AHC: Make Sealion very unlikely
- Thread starter lerk
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- sealion world war 2
TDM
Kicked
Would France go fascist before or after the the battle of france in OTL? (basically what stops the Brits sinking the French navy at el-kabir as per OTL)
And I replied as to why it more complicated than your claiming and still has the issues raised. The italians didn't make hundreds they made about 100 (although that's more due to the Invasion of Malta being cancelled they could have built more). However the motozattere were built in Regina Marina Shipyards so again this idea thay thay could be easily knocked up in workshops around the country is not shown. The Germans however did eventually make hundreds, but ended up using them as transports in the Baltic. Because as you say below just having these things by themselves doesn't give you the ability to ambiguously assault britain.
Cool, I will have a look at that.
The Channel is not that deep, you could make crawlers. Big containers with wheels that would cross on the bottom. You avoid the RN and the RAF, probably not that crazy technologically
TDM
Kicked
That in theory is a european powerhouse! Given their history though I think it would be a hard sell.
Nice!
However it's not that deep in terms of seaways but plenty deep for making watertight land vehicles (the Tauchpanzer managed 15m, which was crazy enough* as well as abandoned as an idea), also the terrain might be pretty tough to get through** (especially when you factor in the difficulties of being under an avg 70m of water). Not to mention you're navigating by compass and map. Another problem is you are talking about either huge boxes or an awful lot of them when it comes to transporting an invasion force and it's supplies. So that many very specialised machines are not only hard to make but very hard to keep secret
*and must have been brown trouser time for the crew
**how fast are these things going to crawl (I'm thinking pretty damn slow, a slow walk pass at best so long transit time meaning transit supplies), in which case how are you going to power them it got to be batteries but you can't do the thing teh U-boats do which recharge the batteries from their surface (or snorkel) diesel engine, and I doubt a hose like those used in deep wading will work, especially not in troop carriers
I think you underestimate the ability of the FAA who were very adept at sinking ships at night to wreak havoc on the invasion fleet, also the number of flares the RN and RAF would have used to help warships and RAF aircraft to see all of those "invulnerable" targets doesn't really help the Germans that much. The German targets are also very obvious and only a portion of the transit would have occurred at night a large chunk would have been in daylight. Most RN destroyer captains would have been ecstatic at the prospect of getting amongst all of those slow, wallowing, barely defended targets at night.
Could be used for supply with a minimum crew, as supplies are always the big issue.
Also, it can be an issue technologically if you want it to do anything else than transport stuff. Weapon system are a luxury and a cost which you don't need. The Tauchpanzer was, well, a panzer, so needed to fight, drive on land, etc...
Depth seems to be about 50m between Calais and Douvres, with 80 km coast to coast, so it's probably an overnight journey going slow. Not sure about the state of the seafloor.
If you really wanna be vicious, leave supply crates on the ground near the landing site and do supply runs there, prior to the invasion.
I feel like this is a bit of a crazy idea, but then again, they took Malta with stupid tactics too
TDM
Kicked
I think the technical and operational issues would be too great, but I like the idea!
Er did they, who did?
The floor of the channel has soft mud, uneven rocks, deep sand (look up liquefaction) and is on the whole pretty uneven.
Let's have another look at that Zeppelin plan...
Let's have another look at that Zeppelin plan...
Also a s**tload of wrecks, some containing unstable explosives.
What could possibly go wrong...
Always the Chunnel to try.the Germans just need to wait long enough to get plucky and dashing American POWs, and periodically move the camp they are in until they unknowingly dig to the safety of the UK. At which point the Germans follow them.Also a s**tload of wrecks, some containing unstable explosives.
What could possibly go wrong...
There's always a giant canon like in Journey to the Moon
Don't be silly. Cavorite's the answer.
I'm pretty sure he was saying that the Royal Navy would be the one that was practically invulnerable, if I remember the argument correctly. He was comparing the American success at Midway vs German attempts to sink the British Navy and protect the invasion flotilla.
Also dirty great scour marks from post-glacial overflow, making the bed of the Channel decidedly unflat, and a bit closer to the Grand Canyon in places - see the map in the link, which I haven’t copied as it’s copywrite.
I am confused. According to various posts here the FAA and RAF would have done noticeably damage to a Germany invasion flotilla, but if Germany managed to somehow decimate the RAF and achieve air suppiority over the Channel the Royal Navy would still be able to control the Channel.
Unless I am missing something we seam to be saying a Heads you win and tails I lose.
Historically basically anytime an Airforce had control of the air over ships the aircraft prett much romped all over said ships. This holds pretty much true even in battles where both sides had aircraft involved. One sides aircraft would be out of position or low on fuel or ammo or what not and the other side would have a romp. Only when the two sides were reasonable even did the ships get off relatively safe. And in the middle of the ocean I can do a LOT more maneuvering then I can in the English Channel. Even with a destroyer you are going to have to be a lot more careful manuvering then in the open sea.
So why if somehow the Germans can secure control of the air would not not be able to generally protect there flotilla and inflict a lot of damage to the Royal Navy?
Yes I understand that as it turns out they could not get said control but we are asking for ways to make the dread sea mammal live a bit longer.
