operation sea lion

[renrich]

Udet, In an earlier post I wrote that the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales off Malaya and for that matter the Hermes and Cornwall in the Indian Ocean is probably not comparable to a situation that would obtain during a cross channel invasion in 1942 UNLESS the Germans achieved COMPLETE air superiority like the allies did in 1944. Off Malaya and in the Indian Ocean the Japanese had no air opposition whatsoever and were free to make runs at their leisure except for not very effective triple A because of the abominable RN fire control system. The Japanese at that time also had the finest antishipping bombing and torpedo units in the world. With absolutely no background in amphibious operations I cannot imagine how the Germans could have been successful in an invasion of England. I still wonder why did not the KM sweep down the channel and stop the evacuation at Dunkirk if they were as battleworthy as represented in this discussion. Another advantage the British would have had is better fore knowledge of the weather(since the weather comes from the west) Even without Ultra(which they would have had) Britain would have known about the invasion at least generally as it was impossible to hide that amount of concentration of troops not to mention the French underground spying on and transmitting the information. With an invasion imminent the USN would have been present in some kind of force. Remember, the invasion of North Africa was slated for November 1942. If an invasion of England seemed imminent do you think for one minute the allies would not have shifted the Torch forces to England?

 

[Glider]

Why do you keep repeating that? Germans were going to embark tanks on the barges.

A tank on an open barge with a speed of what 3-5 knots, across an open sea of at least 35 miles, for between 7-12 hours at best. Under attack at night for some of the time, a sitting wallowing duck if picked on by day. Would never work, not in a million years.

They managed to triple production of the subs and double production of PT boats and miesweepers by using the same shipyards. So ok, now they'll just double production of subs and keep that third bit for transport boats. What's the problem?

No problem, but you have now reduced U Boat production by a third. The U boats will have to either abandon the N Atlantic ensuring that the UK can get supplies and free up more destroyers, frigates etc or support the invasion. Your choice


The British used over 700 aircraft (amongst them 400 fighters) against 250 German fighters and achieved nothing! Their ships in the Channel achieved nothing, not even a German MTB was lost. Yet, this is going to be the force that is going to annihilate the German invasion fleet?
Scharnhorst - The History - Operation "Cerberus" - The Channel Dash

I read the article which was first class. The force was attacked by the following.
5 MTB during the day
6 swordfish
35 high level bombers
1 squadron of Beauforts
1 squadron of Beauforts different attack
3 Beauforts
6 WW1 destroyers

All the above attacks above with the exception of the first squadron of Beauforts made their attacks on the BC's. The Germans were not able to stop the attacks, an invasion fleet would have been huge, targets sitting ducks compared to the German BC's. Losses would have been inevitable. The BC's got away with it because they were not spotted and communication poor. An invasion fleet would have been spotted and attacked by 75 british squadrons not the above. Note, even a straffing run by a Spit could decimate a landing barge

If you would have read my posts you would have seen that they would land on the first day and retreat until the Royal Navy would retreat. IMO this would have lasted two days.
I read your posts, always do. Why on earth would the RN retreat? They dominate at night leaving the landing grounds wide open to bombardment and any Geman vessels caught at night would be at grave risk. As explained the RN at day could impose itself at key moments at a cost but a cost that we could live with.


The Bf 109 was better than the Spit V and I already explained this. If you disagree, please tell me why and back this up with figures. I also said aircraft production would increase: more Fw 190s.
Well, according to my plan they do.

Look up the thread about 109F vs Spit V its goes into far more detail that we can here. The best example was Malta. Germany had 109F and early 109G the British Spit V. Germany had numbers, initiative, secure airfields, spares, reserves, experience, targets within easy reach, spare fuel even. Why weren't the Spits shot out of the sky?
PS if your allowed to magically improve 190 Production, can the British can do the same for Spit IX

True
If you lose, the war is over. Sounds logical
We agree on something


No, on the first day the Kriegsmarine will escort the invasion fleet. It could take on the MTBs and DDs during the Channel Dash so they could do it again, this time warding them off before they reach the invasion fleet. British MTBs are no match for German S-Boote (or E-boats as you call them) so you can forget Slapton Beach where the LSTs were unprotected.
The German fleet and airforce failed to sink the 5 MTB's in daylight and unsupported and didn't even stop them launching their attack. Why do you think you can stop dozens of MTB's at night? Leave the daylight to the larger ships.

You cannot sweep mines as fast as the enemy can lay them.
True but we can sweep most of the ones in the path of the fleet, not the entire N Sea and remember when we get to the invasion there will be no mines or the Invasion will hit them

And what will that achieve? Strategical bombers are useless against tactical targets, especially when dug in.
Reminds me of Hitler's order to have Me 262s to attack the invasion beaches. He literally said they would just fly over the beaches and drop a bomb on them. I think he would have been glad with you backing him up
Think big picture. Your stores, transport, communications, ammo dumps, roads, landing sites, fuel dumps are all over the place. The men in the fox holes are safe but everything else would be at sever risk. We are talking about 350 bombers (minimum) a night, every night, dropping on average about 6,000lb bombs each, in an enclosed area at minimum risk. It would look like the moon after a few days. Nothing could land or move.
Not exactly the same as droping a few bombs from 262's at serious danger to themselves.

Anything else?
Kris

Over to you Kris

 

[Civettone]

Anyone seen Udet?

Renrich, you're making the assumption that the German amphibious landing will fail because they have no experience in it. Well, did the Americans have experience in tank warfare before November 1942? Did the Japanese have experience in attacking enemy fleets with aircraft?
IMHO that's being shortsighted. The Germans were going to train for amphibious landing. They hardly had time to do this in 1940, yet they did some exercises in the limited time frame they had. Thinking that the Germans would invade Britain unprepared after 6 months of planning is folly and it's an underestimating of the professional nature of the German armed forces.

