Yes and those landing craft are going to be so useful heading through the ardenne and the like. Whilst they might be useful in hitting Denmark it would probably be a tad brave to sail them off to Norway beyond the narrow bit between Denmark and Norway but thats about it.
hypothetical scenario for you. You are now a chap in Germany and pushing for the construction of landing craft, its 1937, you're in the Kriegsmarine, so the poor 3rd son of the German armed forces.
You don't build these ships unless its for a purpose. As I said, Germany's a land power, and its got its rivals on its land borders to the East and West. The Germans are not going to launch an attack at the Maginot line, even if they could breach it (and I don't doubt they could, just with one hell of a butchers bill)if they can't help it, so that means going round it.
So you build these landing craft for what? Your enemy is France and Poland. Sure you could do some landings on the baltic coast but unless you plan on invading Denmark too, you can't get your landing craft round to France as there's a fair bit of sea, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, the Marine Nationale and the RN in the way and a gaggle of assorted airforces.
So why are we building these ships that we can use in very specific circumstances again? Yes they can help with logistics. Won't help much in the Ardenne or Belgian/Dutch interior. They could be useful hitting Denmark or the southern part of the Norwegian coast. But do we know that we -are- for sure going to go after those countries? Norway's neutral with a partially friendly government thanks to the Quislings. Denmark's hardly a threat and there's not much there worth invading. The Swedes have a potent cost defence force and small army but are quite friendly. So why should we waste material based on the off chance we might go to war with these?
This is what a driver is. Something that pushes forwards something to get built or to change something. What's the driver to waste needed resources on a large number of amphbious craft without knowing that France and the Low countries is going to fall in 6 weeks? You need to build enough of them to make Sealion be a bit better, but without knowing FOR SURE that this resource cost and investment will pay off in the future, its just sunk costs and resources that are needed elsewhere.
And whilst these ships might be useful for an invasion of the UK, why would we waste resources on building potentially hundreds (or even a thousand) of ships that may or may not be used for any major role, we don't need 2 - 400 landing craft. Yes we could threaten England, but we do not know how long any offensive into the Low Countries and France will take, our losses etc. Yet you want us to build hundreds of ships for an invasion that might not happen, when we need the resources and the personnel elsewhere? And as for helping with logistics, yes, in very limited areas. Nothing that will matter in the most important in the actual battle for France.
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Thats the problem. The Germans do not know that sickle cut is going to work. So there's simply no need to have a large number of dedicated landing craft because whilst a few score might be useful. You're going to need a damn sight more than that to do anything Sealion shaped. And until then, this mass of boats are ships without a role, that have sucked up resources and money that's not infinite. You'd also have to get the Heer onboard to actually plan something like an attack and assault landing otherwise you've got a lot of boats with no experience in landing outside of trying to treat it like a river crossing.
Yes the Germans could build these boats, but WHY would they? Thats the big issue. To have enough useful craft to make Sealion more effective than a barge loaded farce, you'd need scores and scores of these ships, hundreds of them, built pre-war and with experience in actual landings by working with the heer to figure out what works and what does not because there's a whole difference between pootling up to a beach and landing against opposition whilst under attack from the air and sea. So you need to train. And no matter how good you are, this is going to be spotted. And the German military practicing large scale landings on beaches with air support and warships...why are they doing this? What's this for? Lets look deeper shall we? Considering how shit the Abhwehr was at its job (with many folks who were or probably were actively colluding against the Nazi's even though they were Germans) I doubt they would do a great job of keeping other interested countries spy's away. Or would be effective at not 'accidentally' giving them info straight up.
Stuff don't happen in a bubble, and this would be noted, and the Allies pre war were thick, but they are not dumb, there's a difference.
And again, you're building an invasion force, training for it, for an invasion you have no way of knowing will be able to go ahead. You don't know sickle cut is going to work (hell neither did the Nazis, it was a huge gamble) so why waste resources when you need them on something that may or may not happen save having them for possible operations along the Danish and Norweigan coast as well as possible efforts on the Dutch coat, there's no need for hundreds of them unless you're planning for the Invasion of England, before France has even fallen and you don't know for sure if it will.
Whilst landing craft are not your typical German tech wank, they are still a common sealion problem. You've got to build enough of them to make it work. You've got to train to use them and train your units to use them to make it work. You've got to do this pre war and you need resources for everything else too and can you afford to spend the resources building them, especially in the numbers you're going to need. And what if they are noticed. And they probably will be. Then what? Whats the UK's reaction, because again, thick but not dumb. The Admiratly might very well figure out that these landing craft, all the training for it points to planned future operations against friendly countries or even the UK itself.
Do they then go humper dumper didio and resume the aforementioned cricket bat sodomizing? because they are not going to ignore this, which would probably be needed.
You can't just go "The germans build landing craft, there done." because it all has a knock on effect. You've got to build them, what does not get built instead, you've got to crew them, what does not get crew instead, its all domino's that have to fall into place.
Okay makes sense here, probably the only real place they might be useful.
ummm...*glances at a map*
Just making sure there wasn't a German Med coast I wasn't aware of. Again, future knowledge is needed to know that the italian buffoon is going to get you involved down there when you go to pull his bald arse out of the fire.
Also, the resources to build the Marinefahrprahm can be the Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier, along with the Bismarck and Tirpitz battleship. Germany can make a decision not make such ships as they are aware they are a land power and would be better suited for another way to provide logistics for the army.
Interesting but the costs for these had already been done and paid for and the resources put aside with the ships well under construction. So how far back are you going to go to have this happen? and that screaming you just heard is the German Admiralty howling for your blood for daring to try and cancel their darlings. And the Furher was supportive of the Z plan of which those three ships are vital components of.
But now we
know for sure that they are useless? How? No battleship has been sunk from the air, and we can use our vessels to disrupt the British should we go to war with them. And we need to answer the French battleships lest we leave our coast undefended. And if you want to build your invasion craft, will they not need artillery support or protection from other warships and is the Battleship not the best method for this?