AHC: Successfull Op. Sealion

You do understand that this release of German pilots is what happened historically, right? From the tone of your response I'm guessing that would be a 'no.'

I have no figures on the breakdown between fighter pilots and bomber pilots, but we could probably roughly figure out a proportion based on the number of the two types shot down. I suspect that less than half of them would be fighter pilots, but that's purely a guess. As to whether the 400 were just pilots or pilots and flight crew, my recollection of the source is that they said pilots, which would imply that they meant pilots. Of course (a) I could be misremembering, or (b) someone along the chain could have lumped flight crew together with pilots and called them all pilots. If you find some other figure and a reason why it's more accurate I would not be adamant in my defense of this one. I do remember that Churchill was quite upset that these guys were turned over to the Germans, which tends to indicate that he thought it was significant.
Is it? Very significant, I mean.
The question is: pilots of what?

You posted this and quoted the data I provided, but those data dealt exclusively with single-engine fighter pilots. Are these 400 pilots returned to Germany all Bf 109 pilots? Are they all fighter pilots? Are they Luftwaffe pilots, be it of fighters or of bombers? Or are they simply Luftwaffe aircrew, including tail gunners?

I strongly suspect they aren't all Bf 109 pilots, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are all types of downed Luftwaffe aircrew personnel.
 
Is it? Very significant, I mean.
The question is: pilots of what?

You posted this and quoted the data I provided, but those data dealt exclusively with single-engine fighter pilots. Are these 400 pilots returned to Germany all Bf 109 pilots? Are they all fighter pilots? Are they Luftwaffe pilots, be it of fighters or of bombers? Or are they simply Luftwaffe aircrew, including tail gunners?

I strongly suspect they aren't all Bf 109 pilots, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are all types of downed Luftwaffe aircrew personnel.

It's actually 400 aircrew... I mean there where some good fighter pilots retrieved like Molders; but it doesn't change the the LW lost 3000 air crew in case yellow/red whom their replacement abilities where shit in resolving
 
You do understand that this release of German pilots is what happened historically, right? From the tone of your response I'm guessing that would be a 'no.'

I have no figures on the breakdown between fighter pilots and bomber pilots, but we could probably roughly figure out a proportion based on the number of the two types shot down. I suspect that less than half of them would be fighter pilots, but that's purely a guess. As to whether the 400 were just pilots or pilots and flight crew, my recollection of the source is that they said pilots, which would imply that they meant pilots. Of course (a) I could be misremembering, or (b) someone along the chain could have lumped flight crew together with pilots and called them all pilots. If you find some other figure and a reason why it's more accurate I would not be adamant in my defense of this one. I do remember that Churchill was quite upset that these guys were turned over to the Germans, which tends to indicate that he thought it was significant.

400 aircrew I think comes from Nicholas Von Below's memoirs (He was Hitler's LW aide from 37-45)... I've seen it in Mike Spick's and other LW historical accounts as well
 
For what it is worth, somebody on this forum lists 12 Me-110 pilots and 43 Me-109 pilots, of which the Me-109 pilots went on to claim 543 victories over the course of the rest of the war. I can't vouch for any of this being accurate or comprehensive, but it may be a starting point. (link didn't work before but I think it does now)
 
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What might have happened: We changed the weather a bit. In early April, before the Norway invasion, which historically happened on April 9, German forecasters see a period of good weather over France. The land is dry enough that the panzers can move across country. The Germans go for it, doing approximately the historic operation. And yes, by that time they had developed the historic sickle cut strategy.

I thought about it. Doesn't actually look that good.

The Germans, assuming they make their decision on say April 8, scrap all the preparations theyhave made for Weserübung. it will take them what, at least two weeks to set up again for Fall Gelb. We're not that far from the timing of our TL.

The solution is that the Germans change their minds earlier, say at the end of March, so that they actually launch Fall Gelb on April 9.

Unfortunately, on that very day Anglo-French troops land in Norway.
Norway was a flashpoint that spring, both because the Allies noticed the German preparations and because of several more reasons.
The Allies may very well not notice the Germans' change of mind, and go ahead with their own Weserübung.

