Deleted member 1487
I think it was a better path than the one they took IOTL.I read your posts as generally supportive of the idea that destroying Liverpool was the Germans' best bet, I was indicating the problems with that.
I think it was a better path than the one they took IOTL.I read your posts as generally supportive of the idea that destroying Liverpool was the Germans' best bet, I was indicating the problems with that.
... Basically the Germans didn't have the capacity to wipe out Liverpool and stop the British reacting to it successfully, all Luftwaffe vs UK scenarios are just whack.a.mole.
Prior to the Beaufighter British Nightfighters had a serious speed problem and often couldn't overtake German bombers. British AAA was pretty pathetic in 1940-41 namely due to the lack of a quality gunnery radar with enough accuracy to score blind fire hits at night.Though, if the night time bomber stream is focused on Liverpool, that should increase the odds of British nightfighters at least sighting German bombers. They're also in the path of AAA.
Certainly not the significant weapon they would become as the war went on.Prior to the Beaufighter British Nightfighters had a serious speed problem and often couldn't overtake German bombers.
Certainly was. Tho here is my disagreement with Liverpool port facility specifically.
My point in my earlier post on this derives from the damage done to the cargo fleet. The submarines were doing increasing damage & attacking Liverpool & select other ports with the object of damaging/sinking ships supplements the ongoing submarine campaign. Thats why I included mines & air attacks on ships at sea, in coordination with the submarines and surface raiders. I understand its near ASB to expect a combined & coordinated air/naval campaign from the Germans of 1940, but as a hypothetical focusing on the cargo fleet first how and wherever you can reach them gets you closer than anything else practical to defeating Britain. This includes air attacks on select ports. Docked ships are vulnerable & the number of sorties per destroyed hull is far lower than for cargo ships at sea, even if bombing at night. Ancillary damage to the port facilities supplements this nicely.
... ships together with their cargo sunk before reaching Britain ..., sounds like a "good" thing for the germans ...One of the issues is that ships sunk in the Atlantic don't need to be unloaded at damaged ports, or have their cargo moved through damaged rail yards.
Did anybody ask here for a 1940 or even 1941 "victory" over Britain ?This campaign also doesn't have a path to victory in 1940 - it's a bet on winning a long war.
pretty dire situation already https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-10.html
... ships together with their cargo sunk before reaching Britain ..., sounds like a "good" thing for the germans ...
May I ask, what your "issue" is with that ?....
Did anybody ask here for a 1940 or even 1941 "victory" over Britain ?
IMO the decision for going more thoroughly after ther supply lines in that the subs are supplementetd by wrecking also harbour facilities as well as ships in harbour with a more on that task focused LW strategy or even combined naval-air strategy (IMO the Norway campaign shows, that such cooperation was possible) would show, that there is a long(er) time strategy/ "bet" behind : attrition and starvation.
Doesn't really work with Churchill in charge. Probably would need to go the Wallies 1944-45 route and turn the fighters on to strafe everything that moves in the civilian transport area to shut down the economy:Night attacks on ports would certainly be a better strategy than the OTL BoB.
However, the best German strategy in 1940 is probably to declare victory and not attack Britain at all. Going to be a difficult one for Adolf and Herman to execute, though.
Its a great strategy if German can resist the urge to invade the Soviet Union and the USA doesn't get sucked in, or until British night air defense improves (better radars etc.) , all of which probably happen eventually, so there is sort of a timeliness about the whole thing.
I could see Hitler if he really thinks he has Britain on its heels, delaying a Soviet invasion until 1942. The advantages of Britain being completely out outweigh the Soviets being stronger.
Japan is sort of on its path to war after September 40 so USA is probably in as OTL.
Perhaps with USA in then Hitler delays the Soviet invasion again.
So I can see a scenario where the starvation campaign continues into 1942, but with USA entry, improved radars etc., it starts having decreased effectiveness.
A USA/Britain vs Germany/Italy/Japan (focused on shipping, with a friendly neutral USSR for strategic supplies) would be an epic struggle.
