel is a narrow strait. Far bigger areas were mined in WWII without even having the complete control of the air.
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Shortround6
Major General
And how many German bombers shot down trying bomb mine sweepers in port defended by shore based AA guns?
Or try to find the minesweepers in port.
A minesweeper is a small ship, a bit narrower than a destroyer and about 1/2 the length and that is for a naval minesweeper, the British purchased and impressed commercial trawlers by the hundred during the war. 65 or so purchased before the war, 1300 requisitioned during the whole war ( including the Dominion navies), 6 whalers taken over building and 200 requisitioned and 24 Admiralty drifters and about 550 requisitioned.
The British may be able to play a shell game and move some of the mine sweepers from small port to small port forcing the Luftwaffe into lots of recon missions and small bombing raids. Or have the Luftwaffe try to bomb every ship/boat over 100ft long on the whole coast?
Just because the Luftwaffe wins the BoB in this scenario does not mean it becomes omnipotent, able to find, bomb, and hit whatever it desires, whenever it desires. German losses during the BoB, even of bombers were not kept up with by production. The Germans do need to maintain an general air offensive against the British to keep the pressure on, they need to build up a reserve for supporting the ground forces once the invasion takes place, and they need to keep the Royal Navy at bay or tied up.
Winning the BoB may mean winning it over Southeast England. It could very well mean NOT having control of the air over Western or Northern England. Which means the Luftwaffe has to be strong enough to counter any British counter attacks once the Invasion is under way. These may be forlorn hopes by Gladiators, Blenheim's and Lysander's ( and assorted bombers) but the Luftwaffe isn't doing itself any favors by trying to bomb every large fishing boat or coaster on the British east coast which is about the only way to make sure they get the majority of minesweepers.
Dogwalker
Senior Airman
What was the strenght of the Soviet fleet in the Black Sea? Soviets made someting like 114 landings, generally having to face battle-hardened opposition, using about every kind of available boat.
In this scenario about the only thing the Kriegsmarine battle units had to do is to take care of the RN smallest and fastest ships that, with heavy losses, could really try to pass through the minefields.
Had the big units of the Home Fleet tried to do the same... the Germans would have been happy to try the invasion, and fail, just to get rid of the Home Fleet so easily.
Actually, the Germans tried twice by day to send troops via sea to Crete and the RN destroyed both attempts, despite the fact that the RN was operating hundreds of miles from their bases and had absolutely no air cover. Only after the RN was occupied in withdrawing Commonwealth troops did the Axis manage to land some forces by sea, otherwise the 3rd attempt would have met the same fate as the previous two. Crete really does show that the Germans had almost zero chance of landing troops across the channel.
There has been some mention that the RN convoys through to Malta some how proved that the RN could not operate in the face of Axis airpower, yet these convoys had to travel over a thousand miles from their bases to Malta and tied the RN escort to slow merchant ships, and even then the convoys never faced heavy losses until the final leg of the journey when the heavy escort had to leave the convoy.
RN, FAA and RAF forces that operated from Malta scored heavily against Axis convoys, despite the overwhelming disparity in numbers which favoured the Axis. Average Commonwealth air strength on Malta was maybe 1/10 of Axis air strength in the area with a similar disparity in Naval strength, despite this Malta based forces destroyed hundred of thousands of tons of Axis shipping yet we are to believe that with a huge advantage in numbers and some air cover, that the RN won't destroy an attempted invasion of the UK? General Halder summed up the German Army's chances when he said:
Kryten
Senior Airman
and I suppose the Brits are just sitting on their hands whilst the Germans spend the next few weeks sowing mines across the channel?
lets get real, a minefield is not going to stop the RN getting at the invasion fleet, aircraft will be replaced and the RAF will be a factor because the BOB only covered a tenth of the UK, British aircraft industry outperformed the Germans comprehensively during this period, and bizarrely in this scenario the Luftwaffe is left at full strength yet in reality the losses it takes defeating the RAF will leave it in a weakened and parlous state to provide effective air cover for the invasion or to attack the RN, so you have to surmise the Luftwaffe would not have air supremacy over southern England, on top of that you have the thousands of troops brought back from Dunkirk to factor in and the fact the Germans have no tank landing craft so their invasion is going to be primarily infantry until a port is secured!