The Japanese were well trained against naval targets. In 1940, the Germans weren't. In case of a Sealion '42 they would have been. They had better aircraft for the job than the Japanese. Or do you believe the Val is as good as the Stuka and the Ki-21 as good as the Ju 88?

About the secrecy, if you go back a page you'll see me recognizing TWO times that the invasion could not have been kept a secret as the British would notice the Germans assembling and preparing a fleet. BUT, the Germans would no doubt have cleared the coastal area (like the Sperrgebiet at the time of D-Day) and the British would have expected - as all of you - that the Germans would invade after an aerial campaign.

Ultra? I'm really amazed even shocked by this...
Let me make crystal clear that Ultra did not enable the British to decode all the German transmission. This is often quoted on the internet and in publications but the idea itself is proposterous.
The first reason is that the amount of messages is simply too great. Given the small amount people who actually knew of Ultra limited the amount of messages which could be decoded.
Second, the big majority of the decoded messages contained unimportant information (weather reports, observation reports, etc). There were several examples where Ultra failed. I'll use two examples from the German surface boats: the Bismarck and the Channel Dash.
Third, the Germans routinously spread false information as a precaution to allied interceptions. This lead to confused intelligence (as happened in the Battle of the Bulge).
In conclusion, Ultra is not a deliberate search for information. It's taking out some messages and hoping there's useful information in them.
Here's from answers.com in case you don't believe me: Ultra staff and technology successfully decoded over 50 messages a week. However, by 1942, German radio and wire traffic increased exponentially. The 1,200 member staff of Bletchley Park could not efficiently decipher the thousands of intercepts received daily.

Renrich, Torch was in November 1942. I'm talking about May to July 1942, half a year before Torch could have happened. As such, it's completely irrelevant.


Daishi, welcome to the discussion. You're making some calculations on how many divisions would have been combat ready, which are - let's face it - based on your own views. With all due respect, but the idea that Germany would only have 15 fully operational combat divisions ready is ... well ...

I would like a source for the pioniere consisting of penal batallions. Sounds very unlikely!

I also don't know what you're saying about Beaufort 4 to 5. I said the barges could stand Beaufort 6 (and if needed even Beaufort 8!)

In the channel in September the average is 1 in 4 days have rain and fresh breeze would be exceeded on a fairly regular basis.

No one said anything of September but more in the period May-July. Weather in the Channel was ok up to September. I live close to it to know.

You have stated that of the available barges approx a quarter suffered damage

I did?

In short I believe that while you do have the right to your own opinion, please try to understand that the invasion of Britain could realisticaly have occured in either 1940 or 1942.

Nice to know I have that right.
But unless you can provide me with some substantiated information instead of your biased opinions, I don't have to try to understand anything! Capisce?

Kris
But

 

[syscom3]

Civit, the Germans had zero experience in an amphib invasion even a fraction of the size of what Sealion '42 was going to be. Learning on the job is dangerous thing to do in highly complex military maneuvers like invasions over an unpredictable sea.

The USN/USMC learned some hard facts about it at Tarawa and the Brits at Dieppe.

And the allies didn't need to decrypt all of the Ultra intercepts in order to deduce something was going to happen. All they had to do is know which 4 or 5 days per month were optimal for an attack, and then watch for the invasion troops begin to mass at the ports and the material get loaded.

There's also a question of coordination. The KM was going to stage from multiple ports and the furthest ones had to sail early in order to assault the beaches at roughly the same time as the forces in the nearer ports. Once those forces sail, you know the show has begun and you have a couple of days warning.

 

[Civettone]

Those are good points Syscom. It would indeed have been a difficult task for the Germans. But you have to admit that it would not have been a guarantee for failure either. Else every time an army would do something for the first time, it would fail. That's obviously not the case. I'm aware that they are not the same but you can hardly deny that the Germans wouldn't have picked up several good ideas from Norway and Crete.

And like I said, the British would know the Germans were preparing an invasion but that's not enough. Just look at what the allies did in 1944: fake transmission and plans. Germans were pretty good at that game too. Remember the Ardennes? Germans were masters in organising and improvising.

I don't know how long it would take between the first and the last barge to get seaborne. I thought it would have been possible to do in 12 hours. Again, Germans were masters in organising and improvising.

In conclusion, I'm not all suggesting the British would suddenly have Germans on their beaches and wondering where the hell they came from. No, the British would know an invasion was possible on that day but not sure if it would actually happen or not. It would take until the invasion fleet was spotted (and identified!) and this would happen somewhere during the night. Destination would only be certain at dawn.
Kris

 

[Udet]

Udet, In an earlier post I wrote that the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales off Malaya and for that matter the Hermes and Cornwall in the Indian Ocean is probably not comparable to a situation that would obtain during a cross channel invasion in 1942 UNLESS the Germans achieved COMPLETE air superiority like the allies did in 1944. Off Malaya and in the Indian Ocean the Japanese had no air opposition whatsoever and were free to make runs at their leisure except for not very effective triple A because of the abominable RN fire control system. The Japanese at that time also had the finest antishipping bombing and torpedo units in the world. With absolutely no background in amphibious operations I cannot imagine how the Germans could have been successful in an invasion of England. I still wonder why did not the KM sweep down the channel and stop the evacuation at Dunkirk if they were as battleworthy as represented in this discussion. Another advantage the British would have had is better fore knowledge of the weather(since the weather comes from the west) Even without Ultra(which they would have had) Britain would have known about the invasion at least generally as it was impossible to hide that amount of concentration of troops not to mention the French underground spying on and transmitting the information. With an invasion imminent the USN would have been present in some kind of force. Remember, the invasion of North Africa was slated for November 1942. If an invasion of England seemed imminent do you think for one minute the allies would not have shifted the Torch forces to England?

renrich, hi.

I agree with your comment the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse had zero aerial cover when they got intercepted and sunk. But i still fail to see why you think complete air superiority is essential to see He 111s and Ju 88s and more importantly Stukas hitting warships...

