First of all the Nore command had most of the king Edward vii predreadnoughts assigned to it through all of 1916. Initially 7 but that fell to 4 or 5 by December. A little slow to compete with destroyers but capable of massacaring any invasion convoy.
Then as to ships in the Reserve, there was two predreads in Portsmouth and one in Plymouth serving as accommodation ships but on 24 hour notice to be made ready to sail (although the crew quality would have been poor) through the majority of Plymouth.
Two different predreads served as a guardship (with reduced crew) in Queenstown (Cobh, Ireland) at different times in 1916. Add HIS Swiftsure that served as a convoy escort in the Atlantic.
Within a week the Royal Navy could have pulled together a small battlesquadron if they felt they needed it.
They were never used as combat units because they were too slow to counter the light forces in the area.The Nore Command wasn't a combat command, the forces in its area; the Dover Patrol, the Harwich Force, the Southern Forces and the Patrol Forces were allocated to forces which obtained their orders from either the Admiralty or the Grand Fleet.
How would a force of poorly trained, undermanned pre-dreads, hastily drawn together in reaction to evidence of a concentration of German forces preparing for an invasion go? Given they are reacting to German moves would they be ready in time? Given their poor crewing and lack of training how effective would they be against KM regulars on the destroyers and light cruisers redeployed from the North Sea and Baltic?
operation unicorn did a plausible invasion of Ireland during ww1
And, IIRC Germany had a large merchant marine in 1914. A preemptive invasion using these ships might have been possible. Does it end in disaster, yes.More plausible - Yes.
1914-1918 the Germans had a fleet that could contest (I don't say win or hold) command of the North Sea.
It's dismissed here that Sealion would have been successful but would Germany have actually been more likely to succeed in an invasion of Britain in the first world war?
no time in the OTL war could Germany have invaded Britain. The Royal Navy could maintain control of any sea area where the Germans could try to invade. An invasion coming from Germany would be spotted long before reaching Britain, giving British forces time to intercept the invasion and to set up defenses on the threatened coast. An invasion from Belgium would be severely resource constrained, and British light forces always dominated that part of the Channel against the modest forces the Germans could deploy from Ostend.
If the atl begins with the capture of more channel real Estate these assumptions change. That doesn't make an invasion likely or likely to succeed, but it does alter the equation.
I would add that the HSF would almost certainly be able to make an initial landing, as the raids on places such as Lowestoft and Hartlepool showed the fast ships could get there and back and avoid interception by major RN units.
Room 40 a little later makes that far more difficult, but even then the Grand Fleet was a long way away and without prior warning I can see even the slow transports getting there from Bremerhaven & Wilhelmshaven, although what they'd do 12 hours later when Jellicoe heaves into view might make Tirpitz wince.
Off topic but I always read a wargame die roll comparisons and remember a particularly good game I had going of War Between the States. I had the Confederacy at my mercy for about two years, unable to stop me from doing what I wanted. Then...sixes like you would never believe. I lost 90% of the Union Army, damn near all of the Navy, and the Confederates took New York City (where the map board ended-really, there was nothing to stop them from invading Canada), in eight weeks.In wargame terms, the Germans would have to roll sixes every single time, without fail. That just doesn't happen.