Then of course you have the weather!
No wonder the Kriegsmarine thought the whole idea was idiotic!
lets get real, a minefield is not going to stop the RN getting at the invasion fleet, aircraft will be replaced and the RAF will be a factor because the BOB only covered a tenth of the UK, British aircraft industry outperformed the Germans comprehensively during this period, and bizarrely in this scenario the Luftwaffe is left at full strength yet in reality the losses it takes defeating the RAF will leave it in a weakened and parlous state to provide effective air cover for the invasion or to attack the RN, so you have to surmise the Luftwaffe would not have air supremacy over southern England, on top of that you have the thousands of troops brought back from Dunkirk to factor in and the fact the Germans have no tank landing craft so their invasion is going to be primarily infantry until a port is secured!
Then of course you have the weather!
No wonder the Kriegsmarine thought the whole idea was idiotic!
Dogwalker
Senior Airman
So now ports under enemy air control are sure places? Interesting things happens...
"enemy air control" means that they bomb. Ships are privileged targets, better if they are steady in ports.
Just because the RAF lost the BoB in this scenario does not means that every other british weapon becomes such to save the day. Ships capable to hide everywere, AA fire capable to hit everything, coastal artillery capable to survive bombings and hit everything, navy capable to pass everywere at the desired speed...
So over the channel, the invasion shores and more than 100 km in the hinterland. Have I ever talked of other places?
Shortround6
Major General
They can deploy them, the question is in what quantity, in 1940 the Germans were using He 115 float planes as mine layers among others. having control of the air does not increase the carrying capacity of your aircraft or their numbers.
If you want to stop the Royal Navy from showing up near an invasion beach and conduction target practice on the assembled shipping you need a LOT of mines. Mining a shipping channel is one thing, just a few mines can block of a channel that is only a few hundred yards wide, or even laying a fan or arc where the channel opens up. The Germans dropped mines a number of nights but not all and the British swept channels most days, probably a lot more often than the Germans dropped mines. But the Germans need a lot of mines to close off the channel (or even half of it). it can't be done in a single night or even a few so you have an on going battle between the minelayers and the mine sweepers even before the first barge leaves port. Once the Invasion fleet is on the way what losses do the British accept in sweeping or forcing the mine fields?
They can deploy them as much as they want, in fact they have to reseed the fields to keep them effective. but planes/ships that are filling in the blanks (swept areas) are not doing other things. The Germans won the BoB, that didn't give them unlimited resources.
The original German planes called for several divisions to got Brighton. Do you have your own plan?
As stated before, the closest Continental ports have nowhere near the capacity to handle the number of divisions the Germans planned to use, unless you plan to take days if not weeks longer to put the same number of men and equipment ashore.
Germans were running out of Ju 52s. 150 had been lost in Norway and of the 430 used in the low countries 2/3s were lost or badly damaged. 100 were later repaired or used for parts. Depending on which port you seize it may not be enough for the number of divisions employed.
The British army may not be the push overs you think. The troops in France actually performed one of the most difficult of all military operations. A controlled, systematic retreat in almost constant contact with an attacking enemy. A break down in discipline or a failure of tactics/procedures would have meant NO troops reaching Dunkirk to be evacuated.
And your short route to Dover is about the worst attack route. A limited port commanded by high ground with steep cliffs on both sides. The Luftwaffe is your only support.
Narrow where? at the Straits of Dover?