In my view, nothing like air superiority is an essential requirement to see the Luftwaffe battering RN units...for as long as there are Bf 109s around, and even BF 110s, the Stukas and the Ju 88 can inflict severe damage to enemy ships. I´d certainly rule out the He 111 to carry on with this type of attacks; but you do not want to mess with the Ju 88 and Stukas if you are the crewman of warship if squadrons of these 2 types of planes are based in the sector.

If such a brand new battleship like the HMS Prince of Wales could not do anything to save herself when attacked by the Japs, you do not want to see the vintage/ultra slow sector of the Royal Navy menu (namely HMS Rodney and Nelson and the Queen Elizabeth Class ships) trying to manouver in the Channel and getting intercepted by 40 Stukas protected by 2 staffel of Bf 109s. Such view should cause anyone to throw up.

Come on renrich, please notice that when you talk about Stuka pilots, you are calling the best of the best; experts only. You have to believe that if a flight of Stukas spot and caught the old/slow HMS Rodney sailing through the channel, a 500kg cucumber is inserted into the guts of the battleship, and i do not think she finds her way out of that.

I agree the Japs surely had the very best pilots and crews trained for the very specific and specialized task of pounding enemy warships, but those were Japan´s plans, an island, with battlefields projected across thousands and thousands of square kilometers across islands and atolls; Germany is a continental power.

Just like in the case of air superiority, i am not sure why you think this particular point is so important. Germany never planned to invade England, ever, but if it becomes necessary, why do you think pilots and crews of Ju 87s and Ju 88s have any significant trouble in gutting ships?

Weren´t they brutally successful against the RN in the MTO only a few months later?

So it would seem to me that if the Royal Navy will have that many action trying to intercept and destroy a German invasion force in the Channel, they will have to do it all with heavy light cruisers, destroyers, sloops and other minor escort vessels. Not forgetting the whole 1940 is a year when the U-boat force attracts the attention of the admiralty and a significant number of these non-capital vessels is needed elsewhere.

Germany wins, easily.

 

[syscom3]

renrich, hi.

I agree with your comment the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse had zero aerial cover when they got intercepted and sunk. But i still fail to see why you think complete air superiority is essential to see He 111s and Ju 88s and more importantly Stukas hitting warships...

In my view, nothing like air superiority is an essential requirement to see the Luftwaffe battering RN units...for as long as there are Bf 109s around, and even BF 110s, the Stukas and the Ju 88 can inflict severe damage to enemy ships. I´d certainly rule out the He 111 to carry on with this type of attacks; but you do not want to mess with the Ju 88 and Stukas if you are the crewman of warship if squadrons of these 2 types of planes are based in the sector.

If such a brand new battleship like the HMS Prince of Wales could not do anything to save herself when attacked by the Japs, you do not want to see the vintage/ultra slow sector of the Royal Navy menu (namely HMS Rodney and Nelson and the Queen Elizabeth Class ships) trying to manouver in the Channel and getting intercepted by 40 Stukas protected by 2 staffel of Bf 109s. Such view should cause anyone to throw up.

Come on renrich, please notice that when you talk about Stuka pilots, you are calling the best of the best; experts only. You have to believe that if a flight of Stukas spot and caught the old/slow HMS Rodney sailing through the channel, a 500kg cucumber is inserted into the guts of the battleship, and i do not think she finds her way out of that.

I agree the Japs surely had the very best pilots and crews trained for the very specific and specialized task of pounding enemy warships, but those were Japan´s plans, an island, with battlefields projected across thousands and thousands of square kilometers across islands and atolls; Germany is a continental power.

Just like in the case of air superiority, i am not sure why you think this particular point is so important. Germany never planned to invade England, ever, but if it becomes necessary, why do you think pilots and crews of Ju 87s and Ju 88s have any significant trouble in gutting ships?

Weren´t they brutally successful against the RN in the MTO only a few months later?

So it would seem to me that if the Royal Navy will have that many action trying to intercept and destroy a German invasion force in the Channel, they will have to do it all with heavy light cruisers, destroyers, sloops and other minor escort vessels. Not forgetting the whole 1940 is a year when the U-boat force attracts the attention of the admiralty and a significant number of these non-capital vessels is needed elsewhere.

Germany wins, easily.

Udet, I agree with nearly everything you said about dive bombers able to hit their targets.

But..... in 1942, the USN was going to have to carriers available to attack the KM..... so factor in a pair of highly trained SBD squadrons available for use.

 

[Civettone]

Carriers in the Channel? I don't think so!

Out of curiosity, which of the American aircraft carriers was near England around the Summer of 1942?
And most importantly, what could their outdated dive or torpedo bombers contribute to the battle? SBD, TBD, F-4F coming to save the day?


Udet, I know you're aware of this but don't forget to mention that in 1942 the Stuka could carry 1400kg armoured-piercing bombs. And He 111s could carry torpedo's for which they were quite suited.
Kris

 

[syscom3]

Carriers in the Channel? I don't think so!

Who says they have to be in the channel? Lots of scenario's for having the carriers out at sea and stage through land bases.

Out of curiosity, which of the American aircraft carriers was near England around the Summer of 1942?

Wasp and Hornet were in the Atlantic.

And most importantly, what could their outdated dive or torpedo bombers contribute to the battle? SBD, TBD, F-4F coming to save the day?

Read prior thread of the F4F vs -109....... an even match at low and middle altitudes

TBD? Well, I suppose having something available is better than nothing.

SBD? Ever hear of their war record? Better than the Stuka in many aspects.

 

[Hop]

Not quite. Yes, it involved attacks on British shipping but the Channel phase was more than that. (I know you're not saying it wasn't but at first read it comes across as if you do.) This first phase was called the Channel Phase because it attacked targets along the Channel. So that means attacks on ports and on the coastal radar installations.

There were very few attacks on land targets in July.

