Operation Sea Lion (1974 Sandhurst Wargame)

[DaveBC]

(Put's on wehraboo hat).


So if I read you right what you are saying here is clearly if the Blucher had attacked 2 or 3 days earlier it would have been a complete reversal and there was an almost half a week long window of opportunity for German victory!

And so therefore by reasonable extrapolation if the Germans had launched all their attacks half a week earlier than they did = complete German victory in WW2!

Wow lucky escape eh

Well in this case they did conquer Norway in the end.

However, I don't know what should have been more humiliating for the Kriegsmarine, losing a heavy cruiser to a shore battery or idiotically bottling up half of its destroyers in one fjord so they could be obligingly blown to smithereens by a vessel half their speed.

 

[DaveBC]

I stand corrected. Or should I write a couple of thousand words pointing out that facts are irrelevant?

I believe this is probably the point in the conversation where you point out that Blucher was right to challenge the shore battery because as long as there is any chance at all of survival, hey, you only live once, so go for it.

 

[steamboy]

Found the theme song for this thread.

 

[Zincwarrior]

Now that is a good question, the myth of the all conquering bleizkreig-ing German marvel is quashed, but it's not like Sealion plays to German strengths and there's a fair few Germans left! Not sure the Soviet army is in that great shape in Sep 1940, it only being 6 months after Finland?

Good point. I was thinking this was occurring in 1941, figuring the time to actually assemble and try to get their act together.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

I stand corrected. Or should I write a couple of thousand words pointing out that facts are irrelevant?

That’s generally how these kind of threads develop...

 

[Mike D]

Yeah but the Normans were frenchies, so that'd only work if Vichy joined the Axis.

They were Vikings who'd stayed around to knob French women and eat cheese!

 

[Captain Seafort]

However, I don't know what should have been more humiliating for the Kriegsmarine, losing a heavy cruiser to a shore battery or idiotically bottling up half of its destroyers in one fjord so they could be obligingly blown to smithereens by a vessel half their speed.

To be fair to the KM, 1) there were also a shedload of Tribals at 2nd Narvik and 2) the "vessel half their speed" was Warspite. The Grand Old Lady. 'Nuff said.

 

[DaveBC]

To be fair to the KM, 1) there were also a shedload of Tribals at 2nd Narvik and 2) the "vessel half their speed" was Warspite. The Grand Old Lady. 'Nuff said.

Although I probably shouldn't have been so flippant, I think my greater point was that it probably wasn't the height of tactical genius to park half your destroyer fleet in confined enemy waters, nearly out of fuel and ammo, when their first line of defence against a ship like Warspite was their speed and maneuverability.

Britain didn't exactly amaze in its handling of the Norwegian campaign but ultimately the Royal Navy did actually do its job, unlike most of the other Allied military forces in early to mid 1940.

In contrast Germany seems to have had remarkably little idea what to actually do with surface ships, except expose them to incredible risk for very little payoff.

 

[Captain Seafort]

Although I probably shouldn't have been so flippant, I think my greater point was that it probably wasn't the height of tactical genius to park half your destroyer fleet in confined enemy waters, nearly out of fuel and ammo, when their first line of defence against a ship like Warspite was their speed and maneuverability.

I agree that it wasn't the smartest decision in naval history, but there have also been far more stupid and/or embarrassing incidents, more along the lines of Blucher's loss. The brief period when Germany had lost more major surface combatants to the Luftwaffe than to the RN, for example.

 

[DaveBC]

I agree that it wasn't the smartest decision in naval history, but there have also been far more stupid and/or embarrassing incidents, more along the lines of Blucher's loss. The brief period when Germany had lost more major surface combatants to the Luftwaffe than to the RN, for example.

To be fair, on a strictly playing-the-odds basis, if you're flying a bomber over the Atlantic and see a destroyer, it's probably not a German one.

I mean, one could hope for a slightly more sophisticated approach to combined arms, but hey, you've got to start somewhere.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

They were Vikings who'd stayed around to knob French women and eat cheese!

I'm pretty sure that by the time of William the Conqueror they were almost exclusively french speakers.

 

[Gunnarnz]

In contrast Germany seems to have had remarkably little idea what to actually do with surface ships, except expose them to incredible risk for very little payoff.

No, but to be fair some of it actually worked out quite well. Tirpitz, for example, in her role as "Lone Queen of the North", absorbed a quite remarkable amount of UK effort and had a major effect on their operations in the region. She did very well as a 'fleet in being', and I reckon she was well worth her cost just as a distraction.

To be fair, on a strictly playing-the-odds basis, if you're flying a bomber over the Atlantic and see a destroyer, it's probably not a German one.

I mean, one could hope for a slightly more sophisticated approach to combined arms, but hey, you've got to start somewhere.

I regret I have but one like to give for this comment.

 

[eltf177]

[snip]What keeps the British from drag racing a cruiser or two through the barge formations, cutting lines and literally crushing barges underneath it like an angry haggis throwing ice breaker? This is the problem with the invasion plan. The Germans literally don't have the capacity to stop the British from doing things like that, or even running a flotilla of freighters through the barge lines, doing the same thing. the Luftwaffe will be busy getting chewed on by the now numerically equal or superior RAF. The Kriegsmarine is an insubstantial surface threat. This is like Citadel except the Germans only have thirty tanks to attack with.

