Operation Sea Lion (1974 Sandhurst Wargame)
- Thread starter Not James Stockdale
- Start date
Unless the Luftwaffe flies barges, then the threat to the RN is not to be understood to be invasion transports. All the invasion could do is try to make itself more difficult to sink. In WW1, the British discovered that merchant ships with a deck gun were sunk at a lower rate than if they were unarmed, so they did so. It's not that the Admiralty believed that merchant ships with deck guns were a threat to sink submarines. They did not think that would be the outcome. What they were hoping for was that the deck gun would provide an additional complication that would increase the chances of the ship to get away, or absorb so much of the submarines efforts that other ships benefited.
The fact that Revenge was at Plymouth is evidence she would resist an invasion. In terms of combat effectiveness, she might have counted at the weight of 2 or 3 light cruisers. Generally, a heavier armament, but more inaccurate on the main guns, slower, and more vulnerable to coastal artillery and torpedo attack.
RodentRevolution
Banned
I think the thing you are failing to understand is not only do the RN not need to sink the invasion transports to scupper the invasion but the Germans have done the very opposite of making a key part of their transport infrastructure more difficult to sink. Throughout much of the War the Germans were running their coastal convoys with near equal or even equal numbers of escorts to transports and it was still considered worth attacking them. Here the Germans have concentrated not just coastal but riverine traffic in range of attack by warships and not just aircraft while having a much lower proportion of escorts than would later be considered the minimum.
Anything the Royal Navy sink in this operation is a double loss, not simply to the invasion but to wider war economy.
The Allies at Dunkirk lost north of 300 ships and boats of various types in the battle. Were they defeated? Were they stopped? No? So what are you talking about, that if the Germans with 4,000 craft lose 280, of which maybe 1/3rd are invasion transports and the rest various other miscellaneous craft ranging from tiny MB's upwards, that they are defeated?
The general theory I've got is that the RN reserve units will not sink as many targets as the RN warships will.
nbcman
Donor
A battleship is more vulnerable to coastal artillery as compared to a light cruiser or destroyer? So all of this is wasted weight:
Armour:
- Waterline belt: 13 in (330 mm)
- Deck: 1–4 in (25–102 mm)
- Barbettes: 6–10 in (152–254 mm)
- Gun turrets: 11–13 in (279–330 mm)
- Conning tower: 3–11 in (76–279 mm)
- Bulkheads: 4 to 6 in (102 to 152 mm)
Answer my argument. Your best case scenario leads to an invasion barges being beached while the RN, after sinking all the escorts, proceeds to shoot, bomb, and torpedo the freighter convoy sitting offshore holding the other three waves.
RodentRevolution
Banned
Wait not only you at best counting the loss of ships' boats to up the losses in hulls for the Allies and those still might not have been enough as the loss of independent ships and boats numbered 243 which is counted as less than 300 in every mathematical system going but you are comparing an evacuation to an effort to land an invading army and sustain it in combat?
In the case where Sealion is contained in a bridgehead there are 9 divisions that can eek by at 100 tons per day each. In the case where Sealion breaks through the British defensive crust into mobile warfare, that would require more than 2,000 tons per day. Are you admitting that scenario could happen, or is this one of those cases where a poster is talking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time? That is to say, you want to use a supply requirement needed for mechanized warfare after a breakout, but you do not want to admit the Germans can break out of the beachhead with landed mechanized units?
At Guadalcanal the USN set up 5" coastal batteries to cover their landing area, and I assume, also laid minefields. For Sealion we can assume the same thing, that coastal batteries landed on the English side as a high priority, and that defensive minefields would be established at the landing zones even while the landings are occurring.
As per The War Against Rommel's Supply Lines. Siebel ferries quickly gained a reputation with Allied airmen as being amongst the most dangerous targets to attack. Fearsome AA and hard to sink. Kesselring's HQ was so impressed with the performance of Siebels, MFP's, and KT ships (small 500-800 ton coal fired steamers) under the harsh conditions that they concluded the entire Tunisia front could be supplied by 10 KT ships, 200 Siebels, and 200 MFP's. They recommended a crash building program of the type that would have been far more dangerous to Britain in 1940. No MFP's were available in September 1940 (AFAIK), but Siebel production was probably something around 50 per month - they were cheap to build and were in serial production in The Netherlands.
have you been playing to much WoW? BB guns especially the old RN 15" will easily be more accurate than any cruiser at the same range....
Well it is bigger and slower so easier to hit this isn't completely impossible.....
I've been telling these posters for years that the British army had some serious shortcomings in 1940, such that the British did not want to test Sealion. The answers are always to the effect that any suggestion the Germans had an advantage in equipment, training or leadership in infantry is ubersomethingtruppenorother. And, that because the battle is in England, for some unexplained reason half trained poorly equipped reservists will be SAS or something.
On this thread, German 20mm and 40mm machine cannons tickle at 100mm, insofar as the barge being thrown around in a force 5 gale allows a 600rpm gun to fire at all.
In cases where RN warships got to close range on German barques off Crete, the soldiers jumped overboard in life jackets. Sometimes the RN warships stuck around to MG them in the water, but for Sealion, any time wasted doing that is time not used for stopping the invasion.
RodentRevolution
Banned
100 tonnes per day covers the food for 17,000 humans and the fodder for 5,000 horses...it does not cover the fresh drinking water that would needed to landed for the same nor does it cover the fuel required to cook human food, nor the fuel and grease for machinery and equipment and in combat while I do not have the figures to hand I do believe just the artillery of a German infantry division could fire off some 12.5 tonnes of ammunition per hour...obviously if the artillery does not get landed the invasion is stuffed.
Again of intertest is the fact that the Kriegsmarine could only land at most a third of the required coast defence artillery with the first wave and another third (1/3) of requirements with the second.
nbcman
Donor
Why would any of the RN ships get that close to the coastal guns sites if they are trying to sink the invasion fleet which has to sail away from the German coastal guns? BTW, the coastal guns emplaced by the Germans sank a grand total of 2 merchies. Besides, the British have Winnie and Pooh to back them up. Eventually the British coastal batteries sank 5 German ships which included one sub. So whose coastal guns are more effective?
EDIT: Just Winnie. Pooh wasn't available until Feb 1941.
How does a larger much less wind affected shell fired from a mount designed for much longer ranges achieve worse accuracy than a 6"?
Coastal guns didn't hit S&G or many convoys....... as to the bombers yes but that means nobody hitting the DDs so the invasion gets killed......
shall i repeat again.siebel production started in september and only 25 were ready by the end of september.so effectively none.
Garrison
Donor
First absolutely no one here has been convinced by your arbitrarily low numbers for German losses. Secondly The British ships at Dunkirk faced essentially no naval opposition. What Dunkirk demonstrated is that Luftwaffe airpower alone is incapable of interdicting the RN and its auxiliaries, that takes the kind of naval firepower the Kreigsmarine lacks and strapping 88mm guns to barges is not a substitute. Thirdly if invasion force is scattered or forced to turn back by the losses it takes then yes that is a defeat.