Wood and Dempster give a one line summary of each day's operations, for July 10th - July 31st they are:

10 Convoy raids off North Foreland and Dover
11 Convoys attacked off Suffolk. Portland harbour raided.
12 Attacks on convoy off Norfolk-Suffolk coast, shipping off the Isle of Wight and Aberdeen
13 Shipping attacks off Dover and Portland
14 Shipping attacks off Dover and Swanage
15 Shipping attacked off Norfolk coast and the Channel. Yeovil bombed.
16 Very little activity
17 Search for shipping off Scottish and East coasts
18 Shipping off south and east coasts attacked
19 Dover raided. Defiant squadron largely destroyed
20 Convoys and shipping at Dover attacked
21 Raids on convoys in Channel and Straights of Dover
22 Shipping off the south coast attacked
23 East coast shipping raided
24 Convoys and shipping in the Channel attacked
25 Convoys and shipping in the Channel raided
26 Shipping off south coast attacked
27 Raids on shipping and naval targets in Dover harbour and straights
28 Shipping attacked off Dover and south coast ports
29 Convoy off Dover raided
30 Raids on convoys off Orfordness, Clacton and Harwich
31 Widespread attacks on shipping in south, south east and south west coastal waters. Dover balloon barage

Not many attacks on land targets there, and I suspect in the event of invasion, the Luftwaffe are going to have a lot more targets along the coast, and some way inland.

As this was a first probing phase - so only part of the Luftwaffe participated - the Germans still made the error of not escorting all their bombers.

I don't know of many un-escorted bombers at this time in the south east. Small numbers of bombers operated un-escorted in the north and west, beyond the range of Luftwaffe fighters, but they didn't suffer unduly because single aircraft often escaped interception.

Even at this stage of the battle, the Luftwaffe were flying approx 3 fighter sorties for every bomber sortie.

Especially thinking of the tragedy of those Stuka's attacking radar along the coast and getting decimated by RAF fighters. This also stopped further use of the Stuka in the BoB.

That wasn't until the second phase. The big disaster for the Stuka's was on the 18th August, when just over 100 set out to bomb several targets on the Isle of Wight and around Southampton. 16 were destroyed, several more seriously damaged.

And they weren't unescorted. They had no less than 150 Bf 109s as escort.

The Royal Navy was never attacked by a thousand bombers.

Never would be, either.

Historically, the Germans found that 3 fighters per bomber was the minimum escort force needed. Bomber sorties were limited by fighter availability. It's going to be the same in 1942, as well.

Coupled with that, there are limits to how many bombers you can send against warships, which are constantly moving. Trying to find a moving target with a thousand bombers, and a few thousand fighters in escort, is not going to be easy. You'd be lucky to get a fraction of your force bombing.

And don't forget my point on training on naval targets since BoB.

Don't forget the large increases in AA armament for warships, and the fitting of air gunnery radar.

Oh no, that's not what is meant by navigation problems. Read the classic 'Bomber offensive' by Noble Frankland.
What you're saying should indicate that the BC bombers were less accurate over (for instance) Brest and (most) inaccurate over Berlin. That's obviously not the case as was shown in the BC offensive against Brest in late 1941 and early 1942 when they failed to destroy the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

They damaged them both, though. And Prinz Eugen.

Attacking warships in dock, camouflaged and heavily protected by AA, is far harder than attacking enemy merchant ships lying off your beaches.

A better example would be the German barges in the channel ports in 1940, with up to 80 being sunk on some nights, and the KM describing the situation as "unacceptable".

And again, attacks on the same barges off British beaches would be easier.

I never said they would be defending the landing site. I specifically said that the KM would stay close to the FRENCH coast to draw away Royal Navy ships, and only engage in favourable circumstances, after which they would retreat to the French coast again.

You either launch your invasion, or you don't. Embarking the troops, sending them out, then calling them back, is a recipe for disaster even in a well organised fleet. When you have civilians and poorly trained soldiers manning towed barges, it's going to turn in to a farce.

The RN are not going to jump the gun. The German invasion "fleet" is slow, it will takes many, many hours to cross the channel and get in to position. Indeed, German planning was for the western elements to set out 24 hours before the landing, and spend the entire day at sea. The RN will undoubtedly send some destroyers to investigate at night, in 1940 they were even entering the outer harbours at Calais etc to see what was going on. But they are not going to commit substantial forces until the targets are at sea.

And you haven't explained what is going to happen at night. Just how good were the Luftwaffe at sinking warships at night? Can you name some?

And the third point is target identification. When the RN forces get close to the German forces, it's going to be hard for the Luftwaffe to tell them apart, and it's certain that every ship in the German "fleet" is going to be firing at every aircraft they see.

That makes me conclude that the British would definitely hold back several BBs and other warships to counter the German BCs.

No doubt. But on the other hand, if the Germans do manage to land, expect the battleships to sortie against the German beachheads. Tirpitz loose in the Atlantic is far less a threat than the Germans advancing on London.

What do the Germans do about battleships shelling their beachheads at night? What do you think is going to happen to the merchant ships and tugs and barges anchored off shore waiting their turn to land, or run up on the beaches as they are off loaded?

So far I have relied on two elements: surprise and local Kriegsmarine strength. As the bulk of the Royal Navy wasn't in the Channel, I think the Kriegsmarine should have been able to deal with them.

Are you aware of just how few KM warships were serviceable in the summer of 1942? And the size of the RN Home Fleet, and American reinforcements?

To give an example, the escort force for convoy "pedestal" to Malta:

2 battleships
4 aircraft carriers
7 cruisers
16 destroyers

That single convoy escort force was more powerful than the entire seaworthy Kreigsmarine fleet.

But all I have to say is: Channel Dash. 250 German fighters managed to hold off 75 RAF squadrons.

No. The RAF didn't use anything like that force.

What happened in the Channel Dash is that the Germans took advantage of poor weather that restricted operations. Some of the planned RAF bombers couldn't take off because they were snowed in.

