Interesting - thanks. What would be your opinion on what missions, if any, the German airborne could have accomplished in the summer of 1940? Obviously, an airborne invasion of Britain is 'out' - but what about pinprick raids or a crack at the French fleet?
German airborne invasion of Britain
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Interesting - thanks. What would be your opinion on what missions, if any, the German airborne could have accomplished in the summer of 1940? Obviously, an airborne invasion of Britain is 'out' - but what about pinprick raids or a crack at the French fleet?
My guess? Take an RAF satellite base or civilian field that is poorly or undefended at night with JU-52’s. That would need an elite pathfinder unit. Use that base to strike out at specific targets near it. Evacuate the next night from that field or another before the British army arrives in force, leaving behind any equipment and wounded as necessary. The German army has scads of equipment, masses of men. The key resource to be husbanded is the JU-52 force itself.
Civilian fields not in use have been rendered unusable.
Fields in use by the RAF have guards, armed RAF people, and so on.
Given the dissaray the Paratroops arive in, may not go so well.
And the RAF fields have AA, which against Ju52's on the runway.....
So if the British manage to drag even one 25-pounder battery within range of that airfield - which will need to be conveniently lit up for night take-offs - the whole German force is trapped by those holes in the runway.
Even if we assume that very robust - and costly for the Germans - air support during the day keeps that battery at bay, half an hour before sunset the Stukas and fighter-bombers have left, the paratroopers have no counter-battery capability, and the runway will get holed.
Naturally it's possible to fill the holes in. BUt I'd assume the british also find it possible to continue firing. And maybe during that night, they manage to bring more artillery than one battery to bear.
While we're at it, could you please remind me what night-time operations did the German paratroops perform, apart from operation Stösser (a notorious fiasco)?
"Obviously, an airborne invasion of Britain is 'out' - but what about pinprick raids or a crack at the French fleet?"
If you've built up a highly expensive elite force why would you throw it away on pinprick raids? Surely you'd only risk your Fallshirmjager on high value targets?
I'm confused by what you mean by attacking the French fleet? Do you mean before the Fall of France? Or a raid on Oran after the Fall (but that would be on the nominally allied Vichy French navy)? How would paratroops capture a heavily armoured warship armed with light weapons unless the ship is tied up to the quay and the crew are asleep? And if they did somehow capture some ships, then what?
If you've built up a highly expensive elite force why would you throw it away on pinprick raids? Surely you'd only risk your Fallshirmjager on high value targets?
I'm confused by what you mean by attacking the French fleet? Do you mean before the Fall of France? Or a raid on Oran after the Fall (but that would be on the nominally allied Vichy French navy)? How would paratroops capture a heavily armoured warship armed with light weapons unless the ship is tied up to the quay and the crew are asleep? And if they did somehow capture some ships, then what?
Deleted member 1487
Going after the British radar system near the coast to be picked up by S-Boats after the fact would help the Germans. In fact the British demonstrated that it could work, when they did it in 1942 against the Germans in France.
German parachutes opened at a lower height than Allied ones, so they could be flown in and dropped below radar detection height in 1940 with minimal scattering. Or there is the assault glider too.
http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=18
Raids on radar posts could count as a high priority target, so I wasn't meaning that in terms of querying the value of '"pinprick raids".
Mind you, I still don't think that such raids would be worthwhile as the British would get wise to such tactics quickly and after one or two successful raids both the radar towers and the English Channel will be very closely watched. So I don't think too much damage would be done before the Germans find these to be one-way missions.
Mind you, I still don't think that such raids would be worthwhile as the British would get wise to such tactics quickly and after one or two successful raids both the radar towers and the English Channel will be very closely watched. So I don't think too much damage would be done before the Germans find these to be one-way missions.
Deleted member 1487
IIRC the Home Chain system had a hard time detecting individual raiders and badly misjudged heights. So even deploying at 800 meters is below the regular Home Chain system, while HCL had a much shorter range of 30 miles and had large gaps in coverage in 1940.