The Norwegians will offer resistance, maybe token. Without German operations, however, at least Northern Norway will fall.

Yes, the Germans are advancing as per OTL through the Ardennes and around Belgium.
But, meanwhile:

- the Swedish iron ore supplies will suffer severe delays throughout the remaining warm season of 1940, as they rearrange the shipments. Then they will be stopped by ice along the Swedish coast. That's not the end of the world for the German industry in 1940, but it will nearly be in 1941. And with Anglo-French troops along their border, the Swedes are much more likely to be neutral-neutral, rather than neutral-German-very-friendly. And who knows what will happen next. Maybe the Allies will nevertheless construe something as a casus belli for taking the Swedish mines directly. Maybe they'll just outbid the Germans, denying them quotas of iron ore by buying it. In short, a deadly threat to German industry in the long term.

- the U-Boote are much less effective. They have no neutral Norwegian waters to slither through in and out; much less do they have Norwegian bases.

- the protein balance shifts in favor of the British.

- what is practically the only source of nickel for the European Axis is also in danger.

- the Kriegsmarine has not suffered from Weserübung, which is a great thing. But with British bombers in Norway, they will begin to be harassed in their own dens (in OTL, major German warships spent long months in repairs because of British bombs hitting them in their ports), much more easily than in OTL. Very annoying.

- If all of Norway is in Allied hands, then there can be fighters having effective range over the Skagerrak; more bad news for the Germans.


In short, let's assume the Germans do as historically in France.

When that's over, will they try Seelöwe against the British homeland - or will they use it against Southern Norway? I say the latter.

They probably even win, and by the end of the campaign season of 1940 they have Norway for themselves (and, of course, at a price for the Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe, and paratroopers). But no Channel operations.
 
Their weather luck ran out as they cornered the BEF and quite a bit of the French army at Dunkirk. The Brits had the advantage of cloud cover either over the beaches or over airports the Germans were flying from for much of the evacuation.

I wanted the details, so I dusted off my Bekker (not an author to downplay the problems the Luftwaffe may have had).

On May 25, the bulk of the Luftwaffe that would have the range, was committed elsewhere.
On May 26, Dunkerque was attacked with serious damage to the port infrastructures - even before the first ship was loaded.
On May 27, first day of Dynamo, there were heavy attacks.
On May 28, there was bad weather, but some bombing took place all the same.
On May 29, there were some hours of bad weather and then heavy attacks, the harbor was declared unserviceable and 3 destroyers were sunk, together with other ships.
On May 30, there was bad weather throughout - no bombing. It is the only day with no bombing at all over Dunkerque.
On May 31, the weather was bad for the Stukas, but level bombers hit anyway.
On June 1, there were heavy attacks, 4 destroyers were sunk together with 10 other ships.
From June 2 to the end, the evacuation was carried out at night, so weather played no part.

Of course this situation could be improved for the Luftwaffe, but I wonder if we can describe it as bad weather for "much of the operation".
 
What happens in Norway is very dependent on the exact timing of the German offensive in France. If it starts on April 9 or after, then yes, at least some of the issues you mention arise. If it starts on April 5-7 then probably not.

My understanding is that the Germans had standing orders to be ready to go for the invasion of France in 48 hours from time of notification. I can't vouch for their ability to carry that off, but the whole point of the exercise was to be able to exploit a period of good weather, so two weeks prep time is almost certainly a overestimation.

I admit that I was a tad vague on the timing of the attack on France, but I did specify before the Norway invasion started--before April 8.

As far as Norway goes, it looks as though exact timing is crucial. The Brits intended to mine Norwegian waters staring April 5, but it was delayed until April 8 as I recall it. Their intention was to provoke a German attack and quickly intervene to preempt it.

I believe that the German vessels with the longest voyage started toward Norway on April 3rd historically. For my twist on the scenario to work, the Germans would need to become aware of the incoming good weather period before the Norway ships sailed, and make the decision to go after France before April 3, so somewhere in very late March or the first three days in April (which is about the time you suggested). Let's say they make the preps and go on the invasion of France somewhere in the April 5 to April 7 time-frame. At that point, the French are not going to divert troops to a secondary front. The Brits are almost certainly going to use their shipping resources to get whatever forces they can across the channel, rather than diverting those resources into a secondary area.

