Riain
Banned
Yes to which one, the big one mounted from Germany or the small one mounted from Belgium?
Flanking amphibious operation in ww1
- Thread starter Monk78
- Start date
Yes to which one, the big one mounted from Germany or the small one mounted from Belgium?
I think the Yser front was basically flooded marshland for miles in from the coast, so battleship guns would have had a hard time hitting worthwhile targets. The abundant Allied naval forces in the immediate vicinity would also be disruptive.
I think it depends on what you mean by amphibious operations. If you mean flashy opposed charge across a beach like Normandy, Inchon, or what Gallipoli aspired to be, not really. But those kinds of operations are mostly the exception any time in history, and things like the capture of all the German Pacific territories were definitely amphibious operations too.
Is it not effectively suicided to send (17-18Kn when new) slow 9.4" ships into the face of the RN inevitable repose? They will die to Lord Nelson and Agamemnon or any of the many other RN PDs, why would the navy want to waste crews and ships on such a mission?
Riain
Banned
These old ship would have been used a coast defence ships within the overall coastal defence scheme in Flanders, used in conjunction with the shore batteries and the T-boats and destroyers. It was an MKF tactic for Tboats and destroyers to lie off under the cover of shore batteries and shoot at long range, this tactic could be extended if an old PD was available to add to this coastal firepower.
The problem is that RN will try and fight them, and with old VTE engines they will be lucky to be making even 17Kn, so can't run away like TB or DDs? They are also weak, so cant survive mine or torpedo hits, and we are talking about losing 680 crew on each ship when they are lost, why would HSF want to deploy its own live bait squadron?
Riain
Banned
This map of the German shore battery coverage shows where these super old PDs would operate, likely not further out to sea than 10km where their 9.4" guns would supplement the primary and secondary shore guns of greater than 8.1". Sure the RN would like to come after them but they'd have to come within range of a lot of shore guns to do so, not to mention mines, uboats, tboats and destroyers. It's hardly 'live bait'.
As an aside I once rote a TL where the Germans hit the coast at Gravelines in France rather than Nieuwpoort in Belgium. Overlay the gun coverage 50km further west and the British will be in serious trouble.
Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
Better check first when the Germans installed all those coastal batteries. If you are thinking of winning the "Race to the Sea" in 1914, they aren't going to be there.
Anywhere beyond Dunkerque will have limited support even in 1918.
Riain
Banned
The Germans captured the Belgian coast in October and by March had installed sufficient guns for the area to be considered 'defended'. While a couple of patrol uboats had used Belgian ports during this timeframe the UB and UC class and the A class tboats deployed in flotilla strength in Aril-May 1915.
However this was a result of a very half-arsed process. The RMA hadn't formed the Marine Division before the war, let alone laid aside any coastal guns to fortify any coastline the Germans did capture, so building this coastal defence network involved squeezing the resources out of the North Sea and Baltic Naval stations, who's commanders were highly reluctant to see their own commands diminished in favour of this upstart. Similarly the Baltic and High Seas fleets were reluctant to provide ships for this new Flanders command, as it would diminish their commands as well. Typical of the shitty German Naval command structure.
How many of the guns will actually matter? If the 9.4" PDs are 10km offshore, then how close to RN need to get to the shore guns? The 380mm guns are from 27th June 1917 from Navweps/wiki?
So we are talking lighter guns (280mm) that dont really outrage the guns on RN ships by much and are starting from 10k behind the PDs?
It's not like RN has more of all of these to use against any PDs sitting off the coast?
If any predreadnoughts were used as coastal defense battleships they could creditably add to the defenses of any area needing it by staying behind minefields and within cover of artillery etc.
They would not make any offensive action possible. Now Britain didn't exploit their naval supremacy in the channel (beyond using monitors for some shore bombardment) to any great extent. If Britain had of said its important enough so damn the losses we are going to do the Zebrugge raid or the Ostend raid properly they would have and it would have worked.
A couple of coastal defense battleships would have made things more complicated for the British. Not so that they couldn't exploit their supremacy just that that it would have been more complicated and required a bigger investment.
For the record I hate people saying that the Germans nearly won WW1 with the uboat war.
In WW2 the common counter is if Britain was actually under threat the strategic bombers would have been used as Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
In WW1 the counter that people dont use is that if Britain was actually under threat they would have done the Ostend raid and the Zebrugge raid backed by significant support rather than on a shoestring. They would have taken losses but they would have closed those harbours trapping a number submarines in port, denying the Germans channel basing for their submarines and perhaps making it so that some ships at sea would not be able to get home.
They would not make any offensive action possible. Now Britain didn't exploit their naval supremacy in the channel (beyond using monitors for some shore bombardment) to any great extent. If Britain had of said its important enough so damn the losses we are going to do the Zebrugge raid or the Ostend raid properly they would have and it would have worked.
A couple of coastal defense battleships would have made things more complicated for the British. Not so that they couldn't exploit their supremacy just that that it would have been more complicated and required a bigger investment.
For the record I hate people saying that the Germans nearly won WW1 with the uboat war.
In WW2 the common counter is if Britain was actually under threat the strategic bombers would have been used as Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
In WW1 the counter that people dont use is that if Britain was actually under threat they would have done the Ostend raid and the Zebrugge raid backed by significant support rather than on a shoestring. They would have taken losses but they would have closed those harbours trapping a number submarines in port, denying the Germans channel basing for their submarines and perhaps making it so that some ships at sea would not be able to get home.
Riain
Banned
IOTL the RN was unable to operate within 10 miles of the coast during daylight and 5 miles at night and their offensive actions with long range shelling were unobserved and known to both sides to be ineffective. Britain didn't really start to do anything more than contain the German position in Flanders until 1917, when the Germans deployed 20 destroyers after the failures of the HSF in mid-late 1916. Its very nature meant that the German held Flanders coast was the strongest form of warfare: Strategic offensive - tactical defensive and it was only German stupidity that they did not make better use of this position. When the British started to pay attention it took them about a year to get on top of this position, but it wasn't easy and required a methodical approach with things like forward observation bouys to observe 15" monitor gunfire, by 1917 12" monitors were of limited use and in particular lacked the range for observed and accurate gunfire.
A mobile, floating gun battery using old PD would have been a useful addition to MKF strength, which is why they were requested in the first place.
Riain
Banned
The great missed opportunity in WW1 isn't uboats but surface forces operating from Flanders. Careful and lightning fast hit and run raids from Flanders on The Downs and other concentrations of coastal shipping could have caused big problems for the British as London imported a lot of it's food (for example) directly from coastal ships going through the Dover Narrows and up into the Thames. When the Dover Patrol and Harwich Force get too good at stopping such raids then the warships go back to Germany to let things settle down for a while, like how in WW2 the uboats went where the going was good.
Flat no. They don’t have any forces that could successfully carry out an amphibious operation of the size needed, and the Royal Navy would absolute wreck their landing forces.
1. Most of them will be beached or at the bottom of the Channel, so no.
2. No artillery support beyond the guns of beached ships.
3. They can’t. The landing forces will be out of ammunition within a few hours and be forced to surrender.
Oh , dear , when did Britain lose its railways and ports on the West coast? As WW2 proved Port of London and Channel can be shut and its an inconvenience nothing more.