I admit it. My whole argument hinged on Newport being bigger that Ryde. It cannot succeed.. According to the 2011 census Newport is actually slightly bigger but what the Hell.
Why are Sealion threads so hated on this site?
- Thread starter IntellectuallyHonestRhino
- Start date
I admit it. My whole argument hinged on Newport being bigger that Ryde. It cannot succeed.. According to the 2011 census Newport is actually slightly bigger but what the Hell.
Ok so if you are waving a magic '35 PoD wand, where the Germans invest the proper resources required to build an amphibious invasion force:
1). what do they not do instead? If there's no Battle of France it's all moot, if there's no LW there's no air cover, etc, etc
2). what does Britain do in response, since such a force is not going to be used to reclaim the Sudetenland, and the RN get's a bit touchy about other countries looking like they'll invade by sea.
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?What you mean like at Dunkirk where stukas managed to kill the RN who were idling or at rest making it even easier for them to hit? Leaving aside your trying to get Stukas (slow, ground attack craft) though contested air space.
Derek Pullem
Donor
Hence the reason why the British needed those fighters. Not to stop panzer divisions or even to shoot down German fighters. But to stop the Germans having free rein to attack the navy and the factories.
The British did lose over 200 ships sunk by air attack at Dunkirk in air space contested by the RAF. Also, the Peewit Convoy did not scuttle itself, and did consist of moving ships. I do not think the German bomber fleet had sufficient capability to stop the RN from thwarting a seaborne invasion, but they could actually on occasion sink ships.
Right but the point was the LW didn't stop the RN (and other boats) at Dunkirk doing the job they set out to do, leaving aside that the vast majority of the 200 lost were little ships evacuating men, not destroyers or military craft that will be killing barges
Pewitt was rather a concerted effort over a few days involving KM torpedo boats, and coal boats don't move as fast or manovre like navy destroyers
However as you say the LW bomber wing can't stop them even if they can sink the occasional ship.
The Luftwaffe was not very good at attacking ships in 1940, especially not the destroyers which would be the main RN response to an invasion. Between the 1st April and 1st October 1940, thirteen British destroyers were sunk by German aircraft. Of these, nine were either operating in waters that confined their movement, or were moored. Over that period, a total of 85 German air attacks caused damage to British destroyers, a sinking rate of 15% - and this ignores many more attacks where ships were attacked, but were not damaged. In these 85 attacks, 13 destroyers were sunk, 23 were damaged sufficiently that they would be unable to fight, 13 received damage that would reduce their ability to fight, but would allow them to remain in the fight, and 36 suffered minimal damage and essentially remained in full fighting condition. In other words, just under 60% of destroyers attacked by German aircraft remained able to continue an engagement after taking damage.
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The point you raise about KM torpedo boats is an interesting one. Nobody has discussed what impact if any these could have had in contesting the Channel for a seaborne invasion. Something else that is possibly relevant is an incident from Crete again. I remember reading somewhere that one of the German troop convoys was saved from destruction by the intervention of the Luftwaffe, which caused the RN to abort its attacks. This does raise the question of how prepared the RN was to press home its attacks on the German troop ships while under Luftwaffe attack.
The Germans managed to sink 9 Destroyers (6 British and 3 French) over a period of 10 days during Op Dynamo - 5 of those were sunk by air attack - and in all 5 cases the ships were stationary or manouvering slowly when bombed!
