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 Polonius wrote:
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!

Sure, I think most navies are generally very conservative with their capital ships. Generally this is because any individual mission is worth a lot less than a capital ship. But as you say defending against a seaborne invasion wipes that consideration away – no point having battleships left if Germany is over-running the South of England.

And it’s also worth noting that the British under Cunningham in the Mediterranean showed they were willing to risk and lose ships in order to meet their strategic goals.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:
True. Such an operation would have been extremely difficult. But German paratroopers did show on Crete that they could pull off such difficult operations.

Crete was achieved, barely, when up against 20,000 odd defenders, while the Germans had overwhelming air superiority. The British would have hundreds of thousands of troops with armour to react to an airborne attack on Crete, and would have been at least competitive in the air, even if we assume a longer Battle of Britain gave the Luftwaffe an ascendancy.

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).

Definitely, I’m not saying it couldn’t happen no matter what anyone did. I’m saying that once the threat was realised, the inevitable British response in fortifying the port made it near impossible.

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.

That’s a story that’s been told a lot, but it’s only half the story. Hitler was certainly shocked at the rate of losses, which is interesting given how later in the war a single, unremarkable day would produce far greater casualties. But he did appear to get over it – there were plans later drawn up for an airborne assaults on Malta that never happened, first because Afrika Corps successes made the capture of Malta look unnecessary, and later because the Germans lacked the resources to make the attack possible. And don’t quote me on this but I believe when Spain denied Germany an overland route to attack Gibraltar, an airborne attack was briefly considered.

 Jihadin wrote:
English Channel is narrow at Calias. So if Germany had a crap load of 88mm covering a two mile approach
Along with other similar cannons same and higher. that's one Hell of a dangerous two mile stretch for the RN to even try to nail the barges at Calais

So two miles of kill zone over open water for water craft and aircraft's

88s wouldn't even dent the armor on a cruiser, let alone a Battleship. Hell, most Destroyers could probably shrug off hits from an 88 to their hull (though not necessarily to their superstructure/deck).

TBH, I would expect you to have a better grasp of this stuff, Jihadin.

I am going to take a different what-if, and consider what-if Singapore was never historically attacked by Japan.

Then with the comfort of our armchairs I will ask if the massive Singapore garrison could fall to Japan, the logical answer is that it couldnt. The port was being reinforced by advanced fighters, a battleship group was stationed in its defence, and had a massive garrison and was on an island.

However Arthur Percival was in command, and he was an idiot prince of idiots, and he blew it badly.

Good post, however I question how realistic it is to assume that the Brits wouldve run out of planes. Every source I've ever seen indicates that the RAF had far more planes than it needed, but couldn't train the necessary pilots fast enough. Frankly I dont see a situation in which the RAF runs out of fighters or bombers without the Germans maintaining an extended steady round-the-clock campaign against the British Isles, something which they struggled to do historically and which was just as destructive to the Luftwaffe as it was the RAF. Beyond that, the scenario is pretty heavily idealized and assumes that the Brits wouldn't counter-attack across the Solent while the FJ's airlanding ops were taking place - something that may have been bloody, but would eventually work out in favor of the British army as the FJ would be at an inherent positional and logistical disadvantage.

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?

Its a more realistic place to attack than the Isle of Wight, the problem is that its on the mainland, which means it can be easily counter-attacked/reinforced. Beyond that, the terrain there doesn't, from what I have seen, lend itself well to being defended (generally fairly flat with not a lot of trees), and the cliffs themselves present a pretty big barrier to establishing a beachhead/sealift operations, meaning you would have to capture one of the nearby ports intact, and then hold it. While seizing the location would have denied the RN access to the channel from the East, I'm not sure it would have been conducive to establishing a successful springboard to invade the wider English countryside.

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?

Many of those "ships" were civilian shipping and merchant vessels which usually were sunk or otherwise disintegrated (being made of wood and all) by machine gun and cannon fire, or were just 'close enough' to where the bomb landed in the water when it inevitably missed its target.

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).

Only if one assumes that the Germans didn't spend the previous 3/4/5 years trying to bomb England and Russia. This also assumes that the US sits out the war and doesn't station several divisions of tanks and infantry, as well as several numbered air forces worth of fighters and bombers, on the British home island.