Plus if gliders are used then the necessary height can be much lower. Of course one could also be inserted by S-boat.
Which is why massed missions in a one-off major raid would be the best bet. Rip a major gap in the system all at once and bomb any attempt to rebuild them.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Most-Dangerous-Enemy-History/dp/1854108018
Stephen Bungay suggests that would have been the best way for the Germans to defeat the system.
Interestingly enough the British paratroops trained for the raid on the German radar system in France in 1942 by raiding the most heavily defended British radar station, Ventnor station, without being detected. So it is possible for the Germans to have done it, because the British apparently were not defending them particularly diligently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Biting
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Yeah... that's what I was getting at, actually. Guess I need to be a bit less subtle on the internet
The heights are little issue, and believe me, there's going to be more than one aircraft in that group (not to mention the aircraft themselves aren't small), so chances are good you're going to get spotted.
Well the coverage looks fairly complete to me around the South East:
Also, 30 miles would take between 10½ and 13 minutes (depending on whether you're going flat out, or sticking to cruising speed) for a Ju-52/3m ce, so the probability that they're going to miss you is, I'd have though, fairly small.
But you're also going to travel slower.
For those stations that aren't more than a couple of miles inland, nor raised up on a cliff (at Beachy Head for example, the cliffs rise as high as 530 feet).
I'm sorry, how are you supposed to keep bombers over enemy airspace when your ability to protect them will be limited?
That was a curious read. Oh well, only 9 years until any papers that may or may not exist are made public.
It also runs parallel to an idea I had from reading this thread.
Yeah... that's what I was getting at, actually. Guess I need to be a bit less subtle on the internet
My apologies, then!
"Pinprick raids by definition cannot ‘throw away’ a large force"
Just to nitpick, but technically pinprick raids can fritter away a large force if there are enough of them and the casualty rates are high enough. The general point I hold to is that an elite force should be carfeully husbanded until it's ready to be risked on a target which is vital to the enemy. Wiking's suggestion of a coordinated mass attack on radar stations would fit that bill. I just don't think that a series of small scale attacks would be worth the cost if the intention is just to try to damage a few stations or even British morale as some of the earlier messages were implying. At least that's what they implied to me. When you want to use the paratroops, just make sure the potential benefits are worth the high risks involved.
Just to nitpick, but technically pinprick raids can fritter away a large force if there are enough of them and the casualty rates are high enough. The general point I hold to is that an elite force should be carfeully husbanded until it's ready to be risked on a target which is vital to the enemy. Wiking's suggestion of a coordinated mass attack on radar stations would fit that bill. I just don't think that a series of small scale attacks would be worth the cost if the intention is just to try to damage a few stations or even British morale as some of the earlier messages were implying. At least that's what they implied to me. When you want to use the paratroops, just make sure the potential benefits are worth the high risks involved.
Understood, but I suspect the opposite viewpoint holds merit. I think that the sudden mass commitment of a paratrooper force to a deep mission en mass will expose all its flaws simultaneously, and do so under worst possible conditions for the paratrooper force. If, instead, the force is immunized against failure gradually by way of smaller raids, then serious errors in doctrine, training and equipment are presumably exposed and corrected at far less cost. With the steep learning curve, improvements in methods will also arise naturally. After practice has made reasonably perfect, then mass application becomes more appropriate.
Perhaps, but you also have to admit that a mass raid deep into enemy territory can annihilate said elite force wholesale in one operation. An eliminated pinprick raid might be 5% of your force destroyed in one battle while an eliminated all-out attack will be 100% of your force gone. There are no risk free methods in war, but 5% ante is a more manageable bet than 100%.
Sure, there are tons of things that qualify. A massed drop on British radar stations could be one of them. Then again, you might find that such a raid destroys the airborne force while the RAF simply withdraws from battle until its radar chain is repaired and ready to resume operations. Now they have an air defense command and you don’t have a paratrooper corps.