HMS Grenade was caught in Dunkirk harbour by German Stukas
HMS Basalisk was bombed in La Panne Harbour
HMS Havent was bombed while leaving the Dunkirk harbour
HMS keith was bombed in La Penne Harbour and later Scuttled
The French DD Foudroyant was bombed just off Dunkirk
Of the 226 odd British ships sunk during the evacuation from all causes - 170 are listed as 'other small vessels'
Two points here: firstly, while the RN did not destroy the convoy, it didn't make it to Crete either. A convoy that is forced to return home is not much better than a sunk convoy from the point of view of making an amphibious assault. And secondly, it is hard to generalise the RN's experience against the Luftwaffe off Crete in 1941 to the Channel in 1940. Off Crete, the RN was operating about a day's steaming from its main base; this meant that it could not easily return to rearm, and hence many ships ended up running out of anti-aircraft ammunition. In the Channel, with Portsmouth, Chatham and Harwich just a few hours steaming away, it's hard to imagine ships running low on AA ammo. At Crete, the RAF was a non-factor, and the only British fighters were 12 Fulmars from Formidable. In the Channel, the Luftwaffe would have to deal with Fighter Command - which would most likely be able to put more than 12 fighters over the Channel. And finally, in 1941, the Luftwaffe had much more experience and training in making anti-shipping attacks than they did in 1940.
In theory they'd be very useful, but the KM doesn't have enough to make much of a difference and would be outnumbered by the RN (this is a bit of an ongoing theme for Sealion)
The question it really raises is would the RN be more prepared to press home an attack on a convoy that was heading towards their home country with thousands of invading troops on it as they were against one heading to an island in the Eastern Med.
As above the RN operated under LW attacks at Dunkirk without stopping, as did hundreds of civilian craft who despite suffering the brunt of the damage continued to do so.
Now I'm not saying the British are singularly courageous in defence of their homeland or trapped troops or anything like that. But can we please do away with this concept that the RN and Britain in general will clutch their skirts and run at the sight of a few LW stukas when the defense of the homeland is on the line.
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Derek Pullem
Donor
Yes they have - many times. It usually ends with the conclusion that they were ideally suited to attacking lightly armed slow moving merchantmen. The British had their MGB and MTB too. The British will be ones with the target rich environment
And yet it seems to be a prerequisite for a lot of points raised
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The point about Crete is that the Germans had essentially air superiority, the naval situation was not even but not as lopsided as the Channel in summer 1940, the defenders were on their own with little chance of prompt reinforcement and resupply. Even then a few key tactical errors allowed the Germans to salvage the situation, at the cost of severe losses to the airborne forces (paratroop and glider) as well as significant transport costs. IMHO most folks would say that a few small changes here or there and it could have gone the other way, in any case it was vary close run. EVERY advantage the Germans had at Crete would have been very much the other way for Sealion. In particular the Student folly of an airborne assault with air landed reinforcements eventually seizing a port or ports for sea borne reinforcement would have been a folly of the most spectacular sort. In essence every soldier landed in England would be killed or captured, and the losses amongst the air transports would be huge.
hipper
Banned
at Night completely able to press home its attacks. I suspect that the RN destroyers that engaged the invasion would continue to engage until they had depleted their ammunition no matter the light condition.
The difference with Crete is that they are only an hour or so away from a friendly port where they can reload.
The German torpedo boats consist of some 27 boats theoretically available though some would have been unserviceable
Their torpedo's would have been their most valuable asset though firing them in the middle of a melee with some RN Destroyers might cause more casualties on their own side than the enemy.
5 x T37 and 10 x T35 with
- 1 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK C/32
- 1 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30
- 5-8 × 2 cm (0.79 in) C/30
- 6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes (2×3)
- 3 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/45 (3x1)
- 2 × 2 cm (0.79 in) C/30 (4 or 7 from 1940)
- 6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes (2×3)
5 x T23
- 3 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/45 (3x1)
- 4 or 7 × 2 cm (0.79 in) C/30 (4×1) (7x1)
- 6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes (2×3)
Which means diverting resources from the army and the airforce I'm sure Goering gonna throw a fit and the Army is gonna be shaking its head when they realize they're preparing for an invasion of Britain when they haven't even figured out how to defeat France
Errolwi
Monthly Donor
So @lighthorse brings up the failure to detect S&G as reason to expect that the invasion build-up and approach will be undetected. The differences in the situations are explained at length. After trying to ignore or handwave the differences away, they resort to accusing everyone else of pro-British bias. And won't actually address the points made.