But German paratroopers did show on Crete that they could pull off such difficult operations.

With such horrendous losses that Hitler forbade them from ever doing so again? Crete worked because it was an island garrisoned by what were generally poorly trained and poorly equipped troops that lacked significant numbers of heavy guns and equipment, as well as supplies in general, and which was effectively isolated from reinforcement and support from the RAF and RN by the Luftwaffe and Regia Marina. Thats to say nothing of the leadership situation (or lack thereof) that resulted in poorly prepared and planned defenses. People forget that Operation Mercury came dangerously close to failing at several points in the first couple days against resistance which, relative to what they would have experienced landing at Dover or Wight, was inconsequential.

 Jihadin wrote:
...
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

Jokes aside, anyone with the wit and resources to successfully invade mainland USA isn't likely to be too concerned by the actions of Cleatis n' Billy-bob's militia no matter how much tacticool gear might be to hand at the time.

But then since this thread has 88's (why is it always 88's? ) threatening the RN then why not Rocket powered or stealth Nazis eh?

Go Wolverines!

There's weird fetishization of the 88s. When they're just ordinary cannons of that type, comparable for example, to the American 90mm. And certainly under no circumstances on par with ANY sort of naval armament. A Destroyer outguns a battery of 88s or even 105s very easily.

Also, people are seriously bringing up 'mobility' into this? A Destroyer's potentially moving 30+ MPH while firing! Against a target that's stationary, easily ranged by local features, and so-forth.

Heavy naval-scale batteries are a bigger problem for naval ships, in part due to heavy bunker construction. But those are immobile and mapped out ahead of time: More of a cost-benefit decision of how much it costs to attack than anything else.

 Killionaire wrote:
There's weird fetishization of the 88s. When they're just ordinary cannons of that type, comparable for example, to the American 90mm.

The 88 had a greater impact as it was there at the start of the war, when high velocity AT was rare, and it was the first to be mounted on a tank. I think that led to a lot of the fantasy about it. It dominated for some time, especially during the early parts of the war that everyone focuses on.

But there's a fantasy about German kit in general, in part because so much of it just looks awesome, but also a bunch of other reasons.

The 88 wasn't even an anti tank gun.


It was an anti air gun that they realised was pretty good on the ground too.

But seriously, it ain't harming a capital ship.

 welshhoppo wrote:
The 88 wasn't even an anti tank gun.


It was an anti air gun that they realised was pretty good on the ground too.

It wasn't originally intended as one, but once it was found to do the job rather well, and were increasingly pushed in to the role. In fairly short order 88s were being built with new platforms better suited to AT than AA work. And in time they stuck the thing on a tank, the Tiger was actually a design that had floated around since the mid to late 30s with no real combat role to justify the resources and engineering difficulty. It was only when Germany found a need to make their premier AT gun mobile that they refitted it to the Tiger chassis they already had in design.

But seriously, it ain't harming a capital ship.

Definitely.

 sebster wrote:
But there's a fantasy about German kit in general, in part because so much of it just looks awesome, but also a bunch of other reasons.

Much of it was pretty advanced and performed very well, but that was when it was in perfect condition and/or design errors had been ironed out. And ofc legendary fighter/tank aces made their machines famous, but people forget that these guys fought for years and always got to take the best functioning vehicle in the unit once they became propaganda figures. For every design worth adopting/copying (MG34/42, the Sturmgewehr or the rocket technology) they also put out a lot of crap that only wasted money and materials. But people remember the shiny things while the failures are reduced to curiosity items for comedy articles.

 welshhoppo wrote:
The 88 wasn't even an anti tank gun.


It was an anti air gun that they realised was pretty good on the ground too.

But seriously, it ain't harming a capital ship.

No way harming a capital cruiser +
They could mount also secondary guns heavier than a 88mm yet alone main 6-8 inch battery. Doomed if its a 12-14 inch. Near hit would kill and maim with ease. There outranged by duel purposes AA mounts.