It is about 11km from Fecamp to Eastbourne and just a bit less from Cherbourg to Swanage.
it is not just the area the mines are in but the density. Say the British send 16 destroyers and 4 hit mines and 12 get through. What will 12 destroyers do to the the invasion "fleet"? The only gun fire support ships are what ever guns are being carried as deck cargo on the barges. The German "fleet" is in Germany or trying to move down the channel itself.
How many old "C" or "D" class cruisers are the British willing to loose?
Dogwalker
Senior Airman
"destroyed" is a big word.
The escort of the two attempted landings (made with small fishing boats) was of a single torpedo boat each. The first landing attempt was attacked by three light cruisers and four destroyers (Force D), that managed to sink about 1/3 of the boats. The second was attacked by three cruisers and four destroyers (Force C), and managed to escape almost untouched. The RN resisted for two entire days (21-22 may) at the cost of 1828 dead, three cruisers and three destroyers, to kill 800 Germans and sink some wooden boat. Then had to leave the camp, while the German airborne troops haven't already managed to seize even a single airport, leaving the Crete garrison, numerically widely prevalent over the Germans, to be crushed by air attacks.
The third attempt to stop the landings (5th Destroyer Flotilla, five destroyers) lost two ships without even came in contact with the landing boats and had to withdraw.
Other than those sunk, a carrier, two battleships, four cruisers and two destroyers were kept out of action for months for the damages sustained, and that's for only three days of battle not having aerial cover, counter a non existant surface enemy force, and without mines on the scenario.
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Dogwalker
Senior Airman
Have I ever said it has to be done in a single night?
Yeah, the famous minesweepers invulnerable to air attacks and able to hide everywere.
Infact it seems that having lost it gave them to the British.
The original German planes called for other routes too. It states somewere that taking Brighton wit the first wawe is necessary in some ways for the success of the whole invasion?
The fact that Tripoli was a small port was the reason why the RM had ever to keep three convoys at sea at the same time instead of only send one a month as originally planned.
The situation led to modify the plan.
You prtefer I call it large? Facts don't change.
Larger areas had been mined effectively in WWII in worse conditions.
Force K had 37% losses only having come in contact with a small minefield. It hadn't even tried to get trough.
The RN at Crete was operating hundreds of miles from it's bases with absolutely no aircover, and the Axis still couldn't mount a seaborne invasion in the the face of RN opposition. In the channel the RN has more forces, is closer to it's bases and has some aircover. The 2nd axis invasion attempt at Crete did suffer light losses because they turned tail and ran away. There was no 3rd attempt to stop an axis invasion, as by that time the RN was tasked with withdrawing the troops from Crete and if they hadn't been so occupied the 3rd attempt would have been easily destroyed.
Shortround6
Major General
Just trying to point out that the Germans will not have everything their own way.
The Allies spent a lot of time, aircraft and aircrew bombing Brest and Le Harve. Sometimes they hit the ships there and sometimes ( a lot of times) they didn't. Just because you control the air does not mean you can automatically destroy every ship with in the zone you control, especially in 1940. Germans are already getting a bit short on bombers. Ports covered by AA guns are NOT sure safe places but neither are they death traps or target ranges for the Luftwaffe. German losses in Aug and Sept for bombers have operational losses running at about 1/6 to 1/3 of the enemy related losses.
Large ships may be privileged targets, easily replaceable small ships like mine sweepers may not be. How many days to fit mine sweeping gear and a couple of AA guns to a fishing trawler?
Picking 3-4 trawler minesweepers tied up alongside a quay might be a little difficult if there are 12-20 other similar sized ships/craft tied up/anchored in the same harbor.
A little less hyperbole if you please. Large ships like cruisers have limited places to hide. Both due to sheer size (length) and depth of water required, there are only so many places they can go. A "ship" that is under 30 feet wide and 165ft long and needs 12-14 feet of water has a lot more harbors and estuaries it can "hide" in.
