Imperial Germany invades the U.S.

BlondieBC

Banned
It's probably worth pointing out that the US had significant coastal fortifications along the Atlantic - places like New York and Boston were quite heavily defended by artillery batteries. And ships of that period don't have a very good track records against coastal guns.

Take New York for instance - in the early 1900s (I can't remember when exactly - I drew this up for another forum, and I can't seem to access the the post were I wrote the date down) it was defended by shore-launched torpedoes, minefields, and the following batteries.

Attacking fortified ports is always the same. Attack outside of fortifications, and come at them from back side with land forces. You would either land in Southern NJ and attack north or land on the undefended part of long Island. Takes a huge number of troops, and good logistics. But if lucky or with total surprise, who knows, you might get a German division into NYC.

Boston likely requires landing in Southern New Hampshire.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Other things to consider:
1) Transports as a whole are usually slower than warships.
2) Britain may or may not know that the invasion isn't meant for them.
3) It leaves much of the German coastline unguarded.
4) A number of the smaller ships, cruisers and the like, don't actually have the range to reach America without at least one refuelling stop, which would be quite tedious considering how much more difficult coal was to shift than oil.

1) Agreed. This is probably 8-10 knot fleet using large % of "fast" German flagged merchant shipping. Keeping secret would be one of great success of secret operations in history.

2) Assume it have to keep UK in dark. UK will freak out if they know 100K troops are sailing in North Sea.

3) This is manageable. You would have to call up reserve troops and then mine the German coast line and use light vessels. UK army is too small to take Germany 1 v 1. France or Russia will just attack using land routes.

4) Yes, logistics are approaching insane levels. Doable, but crazy to even try. Everything has to go perfect.
 
Does anyone know if Washington D.C. is in shelling range by German destroyers from either the Potomac River or Chesapeake Bay?
 
Does anyone know if Washington D.C. is in shelling range by German destroyers from either the Potomac River or Chesapeake Bay?

The Chesapeake? No.That's a good 30 miles away from Washington at its closest. Not even a dreadnought battleship could cover that distance.

The Potomac? Washington is obviously on the Potomac, and the Potomac is certainly navigable to a destroyer...

But any German naval force would first have to run the gauntlet of Endicott System seacoast fortifications at the tip of The Peninsula (Forts Calhoun and Wool), and then on the Potomac south of Alexandria at Fort Washington and Fort Hunt. And that's assuming that it defeats or avoids any U.S. naval units based at Norfolk...and the later this proposed attack happens, the larger any such force would be.

Endicott System Fortifications can be found here: http://fortwiki.com/Category:Endicott_Period_Forts Those were fortifications built in the 1880's and 1890's, which were at least reasonably capable (in theory, assuming they were manned in time) to deal with naval threats of the late Victorian Era.
 
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