If the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain

[parsifal]

The RN had no intention of sending heavy units of the Home Fleet anywhere near the English Channel. If Sealion had been launched some of those units might have intercepted the 'Autumn Journey' diversion, which would have gone badly for the Germans.

Substantially I agree, there was no plan to use the older "R" class BBs, as these were seen as too vulnerable to air attack. They were earmarked for commitment only in the most dire of emergencies . However the two most modern heavy ships, Nelson and Rodney and possibly one or two of the modernized Queen Elizabeth classes , with the most modern AA defences and best underwater protection and passive defences, were earmarked to sail from Scapa to "await developments". The RN didn't want to commit them, but if everything went south the plan was to place these assets in harms way to block the advance of the invasion fleet. Admiralty planners rated the chances of this expediency being needed as being virtually nil, which I agree with, but plans were in place to commit certain heavy units, to the death if need be, should thhe situation require it. There was never the slightest intention that the RN would be withheld for some future battle, if such action would place the security of the UK at risk

 

[stona]

"Admiralty planners rated the chances of this expediency being needed as being virtually nil..."

Exactly. It was the Germans that got it wrong (again).

'Herbstreise/Autumn Journey' was an operation deigned to draw the British Home Fleet away from the Channel by simulating a landing on the British East Coast somewhere between Newcastle-upon-Tyne & Aberdeen. It was the German naval high command which assumed that the British Home Fleet would immediately sail for the Channel in the event of an invasion, the Admiralty intended it to remain at Rosyth and Scapa Flow against the threat of a sortie by German heavy ships, reasoning that the resources allocated to the Channel area were more than adequate for the task.

Had 'Herbstreise' actually drawn the attention of the Home Fleet it could have resulted in the loss of the few remaining German cruisers, together with several prestigious liners and large merchantmen, without contributing anything to 'Sealion' at all. Fortunately, all four 'dummy' convoys were to turn around and head back to port well before they got anywhere near British waters, so they may have got away with it. It was just another example of the half-hearted planning by the KM, which I don't believe had any belief that 'Sealion' could be achieved.

I think the destroyer situation alone sums up the German problem. In September 1940 the Admiralty had control of 182 destroyers (including a few Australian, Canadian, Polish and Free French boats), distributed around the globe. There were 49 boats on overseas stations, 29 either on convoy escort duty or operating out of convoy escort ports ( including the RCN vessels ), 23 operating with the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow and Rosyth, and 17 repairing or refitting. This leaves 64 destroyer available for anti-invasion duties not counting convoy escorts or transfers from the Home Fleet. The number that appeared in the Channel in the Sandhurst game was 57 and is entirely realistic.

The most the Germans could have available was 7, and this assumes that a couple re-fitting in Germany could be made available in time.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Glider]

Can someone explain the logic that says the R class battleships would not be used as they were too vulnerable to air attack, when the only BB used against the invasion fleet, was an R class?

 

[stona]

Can someone explain the logic that says the R class battleships would not be used as they were too vulnerable to air attack, when the only BB used against the invasion fleet, was an R class?

I don't think that's a reason not to use them. There were just far better and much more numerous options available.

Cheers

Steve

 

[parsifal]

Maybe they would have used them, but the plan ive seen did not favour their commitment. There were several different plans, but what is true is that after September 4th, Adm Forbes made the decision not to commit his BBs unless absolutely necessary. most of the heavy ships were given a screening brief to watch what the capital ships of DKM were intended to do. if they were used in a mass breakout, the Home fleet was instructed to deal with that, if the German used them in some way away from the main invasion beaches (which is what they was actually planned for them) the best and heaviest ships would be used to counter such a move. Forbes had resolved by early September that battleships were not needed to counter the main front. The admiralty was not 100% certain what the german plans were.....it was possible the germans might break up their invasion fleet into fast and slow components for example. It was estimated that if a fast division was formed, it could cross the channel in 2days, with embarkation and form up taking about 24 hours and disembarkation taking 3 days. If the Germans opted for the mass assault (which is what the army favoured) across the so called broad front, it would take a week to get into position, plus the form up and disembarkation component, the operation would take the best part of 10 days. The R class were kept close as a back up I believe.....if something went wrong with the light forces they were a reserve force, that could be called upon if needed, especially if the DKM northern feint had any success. I have seen accounts as well that in the latter stages of the Summer, the Admiralty became very concerned at the shipping losses in the western approaches. so many DDs had been pulled back out of the Atlantic that the losses due to u-Boats took a very alarrming trend upwards. Forbes began pushing for a reduction in DDs committed to the home defences by late September (I think it was then)

 

[stona]

Forbes never believed a German invasion was possible. I believe this is something he had in common with some senior officers of the KM.