There is a huge difference between a surprise operation in early February, and an invasion, which has to be conducted in good weather.

The first British aircraft to attack were 6 Swordfish of the FAA. They were supposed to have 3 squadrons of Spitfires as cover, but due to delays they actually had an escort of 11 Spitfires, which were engaged by the Luftwaffe.

All 6 Swordfish were lost. The Spitfires claimed 3 Fw190s for no loss.

By the time the RAF bombers arrived on the scene, the cloud layer was down to 600ft, and visibility at sea level was around 1,000 yards. Only torpedo bombers have a chance of attacking in those circumstances, and none of the allocated torpedo bomber squadrons arrived in time.

5 old British destroyers (WW1 vintage, I believe) attacked with torpedoes and gunfire, 1 of the British ships was damaged, but all returned to port. It's a measure of the weather conditions that the 5 destroyers got to within 4,000 yeards of a German battleship and heavy cruiser, escorted by several much larger German destroyers, and all 5 survived.

The invasion could only have happened in good weather in the late spring or summer, and it's silly to take the RAF performance in appalling weather conditions in February, and apply it to the good conditions the invasion required.

 

[Hop]

Even though the British would know of a future invasion and would photograph the Germans assembling their forces near the ports, they would still be uncertain about the actual D-Day. Everyone would expect the Germans to start an air offensive first (like in 1940). The embarking itself would have to happen under the cover of darkness and like the Channel Dash the British would perhaps only find out that the invasion fleet was underway once it was already in the Channel.

Embarking that many troops would take time. If you look at the German plans for 1940, they were to sail the lead elements of the invasion fleet a day before the landings. The rest of the force was to set sail at night to be ready to land at dawn.

The problem is that the German barges were slow, and the Channel has strong currents. Many of the ships would have to travel up to 100 miles, which means 10 hours or more. And because Britain is so far north, in the summer then nights are very short. In the middle of June, for example, sunrise at Dover occurs at 3.45 am, sunset at 8.15.

If you want to land at dawn, as the Germans did, you have to set out in daylight the day before, which means embarking troops from at least the previous morning. Heavy equipment like tanks and artillery would have to be loaded days in advance.

You cannot sweep mines as fast as the enemy can lay them.

There's a problem with this. The British had both far more mine laying capacity, and far more mine sweeping capacity.

If mines are going to be a major factor, they will favour the British, not the Germans.

I specifically said there would not be an air campaign prior to the invasion (unlike 1940). This would surprise the British but it would also mean that the British would no longer have the advantage of fighting over friendly territory: they would have to fight over German held beaches and the Channel. So in a war of attrition the (better trained) German pilots (in better aircraft) would hold the advantage.

What, like they did in 1940

 

[Glider]

Kris
You didn't reply to the posting probably because I messed it up. This should be easier to understand.

Originally Posted by Civettone
Question, Why do you keep repeating that? Germans were going to embark tanks on the barges.

Reply A tank on an open barge with a speed of what 3-5 knots, across an open sea of at least 35 miles, for between 7-12 hours at best. Under attack at night for some of the time, a sitting wallowing duck if picked on by day. Would never work, not in a million years.

Question They managed to triple production of the subs and double production of PT boats and miesweepers by using the same shipyards. So ok, now they'll just double production of subs and keep that third bit for transport boats. What's the problem?

Reply No problem, but you have now reduced U Boat production by a third. The U boats will have to either abandon the N Atlantic ensuring that the UK can get supplies and free up more destroyers, frigates etc or support the invasion. Your choice


Question The British used over 700 aircraft (amongst them 400 fighters) against 250 German fighters and achieved nothing! Their ships in the Channel achieved nothing, not even a German MTB was lost. Yet, this is going to be the force that is going to annihilate the German invasion fleet?
Scharnhorst - The History - Operation "Cerberus" - The Channel Dash

Reply I read the article which was first class. The force was attacked by the following.
5 MTB during the day
6 swordfish
35 high level bombers
1 squadron of Beauforts
1 squadron of Beauforts different attack
3 Beauforts
6 WW1 destroyers

All the above attacks above with the exception of the first squadron of Beauforts made their attacks on the BC's. The Germans were not able to stop the attacks, an invasion fleet would have been huge, targets sitting ducks compared to the German BC's. German losses would have been inevitable. The BC's got away with it because they were not spotted and communication poor. An invasion fleet would have been spotted and attacked by 75 british squadrons not the above. Note, even a straffing run by a Spit could decimate a landing barge

Question If you would have read my posts you would have seen that they would land on the first day and retreat until the Royal Navy would retreat. IMO this would have lasted two days.

Reply I read your posts, always do. Why on earth would the RN retreat? They dominate at night leaving the landing grounds wide open to bombardment and any Geman vessels caught at night would be at grave risk. As explained the RN at day could impose itself at key moments at a cost but a cost that we could live with.


Question The Bf 109 was better than the Spit V and I already explained this. If you disagree, please tell me why and back this up with figures. I also said aircraft production would increase: more Fw 190s.
Well, according to my plan they do.

Reply Look up the thread about 109F vs Spit V its goes into far more detail that we can here. The best example was Malta. Germany had 109F and early 109G the British Spit V. Germany had numbers, initiative, secure airfields, spares, workshops, reserves, experience, targets within easy reach, spare fuel even. Why weren't the Spits shot out of the sky?
PS if your allowed to magically improve 190 Production, can the British can do the same for Spit IX

Question True
If you lose, the war is over. Sounds logical
Reply We agree on something


Question No, on the first day the Kriegsmarine will escort the invasion fleet. It could take on the MTBs and DDs during the Channel Dash so they could do it again, this time warding them off before they reach the invasion fleet. British MTBs are no match for German S-Boote (or E-boats as you call them).

reply The German fleet and airforce failed to sink the 5 MTB's in daylight, unsupported and didn't even stop them launching their attack. Why do you think you can stop dozens of MTB's at night? Leave the daylight to the larger ships.