One thing that might influence the fighting: The Brits would have the forces they were going to send to Norway available for other uses. They would probably just get sent to France and get eaten up in the general defeat there, but I suppose it's possible that the Brits might hold them in reserve for a few days, hoping for an opportunity to get them to Norway, in which case they might be valuable in trying to hold Calais or some of the other channel ports, which would make the evacuation much easier. That's one alternative that hasn't been explored much: A more effective evacuation from more of the channel ports--maybe bringing out equipment as well as people. Not real likely I guess.

I thought about it. Doesn't actually look that good.

The Germans, assuming they make their decision on say April 8, scrap all the preparations theyhave made for Weserübung. it will take them what, at least two weeks to set up again for Fall Gelb. We're not that far from the timing of our TL.

The solution is that the Germans change their minds earlier, say at the end of March, so that they actually launch Fall Gelb on April 9.

Unfortunately, on that very day Anglo-French troops land in Norway.
Norway was a flashpoint that spring, both because the Allies noticed the German preparations and because of several more reasons.
The Allies may very well not notice the Germans' change of mind, and go ahead with their own Weserübung.

The Norwegians will offer resistance, maybe token. Without German operations, however, at least Northern Norway will fall.

Yes, the Germans are advancing as per OTL through the Ardennes and around Belgium.
But, meanwhile:

- the Swedish iron ore supplies will suffer severe delays throughout the remaining warm season of 1940, as they rearrange the shipments. Then they will be stopped by ice along the Swedish coast. That's not the end of the world for the German industry in 1940, but it will nearly be in 1941. And with Anglo-French troops along their border, the Swedes are much more likely to be neutral-neutral, rather than neutral-German-very-friendly. And who knows what will happen next. Maybe the Allies will nevertheless construe something as a casus belli for taking the Swedish mines directly. Maybe they'll just outbid the Germans, denying them quotas of iron ore by buying it. In short, a deadly threat to German industry in the long term.

- the U-Boote are much less effective. They have no neutral Norwegian waters to slither through in and out; much less do they have Norwegian bases.

- the protein balance shifts in favor of the British.

- what is practically the only source of nickel for the European Axis is also in danger.

- the Kriegsmarine has not suffered from Weserübung, which is a great thing. But with British bombers in Norway, they will begin to be harassed in their own dens (in OTL, major German warships spent long months in repairs because of British bombs hitting them in their ports), much more easily than in OTL. Very annoying.

- If all of Norway is in Allied hands, then there can be fighters having effective range over the Skagerrak; more bad news for the Germans.


In short, let's assume the Germans do as historically in France.

When that's over, will they try Seelöwe against the British homeland - or will they use it against Southern Norway? I say the latter.

They probably even win, and by the end of the campaign season of 1940 they have Norway for themselves (and, of course, at a price for the Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe, and paratroopers). But no Channel operations.
 
This is apparently one of those "glass half empty" vs "glass half full" things. I look at your list and see weather issues inhibiting bombing part or all of four out of six days listed for daytime evacuation (from May 27-June 1). Does that constitute "much of the operation?" That's a judgement call, but the rather than spending a lot of time parsing words, can we agree that the weather did significantly reduce the amount of time the Luftwaffe had to interfere with the operation?

I wanted the details, so I dusted off my Bekker (not an author to downplay the problems the Luftwaffe may have had).

On May 25, the bulk of the Luftwaffe that would have the range, was committed elsewhere.
On May 26, Dunkerque was attacked with serious damage to the port infrastructures - even before the first ship was loaded.
On May 27, first day of Dynamo, there were heavy attacks.
On May 28, there was bad weather, but some bombing took place all the same.
On May 29, there were some hours of bad weather and then heavy attacks, the harbor was declared unserviceable and 3 destroyers were sunk, together with other ships.
On May 30, there was bad weather throughout - no bombing. It is the only day with no bombing at all over Dunkerque.
On May 31, the weather was bad for the Stukas, but level bombers hit anyway.
On June 1, there were heavy attacks, 4 destroyers were sunk together with 10 other ships.
From June 2 to the end, the evacuation was carried out at night, so weather played no part.