Also, as we are on the failings of German technology. The German torpedo also had several issues that weren't sorted until the end of 1941. They found out that the magnetic detonators didn't really work very well in actual combat. This stopped them from being fired under a vessel and cracking the keel. They had to use impact detonators, which would more than likely bounce off the torpedo belt of a battleship. Then the the submarine would be given away due to the torpedos trail. Because the electronic ones had a very short range.

The Germans didn't have any effective aerial torpedoes until 1942. Their record of air-to-sea attacks in 39-41 was pretty miserable.

The Ju87 had some success dive-bombing during the Norway and Dunkirk battles, but it also was the worst performing aircraft in the Battle of Britain and had to be withdrawn due to excessive losses.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Germans didn't have any effective aerial torpedoes until 1942. Their record of air-to-sea attacks in 39-41 was pretty miserable.

The Ju87 had some success dive-bombing during the Norway and Dunkirk battles, but it also was the worst performing aircraft in the Battle of Britain and had to be withdrawn due to excessive losses.

And the war in the Pacific shows that even with crack pilots and good machines, air-sea battles don't result in the annihilation of the enemy.

This has been quite an interesting discussion, and it's prompted me to look further into the subject.

For starters, the fire control systems of naval ships back then was awesome - able to crank out tons of heavy shells at an impressive rate. The problem of calculating a moving ship on the accuracy of its firing, was a problem that navies had been aware of fore centuries and by WW2, had been able to successfully cope with it.

Armour plating was also pretty good back then. As others have pointed out, the idea that a 88 could even dent a cruiser, never mind a capital ship, is laughable.

It's obviously not impossible to sink a destroyer, or a cruiser, or a battleship, but I was struck by how much damage these ships can actually take.

Force Z, famously sunk by Japanese bombers, managed to soak up a lot of damage, and evade numerous other attacks before going down.

Despite being stationary, the sunk American battleships at Pearl Harbour soaked up a ton of damage.

Just two examples, but proof of the beating a WW2 warship can take before it sinks beneath the waves.

WW2 battleships were amazingly, absurdly, resilient. The problem was that the battleships had construction and maintenance costs to match that resiliency, and that aircraft, mines, and submarines could overcome that resiliency at a far lower price point, and there's a reason that you can count on two hands the number of engagements that Battleships proper engaged in direct combat with other enemy fleet assets over like...50 years, and really only 3 engagements where the battleships acted as the primary combatants (Tsushima, Jutland, and Bismarck).

Yeah, the value of a fleet in being usually outweighed the risk of taking out a battleship. Airpower, torpedo boats, subs, and mines were all lower cost, but they weren't deadly enough to rely on. They were just deadly enough to scare the dreadnoughts.

If your fleet costs a few percent of your nations GDP, you're not going to risk it, even if there is only a 10-20% chance of losing a dreadnought.

that calculus changes during an amphibious assault. Suddenly, there's no reason to be coy with the battleships, and that 10-20% loss rate that was scary before looks like barely enough slow down the Royal Navy from crushing the barge fleet like skittles.

There were several sea to sea battles in the Pacific, partly because everyone had so many surface combatant ships (destroyers, cruisers and battleships) so they got used.

But anyway, in considering the hypothetical Operation Sealion, the battleships were there, and they certinaly would have been used if needed.

The RN always showed a willingness in WW2 to engage the enemy more closely.

I am trying to see how this ends up in any way other than a slaughter for the Germans.

Unlike DDay their opposition still had
*A substantial air wing (and IIRC but British RAF production was on par or actually superior to German).
*A very substantial navy (as in the second largest in the world at that time, or first depending on how you count it). Their navy had a particularly large count of heavy surface ships which would have been well suited to stopping an invasion (which of course was the point). Even if the big ships were an aircraft magnet, that leaves the destroyers more free to run absolute havoc among the pathetic German shipping. Also, as the US and Japanese navies learned, aircraft not designed, and crews not skilled in ship attacks tend not to be effective. Bombing poor freighters is one thing. Trying to bomb the King George is something completely different.
*The German transport available was completely unfeasible for a cross channel invasion. Compare Higgins boats and dedicated LSIs and LSTs to river barges and sea liners they were contemplating. Its almost insulting. What is a torpedo boat going to do to a sealiner in the channel? Imagine the slaughter one destroyer with a pissed off Tommy captain is going to do? They wouldn't have to fire-just ram through the barges like an rhino. The slaughter would have been terrible.

