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Oh yes Kurd Stalin!, I love Kurd Stalin!

Stalin was convicted in the Soviet Union and in Yeltsin's Russia. But now for some reason he held in high esteem again.
I think he did more harm than good.

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Stalin was convicted in the Soviet Union and in Yeltsin's Russia. But now for some reason he held in high esteem again.
I think he did more harm than good.

The Soviet Union went to hell after Stalin, and Yeltsin's Russia was worse. Now that Stalin is held in high esteem again, things are going better again.
I don't really like Stalin, he is responsible for too much death and destruction. But he was also instrumental in defeating the Nazis, and he made Russia from a backwards peasant country into modern great power. So on question of whether he did more harm or good, I don't know what to answer. He did a lot of harm, but he also made Russia great. Maybe the suffering during Stalin's rule was a neccesary sacrifice for Russian greatness. To me it is hard to know what to think of him.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Stalin was convicted in the Soviet Union and in Yeltsin's Russia. But now for some reason he held in high esteem again.
I think he did more harm than good.

The Soviet Union went to hell after Stalin, and Yeltsin's Russia was worse. Now that Stalin is held in high esteem again, things are going better again.
I don't really like Stalin, he is responsible for too much death and destruction. But he was also instrumental in defeating the Nazis

He was also instrmental in inviting that attack and nearly allowing it to succeed in the first place by decapitating the Red Army on the 1930's and denuding frontier defenses and ignoring every intelligence report that suggested a German attack, and greatly harming the populations of the western areas (now Ukraine and Belarus) resulting in them being significantly easier for the Germans to take. On top of him also being responsible for the deaths of millions of citizens in purges and Gulags.

So, sure, his totalitarian state and iron will to dominate was crucial in defeating the Nazi's, but its highly likely none of that would have been necessary had someone else been in charge in the first place, or even if it had, that it would have gone much better from the outset.


Much like Joffre in France, yes his aura of calm and driving spirit provided a great anchor for the French army in WW1...but another commander likely wouldnt have needed such qualities to stem panic and stiffen morale had they been more capable field commanders.

Lets alsi not forget that, as far as "hell" is concerned, the soviet union under Stalin was a powerful state, but a terrible one to live in, and suffered the same problems the USSR chronically did, over emphasis on heavy industry and military equipment, while not properly building appropriate logistics efforts and crushing most other aspects of the economy that improve quality of life and lay the foundation for economic growth (e.g. building more tanks than tractors).

The Third Reich would have waged war against the USSR regardless of who was top comrade. The Nazis kind of wanted to exterminate the Eastern European peoples so that German settlers could claim the land for themselves, in imitation of the conquest of North America, in addition to hating communists in general. To say that Stalin invited the attack is ridiculous.

Never mind that the Soviet Union was from the very first moment defined by the enemies that sought to crush it. It shouldn't be surprising that it produced a lot of tanks when that was what won it the Second World War. You're living in a fantasy land as far as what the USSR could have done is concerned. The state was deeply shaped by its circumstances.

That people nowadays increasingly miss it is easily explained by people nowadays increasingly lacking in employment or housing or whatever else you care to mention. Certainly there's an element of simple nationalism too but the heart of it is remembering the devastating crash in living standards after the USSR fell. When people's needs are not fulfilled they will desire the alternatives that fulfil those needs.

Rosebuddy wrote:
The Third Reich would have waged war against the USSR regardless of who was top comrade. The Nazis kind of wanted to exterminate the Eastern European peoples so that German settlers could claim the land for themselves, in imitation of the conquest of North America, in addition to hating communists in general. To say that Stalin invited the attack is ridiculous.

no its not. That kind of thimg certainly was talked about within Nazi Germany, but Soviet border defense status and the Red Army's disastrous performance in the Winter War were huge signals to actually go and do it when eveything was on the fence, ultimately changing the minds of much of the German army command as to the feasibility of such an attack. The war was never a predetermined thing, the Nazi's attacked because they thought they could get away with it, and almost did, not simply because they hated Russians.

Never mind that the Soviet Union was from the very first moment defined by the enemies that sought to crush it. It shouldn't be surprising that it produced a lot of tanks when that was what won it the Second World War.

at the cost of production of all sorts of other items anf reliant on huge numbers of imports. The Red Army routinely had problems supplying all those tanks, many of the masses of tanks deatroyed in the opening 41 attack were lost because there was insufficient logisitcal systems to support them, repair them, fuel them, etc. Its like having 8 guns whem you only have two hands and one set of eyes to aim with, you cant uae them all effectively at once. It took massive foreign aid in terms of food and trucks and the like to sustain the Red Army. Many of those Katyusha launchers were built on US Studebaker trucks. German armored divisons worked as well as they did largely on thei logistical networl, each division had more trucks than tanks, the Red Army divisions were the opposite and routinely were strangled for it. Then they lost huge numbers of workers and arable land and agricultural production through insanely poor resource management, and alienated huge segments of the population who aided or refused to hinder the invaders (especially in the opening months of 41). And this isnt even getting into the almost total annihilation of the senior officer corps of the Red Army and many of the people who had originated tank doctrine within the res army.

Rosebuddy wrote:
The Third Reich would have waged war against the USSR regardless of who was top comrade. The Nazis kind of wanted to exterminate the Eastern European peoples so that German settlers could claim the land for themselves, in imitation of the conquest of North America, in addition to hating communists in general. To say that Stalin invited the attack is ridiculous.

Nor really. The secret protocols that were part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact showed that Hitler was willing to work with Stalin as long as he thought that he did not have the advantage. Hitler and Stalin went to great lengths to create a series of secret protocols that outlined how they would divide Europe between them. It was only after the Soviet disaster thar was the Winter War that Hitler began discussing an actual invasion of Russia, thinking, not incorrectly, that Stalin's purges had badly damaged the Red Army.

Oh please the Nazis never knew when to stop, eventually they will invade the USSR, assuming the Allies don't defeat them first (which is a big assumption).

 Tyran wrote:
Oh please the Nazis never knew when to stop, eventually they will invade the USSR, assuming the Allies don't defeat them first (which is a big assumption).

I doubt they would have. Without Russia to assault, Hitler would have thrown everything into a cross channel invasion in 1941. Imagine the Nazis able to throw everything they had at London. The English like to talk about the Battle of Britain, but they never really faced what the Germans were truly capable of due to them throwing most of it at Russia.

many of the people who had originated tank doctrine within the res army.

The execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky should really go down as the dumbest thing any leader of a state did in the 1930's. The man was easily the most brilliant military mind in Europe, and maybe even the world at the time Stalin had him killed.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Without Russia to assault, Hitler would have thrown everything into a cross channel invasion in 1941.

With what boats? One does not simply cross the English channel, evident by how much material the western allies needed to do it. Germany was never going to make (in the early 1940's) a legitimate invasion across the English channel, and Germany ultimately lost the staring contest across the water even before Overlord. The resources didn't exist, especially not after the British took it upon themselves to scuttle the French navy. Serious planning for Sea Loin was abandoned almost as soon as it began.

That being said. Yeah. Hitler wasn't going to stop, but we're really talking about time spans here. In 1939, Hitler wasn't going to go to war with Russia. Sure he wanted to someda and probably would have eventually no matter what, but who knows when that war would have actually happened. The Winter War was a huge embarrassment for the Red Army, and convinced the Germany military that now was better than later. No Winter War (or one that wasn't a disaster I guess) = no Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Talking about what Hitler wanted to do is different from what he was actually about to do and what he thought he could do in the moment. The gutting of the Red Army was a horrible decision made to suit the paranoia of Stalin, and pretty much laid out the welcome mat for invasion. Stalin's blunder with the Red Army and the Winter War opened the Eastern Front just as much as Hitler's desire to conquer. That he ignored all signs that an invasion was imminent, both from Britain and his own intelligence network, makes it an even worse blunder.

 LordofHats wrote:

With what boats? One does not simply cross the English channel, evident by how much material the western allies needed to do it. Germany was never going to make (in the early 1940's) a legitimate invasion across the English channel, and Germany ultimately lost the staring contest across the water even before Overlord. The resources didn't exist, especially not after the British took it upon themselves to scuttle the French navy. Serious planning for Sea Loin was abandoned almost as soon as it began.

Yes, but that was due to the resources being needed elsewhere.

Picture the Blitz with all the aircraft that Germany lost over Russia. That's about 3k aircraft lost in combat in just '41. and that's just the losses. Throw enough aircraft at the channel, and it doesn't matter how many ships England had, they'd soon have 0. Remember that the Luftwaffe's failures over England could largely be attributed to their difficulties in maintaining a steady supply of manpower and replacement aircraft England could replace aircraft but pilots were getting thin. Now imagine a Luftwaffe with all the resources that they were sending to Russia at thier disposal as well. Becomes much more one sided, doesn't it, even if you assume the same rate of attrition, which would have been unlikely as combat fatigue was already killing almost as many British pilots at the Germans were.

I think that its well within possibility for the Luftwaffe to really eliminate the RAF as a threat (they almost did), but that doesn't translate to making a cross channel invasion feasible. The Luftwaffe wasn't going to just sink the entire Royal Navy from the air. The Luftwaffe wasn't anywhere near as sophisticated as the Imperial Airforce of Japan in that field, evident by the great differences between the sinking of the Prince of Wales and eight weeks of battle in Norway where despite an abundance of targets, aircraft, and ordinance, the Luftwaffe only sank two ships. It's assuming a lot to take the Luftwaffe's horrible track record vs naval targets and think they were going to pose an obstacle to the largest numerical battle fleet on the planet, even if it was dated. And that's just part of the problem. Germany enjoyed marginal air superiority for two years in Western Europe and they couldn't make Britain surrender. There's no reason to believe more planes would have made a difference especially when those planes wouldn't have been the strategic bombers Germany would really need (and never really had) to mount a meaningful bombing campaign.

Even with air superiority, Germany didn't have the boats, or the capacity to make the boats to get boots across the water. They could have borrowed some boats from the French, but the British sank half the French fleet early on precisely out of that concern, and the French scuttled the rest themselves a few years later when Germany tried to take them (if only to spite the British for sinking the other half years earlier). Even then, those boats would only help them fight the Royal Navy, not get men from one side of the channel to the other. Germany had at no point landing ships, or supply ships, or any plans laid out to build them. They had none of the necessary infrastructure to mount a crossing. Not having Russia as an enemy in 1941 wouldn't change that. Even when they didn't have Russia as an enemy, no plans to make the necessary ships materialized. Hitler likely never took the idea of invading Britain all that seriously himself.

Germany can have all the manpower and resources it wants, and even air superiority, but it's all moot if they can't get an army from one end of the channel to the other. Britain could sit there all day and say "nope, not surrendering", and we know that because its exactly what happened.

The more likely reality without the opening of the Russian front is that Britain would sue for peace (eventually), making any theoretical preparations to invade a bit moot. And that's delving into the realm of historical fiction rather than history. The historical reality is the means to invade Britain were not available to Germany.

I support the idea of Stalin to test communism in one country. If it is successful, you will not need a world revolution. if there is a failure, it also does not need to burn the world.
But industrialization ... at what cost? village collective in poverty, many people died in the construction, working as slaves
We built a lot of planes and tanks - but failed to use them
The tanks were kept in large units, but without the normal supply and command
It is not surprising that there were such large losses. It is said that the largest tank battle of Kursk was on and Prokhorovka. But the largest tank battle in the beginning of the war. And then the Soviet Union lost a lot of tanks. This simply prefer not to remember.
Of course, during the war, he showed himself as in truth Stalin, man of steel. Despite all the turmoil, he continued to give the right orders and assign the right people. Even Napoleon in such a situation fell into a depression and left his troops in the lurch
Yes, he created the atomic bomb and to protect it from the US atomic monopoly.
But if he made people's lives better, than in the US? In the 1950s, many people still lived same as during the war.
Khrushchev tried to overtake and surpass the United States. But he was always climbing is not your thing, prevented the work where it has no jurisdiction. Brezhnev did not do anything new, and the development has slowed or stopped. Gorbachev was the hope of the people for change. But he finally destroyed everything. The 1980s were a real decline.
Yeltsin was also hope. But he and his team acted at random, not knowing where it will all end. Blindly they believed that the economy "will work by itself"
But who is Mr. Putin? He began as the right manager who It makes everything work properly and improves the lives of people, who could declare the west that Russia - is an independent country and has interests and finished as someone from which the people are tired and do not really believe.

 BaronIveagh wrote:


Yes, but that was due to the resources being needed elsewhere.

Picture the Blitz with all the aircraft that Germany lost over Russia. That's about 3k aircraft lost in combat in just '41. and that's just the losses. Throw enough aircraft at the channel, and it doesn't matter how many ships England had, they'd soon have 0. Remember that the Luftwaffe's failures over England could largely be attributed to their difficulties in maintaining a steady supply of manpower and replacement aircraft England could replace aircraft but pilots were getting thin. Now imagine a Luftwaffe with all the resources that they were sending to Russia at thier disposal as well. Becomes much more one sided, doesn't it, even if you assume the same rate of attrition, which would have been unlikely as combat fatigue was already killing almost as many British pilots at the Germans were.

Air superiority does even begin to equate to 'easy amphibious assault'. This isn't the Roman days, where Caligula can order a giant boat bridge strung together. Lord of Hats has indicated how they quite simply didn't have the craft to make it possible.

But even assuming there were sufficient transport ships, every single RAF plane was shot down, and every single Navy surface vessel decided to sit the war out in fear of air attack and chill at Scapa Flow, British submarines would have torpedoed any German attempt to sail invasion craft en masse together for a Cross-Channel invasion. It would have been like shooting ducks in a barrel. And I guarantee you, if there had been any attempt at such an invasion, the surface fleet would not have sat idly by anyway.

See here for a blow by blow likely account of what happens (with a British handicap, no mass surface fleet commitment):- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)

The Kriegsmarine was ultimately not up to the job. It would have taken them four to five years of uninterrupted dedicated construction to get to where the British were at the outbreak of war, and by then, the British Navy would have probably outnumbered them five to one.

LordofHats wrote:It's assuming a lot to take the Luftwaffe's horrible track record vs naval targets...

Ok, hold on a sec. In Norway, they were mostly deployed against inland targets, with only 300-400 combat aircraft including fighters total for the whole theater. That's not exactly a surplus of aircraft to fight across all of Denmark and Norway.

LordofHats wrote:Even with air superiority, Germany didn't have the boats, or the capacity to make the boats to get boots across the water.

According to most estimates it would have taken until about September of 1941 to gather sufficient ships from the captured merchant fleets of Denmark, Holland, and France. The sinking of the french fleet makes a direct naval confrontation more difficult, but really would not hinder troop movement.

Ketara wrote:
But even assuming there were sufficient transport ships, every single RAF plane was shot down, and every single Navy surface vessel decided to sit the war out in fear of air attack and chill at Scapa Flow, British submarines would have torpedoed any German attempt to sail invasion craft en masse together for a Cross-Channel invasion. It would have been like shooting ducks in a barrel. And I guarantee you, if there had been any attempt at such an invasion, the surface fleet would not have sat idly by anyway.

There are 121 submarines sunk in the English channel, most of them from WW2. German u-boats account for 45 of them.

Ketara wrote:
See here for a blow by blow likely account of what happens (with a British handicap, no mass surface fleet commitment):- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)

Except the war-game assumes that German air superiority was impossible (also irrelevant as my supposition was that they'd have more than historical numbers due to not splitting their forces between east and west.).

It also has Hitler magically get even crazier than usual (I'm sure Galland came up with that one) and refuse to allow the Luftwaffe to stop bombing London long enough to actually support the landings. Hitler's pride would have been riding on that landing success. I doubt he'd have refused the request. Also, if the Germans pushed into Folkstone in less than 24 hours (And, based on the landing site, probably more like two), there simply would not have been time to demolish that harbor. While Ramsgate Pier might have easily burned, the outer harbor, where large ships docked, would have not been seriously damaged by much short of naval gunfire.

Inner


Outer


British defenses were up higher, and could not de-elevate far enough to hit the town.



The loss of Folkstone also would have meant the loss of RAF Lympne.



The grass strip there was prepped for cratering, but the men operating Lympne were unsure how they worked, and, in fear of an accident, stored the repair equipment on site. Given the speed that Folkstone falls, it's likely that there would be little time for much else.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Ok, hold on a sec. In Norway, they were mostly deployed against inland targets, with only 300-400 combat aircraft including fighters total for the whole theater. That's not exactly a surplus of aircraft to fight across all of Denmark and Norway.

That's a lot of planes, and in 8 weeks they only sank two ships. That's kind of why I brought it up.

According to most estimates it would have taken until about September of 1941 to gather sufficient ships from the captured merchant fleets of Denmark, Holland, and France. The sinking of the french fleet makes a direct naval confrontation more difficult, but really would not hinder troop movement.

A merchant fleet only adds up to an invasion fleet in the minds of arm chair generals who don't realize that crossing open water and getting boots on the ground takes dedicated transports. You can't just borrow a bunch of boats (unless you're goal is to move men and no heavy weapons, as the British did at Dunkirk). You need to be able to get tanks onto the shore, and artillery to support the attack. The Germans experimented with landing tanks for a few years but couldn't come up with anything usable, and even if they had they didn't have the means of getting the tanks across the channel without dedicated transport or a means of dealing with the Royal Navy. They couldn't use their fleet either, especially with Hitler not wanting his prized battleships getting sunk, which assuredly would have happened with the Royal Navy floating about.

I've never read a serious scholar who thinks Sea Lion was remotely possible. Plenty of popular authors throw the idea around, but that cast of characters throws all kinds of nonsense around (kind of their bread and butter).

The Royal Navy numbered over 1500 ships, the vast majority always present in the North Atlantic and Med throughout the War.. There is absolutely 0 reason to think the Luftwaffe could dent that, and plenty of evidence that it was beyond them if only for lack of training. The Germany Navy couldn't match the Royal Navy at any point, and Holland and Denmark's mercantile fleets do not an invasion make.

Like so many things people claim that Germany could have done, it's a myth. The kind of world where Germany can pull it off is fictional, not historical.

Except the war-game assumes that German air superiority was impossible (also irrelevant as my supposition was that they'd have more than historical numbers due to not splitting their forces between east and west.).

The Germans had 3 years to establish complete air superiority before the war with Russia and failed. Even then, they had a nominal superiority in the sense that they had complete momentum to pick and choose targets and where battles would happen, and still they failed. You're speaking to a specter of dread that has far more to do with wartime propaganda than reality.

 LordofHats wrote:

That's a lot of planes, and in 8 weeks they only sank two ships. That's kind of why I brought it up.

Not really. Greece had twice that. Africa four times that. The aircraft density per mile of theater is pretty low for Germany in '39 and '40, particularly considering the number of sorties flown. They also shot down something like 75 aircraft of the fleet air arm.

 LordofHats wrote:

A merchant fleet only adds up to an invasion fleet in the minds of arm chair generals who don't realize that crossing open water and getting boots on the ground takes dedicated transports.

I'll be sure to let those armchair generals, particularly Major General Edmond H. Leavey, down at the war department know their idea to convert merchant vessels and passanger steamers to troopships is a crazy idea that could never work.

Oh, wait, it did.

http://www.history.army.mil/documents/WWII/wwii_Troopships.pdf

You may notice a large number of them start off with 'former name' 'converted from' 'passenger liner for' 'merchant ship owned by'.


Where you need specialized ships is to make your initial landing. If you hold a harbor, you can do with pretty much anything with a few weeks prep of the ship.

 BaronIveagh wrote:


There are 121 submarines sunk in the English channel, most of them from WW2. German u-boats account for 45 of them.

So....you're saying that submarines couldn't have attacked the German fleet...because there's been a lot of submarines sunk in the channel over the years from two world wars and beyond?

That's nonsensical.

Except the war-game assumes that German air superiority was impossible (also irrelevant as my supposition was that they'd have more than historical numbers due to not splitting their forces between east and west.).

If the British had thrown in the main battle fleet into the channel for 48 hours, aerial superiority would have been irrelevant. They'd most likely have lost a third of the fleet to German aerial attacks and torpedoes (primarily the latter), but they'd have obliterated all German transport capacity, wrecked the closest French harbours, and dumped enough mines to ensure a future landing cross-channel would be impossible any time soon. And then that would have been the end of it.

It also has Hitler magically get even crazier than usual (I'm sure Galland came up with that one) and refuse to allow the Luftwaffe to stop bombing London long enough to actually support the landings.
Hitler's pride would have been riding on that landing success. I doubt he'd have refused the request. Also, if the Germans pushed into Folkstone in less than 24 hours (And, based on the landing site, probably more like two), there simply would not have been time to demolish that harbor. While Ramsgate Pier might have easily burned, the outer harbor, where large ships docked, would have not been seriously damaged by much short of naval gunfire.

Explosives don't take 24 hours to prepare. You send the order from London, have them packed on a train, set, and blown within 12 hours. And obtaining the gear you need to repair a facility adequately is a lot harder in a general warzone when your landings are already being roughed up. Sure, you can disembark troops by making them swim onto a beach if you really want to, but to invade a completely hostile country? You need ammunition, rations, vehicles, spare parts for those vehicles, and so forth. That stuff takes a slightly more dedicated unloading facility, and then a lot more effort to schlep it to where it needs to be.

I'll be sure to let those armchair generals, particularly Major General Edmond H. Leavey, down at the war department know their idea to convert merchant vessels and passanger steamers to troopships is a crazy idea that could never work.

Oh, wait, it did.

http://www.history.army.mil/documents/WWII/wwii_Troopships.pdf

You may notice a large number of them start off with 'former name' 'converted from' 'passenger liner for' 'merchant ship owned by'.


Where you need specialized ships is to make your initial landing. If you hold a harbor, you can do with pretty much anything with a few weeks prep of the ship.

Quite frankly, what you use to chuck troops across is irrelevant. The Germans could never have held the Channel open to them. And the bigger the ships? You want to pull in passenger liners and merchantmen? The bigger the targets.

I really hate to appeal to authority here, but naval history in early twentieth century is my actual profession. WW1 is more my department than WW2, but when it comes to logistics and capabilities here (heck, half the two naval forces were of WW1 vintage), and the basic realities of moving people around, you can take my word as being as good as any scholars. I'm afraid Sea Lion was impossible. In every conceivable scenario, the fact that the British retained their fleet meant that they could cut off German crossings and supplies at will. It would have cost them casualties, but the Fleet existed for that purpose, and would gladly have sacrificed half their number or more to stymie an invasion of the homeland.

Even if they lost half the fleet, and the Germans tried it again six months later, the British shipbuilding facilities would have remained undisturbed in the period in between, and would have replenished losses as appropriate.

If Germany had captured the French fleet intact, would that have made enough of a difference?

No, the combined German forced would still be greatly out numbered by the RN and represent an even bigger target for the RAF.

It's unlikely they would have. Early on, the Germans didn't seem to have any actual intention of seizing the French fleet. The British were very concerned about the scenario, and took steps like Operation Catapult and forced boarding to eliminate the threat. Much of the French fleet was not itself based in France, which made it easier for the French to keep their ships out of German hands. Some joined the Free French Navy. Some sailed to foreign ports in the Americas and the Indies and simply waited out the war.

The French Navy under Vichy France did continue to sail throughout the war years, and because of Operation Catapult, nominally considered itself at war with Britain. There were a number of battles at Dakar, Gabon, and Madagascar, but the French only won the Battle of Dakar. When Germany attempted to seize French ships, the French scuttled them, because that's naval tradition apparently.

Theoretically, capturing the French fleet would have "helped", but the French fleet at every turn was out of German reach.

 Ketara wrote:

So....you're saying that submarines couldn't have attacked the German fleet...because there's been a lot of submarines sunk in the channel over the years from two world wars and beyond?

My point was that submarines can be killed and the channel is ideal for it. German uboats preferred to avoid the channel as it was an obvious killing ground.

 Ketara wrote:

If the British had thrown in the main battle fleet into the channel for 48 hours, aerial superiority would have been irrelevant.

One would have thought that Billy Mitchell blew that wildly mistaken idea to hell with the USS Virginia.

 Ketara wrote:
They'd most likely have lost a third of the fleet to German aerial attacks and torpedoes (primarily the latter), but they'd have obliterated all German transport capacity, wrecked the closest French harbours, and dumped enough mines to ensure a future landing cross-channel would be impossible any time soon. And then that would have been the end of it.

You left out the part where Nelson and Jellicoe rose up out of their coffins, grew forty stories high, and waded through Berlin breathing nuclear fire on Hitler.

Here's the first of many issues with your scenario:

German sea mines already in place. Shore batteries. Air dropped mines. Abandoning other theaters to assemble. The fact that, despite what some posters seem to think about the incompetence of the Luftwaffe when it comes to sinking ships, they racked up 282 ships totaling 1,489,795 tonnes between July and October 1940 in that area. Actual logistics of placing that many mines, since they didn't actually have the raw mine laying capacity to cover such a huge area. It goes on.

 Ketara wrote:

Explosives don't take 24 hours to prepare. You send the order from London, have them packed on a train, set, and blown within 12 hours.

As I said, my estimate was about two, and I highly doubt it would have ever taken 12. Both facilities were undermanned in September 1940 and May 1941. Dropping paratroops at RAF Lympne would have overrun the place in moments, as it was nearly deserted at the time, and a priority target for the Germans. The real threat to Folkstone would have been the possibility of long range rail cannon fire after it fell. There were a few of them around, but how effective it would have been due to the cliffs is a good question, the harbor is partially sheltered by the cliffs.

 Ketara wrote:

I really hate to appeal to authority here, but naval history in early twentieth century is my actual profession. WW1 is more my department than WW2, but when it comes to logistics and capabilities here (heck, half the two naval forces were of WW1 vintage), and the basic realities of moving people around, you can take my word as being as good as any scholars.

I hate to point this out then, but WW2 was wildly different than the days when you could just run up Equal Speed Charlie London and not worry overly much about the sky falling on you before you came within 50 miles of the enemy You're looking at it from the standpoint of a traditional naval surface engagement, which it most assuredly would not be.


Let's say you brought the full might of the RN into the channel. You'd get near zero resistance from the Kreigsmarine, who'd high tail it to harbors or out of the area if possible. But you do not have aerial superiority, that's still theirs. You park your fleet and open fire on their shore facilities.

All you'd be doing was repeating Taranto on a much grander scale, with the axis and allies reversed as far as who was on the receiving end. Based on that outcome, you'd have lost half the fleet before you were even finished shelling Calais.

However, i think this discussion should probably move to another thread.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
snip

If you like, feel free to open one. But since you seem to be focused on trying to argue against what all of the German command of the time, the British command at the time, a wargame between professional staff from both nations, and most relevant historians since have thought on the matter, I'm not sure I see the point. I don't feel I'm getting so much in the way of reasonable responses as I am false equivalency and misdirection. I could go through what you've written above point by point, from the daft approach of trying to equate sunk merchantmen with the Luftwaffe's ability to sink battleships (one is designed to carry cargo, the other is designed to take hits from 12 inch cannon), to the fact you seem to completely ignore the absolute key principle here (namely that British fleet losses are irrelevant if the German invasion craft hit the bottom of the ocean along with them). But I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my time.

 Ketara wrote:
I could go through what you've written above point by point, from the daft approach of trying to equate sunk merchantmen with the Luftwaffe's ability to sink battleships (one is designed to carry cargo, the other is designed to take hits from 12 inch cannon), to the fact you seem to completely ignore the absolute key principle here (namely that British fleet losses are irrelevant if the German invasion craft hit the bottom of the ocean along with them). But I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my time.

Using a 2crh or a 4crh when you make that claim about 12" guns?

I hate to point this out but any British battleship carrying 12 inch guns would have been just as screwed by that bomber as a merchantman. I seem to recall that last British dreadnought to be built with those was that 12"/50's on Colossus. Orion jumped to the 13.5. To say that it had nearly non-existent protection against bombs is a mild understatement. (for those not following: Colossus had a deck only 4 inches thick, but belt and bulkheads 11 and 10 inches, respectively. A merchantman's deck might be two or three inches thick. Not a whole lot of difference in the face of a five hundred pound bomb, let alone a 3k pound glide bomb.)

Clearly you are wasting your time, since you also very obviously did not read certain posts I made about the possibility. As I said, they would most likely just head to port or leave. Assuming your fleet is there in time to attack the landing, it'd also have been spotted before the landing ships ever left port. Your battleships averaged about 24knts, which is more or less going to set how fast your fleet moves in, because destroyer do not eat shore fire well. How many attack runs do you think the Luftwaffe could manage before you ever got in range of anything if you feel that air superiority does not matter?

 Ketara wrote:

Even if they lost half the fleet, and the Germans tried it again six months later, the British shipbuilding facilities would have remained undisturbed in the period in between, and would have replenished losses as appropriate.

Okay...
So you are saying the Germans wouldn't bomb British shipbuilding facilities into dust first? Seriously? With all the bomber aircraft they could have used if they hadn't invaded the Soviet Union, they could have easily destroyed most British war infrastructure.

You keep going on about that British fleet, but hadn't the Germans invaded the USSR they would have had a ridiculously strong airforce. By the time of the German landings, there wouldn't be any British fleet anymore. British ships were quite vulnerable to air attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_Prince_of_Wales_and_Repulse

Also, I think you might want to make a new thread for this. You guys are hijacking my beloved Ukraine thread! This thread is my home on Dakka, and you are messing it all up!

We're done with the WWII chat now. Thanks

 motyak wrote:
We're done with the WWII chat now. Thanks

I've started a thread we can take this over to:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/684234.page#8531468

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

I expect, foolishly perhaps, an apology.

You won't get any from me. A major civil unrest on the territory with the main Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet base would attract some attention from the proper Russian Intelligence Services. How many were involved - never been disclosed.

So we're back to Whataboutism? Never mind the fact that there was a genocide going on.

Oh please... I like how everything that the West does is "democratic and good" and when it comes to Russia is "totalitarian and bad". The West have opened the Pandora Box and now they have to live with it. As for genocide, I can name at least a couple of other countries where it was happening and the West didn't give a damn. The only difference between those countries and Yugoslavia was the amount of money invested in breaking it apart, just like they do it now in Syria. Giving that the ukrainian neo-Nazis were planning to send the "caravans of friendship" with their armed thugs to show those Russians in Crime their place, I'd say the threat of genocide was real. The burning people in Odessa was a very vivid example what would happen if they are not stopped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yugoslavia, as a nation, had been nonexistent for years by the time a single NATO plane ever left the ground, they just hadn't changed the name in Serbia yet. Yugoslavia broke itself up, NATO didnt do it to them.

And yet when you talk to people from Yugoslavia, living in the West, they all say that they didn't have really big problems with each other until the Western Intelligence serves started financing the nationalistic elements through the "freedom and democracy" process. Somebody somewhere has decided that it's much better and more simple to keep nationalistic elites of the small countries under the his foot than allowed a "Europian USSR" to exist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
[On top of him also being responsible for the deaths of millions of citizens in purges and Gulags.

What's "Gulag"?

Meanwhile, in the world of elves and fairies...
Ukranian neo-Nazis stoned the police in Lviv (former Poland and now the Western "ukraine") and celebrated their victory with the "Hitler salute" on camera:




"There is no Fascism in Ukraine." (c) Any western politician.

 Yaraton wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
[On top of him also being responsible for the deaths of millions of citizens in purges and Gulags.

What's "Gulag"?

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%A3%D0%9B%D0%90%D0%93

 Yaraton wrote:
"There is no Fascism in Ukraine." (c) Any western politician.

The West is hypocritical. The West doesn't give a gak about human rights, freedom. democracy or whatever vague things it claims to believe in. All Western countries care for are their national interests. Just like Russia. The difference is that the West is so good at deceit it managed to deceive itself about it It is all a matter of keeping up appearances. The West will happily support nazis, terrorists and radical islamists etc. as long as they can somehow spin the story as those groups being "good guys" fighting the "bad guys" ( "bad guys" usually being whatever government the West has decided it doesn't like and wants to mess up this time). If it does come out those groups are actually quite bad themselves, they can always still say that it is just a minority and that most of them are still "good guys". And who is going to check?