Of course this situation could be improved for the Luftwaffe, but I wonder if we can describe it as bad weather for "much of the operation".
 
can we agree that the weather did significantly reduce the amount of time the Luftwaffe had to interfere with the operation?

Well, we can disagree, and it seems we do, as to not counting the May 26 bombings and the final days when the evacuation took place under darkness because of the Luftwaffe. Those were part of the operation, in my opinion.

On May 26, it's true, none embarked, but the preparatory work had begun, troops were gathering in Dunkirk, and the extensive damage made by the Luftwaffe on that day did affect the operation. One could also say that we have to count that day exactly because the Luftwaffe began its bombing series on Dunkirk that day. Note that Bekker is disappointed that the Luftwaffe did not bomb Dunkerque on the 25, one more day earlier.

No doubts exists, on the other hand, that the operation was going on under darkness at the end. One can't claim that weather negatively affected Luftwaffe operations during those days. One could even guess that the weather had to be fine, otherwise the British would not have operated only under cover of darkness.
Yet on June 2, 3 and 4 no less than 78,000 troops were evacuated!

So we have four days of partial or total bad weather not out of six, but out of ten.

In any case, I have my doubts the pounding of Dunkerque could be greatly increased even if the weather had been somewhat better, say a couple more of good days. This is because of operational considerations. The bombers were still based way back, and the Stukas, the actual real ship-killers at Dunkerque, were at the end of their tether.
Richthofen is on record stating that for this reason he could use his Stukas "twice a day at most", and that he would be unable to focus them on one Schwerpunkt.
"At most" sounds like, if the Germans had more good weather, they would still use the Stukas once a day on some of those days.

So let's give the Germans two more days of good weather. That makes three mass Stuka attacks; I doubt more than that. Which cause many more losses on, say, May 28 and May 30.
Half of those losses are offset, in all likelihood, by the fact that the British can resort to the nighttime solution one day earlier, if they have to. So the losses that took place on June 1 don't happen.

So on balance what could we count, 15,000 less men evacuated? Maybe. of course, 6,000 would be French and would be repatriated, leaving the net loss for the defence against Seelöwe at 9,000 men.
 
Well, we can disagree, and it seems we do, as to not counting the May 26 bombings and the final days when the evacuation took place under darkness because of the Luftwaffe. Those were part of the operation, in my opinion.

On May 26, it's true, none embarked, but the preparatory work had begun, troops were gathering in Dunkirk, and the extensive damage made by the Luftwaffe on that day did affect the operation. One could also say that we have to count that day exactly because the Luftwaffe began its bombing series on Dunkirk that day. Note that Bekker is disappointed that the Luftwaffe did not bomb Dunkerque on the 25, one more day earlier.

No doubts exists, on the other hand, that the operation was going on under darkness at the end. One can't claim that weather negatively affected Luftwaffe operations during those days. One could even guess that the weather had to be fine, otherwise the British would not have operated only under cover of darkness.
Yet on June 2, 3 and 4 no less than 78,000 troops were evacuated!

So we have four days of partial or total bad weather not out of six, but out of ten.

Well, if you add in two days when no evacuation was going on, I suppose you could call it ten days. I don't buy your justification for the first two days, but let's go with them for the sake of avoiding pointless quibbles.

The important stat is the number of troops evacuated in good weather days versus bad weather days. Number of troops evacuated is the bottom line here, right? In terms of troops evacuated, during your four days with bad weather, the Brits evacuated 186,591 troops. (55.27% of the total) During your 6 days with good weather, the Brits evacuated 151,275 troops (44.73% of the total).
 
The sequence of events on June 1 thru June 4 should give us pretty good idea of what the impact of clear weather over Dunkirk through the evacuation would have been. This is assuming that the small boats could play their role in speeding up the evacuation by ferrying troops out to the large vessels, which is in dispute. We'll that aside for the moment and look purely at the weather.

The Brits mobilized resources and ramped up the evacuation through the eight (or ten) days of the operation.