Too many people think the Luftwaffe will be sinking RN ships left and right. There were no dedicated anti-ship units at this time and few aerial torpedoes. Yes, there will be RN losses but they won't be nearly heavy enough to keep them from chewing up the barges.

 

[DaveBC]

No, but to be fair some of it actually worked out quite well. Tirpitz, for example, in her role as "Lone Queen of the North", absorbed a quite remarkable amount of UK effort and had a major effect on their operations in the region. She did very well as a 'fleet in being', and I reckon she was well worth her cost just as a distraction.

I bet two battleships would have accomplished that even better than one battleship. And oh look, the Germans had two. At least until they decided to risk one of them on the very urgent mission of sinking some cargo ships in the Atlantic without a proper escort.

The Wikipedia page, which I checked to make sure I had some names and dates right in my thinking, contains the following sentence, which seems to demonstrate the characteristic German intelligence failure in a nutshell:

OKM did not take into account the Royal Navy's determination to destroy the German surface fleet.

I mean, sure. Who could possibly have guessed that a navy with command of the seas would seek to maintain and assert it?

Not the Sealionistas, that's for certain.

 

[Cockroach]

To be fair, on a strictly playing-the-odds basis, if you're flying a bomber over the Atlantic and see a destroyer, it's probably not a German one.

I mean, one could hope for a slightly more sophisticated approach to combined arms, but hey, you've got to start somewhere.

Of cause, that assumes you have enough training in ship recognition to tell the difference between a Rhine Barge and a Destroyer. Given that most of the Luftwaffe didn't have any antishipping training.... Well, interpolate the outcome yourself....

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Given that the Kriegsmarine has the singular distinction of losing a heavy cruiser in pitched battle with a ... * checks records * stationary shore installation, I am not sure they are ones to boast.

An obsolete stationary shore installation mostly manned by conscripts with all of seven days experience....

And equipped with torpedoes that were 40 years old. For double irony points, all of the weapons at the Oscarborg fortress were bought off the Germans in in 1900.

Gotta love their method for getting the first two waves past Kvarven fort though:

Kvarven fort was manned by 33 officers and 279 corporals and privates with an average age of around forty. The fort failed to open fire at the first German ships of the invasion force, mistaking the armed trawlers Schiff 9 and Schiff 18 for unarmed merchant ships. When the fort finally opened fire at 3:58 in the morning, it only managed to get off a few shots through the fog at two torpedo boats and the cruiser Köln. The ships did not retaliate, but sent a morse coded message in English saying “stop shooting!“. Wiki page on Kvarven Fort.

Bet the RN would never think of that. See? Superior Aryan intelligence.

Also, it would appear it’s best not to fuck with a Norwegian man aged around 40 if he’s in a fort, antiquated weapons or not.

 

[Decatur]

To be fair to the KM, 1) there were also a shedload of Tribals at 2nd Narvik and 2) the "vessel half their speed" was Warspite. The Grand Old Lady. 'Nuff said.

As others have said in this thread, the fact that the RN was willing to send a battleship into a fjord after those destroyers tells how exactly how they're going to deal with Sealion.

 

[hopper2cool]

Too many people think the Luftwaffe will be sinking RN ships left and right. There were no dedicated anti-ship units at this time and few aerial torpedoes. Yes, there will be RN losses but they won't be nearly heavy enough to keep them from chewing up the barges.

Also Destroyers unlike barges are built with some assumption that people might send explodey bits of metal at them. LW pilots not trained for antiship combat seem like a Spitfire pilots wet dream.
Pretty sure the UK would trade 5 destroyers and 100 planes for 200 planes and 50000 dead or captured Germans.

 

[DaveBC]

Also Destroyers unlike barges are built with some assumption that people might send explodey bits of metal at them. LW pilots not trained for antiship combat seem like a Spitfire pilots wet dream.
Pretty sure the UK would trade 5 destroyers and 100 planes for 200 planes and 50000 dead or captured Germans.

Not to mention the assumption that you might have to shoot out from them with some degree of accuracy. Although I've joked elsewhere about turning the infantry's weapons on the destroyers, I assume the actual effective firing range for an army artillery piece strapped down on a barge going up and down in ocean swell could be measured in individual yards.

As for the RN's willingness to trade off losses, one of their admirals did remark once that it would only take three years to rebuild a ship he lost, compared to the 300 years' reputation he would have sacrificed by turning tail and running.

Possibly coincidentally, he made this remark shortly after obliterating a German amphibious assault force off Crete.

 

[DaveBC]

Of cause, that assumes you have enough training in ship recognition to tell the difference between a Rhine Barge and a Destroyer. Given that most of the Luftwaffe didn't have any antishipping training.... Well, interpolate the outcome yourself....

Well to be fair to aviators on all sides, if the destroyers actually are inside a tightly packed convoy, it would be nuts to try to drop bombs on them given the risk to your on side. I assume they would be targeted while heading towards the convoy routes and in that circumstance easier to differentiate.

That said, this is another one of those little things that the average honest Sealionista hasn't considered and that Glenn willfully ignores. Most of his silly contention about the low hit rates in naval warfare come precisely because in most conventional naval warfare it is a sort of long-distance chess match, trying to duck into the range where you can inflict lethal damage on the enemy but not stay there long enough that he can deal you the same kind of damage in return. As a result, you get a lot of shots but very few hits.

In contrast, when attacking defenceless barge convoys, I suspect it would be more of the Nelson notion -- put your ship alongside the enemy's.