Flanking amphibious operation in ww1

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.
What size forces are needed ?

what should be the German objectives in such a scenario?

can’t mines and submarines keep the RN away from the invasion force ?
 
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.
Why do they have to beach the gun ships ?

if let’s say 10 ships are needed to transport 5000 soldiers , how many more ships needed for food and ammunition?
 
What size forces are needed ?

what should be the German objectives in such a scenario?

can’t mines and submarines keep the RN away from the invasion force ?

You'd need at 3 to 1 odds, so you are looking at a corps at least.

And that corps is going to consist entirely of light infantry with no artillery support because Germany has zero specialized landing craft.

And more to the point, only a regiment or two are going to be landed in a single go because they can’t lift more than that.

And they are going to have to come ashore in small parties in row boats, because again, Germany doesn’t have landing craft and they aren’t going to be waltzing into Calais and using the port facilities, so they have to land across the beaches.

And no, they aren’t going to be laying mines during this landing when they are going to instead be contending with French and British mines, and their submarines were more like semi-submersible torpedo boats than the U-boats of WW2. Against the allied forces in the Channel, they’ll get wrecked.

So in the end, ”what should German objectives be in such a scenario”? Sack the officer who suggested it and don’t do it.
 
Why do they have to beach the gun ships ?

if let’s say 10 ships are needed to transport 5000 soldiers , how many more ships needed for food and ammunition?
Because otherwise they are going to eat the bottom of the Channel. Beaching them at least ensures that they can provide gun fire support for a few hours until they are reduced to burning hulks.

The food and ammo will have to be rowed ashore, so it doesn’t matter. The ships trying to resupply the invasion force are going to be dealing with gunboats shooting up their landing boats.
 

Riain

Banned
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.

In the words of Admiral Bacon of the Dover Patrol:

About 120 ships passed Dover daily in 1915 and 1916, and between 80 and 100 per day in 1917. Therefore a similar number anchored daily in the Downs. Had the Channel traffic been suspended, or even largely reduced, London would have starved, and at least one-third of its population would have had to be removed immediately to the west coast of England, since the railways would have been quite unable to deal with the food-trains that would have been required to make up for the loss of sea transport.

It wasn't until the interwar years that the coastal shipping sector was finally destroyed by the railways, which is why many of the ships sunk by uboats in WW1 were in the hundreds of tons rather than the thousands and tens of thousands of tons like WW2. Hence the WW2 experience does not apply to WW1.

Sure, evacuating hundreds of thousands of people during wartime to where they can be fed is an inconvenience, but it's far from a small one that can be easily dismissed.
 
Because otherwise they are going to eat the bottom of the Channel. Beaching them at least ensures that they can provide gun fire support for a few hours until they are reduced to burning hulks.

The food and ammo will have to be rowed ashore, so it doesn’t matter. The ships trying to resupply the invasion force are going to be dealing with gunboats shooting up their landing boats.
DO you know where the Channel minefields were ? Any existing maps of German or British barrages ? Would be interesting to see
 
Did any true successes come from amphibious operations in WW1? I am not sure that any Navy was truly ready for an amphibious operation and all that entailed in a modern WW1 setting.
Other people have already mentioned Tsingtao, which was the first to my mind. The Japanese and ANZAC forces captured the whole of the German Pacific Colonies in the first few months of World War One with amphibious landings. But if any of these landings were opposed, it was only nominally.
 
Capturing a small island is one. Thing preforming a mini DDay is another. Even in WW2 attempting an end run around someone by flanking them via amphibious landing wasn’t easy. Didnt we try that with mixed results in Italy?

So i think the chances of Germany pulling it off are very very slim.
 
Capturing a small island is one. Thing preforming a mini DDay is another. Even in WW2 attempting an end run around someone by flanking them via amphibious landing wasn’t easy. Didnt we try that with mixed results in Italy?

So i think the chances of Germany pulling it off are very very slim.
What if Germans do it as initial part of their offensive in august 1914 ? This way it’s just a second front in the rear and before entente navies have a chance to fully mobilize
 
and before entente navies have a chance to fully mobilize
Was RN not effectively mobilized in hours/days?

Ie it had forces in channel to cover the BEF moving over to France and that same force could have been diverted to kill any HSF landings?
 
Was RN not effectively mobilized in hours/days?

Ie it had forces in channel to cover the BEF moving over to France and that same force could have been diverted to kill any HSF landings?
So like a big battle in channel likely ?
 
Please explain why ?

The German military hasn’t planned or prepared for any such an invasion and doesn't have any forces to spare for it. It’s basically the German military admitting “we will fail to take Paris”. And if they are admitting that, it’s far more advantageous to maintain a defense in the West.
 

Riain

Banned
Please explain why ?

In July 1914 the RN conducted a full mobilization exercise, every ship on the register was fully manned and at sea. This wasn't ended after the scheduled 2 weeks, but on about the last day of July the RN was ordered to its war stations. This meant that the Channel Fleet had 2 squadrons of pre dreads and a large fleet of supporting ships, as well as the GF at Scapa Flow, Harwich Force and the Dover Patrol with its fleet destroyers. There's no way the Germans could conduct a landing in the face of such opposition, even if the Germans had organised an amphibious capability which they didn't.
 
So like a big battle in channel likely ?
To add to Rains post, even thinking about landing in the channel is forcing GB to war and needs to be planned before they know that GB will be involved and even then will probably destroy the HSF and the troops sent due to RN numbers......
 
Was RN not effectively mobilized in hours/days?

Ie it had forces in channel to cover the BEF moving over to France and that same force could have been diverted to kill any HSF landings?

As others mentioned, the Royal Navy was basically conducting a (routine) large peacetime exercise that was unintentionally planned such that it happened at the height of the July Crisis. The segue into war could not possibly have been smoother for the Royal Navy.
 
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