Question You cannot sweep mines as fast as the enemy can lay them.

Reply True but we can sweep most of the ones in the path of the fleet, not the entire N Sea and remember when we get to the invasion there will be no mines or the Invasion will hit them. You akso forget that the UK can lay mines. Once we know where the landings are we can place mines between them and the German ports.

Question And what will that achieve? Strategical bombers are useless against tactical targets, especially when dug in.
Reminds me of Hitler's order to have Me 262s to attack the invasion beaches. He literally said they would just fly over the beaches and drop a bomb on them. I think he would have been glad with you backing him up

Reply Think big picture. Your stores, transport, communications, ammo dumps, roads, landing sites, fuel dumps are all over the place. The men in the fox holes are safe but everything else would be at severe risk. We are talking about 350 bombers (minimum) a night, every night, dropping on average about 6,000lb bombs each, in an enclosed area at minimum risk. It would look like the moon after a few days. Nothing could land or move.
Not exactly the same as droping a few bombs from 262's at serious danger to themselves.

Anything else?
Kris

Over to you
David

 

[Civettone]

Hi Syscom;

Wasp and Hornet were in the Atlantic.

In the Atlantic... It would take two days to sail from Scapa to the Channel. Do I need to go on?
Like I said, American reinforcements would come too late.

SBD was NOT better than the Stuka. First of all, it could not dive vertically (see Eric Brown for that) and thus was not that accurate. Second, the SDB destroyed more ships because it was used in a shooting alley. With the Stukas the Americans would have done even better.

The F-4F was inferior to the Bf 109F. If you want, you can direct me to that thread and prove to me I'm wrong.

-------

Unrelated to that disussion, some images of those barges:

Kris

 

[Kurfürst]

Historically, the Germans found that 3 fighters per bomber was the minimum escort force needed. Bomber sorties were limited by fighter availability. It's going to be the same in 1942, as well.

An awfully silly notion, even from you. Apart from of course the 'there must be 3 fighters per bomber' story is just a farce. 1000 fighters deny the same amount of opportunity to the enemy wheter there are 1000 or 3000 bombers around. En masse operation of bombers will precisly ensure much more bombers will get through every single time simply because their numbers, and the loss rate per sortie will be much lower as well.

Coupled with that, there are limits to how many bombers you can send against warships, which are constantly moving. Trying to find a moving target with a thousand bombers, and a few thousand fighters in escort, is not going to be easy. You'd be lucky to get a fraction of your force bombing.

It's rather easy to find an enemy task force with radar - the Freya was just made for that task and was already put into coastal installation during the BoB, and was used effectively in this role.

Besides, the Channel is really not much of an area to control.

Don't forget the large increases in AA armament for warships, and the fitting of air gunnery radar.

Both Prince of Wales and Repulse was sunk without much trouble by a moderate number of land based aircraft without much cost to the Japanese. They had air gunnery radar, but that's pretty useless since it can only direct the big AAA guns, with which without a proximity fuse are completely useless against small, fast targets. They were originally meant against level bombers, but this went back to the 1920s when big, slow level bombers were the only types around capable getting airborne with an effective bombload. By the 1930s and 1940s, dive bombers and torpedo bombers replaced them as threat, and those were just too fast moving targets for large caliber AAA. Not to mention British shipboard AAA guns left something to be desired, having poor elevation, and too slow RoF - their caliber was poorly choosen.

That leaves the British warships with their notoriously useless pom-poms and other jokes onboard. I trying hard to think of a single case when a British warship was attacked by air power and could fend it off, or even make the attackers job just difficult.

At Dunkerque they lost a good number of destroyers, even though German aerial sorties were not too numerous, nor concentrating on the warships but the evacuation 'fleet'. At Crete the RN was subjected to more determined air attacks and they suffered heavy losses in short time, and soon realized that the only option was to pull back and leave the waters around Crete to the LW. The only operations they continued were evacuating the island (not very successfully, most still become PoWs) under the cover of darkness, and Cunningham had to fight High Command even to allow RN ships to operate under such risky conditions. It sums up conviningly how much caution was shown by the RN top brass in face of possible air attacks on their ships.

In our hypothetical scenario however, the butchers would the U-boots holding a perimeter defense behind minefields, if any RN commander would be reckless (or more like, stupid) enough to re-enect Thermopulai on the confined waters of the La Manche against an invisible enemy. Even single U-boot that gets into an ambush position can cause a lot of damage to capital ships, and teven the knowladge of and countermeasures against U-boot presence can turn upside down a naval operation. They feared the U-boot threat - and with a good reason -, so much that at Skagerrak the whole Grand Fleet turned upon a single (false) sighting of a periscope, fearing of a submarine ambush. Shore batteries at Calais with their big guns would also contribute somewhat.

They damaged them both, though. And Prinz Eugen.

Attacking warships in dock, camouflaged and heavily protected by AA, is far harder than attacking enemy merchant ships lying off your beaches.

After flying an astronomical number of sorties.. even though they attacked in the most favourable conditions - a ship in a dock is just a 200+ meter big, stationary target. It's not hard to hit, yet they continously managed to miss them. Attacking evading 30 knot,warships with level bombers, without any training for it (that the Bomber Command Sqn never had, neither it had fitting quality bombsights) is much harder. It was not done during WW2 by anyone with too much success. The tough part for the British, that they lack any kind of precision bombing aircraft ike dive bombers and good torpedo bombers.

On the other hand, the biggest problem to the Germans would be to find a good reason why to even bother invading and occupying England. There was little gain in them doing that. As a military threat, Britain alone was non-existant ever since Dunkerque. If the British alone could not land on the continent with a chance of success, generally they were the least of the German's concerns.

 

[syscom3]

Hi Syscom;
In the Atlantic... It would take two days to sail from Scapa to the Channel. Do I need to go on?
Like I said, American reinforcements would come too late.