During the four consecutive days of bad weather between May 28 and May 31, the daily number evacuated increased from 17,804 to 68,014. Then on June 1 the skies cleared and the evacuation brought off 64,429 people, but at a cost the Brits apparently concluded was too high, since they went to nights only evacuation the next day.

The three days of night evacuation all were within a few hundred men of 26,000, with an average of 26,392. Compare that to May 31, and you end up with a little under 39% of the number evacuated during the best of the bad weather days. That's reasonable. Nobody is getting evacuated all day, so the number of hours decrease but the number of ships and the distance stay the same.

Back of the envelop calcs for the evacuation with clear weather throughout: The Brits get 195,740 guys out. That assumes some things I'll mention later.

May 25-27 Unchanged. The Brits get 7669 people off
May 28 Clear weather all day. The Brits get a little under 95% as many people off as they did historically, but at a prohibitive cost. (16,865 evacuated for the day)
May 29 Clear. Nighttime only evacuation--just under 39% of historical. (18,358)
May 30 Clear. Nighttime only evacuation--(20,885)
May 31 Clear. Nighttime only evacuation--(26,392)
June 1 Clear. Same (26,392)
June 2-4 Unchanged. The Brits get 79177 people off

Assumptions: (1) The Germans don't push harder on the perimeter as their reconnaissance shows the rapidly dwindling number of people in the pocket--that's probably not true. They'll probably push harder. (2) The Brits give up daytime evacuation after two days of heavy bombing and nasty losses. Debatable. They did historically, but that was after they had managed to evacuate a larger percentage of their guys. They might brave the attacks during a daytime evacuation another day or two. Trade-off: Higher ship and air losses versus more guys stranded. (3) The evacuation ends on schedule. Debatable. As long as there were people to be evacuated the Brits would continue trying. I'm figuring this would be a wash, with the Germans pushing harder on the perimeter, but facing more Allied troops because fewer would have been evacuated. (4) The Germans don't use their airpower during the clear days to make it easier for their troops to push in on the pocket and to destroy infrastructure to make the evacuation more difficult--they probably would do both of those things, but it's hard to calculate the impact.
 
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One of my biggest regrets in life is that my grandfather died when I was just 7 years old - I have so many questions for him now! He was a sergeant-major in the BEF, who arrived in France on September 5th or 6th 1939 and who arrived back in the UK on June 1st via Dunkirk. Now, he was one of that generation that didn't really talk about what they saw during the war, but he certainly told my mother that he'd never seen the channel so calm during the evacuation. He also said that the men were astonishingly calm - they knew that the Navy would get them out.
 
It has been said so many times that it sounds trite, but Britain stepped up to the plate at Dunkirk and Battle of Britain and really came through.

One of my biggest regrets in life is that my grandfather died when I was just 7 years old - I have so many questions for him now! He was a sergeant-major in the BEF, who arrived in France on September 5th or 6th 1939 and who arrived back in the UK on June 1st via Dunkirk. Now, he was one of that generation that didn't really talk about what they saw during the war, but he certainly told my mother that he'd never seen the channel so calm during the evacuation. He also said that the men were astonishingly calm - they knew that the Navy would get them out.
 
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What happens in Norway is very dependent on the exact timing of the German offensive in France. If it starts on April 9 or after, then yes, at least some of the issues you mention arise. If it starts on April 5-7 then probably not.

My understanding is that the Germans had standing orders to be ready to go for the invasion of France in 48 hours from time of notification. I can't vouch for their ability to carry that off, but the whole point of the exercise was to be able to exploit a period of good weather, so two weeks prep time is almost certainly a overestimation.

I've thought about this. I have to say that wehn I stated that a total last-minute change of plans would require maybe two weeks of readjustment, I was talking about the units that were historically employed in Norway. You'd have regiments to be moved back the Fall Gelb starting positions, from the Danish border and from ports of embarkation. The rest (i.e. the great majority) of the German units wouldn't suffer from this delay.

But if the sequence of events is the one described, then that is not an issue. And while that sequence requires delicate accuracy in each step falling into place exactly at the right time, if that happens, the scenario is credible.
 
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