EDIT: none of that even considers British submarines.

 Polonius wrote:
Yeah, the value of a fleet in being usually outweighed the risk of taking out a battleship. Airpower, torpedo boats, subs, and mines were all lower cost, but they weren't deadly enough to rely on. They were just deadly enough to scare the dreadnoughts.

If your fleet costs a few percent of your nations GDP, you're not going to risk it, even if there is only a 10-20% chance of losing a dreadnought.

that calculus changes during an amphibious assault. Suddenly, there's no reason to be coy with the battleships, and that 10-20% loss rate that was scary before looks like barely enough slow down the Royal Navy from crushing the barge fleet like skittles.

As Sun Tzu once said: one man fighting for his home is worth 10 of the enemy. If Britain's survival depended on a few sunken battleships, then that's a price that would have been paid in a heartbeat.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
There were several sea to sea battles in the Pacific, partly because everyone had so many surface combatant ships (destroyers, cruisers and battleships) so they got used.

But anyway, in considering the hypothetical Operation Sealion, the battleships were there, and they certinaly would have been used if needed.

The RN always showed a willingness in WW2 to engage the enemy more closely.

One of my favourite Royal Navy quotes is this: it takes the service 3 years to build a ship. It takes 300 hundred years to build a tradition.


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 Frazzled wrote:
I am trying to see how this ends up in any way other than a slaughter for the Germans.

Unlike DDay their opposition still had
*A substantial air wing (and IIRC but British RAF production was on par or actually superior to German).
*A very substantial navy (as in the second largest in the world at that time, or first depending on how you count it). Their navy had a particularly large count of heavy surface ships which would have been well suited to stopping an invasion (which of course was the point). Even if the big ships were an aircraft magnet, that leaves the destroyers more free to run absolute havoc among the pathetic German shipping. Also, as the US and Japanese navies learned, aircraft not designed, and crews not skilled in ship attacks tend not to be effective. Bombing poor freighters is one thing. Trying to bomb the King George is something completely different.
*The German transport available was completely unfeasible for a cross channel invasion. Compare Higgins boats and dedicated LSIs and LSTs to river barges and sea liners they were contemplating. Its almost insulting. What is a torpedo boat going to do to a sealiner in the channel? Imagine the slaughter one destroyer with a pissed off Tommy captain is going to do? They wouldn't have to fire-just ram through the barges like an rhino. The slaughter would have been terrible.

EDIT: none of that even considers British submarines.

The Royal Navy was the largest in the world in 1940. It also had the advantage of having many of its capital ships built in the 1930s, so their technological advantage was pretty good.

And as I said earlier, the German Navy took a beating during the Norway campaign, which factored into the decision to abandon Sea Lion.

Germany's loss of Bismark and Graf Spee would also have impacted.

 Frazzled wrote:
Germany's loss of Bismark and Graf Spee would also have impacted.

Worth checking out if you haven't seen it, but the movie, battle of the river plate, which deals with the sinking of the Graf Spee, is a classic British war film, and one of my top 10 war movies. The battle scenes are good for the time.

Graf spee was built to kill smaller ships. She took damage off 3 cruisers. Yet alone a BB main battery. HMS Hood in reverse. No chance vs a KGB or the ainciant but big gunned ww1 battleship. It had 15 inch guns, pre treaty.

Bismarck different beast. That would be ships luke the kGV in a inhuman steel plated slugging match battle of fleet titans firing one tons shells.

Numbers wise, RN could throw ton of warships into the fight.
Losing a BB is nothing to losing the entire country. Get one BB into that barge fleet and low draft bargs get rammed, blasted and masacred by a angry 30-40k ton warship that can ram aside anything it wants pretty much in that fleet.

Battle of the river plate is a classic, along with sink the bismark and longest day.

Any way we play this. German Navy is having a tough fight.

Old RN standing order. Engage the enemy. Full stop. 3 cruisers had the guts to take on the graf spee, with secondries size of there main guns.they closed, engaged, took 11 inch hits, closed with a far bigger enemy and despite the odds still engaged in combat
No different is invasion. RN would of got stuck in and raised as much hell as possible before they got sunk. Ramming, guns, whatever it took..