Why assume they are at Scapa Flow? Why not hanging off of Ireland? Dont you suppose the US forces are already in the area?

SBD was NOT better than the Stuka. First of all, it could not dive vertically (see Eric Brown for that) and thus was not that accurate. Second, the SDB destroyed more ships because it was used in a shooting alley. With the Stukas the Americans would have done even better.

Be cautious in your quoting Eric Brown. More than one aviation enthusiest has questioned his figures and competance. When it came to ship killing records, the SBD has the Stuka beat. Its performance in the Pacific was legendary. And one other thing.... SBD's can operate from either carriers or land. The Stuka cant do that.

The F-4F was inferior to the Bf 109F. If you want, you can direct me to that thread and prove to me I'm wrong.

I will try to find it for you. The F4F's did meat the -109's up in the North Sea a couple of times, and came out the better of it.

-------

Unrelated to that disussion, some images of those barges:

Kris[/QUOTE]

 

[Civettone]

There were very few attacks on land targets in July.

That's completely untrue. Either your source is wrong, or you're making a deliberate attempt to hold back information. Which is it? I hope it's not the latter, that would really disappoint me!
To say that the German Luftwaffe only flew a couple of bombing missions over England is BS! If you want, I'll back it up (as I always try to do). But I'm hoping you'll correct it yourself.

Historically, the Germans found that 3 fighters per bomber was the minimum escort force needed. Bomber sorties were limited by fighter availability. It's going to be the same in 1942, as well.

Following your previous statement, I also doubt if this is true. I can hardly remember any missions where the Germans used three times as many fighters as bombers.

Trying to find a moving target with a thousand bombers, and a few thousand fighters in escort, is not going to be easy. You'd be lucky to get a fraction of your force bombing.

Searching the vast spaces of the Channel with just 1000 bombers? What was I thinking...

Don't forget the large increases in AA armament for warships, and the fitting of air gunnery radar.

Good point. But did they all have increased AA armament and an air gunnery radar?

Attacking warships in dock, camouflaged and heavily protected by AA, is far harder than attacking enemy merchant ships lying off your beaches.

Camouflaged? Says who? Just yesterday I saw a aerial photograph of those ships and they were not camouflaged. What's the point in camouflaging the ships if you can't conceal the docks?
And like I said, I don't plan on leaving the invasion fleet on the British beaches. They have to be pulled back. As such, there won't be a German fleet along the British coast when the Royal Navy appears. That's the core of my scenario which I have repeated like 5 times already.

A better example would be the German barges in the channel ports in 1940, with up to 80 being sunk on some nights, and the KM describing the situation as "unacceptable".

I remember one night, there were 40 sunk. Don't remember the details. Will look it up!

You either launch your invasion, or you don't. Embarking the troops, sending them out, then calling them back, is a recipe for disaster even in a well organised fleet.

One more time, this time a bit less complicated: 1.Send out the entire fleet. First wave supported by warships.
2.Disembark the troops.
3.Send the fleet back.
4.Royal Navy arrives from SF.
5.Attack the RN with bombers (and other means)
6.RN retreats or gets annihilated.
7.Send the second wave supported by warships.

And you haven't explained what is going to happen at night.

Nothing.

And the third point is target identification. When the RN forces get close to the German forces, it's going to be hard for the Luftwaffe to tell them apart, and it's certain that every ship in the German "fleet" is going to be firing at every aircraft they see.

Now you're holding on to threads.
Barges don't look like destroyers. Stukas don't look like Spitfires.

What do the Germans do about battleships shelling their beachheads at night?

Churchill said he would not committ battleships in the Channel.

Embarking that many troops would take time. If you look at the German plans for 1940, they were to sail the lead elements of the invasion fleet a day before the landings. The rest of the force was to set sail at night to be ready to land at dawn.

There were forces coming in from Ostend and other remote places. Those had to be launched first.
I don't think it will be that difficult to confuse the British: it could also be an exercise. Or the Germans would have staged a couple of manoeuvres prior to the real one. Plus, false radio traffic. Plus, double agents. Enough to confuse the British.
I already said a couple of times that I don't expect the British to be caught off guard. But I doubt they will send their navy from Scapa Flow before they're absolutely sure the invasion is underway.

The problem is that the German barges were slow, and the Channel has strong currents. Many of the ships would have to travel up to 100 miles, which means 10 hours or more.

Those from Ostend maybe? But 50 miles is a better average. And that's 5 hours according to your calculations? Or do you want me to attach a map of the Channel?

If you want to land at dawn, as the Germans did, you have to set out in daylight the day before, which means embarking troops from at least the previous morning. Heavy equipment like tanks and artillery would have to be loaded days in advance.

Days? What do you base this on? Why not one day? Just as long as the bulk of the fleet doesn't leave the docks during the day I think it's ok. Like I said, French resistance or Enigma are not going to help you that much. The British will only be sure of the invasion during the night.

There's a problem with this. The British had both far more mine laying capacity, and far more mine sweeping capacity.

So? Did the British have to seal off the Channel? The Germans were quite capable of mining the Channel. Even in 1944 the British were still minesweeping the Channel. You're clearly underestimating the German minelaying capability.
I'm not underestimating the British minesweeping capability. I'm just saying that the British cannot sweep them as fast as the Germans can lay them.

What, like they did in 1940

You didn't read what I wrote. I specifically said that the British would no longer have the advantage of flying over friendly territory, and that's why the situation was different from 1940. The Germans would win this battle of attrition. As such, your comment of "like they did in 1940?" makes no sense.

Kris

 

[Civettone]

Hi David!

Kris
You didn't reply to the posting probably because I messed it up. This should be easier to understand.

Did you get my PM about it?

A tank on an open barge with a speed of what 3-5 knots, across an open sea of at least 35 miles, for between 7-12 hours at best. Under attack at night for some of the time, a sitting wallowing duck if picked on by day. Would never work, not in a million years.