So if we reallocated out resources a bit differently /better, Get better leadership for the Luftwaffe (Say a certain General ODs or crashes his car or something ) This could lead to less troops getting away from Dunkirk and could see them being a bit better against ships. Which could also help at Dunkirk.
We keep attacking the RAF, while getting luck with a few bombs and damage production of fighters in England
While England makes a few worse calls.
The end result could be that for a time the Germans can dominate the Air over the Chanel and get some men and supplies ashore
Ultimately I think they still lose. As while you don’t need the Full D-Day equipment and supplies and manpower to make a landing in England before England finishes rearming itself and before the US turns England into the largest military supply base in history. You still need a better plan the Germany had in order to sustain the invasion. But I think with the right breaks on their side and with things going wrong for England that a probably managed war with the resources used right you could pull off a successful landing that put up a good fight before being driven back into the sea.
As an aside to this I have a question, does Dunkirk and the fact that a lot of smaller ships and boats managed to get away relatively safely show that it was harder to hit smaller craft then bigger craft such as Aircraft carriers and battle ships? It has always seamed to me that aircraft were more successful the bigger the target ship was, This logically could be the result of the bigger ships being bigger targets and less maneuverable or it could be the result of more aircraft concentrating on the bigger ships or a combination of both.
Unless I am missing something we seam to be saying a Heads you win and tails I lose.
Historically basically anytime an Airforce had control of the air over ships the aircraft prett much romped all over said ships. This holds pretty much true even in battles where both sides had aircraft involved. One sides aircraft would be out of position or low on fuel or ammo or what not and the other side would have a romp. Only when the two sides were reasonable even did the ships get off relatively safe. And in the middle of the ocean I can do a LOT more maneuvering then I can in the English Channel. Even with a destroyer you are going to have to be a lot more careful manuvering then in the open sea.
So why if somehow the Germans can secure control of the air would not not be able to generally protect there flotilla and inflict a lot of damage to the Royal Navy?
Yes I understand that as it turns out they could not get said control but we are asking for ways to make the dread sea mammal live a bit longer.
So if we reallocated out resources a bit differently /better, Get better leadership for the Luftwaffe (Say a certain General ODs or crashes his car or something ) This could lead to less troops getting away from Dunkirk and could see them being a bit better against ships. Which could also help at Dunkirk.
We keep attacking the RAF, while getting luck with a few bombs and damage production of fighters in England
While England makes a few worse calls.
The end result could be that for a time the Germans can dominate the Air over the Chanel and get some men and supplies ashore
Ultimately I think they still lose. As while you don’t need the Full D-Day equipment and supplies and manpower to make a landing in England before England finishes rearming itself and before the US turns England into the largest military supply base in history. You still need a better plan the Germany had in order to sustain the invasion. But I think with the right breaks on their side and with things going wrong for England that a probably managed war with the resources used right you could pull off a successful landing that put up a good fight before being driven back into the sea.
As an aside to this I have a question, does Dunkirk and the fact that a lot of smaller ships and boats managed to get away relatively safely show that it was harder to hit smaller craft then bigger craft such as Aircraft carriers and battle ships? It has always seamed to me that aircraft were more successful the bigger the target ship was, This logically could be the result of the bigger ships being bigger targets and less maneuverable or it could be the result of more aircraft concentrating on the bigger ships or a combination of both.
Air superiority only works in daytime. The RN also works during the night. You only have to sink the barges once to destroy the supplyline.
Apart from that air superiority is not airsupremacy, which is what the germans would need to supply their troops. There is no way the germans would get uncontested airsupremacy like the allies had during Overlord. So the RAF and FAA would still be able to do some succesful operations over the channel. The Luftwaffe was supposed to give CAS and perform CAP over their troops and the Channel and sink the RN before they got into a firing position. You're gonna need an awful lot of planes for that, it's way out of reach for the Luftwaffe, even after a succesful BoB.
there is no contradiction here. The Luftwaffe too would have been able to do noticably damage to the Royal Navy. The problem is,the RN margin of superiority is so great,that even noticiably damaged the German invasion fleet would have been doomed. To make it work the Luftwaffe would need to sink the majority of the attacking RN force (which would be quite huge) and damage most of the remainder. No Air force on the planet,no matter if Luftwaffe or RAF,was able to pull such a stunt in 1940.
I'm sure somewhere here knows the answer, but the Luftwaffe was hardly optimized for attacking naval targets, either. And as mentioned previously, only a small portion of its bombers were types designed to attack naval targets - dive bombers. Level bombers are virtually worthless against ships at this time, and fighters could work, but then you have to give up your fighter screen to attack vessels unless you achieve air supremacy.
As mentioned before, the UK has naval supremacy in surfeit, has no major enemy naval ships to engage (let's not bring Schleswig-Holstein into this), and a crossing by river barges would take about a day, last i recalled. This means that, even if the British do nothing during daytime hours, as soon as the night arrives, the navy can sail out of anchor and target the easily destroyed, slow, and unseaworthy craft with ease. And trading a part of your fleet that can be easily rebuilt in order to knock out an invasion fleet is well worth the tradeoff, as it stands.