In June 1940 he was arguing that, "History has proved beyond all shadow of doubt that invasion is to all intents and purposes impossible without local control of the sea."

He also pointed out that even with such control and with minimal Norwegian resistance the Norwegian campaign had cost the Germans thousands of men, some of their most modern ships and many aircraft.

Forbes argued that if the Germans launched an invasion it would be "a great opportunity." He envisaged exactly the situation which played out at Sandhurst, the Army holding up the invasion until the Navy cut its supply lines. He was so confident, remember that this is June 1940, that he further argued that "no first line troops should be kept in England if required elsewhere." He was concerned about German mining in an effort to help interdict Britain's lines of communication, and suggested that "all small craft now allocated to inshore squadrons for invasion be diverted to sweeping."

He certainly doesn't sound like a worried man. It is fair to say that his report caused some alarm at the Admiralty, where this view was certainly not shared by the majority.

Forbes was also arguing for destroyers to be released from anti-invasion duties at this time, the height of invasion fever, and continued to do so throughout the summer. He even had Churchill's backing in May/June/July following a rapid rise in shipping losses. Churchill argued to Pound that the losses were "largely due to the shortage of destroyers through invasion precautions", which is exactly what Forbes would have told him. The Admiralty was unpersuaded. Forbes wouldn't get his boats back until the end of October.

Cheers

Steve

 

[parsifal]

Thanks Steve, I did not realise that Forbes had wanted to start transfers back to the western approaches quite so early on.

I agree completely that Forbes was not overly anxious about Sea lion.

 

[JAG88]

I know, old thread, but I think I can add something:

The Germans seemed to have real problem with turrets. and lets not use the excuse of the planes being too small. The Grumman TBF used power turret
View attachment 474528
and the Blenheim used a powered mount/turret (not full 360 degree rotation.) we will leave the Defiant and Roc out of this.

I could be wrong but the first german turret seems to be the FW 19 mounting a single MG 15 gun and hydraulically powered (?) mounted on some early FW 200s. Replaced by a non powered cupola type mount for a short period of time before being brought back. Production problems or service problems?
Early Do 217s get an electric turret mounting a single MG 131 in the late winter/early spring of 1941. I don't have details but it looks a little dodgy to me, some of these German turrets seem to have a few degrees of manual lateral traverse? in addition to the power traverse?

Fw 57 in 1936, lost to the Bf 110:

Ju 86:

This one was actually used as the Ju 89s tail turret as well, with the same MG 15:

But yeah, they did have an odd problem with them, I think they just decided to move straight onto remote turrets, the first one appearing in 1941 IIRC.

The Ju 89 was non-starter. whatever it's attributes were in 1937 it's day had come and gone by 1940
View attachment 474529
It used a wing of roughly 35-66% larger than the 5 most common Allied 4 engine bombers and 53% larger than the FW 200. Aerodynamically this was a 4 engine JU 86 and not a 4 engine Ju 88. Note the Junkers "double wing" as used on the Ju 52. Drag is going to be way higher than any of those six aircraft.
Look up pictures of tail gun positions for the JU 290, most or all of the planes in service used a single gun in a manual mount several years after 1940. There were powered mounts turrets but they all seem to be experimental.

Couldnt the Ju 89 had been developed enough? It was larger than most WW2 bombers and in 1939 the 2nd prototype would take a 10.000Kg payload to 7.000m+, so it did have capacity to spare. I wouldnt expect it to be a world beater, but it would certainly be a better proposition than using Ju 88s for strategic work.

Funny thing is, large as it was, it evolved into the even larger Ju 290, an aircraft only barely smaller than the B29.