It seems this is more criticizing barges in general than their ability to carry tanks. My impression was that you would think they couldn't be disembarked but now I see you believe the barges would become unstable?? Am I right in this observation?

but you have now reduced U Boat production by a third.

No. I said the Germans could have tripled U-boat production as they did in 1943. But if they had only doubled it, they could have used that third bit for construction of other ships.
In fact, I don't see a problem with the transport capacity as such. I would simply improve the existing barges and make them self-propelling.

5 MTB during the day
6 swordfish
35 high level bombers
1 squadron of Beauforts
1 squadron of Beauforts different attack
3 Beauforts
6 WW1 destroyers

All the above attacks above with the exception of the first squadron of Beauforts made their attacks on the BC's. The Germans were not able to stop the attacks, an invasion fleet would have been huge, targets sitting ducks compared to the German BC's. German losses would have been inevitable. The BC's got away with it because they were not spotted and communication poor. An invasion fleet would have been spotted and attacked by 75 british squadrons not the above. Note, even a straffing run by a Spit could decimate a landing barge

This only reinforces my opinion about the striking power of the British. The article also states that the British used over 700 aircraft (amongst them 400 fighters) against 250 German fighters. Yet, they only managed to get in a few bombers? They couldn't get them escorted by fighters? Why would things have been different during an invasion? I agree that the targets would have been easier to find but nevertheless, it still says a lot about British capabilities.

As explained the RN at day could impose itself at key moments at a cost but a cost that we could live with.

Where did you explain this? I said I believed between 150 and 300 British ships would be sunk or at least neutralized a day. And that was already dividing the result of my calculations into half.

Look up the thread about 109F vs Spit V its goes into far more detail that we can here. The best example was Malta.

No, it wasn't. If you're so sure why don't you take out the best examples of that thread and present them to me. IIRC I already replied to someone's claims about Maltese Spitfires beating German Bf 109s. I'm still waiting for a reply. I have the loss figures of the German Bf 109s ready... But let me just say this first: from May 1942 the British had more fighters than the Germans opposing them: 5 Spitfire squadrons against just one Bf 109 Gruppe. (Perhaps also some Bf 110s).

if your allowed to magically improve 190 Production, can the British can do the same for Spit IX

Increasing production is not magical. Making aircraft operational sooner is.
And Germany could decrease production of army equipment in favour of navy and AF. I don't see how or why the British would do such a thing.

Question True
If you lose, the war is over. Sounds logical
Reply We agree on something

The German fleet and airforce failed to sink the 5 MTB's in daylight

Sorry I lost you. Which MTB's are we talking about?

Once we know where the landings are we can place mines between them and the German ports.

Hadn't thought about that. That would be a great action!
But otherwise, the Germans would know exactly where to sweep mines: in front of the beaches they want to invade. The British would have a much larger area to cover: the entire entrance lanes to the Channel.

Your stores, transport, communications, ammo dumps, roads, landing sites, fuel dumps are all over the place. The men in the fox holes are safe but everything else would be at severe risk.

I think you're making the same mistakes as many AF leaders made in WW2: use level bombers for tactical missions. They tried this several times yet I can only think of one single time where I actually had success. And there (Normandy) the troops weren't even dug in.
Your plan sounds wonderful but I don't think it would have mattered much. Their accuracy would even have made it as dangerous for their own troops as for the Germans. What was it again? One third in a 5 mile area? And the German nightfighters would have had a field day, knowing exactly where to find the British bombers. No need for radar.

Kris

 

[Civettone]

Why assume they are at Scapa Flow?

Because Scapa Flow was the main RN base to direct and protect convoys to Murmansk, and to react to a Tirpitz outbreak. Your TF 99 (or TF 39 as you called it) was also there.

Dont you suppose the US forces are already in the area?

Well, those two carriers weren't. One was on the American eastcoast and the other was in the South Pacific (Argentina, Africa).

Be cautious in your quoting Eric Brown. More than one aviation enthusiest has questioned his figures and competance.

I participated in the last discussion about Brown, so I'm quite aware of his limitations. Fact remains that the Stuka was the better dive bomber.

When it came to ship killing records, the SBD has the Stuka beat. Its performance in the Pacific was legendary.

Like I said, the SBD was in a shooting alley. It had more opportunity to attack ships than the Stuka.

And one other thing.... SBD's can operate from either carriers or land. The Stuka cant do that.

Yes, it can. Ever heard of the Ju 87C or E?
I know the Germans never had an operational carrier but that doesn't say anything about the Stuka.

I will try to find it for you. The F4F's did meat the -109's up in the North Sea a couple of times, and came out the better of it.

There were three encounters IIRC, mainly by British FAA pilots. In any case, not a statistically solid record. With just a couple of encounters, chance is too big a factor. One which only gets filtered out after dozens of encounters.

Kris

 

[Civettone]

A better example would be the German barges in the channel ports in 1940, with up to 80 being sunk on some nights, and the KM describing the situation as "unacceptable".

As promised, I looked it up:
"…By September the following shipping was lost or damaged by enemy action:
51 barges* sunk or so badly damaged that they were useless
163 barges damaged
12 steamers sunk or completely lost through damage
9 steamers damaged
4 tugs sunk
1 tug damaged."

(* Out of almost 3000 barges** of which only 1250 were going to be used in the first wave)
(Source is post-allied report: http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/afhra/numbered_studies/468155.pdf)

(** together with:
450 tugs
155 freighters (2.000-7.000 tons)
300 motor boats and motor sailers (50-200 tons)
1.200 small motor boats (approx.)
250 naval and auxilliary vessels (not counting the covering forces proper)
Kris

 

[Civettone]

Oh this is a beauty:
By the end of 1942 the German nightfighter force numbers 389 aircraft
(German Defences)

And like I said before, those NFs would know exactly where to find the British bombers. Ein fest für die Nachtjäger!
Kris