Prior to the Beaufighter British Nightfighters had a serious speed problem and often couldn't overtake German bombers. British AAA was pretty pathetic in 1940-41 namely due to the lack of a quality gunnery radar with enough accuracy to score blind fire hits at night.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Blitz#May_blitzConversely how good was German Night bombing during this period - especially as they are having to travel further increasing the potential for navigation errors
As part of my History course at school we visited Queens road in Portsmouth
It was a 'main road' that runs several miles through Portsmouth and was used as an aiming point / navigation aid by the Luftwaffe as it ran directly to the Naval harbour/dockyard.
Even then they did relatively little damage to the dockyard and as far as I am aware never put it out of action - but not one building was left undamaged along that road for a distance of several miles and you have to go 50+ meters down each of the side road's before you start to find pre war buildings - so it appears that an awful lot of bombs dropped on the Portsmouth dockyard missed.
Also if the focus shifted from London to Liverpool then so does the additional counter measures and decoys used to distract bombers - for efforts were made to build a fake locations - that at night might be misidentified as the actual dockyards - further diluting their efforts by drawing bombers into bombing them in error
See Starfish sight for more information
Despite it being the 2nd most important target during the Blitz, the Brits never really stopped or deflected damage from the city...as late as May 1941, the month the Blitz basically ended, the heaviest damage was done.The raids put 69 out of 144 cargo berths out of action and inflicted 2,895 casualties[nb 1] and left many more homeless.
One incident on 3 May involved the SS Malakand, a ship carrying munitions which was berthed in the Huskisson Dock. Although its eventual explosion is often attributed to a burning barrage balloon, this fire was put out. However flames from dock sheds that had been bombed spread to the Malakand, and this fire could not be contained. Despite valiant efforts by the fire brigade to extinguish the flames, they spread to the ship's cargo of 1,000 tons of bombs, which exploded a few hours after the raid had ended. The entire Huskisson No. 2 dock and the surrounding quays were destroyed and four people were killed. The explosion was so violent that some pieces of the ship's hull plating were blasted into a park over 1 mile (1.6 km) away. It took seventy-four hours for the fire to burn out.[8]
The Times on 5 May 1941, carried the following report:" The Germans stated that Saturday night's attack on Liverpool was one of the heaviest ever made by their air force on Britain. Several hundred bombers had been used, visibility was good and docks and industrial works, storehouses and business centres, had been hit. In addition to many smaller fires, one conflagration, it was claimed, was greater than any hitherto observed during a night attack."
I haven't really been following the discussion, but...... ships together with their cargo sunk before reaching Britain ..., sounds like a "good" thing for the germans ...
May I ask, what your "issue" is with that ?
... ships together with their cargo sunk before reaching Britain ..., sounds like a "good" thing for the germans ...
May I ask, what your "issue" is with that ?
Did anybody ask here for a 1940 or even 1941 "victory" over Britain ?
IMO the decision for going more thoroughly after ther supply lines in that the subs are supplementetd by wrecking also harbour facilities as well as ships in harbour with a more on that task focused LW strategy or even combined naval-air strategy (IMO the Norway campaign shows, that such cooperation was possible) would show, that there is a long(er) time strategy/ "bet" behind : attrition and starvation.
It is very unlikely that Hitler goes full retard and declares war on the USA because of Pearl Harbor. OTL he only did so on the hopes that Japan would reciprocate and declare war in the USSR to help in the middle Barbarossa for a quick victory like he wanted. Here he isn't fighting the Soviets and thus has nothing to gain by declaring war on the USA.
The American public is not going to support going to war just to help Britain when the Japanese flatout attacked them, so if anything, a Pearl Harbor absent Hitler's declaration of war will ensure that the USA is occupied with Japan.
There is even the possibility that Hitler might condemn the attack, maybe even (borderline ASB, but possible) declare war on Japan to try shifting the USA support of Britain, which in this timeline is Germany's main enemy.
pretty dire situation already https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-10.html
looking at the huge numbers of ships laid up for repairs think an extensive use of Butterfly bombs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Bomb might have created a vicious cycle in which it would be more difficult to continue repairs even if thru extraordinary efforts arriving ships continue to be unloaded?
Sinking some ships and damaging ports at the same time has less effect than either sinking more ships or more severely damaging ports.