German Air Superiority over the Channel

Hey, the Airdales sank the Yamato too.

Took most of a day and around 400 aircraft, entirely unopposed, but they sank her.

:p

Yep, and the RN will have several capital ships in Home waters in 1940 just waiting to soak up the bombs of the LW. Sure the RN ships of 1940 are not as tough as the Yamamoto, but then again the LW of 1940 isn't a patch on the ship killing power of the USN in 1945.

It's all a bit formulaic; a plane carries a bomb, a bomb can sink a ship, therefore no ship can live near a plane let alone achieve anything.
 
Yep, and the RN will have several capital ships in Home waters in 1940 just waiting to soak up the bombs of the LW. Sure the RN ships of 1940 are not as tough as the Yamamoto, but then again the LW of 1940 isn't a patch on the ship killing power of the USN in 1945.

It's all a bit formulaic; a plane carries a bomb, a bomb can sink a ship, therefore no ship can live near a plane let alone achieve anything.
Not to mention that the RN's ships in the Channel are destroyers, which are smaller and not as well armoured, therefore they are probably even more vulnerable to bombers and torpedoes than the battleships are.

I see it all now.
 
Not to mention that the RN's ships in the Channel are destroyers, which are smaller and not as well armoured, therefore they are probably even more vulnerable to bombers and torpedoes than the battleships are.

I see it all now.

Destroyers are very fast and manoeuvrable as well as being small, not the easiest of targets to hit.

I wonder if there is a stat out there, similar to those which say that it took 3,300 88 shells to shoot down a bomber, which says how many sorties needed to be flown and how many bombs needed to be dropped to sink a ship. My guess is that like the 88 stat it would be embarrassingly high, tens of sorties and dozens of bombs to sink a small target like a destroyer and hundreds of sorties and thousands of bombs to sink a battleship.

As an example the Germans had 430 bombers for the Battle of Crete and only sunk 4 cruisers and 6 destroyers and failed to sink a carrier, 2 battleships, 4 cruisers, 2 destroyers and a submarine despite hitting them. A further 17 destroyers were not even hit, Kipling survived 83 bombs on May 22, despite some 150 Stukas being in the OOB.
 
Destroyers are very fast and manoeuvrable as well as being small, not the easiest of targets to hit.

I wonder if there is a stat out there, similar to those which say that it took 3,300 88 shells to shoot down a bomber, which says how many sorties needed to be flown and how many bombs needed to be dropped to sink a ship. My guess is that like the 88 stat it would be embarrassingly high, tens of sorties and dozens of bombs to sink a small target like a destroyer and hundreds of sorties and thousands of bombs to sink a battleship.

As an example the Germans had 430 bombers for the Battle of Crete and only sunk 4 cruisers and 6 destroyers and failed to sink a carrier, 2 battleships, 4 cruisers, 2 destroyers and a submarine despite hitting them. A further 17 destroyers were not even hit, Kipling survived 83 bombs on May 22, despite some 150 Stukas being in the OOB.
Sorry, that was supposed to be sarcasm but I guess it wasn't over the top enough.

All of the historical precedents people bring up in defense of Sea Lion are either irrelevant or ultimately prove its futility.

Crete is an example. The losses to the RN there are not relevant. The lesson of Crete is that the RN completely dispersed the only two attempts at amphibious landings that it opposed, one with devastating losses and one with light losses. If it costs the RN half of its destroyers to obliterate the invasion fleet, they will pay that price without flinching, and they will probably send what little remains of the operational units of the Kriegsmarine to the bottom of the Channel in the process, thus permanently ruling out any possibility of a follow-up attempt.

I don't say this as a partisan of the RN but simply as someone who is realistic about what will happen when an inferior, cobbled-together flotilla charges the world's leading sea power.
 
Whatever may be the differing views on air superiority one might note that shipping IOTL continued to use the Channel throughout the BoB and thereafter.
 
Sorry, that was supposed to be sarcasm but I guess it wasn't over the top enough.

I took it as too easy not too hard.

I don't doubt that given time and opportunity the LW could write the RN down to irrelevance. But it is a process and that process won't allow the German to invade Britain because the RN would not allow the clock to start ticking until they have to, ie until an invasion actually starts. At that point the RN will engage and will destroy the invasion long before the LW destroys it, then it will withdraw and the process will stop. This is why the British stopped through Channel shipping in 1940; to deny the Germans the opportunity to bring the British forces to battle and thus the opportunity to beat them.
 
Whatever may be the differing views on air superiority one might note that shipping IOTL continued to use the Channel throughout the BoB and thereafter.

I think they stopped through Channel shipping in daylight for a while in 1940, the Kannalkampf portion of the BoB.
 
I think they stopped through Channel shipping in daylight for a while in 1940, the Kannalkampf portion of the BoB.

I think we are actually agreed then, my attempt at sarcasm aside.

If the biggest concession the RN had to make was to stop parading freighters within visual range of an enemy coast, I would say that is hardly much of a retreat on their part.
 
Top