AA fire doesn't need to hit "everything" just increase the operational losses somewhat and disturb the bomb aimers enough to miss, or at least to require more sorties per hit.
Coastal artillery was hardly infallible but it was dangerous, it also proved rather hard to take out on anything approaching a permanent basis, wither it was British or German or American or Japanese. In many cases in survived up until overrun by infantry (or running out of ammo) despite air superiority (total in some cases) , battleship bombardment and the like.
"navy capable to pass everywere at the desired speed" not sure what this means but it goes both ways. Some people have estimated that the Germans might take two full days to get from some ports to their planed landing sites, and as noted the Kreigsmarine, what there is of it, is nowhere near the English channel in the summer of 1940. Without doing a "channel dash" the Germans will have nothing larger than a WW I destroyer or gun boat to support the invasion fleet and darn few of them. Destroyers and light cruisers should have very little trouble maintaining 24 kts (44kph) for a number of hours on end. Roughly a 200km radius with an hours "working time". and that is if the Germans have recon planes or bombers right over the base entrance at sunset and sunrise.
So over the channel, the invasion shores and more than 100 km in the hinterland. Have I ever talked of other places?[/QUOTE]
buffnut453
Captain
Interesting discussion but I think we need to define what is meant by defeat of the RAF in the BoB. If we're talking about total annihilation, or at least the destruction of Fighter Command such that it was no longer capable of defending British airspace, then th entire argument about the capabilities of the RN to interdict an invasion force is somewhat moot. There wasn't a single UK port that lay outside German bomber range. Long before the German invasion barges set off, the RN fleet would be, at best, severely attrited or, at worst, forced to retreat to Canada or some other part of the Empire. However, I think this an unlikely scenario.
It would be far more likely that Fighter Command would lose air superiority over southeast England. This would leave London entirely exposed, resulting in loss of confidence in the Churchill government. As late as May 1940 there were senior politicians advocating a political agreement with Germany. With London exposed and defenceless (apart from ineffectual AA guns and barrage balloons), there would be strong justification for a change of government which could have been led by Halifax or one of his cronies, potentially leading to a negotiated peace with Germany.
With a negotiated peace, there's no need for an invasion force. Hitler could simply bide his time, installing pliant British politicians who would accede to his every whim. Want to station more German troops in the UK to protect against America? Certainly Herr Hitler. Like Vichy France, in the end the UK would become a Nazi satellite with zero autonomy. Undoubtedly, there would be resistance but where would they get their supplies? Resistance on the continent only survived because it had a good resupply base from the UK. Without that, there's nothing to sustain resistance other than courage. Certainly not sufficient to overcome the Nazi war machine.
It would be far more likely that Fighter Command would lose air superiority over southeast England. This would leave London entirely exposed, resulting in loss of confidence in the Churchill government. As late as May 1940 there were senior politicians advocating a political agreement with Germany. With London exposed and defenceless (apart from ineffectual AA guns and barrage balloons), there would be strong justification for a change of government which could have been led by Halifax or one of his cronies, potentially leading to a negotiated peace with Germany.
With a negotiated peace, there's no need for an invasion force. Hitler could simply bide his time, installing pliant British politicians who would accede to his every whim. Want to station more German troops in the UK to protect against America? Certainly Herr Hitler. Like Vichy France, in the end the UK would become a Nazi satellite with zero autonomy. Undoubtedly, there would be resistance but where would they get their supplies? Resistance on the continent only survived because it had a good resupply base from the UK. Without that, there's nothing to sustain resistance other than courage. Certainly not sufficient to overcome the Nazi war machine.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
At last, a sensible suggestion to the original question!
And I agree. Given the above scenario, I believe that is exactly what would have happened and, if it had, there's a good chance that all of Europe would now still be speaking German - or possibly Russian!
And I agree. Given the above scenario, I believe that is exactly what would have happened and, if it had, there's a good chance that all of Europe would now still be speaking German - or possibly Russian!
