The way airborne troops take Cowes is they land in the center of the island then move north into the city. Those coastal batteries they would try to capture intact from behind.
From the center of the island to Cowes is about 10k (or 6 miles). So they land, pick up their gear (which is dropped seperately), assemble and walk there (because they don't have jeeps, as the British landed at Arnhem in operation Market Garden). Don't you think the element of surprise would be kinda lost?
And indeed as
@Cryhavoc101 noted the coastal batteries are partly on the mainland. So good luck capturing them.
Yes, the first hint that I realised that Chain Home was on Isle of Wight was the times when I said that capturing the radar station intact for examination was an objective. Hey, think the jamming of Chain Home that the Luftwaffe is able to do come August gets better after capturing this station intact? My guess would be that an intact functioning station in German hands is....bad...for the RAF? What's yours?
I thought you were insisting to take the IOW in july? Now it's august? In august there's more preparation from the British than in july. And how good did the jamming work?
According to Wiki the first was installed in september 1940.
Any seaborne landing is in the south, and any attack on Cowes comes overland by road from the south.
So, again, where's the element of surprise? From the south it's an even longer walk than from the centre? And since you insisted they use the fast transports, they're gonna paddle in boats from their transport to the shore, so now heavy equipment or trucks.
No, the RAF is on the defensive, the Luftwaffe is on the attack.
I'm quite sure Bomber Command will bomb the captured airfields and beaches (and ports too, if they captured those) at night. Which is bad for your resupply. As I already mentioned before an airraid with 4 Fokker T.V's of the Dutch at The Hague caused damage to parked Ju-52s at the airfield. The RAF has a lot more and more capable bombers.
The RAF sucks at ground support and ship attack. The Luftwaffe is good at both.
I wasn't talking about CAS, but about bombing supplyzones. And in OTL they did bomb the barges in the french ports. I'm quite sure when the Germans are on the IOW, the RAF will bomb ports, airfields and beaches were the Germans are bringing their supplies. Simply because the most important thing is to repel an invasion.
The LW is not so good at attacking ships, as
@Michele pointed out already.
RAF 11 Group can attrite the LW in this battle, but it cannot stop the attack. British troops on and around IOW are going to be pounded by the Luftwaffe in heavy air attacks. You understand? It's the entire bloody Luftwaffe concentrated into one battle the size of Crete. The RAF doesn't "do" effective close air support at this time, and won't until it learns how in Africa later.
Well, 11 Group did quite well against the entire LW in the BoB (again,
@Michele posted the numbers involved).
I think you might be underestimating the problem a bit.
No, you are.
A Channel convoy might be composed of three or four 200 to 1,500 ton scow transports, escorted by a scratch force of maybe a half dozen converted trawlers and such with heavy AA or light cannons up to 4", plus dozens of small MB's and such for picking up men in the water. Overhead, hundreds or thousands of LW anti-ship sorties going after anything RN that is attempting to intercept. Same thing. Every day. Can you see how after a few days the RN might conclude that losing 4 destroyers a day can't be sustained, just to sink 3 or 4 scows that can be replaced by hundreds of others? That's the power of coastal shipping tactics.
That's been adressed before, by several posters. The RN has quite a lot of vessels too, which are way more capable than the ragtag 'armada' of the Germans.
And hunderds or thousands LW sorties each day? I thought you were using the two-engined bombers to resupply the invasion force. They can't do both. And they don't have that many Stuka's, who BTW don't do very well in contested airspace. In OTL the Stuka's were withdraw from the BoB quite soon, because they were decimated.
No, you don't understand the SLOC problem for the RN. "Barges" refers to massed shipping movement related to the transfer of entire armies at sea in one lift. A supply convoy is two or four small expendable ships, easily replaced, escorted by a half dozen small ships, also easily replaced, repeated one, two, three times per day, every day, under skies with the Luftwaffe overhead.
Well, a supply convoy is either going to sit in front of the beach, and then unloading takes awhile, and they most likely can't return in daylight. So the RN will be quite happy to pay them a visit then.
In the ports on the north side, they're in range of coastal artillery of the mainland, which is perfectly capable of hitting ships.
And if you say "ah, the coastal artillery is gonna be put out of action by the LW." Well a) that's not so easy to do and requires a sustained bombing campaign. b) such a campaign should be done before the invasion, and is a sure sign something is going to happen there.
How did you arrive at the conclusion that the entire Luftwaffe committed to one small battle could not attack warships and provide close air support at the same time?
Well, basically you are saying all the time it's a big battle. If the entire LW is committed, by definition it's a big battle, and this will provoke a response by the British, so they will also commit a large part of the RAF. They're not going to say "oh, that's a lot of planes, we better give up."
So answering 25 posts a day, now I have to relist all the stuff that's already discussed too? Pass. Bombing would have to be all the RN ports on the south coast, but heavier with Portsmouth. Primarily with twin engine types, primarily at night is the sketch.
And this will be a giveaway that around that area something will happen. Maybe they won't realise it's the IOW the Germans will be attacking, but I think the British will not just sit back, retreat and relax. They will consider possible options and take countermeasures.
A sustained nightbombing campaign will lead to losses. You're right the British don't have an abunce of nightfighters, but there's AAA, and besides that, there will be operational losses.