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Background

Now after reading some more reputable documents (neat little things stacks of paper bound on one side, with hard covers, I believe some people call them "books" :D ) I've found that my initial suspicions that the Dash was the product of incredible luck were confirmed. Indeed, the RN did in a sense know that the KM would try to run their ships through the Channel and had developed a plan to counter it (Operation Fuller).

However they assumed that the ships would attempt to make it past the guns at Dover at night and not in the middle of the day as they did in OTL. Vice Admiral Ciliax, however, rightly assumed that the element of surprise would be far more valuable and left Brest at night slipping the trap set for him by the RAF and the RN and making it well into the channel before the RAF belatedly responded.

However Ciliax's Channel Dash was as much the product of luck as it was the product of audacity and planning. In OTL the British had at least 3 chances to detect the KM units as they were leaving Brest...

1) An RAF raid on the port earlier on February 11th did little damage and furthermore failed to see the taskforce forming up to leave the port. However this raid did serve to delay the taskforce by a few hours which caused...

2)...the taskforce to slip by the HMS Sealion (ironic...) a submarine tasked with watching Brest for any sign of the ships leaving. The delay meant that the ships barely missed the Sealion which had been temporarily ordered off her station (can't remember exactly why...)

3) Furthermore the KM also got really lucky when a member of the French resistance who had discerned the taskforce's actual course failed to slip by the security cordon and make it to his transmitter in time to inform the British.

Now for the POD let's say that 1 or all of these factors go the other way. Britain knows about the Channel Dash right from the get go and moves to take advantage of this golden opportunity. For the sake of the scenario, within the next 24 hours the KM taskforce is swamped with a combined air and naval attack that succeeds in sinking most if not all of the ships involved including sinking all 3 heavy units (The Schnarnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen.

Would a naval disaster such as this be enough for Hitler to sack Raeder as head of the KM? I've been torn over this question as Operation Cerberus was basically a last ditch maneuver, Hitler's alternative was to scrap the ships so I have a nagging feeling he wouldn't be overly livid with their loss as it was expected.

Also would this be enough to have the RN keep the size of the Far Eastern Fleet the same or only slightly reduce it's size?
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