You are forgetting your own timeline. If they "deploy at night" all that means is that the freighters and barges are sitting off the coast at dawn. It will take a day before the second wave can be unloaded. Thats a whole day in the sun, literally sitting (because the freighters HAVE TO BE MOTIONLESS TO DEPLOY TROOPS AND SUPPLIES). Three waves, sitting in motionless freighters, being bombarded by battleships, cruisers, destroyers, corvettes, bombers, submarines, torpedo boats, and any nearby coastal artillery. After all, mobile artillery won't sink a destroyer, but it will sink a freighter.POW's tempo of sinkings should not vary too much from a light cruiser since her secondary armament is her main weapon against small targets. Maybe the tempo of two light cruisers? Her best utility might be drawing heavy air attacks that would otherwise fall on the CL's and DD's. Coastal guns would also engage at any available range since they'd have decent chance of hitting her (unlike hitting a DD, for instance).
A Channel sea battle would no doubt cost the LW dozens of Stukas, but the number of sorties and damage done would also be very bad on the RN side if the RN was foolish enough to challenge off Pas de Calais in daylight.
If the British commit all their reserves to try and crush a bridgehead, then what's left in reserve?
A more likely scenario is that at dawn, any freighters parked skip town when faced with RN ships shooting at them, trying to run back to port (and getting shot up in process). Even more likely is that, once the shooting starts the night before, the freighter captains realize how utterly idiotic this is and turn their ships around. A few escorts may be damaged but they bail too. The tow ships cut the lines to maneuver and escape. Several thousand barges are now slowly floating to the Artic or Brazil Brazil, however the currents go...
Last edited: