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The same level of firepower (a battleship broadside) was also available then from the British Heavy Bomber squadrons coming online from 1941.

British armoured divisions were also being rapidly re-equipped then as well. The longer you move the timeline on the more the industrial power of the British Empire increases without the Petroleum weakness of the Germans. Which is why they made the suicidal invasion of the USSR in the first place.

1. Any RN battleship around the channel in 1940 will be a Ju 88 magnet. That won't stop them coming, but it will make their deployment anything but one sided.

2. Pilot losses were heavy on both sides, and if the Isle of Wight is taken by air assault and local support established the local advantage the RAF had would be largely neutralised. The principle problem the Luftwaffe had was range of fighter cover, deal with that and the Luftwaffe would have been able to re-establish superiority

 Orlanth wrote:
1. Any RN battleship around the channel in 1940 will be a Ju 88 magnet. That won't stop them coming, but it will make their deployment anything but one sided.

What will they be hitting the battleships with? I've already pointed out the lack of German aerial torpedoes and gliding missiles, and the head on attack into the Royal Fleet that using more standard high explosive bombs required would make them easy targets for AA fire due to predictable flight lanes/patterns. When you have the amount of anti-air ordnance they'd be chucking up as well, the Luftwaffe would have had its hands full even if there wasn't a single RAF plane in the neighbourhood. Which is pretty unlikely.

This isn't WW1 where you had to adopt a completely spray and pray approach to AA. The Mark III Pom Pom directors had their faults, but stick enough of them together (aka a fleets worth), give them a line of bombers in a highly predictable attack run, and a spot of RAF cover to shake things up, and I don't see many of those bombers going home. Heck, I can't even imagine how hard it would be for them to make those bombing runs if there was a full scale melee fighter-on fighter dogfight in the area.

....................not going to lie, I kind of want to wargame that scenario now.

EDIT:- Also, if we're going past 1940 in this scenario, the RN get access to the Mark IV AA director, which is about as advanced an AA system as existed at the time.

 Ketara wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
1. Any RN battleship around the channel in 1940 will be a Ju 88 magnet. That won't stop them coming, but it will make their deployment anything but one sided.

What will they be hitting the battleships with? I've already pointed out the lack of German aerial torpedoes and gliding missiles, and the head on attack into the Royal Fleet that using more standard high explosive bombs required would make them easy targets for AA fire due to predictable flight lanes/patterns. When you have the amount of anti-air ordnance they'd be chucking up as well, the Luftwaffe would have had its hands full even if there wasn't a single RAF plane in the neighbourhood. Which is pretty unlikely.

This isn't WW1 where you had to adopt a completely spray and pray approach to AA. The Mark III Pom Pom directors had their faults, but stick enough of them together (aka a fleets worth), give them a line of bombers in a highly predictable attack run, and a spot of RAF cover to shake things up, and I don't see many of those bombers going home. Heck, I can't even imagine how hard it would be for them to make those bombing runs if there was a full scale melee fighter-on fighter dogfight in the area.

....................not going to lie, I kind of want to wargame that scenario now.

EDIT:- Also, if we're going past 1940 in this scenario, the RN get access to the Mark IV AA director, which is about as advanced an AA system as existed at the time.

My grandpa served on RN battleships. They where once upgraded a mobile flak fortress packing dozens of smaller AA guns in up to qaud mounts of massed fire. A formation of warships could lay down a veritable of storm of fire.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
An interesting offshoot from this would be, how would history have been different if the Germans invaded the UK in Sep 1940, and got their arses waxed badly by the RN, resulting in many thousands of drowned soldiers and the medium term crippling of the Dutch and Rhineland economies due to all their barges having been sunk.

How would that have affected Hitler's prestige, and his ability to carry out his plan of war on the Soviet Union?

My guess is the Soviets invade Germany as a result of the weakness, and end up controlling most of Europe.

I think people are noting that battleships are vulnerable to air attack, but not seeing that vulnerability in the context of defending of defending a seaborne invasion. The Prince of Wales, without air cover, lasted 90 minutes. Consider the havoc a battleship can do against a landing fleet in 90 minutes. Then consider how many battleships the RN had available.

The planners of Overlord were very concerned about the Tirpitz, and they had the largest fleet ever assembled protecting their landing ships. The fleet of the RN would have lost ships, but the losses suffered by the Germans would have been catastrophic.

 sebster wrote:
I think people are noting that battleships are vulnerable to air attack, but not seeing that vulnerability in the context of defending of defending a seaborne invasion. The Prince of Wales, without air cover, lasted 90 minutes. Consider the havoc a battleship can do against a landing fleet in 90 minutes. Then consider how many battleships the RN had available.

The planners of Overlord were very concerned about the Tirpitz, and they had the largest fleet ever assembled protecting their landing ships. The fleet of the RN would have lost ships, but the losses suffered by the Germans would have been catastrophic.

Also consider that universal agreement is that it was a big mistake sending the Prince of Wales out with only a single ship to escort her. The same mistake the Germans made with the Bismark.

A RN fleet moving to stop an invasion wouldn't be just one battleship. It would be a fleet of them with carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. Hitler was very aware of the Battle of Jutland, and always afraid that it would happen again. Even if the Kriegsmarine had been up to a head to head confrontation (which it never was), it is possible he'd have never sent it into one simply because that was the kind of scenario he wanted to avoid.

One last factor people tend to /always forget is the Fleet Air Arm. It'd all well and good to say, 'What if the Germans had aerial superiority and beat the RAF', but the fleet air arm existed as well and was capable of chucking a few hundred fighters/bombers into the air in a pinch. They wouldn't last forever, but, in the context of a two to three hours engagement, and a hell of a lot of naval AA, they'd provide sufficient cover and interference to disrupt German attempts to line up high explosive runs. Whilst they weren't the stars the Spitfires were, throw a hundred Fairey Fulmar/Swordfish's into the fray, in a scenario where merely a big wave can overturn a German transport barge, and you've got a recipe for an extremely quick massacre.

Yeah, one swordfish torp hitting a single ship could sink as single large ship with ease.

It only took one well placed hit to cripple Bismarck.

It was a lucky hit, though. German ships were incredibly well built and could take astonishing damage and stay afloat. The Bismark took a hell of a pounding.

However the invasion barges were just commercial light cargo vessels, with no armour. They would have been mincemeat to even an anti-sub flotilla, let alone modern destroyers, cruisers and battleships.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

However the invasion barges were just commercial light cargo vessels, with no armour. They would have been mincemeat to even an anti-sub flotilla, let alone modern destroyers, cruisers and battleships.

It looks like they just modified some river barges. Those things don't even look seaworthy


Altough reading through the Wikipedia page, I also came across this:

The British military was well aware of the dangers posed by German artillery dominating the Dover Strait and on 4 September 1940 the Chief of Naval Staff issued a memo stating that if the Germans "…could get possession of the Dover defile and capture its gun defences from us, then, holding these points on both sides of the Straits, they would be in a position largely to deny those waters to our naval forces". Should the Dover defile be lost, he concluded, the Royal Navy could do little to interrupt the flow of German supplies and reinforcements across the Channel, at least by day, and he further warned that "…there might really be a chance that they (the Germans) might be able to bring a serious weight of attack to bear on this country". The very next day the Chiefs of Staff, after discussing the importance of the defile, decided to reinforce the Dover coast with more ground troops.

Interesting. It seems that the RN believed that once the Germans captured Dover, they could do little to stop a full German invasion. So now what if German Fallschirmjäger had managed to seize Dover? Assuming the Germans would coordinate the action well, they could very quickly support the position with additional reinforcements. In RL such an action would not have been possible because the Germans did not have air superority, but in the alternative scenario, they do. Would this make a full invasion of Britain more likely?

An air borne landing needs rapid reinforcements to secure it though. They travel light on heavy weapons and anti tank etc.

You only have so long before the enemy can bring sufficient pressure to bear on limited suplied and equipped troops.

It would have to be one task force in the AO. I would allow a 2nd task force in if communications and quick map plotting of every ship on the UK side is 110% just to avoid jamming into each other and cutting into the "Duck and Dodge" of another task force ability.

As for the 88mm Flak gun against UK destroyers they both have to get within firing range of each others. 88mm do have optical sights for direct fire but they can also be used as regular artillery. So an artillery spotter using a coastal range finder would make life interesting as hell for the destroyers coming before getting into direct fire range of the 88's. German artillery was not composed of just the 88mm. Something is going to sink, missing super structure, or full of holes from direct hits.

An artillery battery can deploy and redeploy in under five minutes. Going by today's standard of setting up a battery to fire (being free with timing there) and pre-plotted positions to move to. Which should be three or four per battery to move to.

I would think the UK would task one battle group under heavy air cover with a destroyer group going balls out just to jam up a staging area with air cover to.

I'm operating this scenario as a "trap" and not the actual "lets invade"

The Battle of Crete is all the proof you need of what would have happened to a German airborne attack on Dover.

If you want to tilt the balance a bit more towards the Germans in the fleet department you could postulate that Churchill was unable to get the war cabinet to act against their allies of only a few days ago when the French fleet was sunk during operation Catapult

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir

(so the ships stayed around but were not actually in German hands, but possibly could end up there)

or even worse that he brought it up and convinced them up far enough in advance for the French to get word of it and consider it a serious enough breach of the alliance that they decided to rescind the order to scuttle them if it looked like the Germans might get them

and then bend option 2 (perhaps the Britsh didn't evacuate any French troops during Dunkirk, perhaps they used force against them to keep the evacuation 'British Only') far enough that the Viche regime might cooperate with protecting the Operation Sealowe invasion force in order to 'end the war quickly'

not terribly plausible but it could be used to boost the (very faint) chances of the invasion at least happening

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

The German fleet did the same thing at Scappa Flow following WWI. The Germans did it again to the Graf Spee. You don't let anyone seize your ship. You destroy it first. That's how Navies operate.

 Ketara wrote:
They've got a hundred artillery pieces, they're dug in behind the Royal Military Canal, and there are Martello Towers fortified and scattered all over place. A joke against modern tanks and artillery, but remember, 9th and paratroops were carrying basic equipment. No panzers or field guns! But, since we've come this far, let's pretend the Luftwaffe have sufficient air superiority to help out and blast through the opposition.

The Military canal was in theory breachable near RAF Lympne, a day one target for the Germans. The major issue was the element of surprise. If the Fallschirmjäger who took Lympne manged to do so quickly and quietly (a possibility for the chronically undermanned strip) then it's entirely possible that the canal would have been no barrier at all.

 Ketara wrote:

A handful of U-boats on the west side, and mines and a handful of torpedo boats on the east.

This entirely depends on the actual landing date. Remember that the Kreigsmarine pushed for April or May 1941 as opposed to September 1940. If they got their way, you'd have to add some cruisers and battleships to that, including both Bismarck and Tirpitz, which they wished to deploy both of for this. At which point it's the British destroyers getting hammered as they try and clear the mines.

Home fleet estimates were that they could, with about twenty four hours, assemble a force of about 17 cruisers and 57 destroyers to oppose the landing, with the assumption that Admiralty would refuse to risk the bigger boats in the initial effort due to the risk of loss to bombers.

 Ketara wrote:

Since in our imaginary scenario the bombers have free reign though, let's apply logistics, and figure out what those bombers can do to the Royal Navy!

It's often considered that WW2 was where the bomber was shown to have it's day over the battleship, but in reality, munitions were far from the precision guided items we have today. When we were evacuating Dunkirk a few months earlier, and the Luftwaffe had free reign, they only managed to sink a couple of destroyers and dent a few more to varying degrees. Somebody mentioned the American aircraft tests which managed to sink the USS Virgina previously, but the truth is that hitting a ship that's actually moving (as opposed to stationary), has actual fire/repair crews, and AA is a lot harder. Not impossible, but it's not an instant case of 'Bomber vs Battleship equals dead warship'.

True, but dead also does not equate blown to pieces either. A ship can be a loss for operational purposes without being destroyed.


Here's some actual numbers for Dunkirk, as opposed to dismissive sneering.

Cruisers: Present 1 (HMS Calcutta, which was providing AA support) Damaged 1 (same due to bomb near hits)

Destroyers: Present 39 Sunk 6 Damaged to varying degrees19, with10 out of the war for more than a month

Total ships present of all types: 693 Sunk: 226.

 Ketara wrote:

With regards to German bombers attacking warships, even with aerial superiority, and assuming every RN warship stands still, you have to work out the logistics! The first German glide bomb wasn't developed until 1943, a long time after our hypothetical scenario. German aerial torpedo production and development was also far behind that of other nations at the outbreak of WW2, they were making about five a month. Not much to sink the whole British fleet with! That's why most maritime casualties caused by the Luftwaffe were modest when hitting warships, as any form of decent speed, armour or containment rendered more traditional explosives much less effective. Not to mention the fact that you had to hit them dead on with your bomber in the face of AA fire to actually drop your bomb, making your flight paths more predictable. Germany eventually purchased Italian aerial torpedoes, but they wouldn't have arrived by this stage.

And yet, historically, they were able to sink over 282 ships in this area totaling 1,489,795 tons between June and October of 1940. Did those bombs just magically appear in their bomb bays?

Sink the whole RN? Probably not. Sink those ships able to respond in a reasonable amount of time? Oh yes.

 Ketara wrote:

So. Assuming the Luftwaffe are amazing, and support the 9th to such an extent they can blast through all opposition with nothing more than the ammo at their hip, they'll be looking to seize a port.

As you conveniently forget, Folkstone was a day one objective and, for their immediate needs, was sufficient. Everyone knew Dover would be a beast, and while it was a main objective, the assumption was the English would trash it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ketara wrote:

What will they be hitting the battleships with? I've already pointed out the lack of German aerial torpedoes and gliding missiles, and the head on attack into the Royal Fleet that using more standard high explosive bombs required would make them easy targets for AA fire due to predictable flight lanes/patterns.

How the Stuka grab you? Or the ME110? Both would be hell on the ships available, and the Germans had in bulk.

 Ketara wrote:

EDIT:- Also, if we're going past 1940 in this scenario, the RN get access to the Mark IV AA director, which is about as advanced an AA system as existed at the time.

Access yes, but remember that it took more than a year to refit in significant numbers, so assume it'd only be on new ships and larger capital ships.

Sink a large enough ship or ships in a harbour mouth and it could take a few days at the very least to cut and blast the thing out of the way.

Add traps, mines or other things inside to kill and maim the demolition team.. Take a few days work.

Longer I would suggest, Scuba was not really a thing like it is now.

Allot of British ports had ships sunk in and around their mouths to prevent subs and large ships traversing them (+ nets and mines). Portland Bill is a good example and the wrecks provide some excellent dives these days.

As to the idea of just rolling up to Folkstone and moaring up, I find this somewhat raisable. This would have been predicted and plans for. The number of troops in the SE of England would have been immense not even allowing for the 330k men from the Dunkirk operation.

As to to Jihadins point re Britsh destroyers and German defences, 88's and all. Take a look at the Commando raid on St Nazaire - Operation Jubilee. The lightened HMS Campbell town managed to travel 5miles into the Loire Estuary under fire and ram the dry dock at St Nazaire only loosing buoyancy when scuttled prior to the planned detonation of charges to destroy the ship. A fascinating and somewhat insane raid but shows that even antiquated Destoyers were rather resilient.

Upon some reflection, I think perhaps in the long run, an airborne, as opposed to amphibious, invasion would potentially have been more likely by say, 43/44/45. That would have allowed newer German aircraft to come into play in larger numbers in ways the RAF likely would have had great difficulty countering, particularly if the German submarine force were able to damage shipping substantially (even if they couldn't do as well as they'd have liked).

That said, I think more likely than an invasion would have been a negotiated peace in Germany's favor. The German's would have liked to take London I'm sure, but it also wasn't some huge, overriding goal for them nor some jigsaw part of a long term plan of domination.

 notprop wrote:
Longer I would suggest, Scuba was not really a thing like it is now.

Allot of British ports had ships sunk in and around their mouths to prevent subs and large ships traversing them (+ nets and mines). Portland Bill is a good example and the wrecks provide some excellent dives these days.

As to the idea of just rolling up to Folkstone and moaring up, I find this somewhat raisable. This would have been predicted and plans for. The number of troops in the SE of England would have been immense not even allowing for the 330k men from the Dunkirk operation.

As to to Jihadins point re Britsh destroyers and German defences, 88's and all. Take a look at the Commando raid on St Nazaire - Operation Jubilee. The lightened HMS Campbell town managed to travel 5miles into the Loire Estuary under fire and ram the dry dock at St Nazaire only loosing buoyancy when scuttled prior to the planned detonation of charges to destroy the ship. A fascinating and somewhat insane raid but shows that even antiquated Destoyers were rather resilient.

Scuba was pretty new but if willing to just blast somthing apart with less care to minor port damage etc you could do it faster than if you where more careful.

Plus depending on ships draft you use, not always have to remove everything before using port.

Good point Prop but remember.....engine room, propellers (screws?) rudder were under water and under negative elevation range of artillery (direct fire). Not knowing much of German artillery at the time I figure and trying to remember my first MOS and half forgotten memories from almost 20 years ago

Also, I'm not a Navy guy but isn't there a 2nd Con room within the Destroyer?

I think a 88mm fuze/round combo was
AP AT = Armor piercing Anti Tank
HE = High Explosives (Flak)

With different fuzes of
Delay/Varible time (Anti Air Flak)
PD = Point detonate
Solid round of AP of some sort

 Jihadin wrote:
Good point Prop but remember.....engine room, propellers (screws?) rudder were under water and under negative elevation range of artillery (direct fire). Not knowing much of German artillery at the time I figure and trying to remember my first MOS and half forgotten memories from almost 20 years ago

Also, I'm not a Navy guy but isn't there a 2nd Con room within the Destroyer?

I think a 88mm fuze/round combo was
AP AT = Armor piercing Anti Tank
HE = High Explosives (Flak)

With different fuzes of
Delay/Varible time (Anti Air Flak)
PD = Point detonate
Solid round of AP of some sort

Also too add, there where 3+ types of 88mm gun. Some where more AA others for tanks. Some later war but others would be more capable of denting warship armour .

Most ww2 warships had secondary systems, battle bridge is not too ar fetched. Royal navy did like redundancy

Generally speaking, the more expensive something is to make, the more redundancies it tends to get

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Altough reading through the Wikipedia page, I also came across this:

The British military was well aware of the dangers posed by German artillery dominating the Dover Strait and on 4 September 1940 the Chief of Naval Staff issued a memo stating that if the Germans "…could get possession of the Dover defile and capture its gun defences from us, then, holding these points on both sides of the Straits, they would be in a position largely to deny those waters to our naval forces". Should the Dover defile be lost, he concluded, the Royal Navy could do little to interrupt the flow of German supplies and reinforcements across the Channel, at least by day, and he further warned that "…there might really be a chance that they (the Germans) might be able to bring a serious weight of attack to bear on this country". The very next day the Chiefs of Staff, after discussing the importance of the defile, decided to reinforce the Dover coast with more ground troops.

Interesting. It seems that the RN believed that once the Germans captured Dover, they could do little to stop a full German invasion. So now what if German Fallschirmjäger had managed to seize Dover? Assuming the Germans would coordinate the action well, they could very quickly support the position with additional reinforcements. In RL such an action would not have been possible because the Germans did not have air superority, but in the alternative scenario, they do. Would this make a full invasion of Britain more likely?

Something to be aware of when examining historical documents, is that in a wartime scenario ( where resources are scarce) people don't always write what they mean. It could well be that he was trying to get additional funding or material diverted for fortification in Dover for example, and thus exaggerating the risk posed if Germany took Dover.

I'm not saying that is the case here, but merely cautioning against taking every memo the RN ever produced at their word. God only knows, I handle enough of the bloody things, and it would be a damn sight simpler if you could. I think it an interesting thing though, that after they pushed this as an issue in such stark alarmist terms, they immediately got what they wanted!

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
They've got a hundred artillery pieces, they're dug in behind the Royal Military Canal, and there are Martello Towers fortified and scattered all over place. A joke against modern tanks and artillery, but remember, 9th and paratroops were carrying basic equipment. No panzers or field guns! But, since we've come this far, let's pretend the Luftwaffe have sufficient air superiority to help out and blast through the opposition.

The Military canal was in theory breachable near RAF Lympne, a day one target for the Germans. The major issue was the element of surprise. If the Fallschirmjäger who took Lympne manged to do so quickly and quietly (a possibility for the chronically undermanned strip) then it's entirely possible that the canal would have been no barrier at all.

Breachable with what? Light machine guns, grenades, and anti-tank guns? It's a canal! (This is pre-Crete, so no air dropped artillery pieces in packages). In the face of over a hundred artillery pieces and several opposing units? Unlikely, I should think.

And how would the Germans have known this? IIRC, Germany dispatched 20 spies into Britain in anticipation of Sealion and all were caught (due to their laughable accents in a few cases, funnily enough). If you look at German planning, they didn't even know which roads were suitable for using, and screwed up the locations of some of the major cities. Placed in a foreign country where even the road signs have been removed, I think the German would need to be either exceedingly lucky or psychic to pull off what you're describing.

Which is fine. Luck happens in every war. But, this entire invasion would have had to have been one long string of incredible luck/coincidences, from launching the boats to somehow catching Britain napping, to somehow defeating the RAF, to somehow neutralising the RN, to somehow seizing the facilities needed, to somehow keeping a supply chain open. Which was what made it a likely disaster.

This entirely depends on the actual landing date. Remember that the Kreigsmarine pushed for April or May 1941 as opposed to September 1940. If they got their way, you'd have to add some cruisers and battleships to that, including both Bismarck and Tirpitz, which they wished to deploy both of for this. At which point it's the British destroyers getting hammered as they try and clear the mines.

I already responded elsewhere that postponing it for another eight months takes us to a different scenario altogether, which I wouldn't even begin to dream of speculating about. I'm smart enough to know when I don't know enough.

Home fleet estimates were that they could, with about twenty four hours, assemble a force of about 17 cruisers and 57 destroyers to oppose the landing, with the assumption that Admiralty would refuse to risk the bigger boats in the initial effort due to the risk of loss to bombers.

What Admirals do and don't do in planning often has very little to do with what actually happens on the day when the decisions are taken.

Regardless, point 1. Context. Admiralty planning no doubt took one look at the situation and decided that cruisers and destroyers were all that was needed. They also no doubt concurred invasion was highly unlikely. The proof? The fact that they didn't reassign more units to the defence of the homeland. They simply didn't rate German invasion as that high a risk, and so didn't feel the need to risk the bigger ships.

After all, why take even the tiniest risk with bigger more expensive units when smaller, cheaper, far more easily replaceable units are available? Economy of force is a strength, not a weakness.

True, but dead also does not equate blown to pieces either. A ship can be a loss for operational purposes without being destroyed.

Here's some actual numbers for Dunkirk, as opposed to dismissive sneering.

Cruisers: Present 1 (HMS Calcutta, which was providing AA support) Damaged 1 (same due to bomb near hits)

Destroyers: Present 39 Sunk 6 Damaged to varying degrees19, with10 out of the war for more than a month

Total ships present of all types: 693 Sunk: 226.

I repeat, they had full reign, sank a couple of destroyers, and dented a few more. In naval terms, that's exactly what it is. The fate of a few destroyers (or even cruisers to an extent), when you've hundreds of the things and plenty of minor shipyards capable knocking the things out at a rate of knots, is of about as much consequence as losing a few tanks was back then. Sure, it kind of sucks, but it really doesn't say a huge amount about anything, except for the fact that with a damn lot of firepower over Dunkirk (including Junkers 87 Stuka dive bombers), the Luftwaffe didn't achieve anything particularly impressive.

On one side of the coin, it was their first time of ever trying to attack small warships like that. On the flip side, they never really got much better at it within this time period. Yes they can damage naval craft. But it's difficult, time consuming, dangerous, and the munitions that they used really weren't suited very well to the task. That's more or less all there is to it.

Meanwhile, talking about the number of civilian ships sunk above and here:-

And yet, historically, they were able to sink over 282 ships in this area totaling 1,489,795 tons between June and October of 1940. Did those bombs just magically appear in their bomb bays?

Means absolutely diddley squat in the context of this discussion. We're talking about warships, with AA, higher speeds, damage containment and more. Divebombing Gramps Longbeard's yacht at Dunkirk or dropping high explosive on a collier really isn't here nor there.

Sink the whole RN? Probably not. Sink those ships able to respond in a reasonable amount of time? Oh yes.

Nope. I already gave reasons as to why the Germans would have trouble sinking any substantial number of warships, by pointing to the severe lack of suitable distance aerial torpedoes/glide bombs, and highlighting the vulnerabilities/issues that using what they did have would cause. Handwaving it away with, 'Well they managed to sink a load of shipping' as a response seems frankly, bizare. Sinking slow moving cargo ships is really not much of an accomplishment, and really, really, has absolutely no place as a counterpoint on how the Luftwaffe would fare when trying to attack warships.

As you conveniently forget, Folkstone was a day one objective and, for their immediate needs, was sufficient. Everyone knew Dover would be a beast, and while it was a main objective, the assumption was the English would trash it.

God forbid the local port authorities ever rigged it blow, and then the RN sent a battleship through a day later to pound it and make sure it was out of commission. Or just kitted out a couple of really big merchantmen to use as blockships (Zeebrugge style!). Or positioned artillery around it before the next German wave could really deploy and started dropping shells on it as German ships tried to dock.

You know, the sorts of plans that military commanders actually (and sometimes too frequently..) come up with.

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 Ketara wrote:

How the Stuka grab you? Or the ME110? Both would be hell on the ships available, and the Germans had in bulk.

The stukas that successfully dented and sank a handful of destroyers at Dunkirk, right? Over the course of approximately 1,882 bombing and 1,997 fighter sweeps that the Luftwaffe flew through the Battle and Evacuation of Dunkirk? God only knows what the Royal Navy Fleet with all their AA, the Fleet Air Arm, the RAF cover (which would have existed, if we're not playing make-pretend) would have done, eh?


In all seriousness and cordiality Baron, why are are you so interested in trying to prove that Sea Lion was workable to any degree? You seem really attached to the idea?

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Interesting. It seems that the RN believed that once the Germans captured Dover, they could do little to stop a full German invasion. So now what if German Fallschirmjäger had managed to seize Dover? Assuming the Germans would coordinate the action well, they could very quickly support the position with additional reinforcements. In RL such an action would not have been possible because the Germans did not have air superority, but in the alternative scenario, they do. Would this make a full invasion of Britain more likely?

Sure, but it isn’t ‘once’ the Germans captured Dover, it’s ‘if’ the Germans captured Dover. Securing a major port is the trickiest part of the operation, you can’t just assume that bit is done and dusted. The RN in your quote is going through what might happen if proper and obvious defences aren’t put in place, as a prelude to adding those defences.

And it’s because those kinds of precautions were made by every country to any port potentially under attack, that makes directly attacking a port is somewhere between a massive gamble and suicide. The Dieppe disaster showed that to the Allies, and that’s why they instead made beach landings and relied on improvised ports, until they could capture major ports later in the war.

 sebster wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Interesting. It seems that the RN believed that once the Germans captured Dover, they could do little to stop a full German invasion. So now what if German Fallschirmjäger had managed to seize Dover? Assuming the Germans would coordinate the action well, they could very quickly support the position with additional reinforcements. In RL such an action would not have been possible because the Germans did not have air superority, but in the alternative scenario, they do. Would this make a full invasion of Britain more likely?

Sure, but it isn’t ‘once’ the Germans captured Dover, it’s ‘if’ the Germans captured Dover. Securing a major port is the trickiest part of the operation, you can’t just assume that bit is done and dusted. The RN in your quote is going through what might happen if proper and obvious defences aren’t put in place, as a prelude to adding those defences.

And it’s because those kinds of precautions were made by every country to any port potentially under attack, that makes directly attacking a port is somewhere between a massive gamble and suicide. The Dieppe disaster showed that to the Allies, and that’s why they instead made beach landings and relied on improvised ports, until they could capture major ports later in the war.

True. Such an operation would have been extremely difficult. But German paratroopers did show on Crete that they could pull off such difficult operations. And I think that the fact that Dover was subsequently reinforced, does show that at the very least the British considered a German attack to have a reasonable chance of succes (hence the need for reinforcements).
Altough I am not sure if the Germans would ever launch an airborne attack. I just remembered that while the Fallschirmjäger on Crete were very succesful, they did suffer huge casualties after which Hitler forbade the use of airborne landings and they had to fight on foot for the rest of the war.

One thing that I always got wrong about Sealion was that I assumed the British would remain relatively conservative with their fleet. After all, they'd always been careful not to lose the battleships, and usually plans didn't risk them. An invasion of the home Islands would be different. You're okay with losing battleships, because an amphibious assault is something you generally only need to defeat once!

 BaronIveagh wrote:
And yet, historically, they were able to sink over 282 ships in this area totaling 1,489,795 tons between June and October of 1940. Did those bombs just magically appear in their bomb bays?

Sink the whole RN? Probably not. Sink those ships able to respond in a reasonable amount of time? Oh yes.

It’s a nonsense to include all British all 282 ships lost, most of those ships were transports. What matters in the scenario we’re talking about is the ability to sink warships.

Over the course of the war, the Germans were able to account for two battleships, one battlecruiser, four aircraft carriers, two escort carriers, 12 cruisers, and a bunch of destroyers. Heavy losses for sure, but inflicted over five years of fighting. In order to prevent the complete annihilation of their landing fleet, Germany would have to inflict far heavier casualties in a single day, probably less than a single day. And they’d have to do it while on the defensive, attempting to shield their transports.

And in 1941, whatever day you picked, they’d be against about a dozen battleships and battlecruisers, another 30 odd cruisers, around 150 fleet and escort destroyers, 30 odd subs, and countless torpedo boats and other ships.

As I mentioned earlier, the US and UK were so worried about the potential havoc that the Tirpitz could inflict on the landings they had special raids and countless contingencies in place for just that one boat. And now we’re being asked to believe that Germany could nullify a dozen battleships as well as the other 200 odd ships in the home fleet.

UK was fighting a two front war at the time. Japan in the Pacific and Germany in the Atlantic.
I'm 110% positive that if Germany made a go of Sealion and actually landed significant ground forces on the Shore.......it be like total damn mayhem to coordinate any effective defense because everyone west of the invasion beaches would head east into the German war machine and ninja kicking whatever forces Germany had on the shore straight into the Channel.

Its like the US. What idiot would invade the US of A knowing we have the 2nd Amendment and a wide assortment/selection of fire arms. The enemy won't be sweating US military units they would have a general idea of where we are. Its the civilians who be full of vinegar and bullets looking to get a few

Only one person in history can pull off a Nazi invasion and get away with it