A Europe "Pearl Harbor"

Well if they could catch some of the battle-line in harbour, a small group of U-Boats could do some serious damage. The motivation would be different of course, it wouldn't be (primarily) to try to scare the British out of the wars as to knock down so many ships that they couldn't effectively patrol against future surface-ship breakouts.

Even assuming you are in position to exploit the same weakness as the attack on the Royal Oak, how many U boats could you see being able to navigate into Scapa Flow that way?

And since the RN never had the all the major hulls there it would just require juggling to balance out the fleets again. I don't see a German Admiralty betting everything on such a plan.
 
This whole idea is wierd. To come close to matching Pearl Harbor in intensity and reaction, it would almost have to involve an attack on major US fleet assets in major naval harbor on American territory, which Germany could not accomplish with conventional means. As others have noted, a combination of u-boats, mini-subs, frogmen, and saboteurs are the only possible way. Given the fact that in 1940-41 nothing remotely resembling a "US battleline" was stationed in the atlantic (the Atlantic fleet was in essence a "reserve fleet" with respect to capital ships), the target(s) might that would probably make the most sense for sabatoge would shore facilities and shiprads in the US and the Panama Canal.
 
A less Amero-centric idea... how about the Germans launch a massive air raid on Scapa Flow (or other appropriate base) on 31 August 1939, before a declaration of war on Poland even.
 
A less Amero-centric idea... how about the Germans launch a massive air raid on Scapa Flow (or other appropriate base) on 31 August 1939, before a declaration of war on Poland even.

Interesting, but given the ranges involved from Germany proper, few German bombers available in 1939 had the range to reach Scapa Flow with meaningful payloads and they would be completely unescorted, so there is the real probability this would be a one-way mission for many of the aircraft. Also, these would for the most part he He-111 and Do-17 level bombers, not divebombers or torpedo bombers better suited to attack ships scattered widely in an anchorage.

Plus, this would deplete forces available to the Polish Campaign and might well prompt an immediate Allied offensive in the west rather than the sitzkreig. Germany might end up losing the war in several months!
 
A less Amero-centric idea... how about the Germans launch a massive air raid on Scapa Flow (or other appropriate base) on 31 August 1939, before a declaration of war on Poland even.

Well there is a thread in the Story section about that, it just requires you to accept that every British officers is "unfit for command" (to put it mildly).

What's the distance from Scapa Flow to German Coastal areas? The Ju88 had a range of 1500 miles, is that enough?

Even if they did attack what makes you think that the fleet would be there in the numbers like Pearl.
 
Even assuming you are in position to exploit the same weakness as the attack on the Royal Oak, how many U boats could you see being able to navigate into Scapa Flow that way?
4-5? Do it at night for best results. Also, this isn't the same weakness as that attack, it's instead of that attack.

And since the RN never had the all the major hulls there it would just require juggling to balance out the fleets again. I don't see a German Admiralty betting everything on such a plan.
Well the Nazis weren't hugely sane themselves, and the Japanese (or the majority of the officers) thought their attack would keep the US out.

Any chance Nazi Germany can attack the Panama Canal like the Japan was planning to later in the war?
Exactly zero, no way of moving aircraft at sea, see?
 
Any chance Nazi Germany can attack the Panama Canal like the Japan was planning to later in the war?

Not like Japan (with submarine launched bombers). But they could have considered landing English/Spanish-speaking saboteurs to damage locks and dams. If the agents were landed with strategy and foresight (ie well before the war with ample time to marshall explosives and ingratiate their way through whatever security net the US Navy maintained over the canal zone), they could do quite a bit of mischief.
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
Assuming a German attack on the US here.


WHY?! Would the Germans attack the US? His focus was eastward and on the European Continent. Hitler wasn't so stupid as to attack some that has nothing that he wants. Everyone he vuluntarily striked at(Austria, Czechoslavakia, Poland, The Soviet Union) all had something he wanted. The only reason why he warred in the west was because they declared war on him.
 
4-5? Do it at night for best results. Also, this isn't the same weakness as that attack, it's instead of that attack.

Well the Nazis weren't hugely sane themselves, and the Japanese (or the majority of the officers) thought their attack would keep the US out.

Exactly zero, no way of moving aircraft at sea, see?

Yes but I'm assuming that they would have to use the same vulnerability as Prien exploited, which from memory was a small channel with risks getting through.

How do you have 4-5 subs co-ordinate their entry into the anchorage at night, without being able to communicate and then attack, even the simple matter of who targets what would complicate things I would think.

Certainly the Nazis weren't big on logic but this would seem to me to be something that they would never have contemplated or been able to get through.

Hell I thought there was enough surprise at Prien's boldness in the attack rather than the High Command planning it.

As for a US attack again I would see frogmen using the Italian version of the Chariot as the most possible way to do it. A few of them at the Locks of the Canal would have the possiblity of damaging the locks. A couple on freighters waiting to transit might have them sink in the canal itself raising other issues
 
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