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Germany's loss of Bismark and Graf Spee would also have impacted.

Worth checking out if you haven't seen it, but the movie, battle of the river plate, which deals with the sinking of the Graf Spee, is a classic British war film, and one of my top 10 war movies. The battle scenes are good for the time.

I've seen it. Beautiful film. Sink the Bismark is also good.

Chaos...if you read further of my posts you see where my memory was coming around.
If I remember correctly I mention 88's and other assortment of tubes (artillery)
Since Germany artillery class fame weapon was the 88....throw in the tube rocket launcher?....for the life of me I am not going to remember every German WWII artillery piece by class and specification

 Jihadin wrote:

Since Germany artillery class fame weapon was the 88....throw in the tube rocket launcher?....for the life of me I am not going to remember every German WWII artillery piece by class and specification

Nebelwerfers? That's a relatively small carriage-mounted rocket thrower. But even if you had a division of (edit: Soviet) Katyusha heavy rocket artillery (Stalin's Organ) you're no match for ship grade guns. The large German railroad guns could probably sink or at least cripple a battleship with one hit, but there was no way to aim them fast - you'd have to know exactly where and at what heading the ship was, calculate an incredibly precise strike and then hope for the best. A hit from a 7.1 ton 80cm AP projectile should ruin the day of anything floating. But as said, hitting a moving ship...

Yeah they do well hitting Kent with those things never mind a town or port. A moving target would be nigh on impossible.

In his defense, the Germans later put in some big antinaval rifles in turrents along the Wall, but thats a completely different scenario. Texas and another battleship engaged two at Cherbourg harbor, eventually destroying them after a bit of a gunbattle.

Anyone has a good source for decking on UK ships?

Spetulhu wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:

Since Germany artillery class fame weapon was the 88....throw in the tube rocket launcher?....for the life of me I am not going to remember every German WWII artillery piece by class and specification

Nebelwerfers?

Spetulhu wrote:
The large German railroad guns could probably sink or at least cripple a battleship with one hit, but there was no way to aim them fast - you'd have to know exactly where and at what heading the ship was, calculate an incredibly precise strike and then hope for the best. A hit from a 7.1 ton 80cm AP projectile should ruin the day of anything floating. But as said, hitting a moving ship...

Yeah, there is no way those railroad guns could ever hit a moving ship. They even had trouble hitting the fortifications of Sevastopol, and those weren't known for moving very fast...

Spetulhu wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:

Since Germany artillery class fame weapon was the 88....throw in the tube rocket launcher?....for the life of me I am not going to remember every German WWII artillery piece by class and specification

The large German railroad guns could probably sink or at least cripple a battleship with one hit, but there was no way to aim them fast - you'd have to know exactly where and at what heading the ship was, calculate an incredibly precise strike and then hope for the best. A hit from a 7.1 ton 80cm AP projectile should ruin the day of anything floating. But as said, hitting a moving ship...

The German Schwerer Gustav is about the only land gun capable of dealing out really decisive damage to a battleship, as it was about a 31 inch gun (bigger than anything in naval service).

There were a handful of guns which could have exchanged fire on sub-par terms. The Karl-Gerat's were about ten and a half inch guns, but only seven were built from 1940-42. I believe the Germans retained the use of a few 24 cm Kanone M.16's left over from WW1, and had half a dozen new 24 cm Haubitze 39 in service. All these were about 9.5 inch guns, but battleships were built to absorb shots from 16 inch guns, so likely wouldn't have taken any serious damage. They could have been an issue for most cruisers though.

On a lower level, the Nazis had plenty of the 21 cm Mörser 18, and 21 cm Kanone which are about 8 inch guns. Those would cause trouble for destroyers and lighter cruisers, but wouldn't scratch a battleship much. But yes, 8 inches was the average size of a German heavy field gun that was possessed in any number, or which could be assembled without large amounts of effort.

The RN used a non-slip material called Corticene. It came in several shades of brown depending on the manufacturer and age.

The deck armour depends on the ship and can be looked up in Jane's or Conway's. RN carriers had armoured decks. Kamikaze planes bounced off them.

Merchant Navy and civilian ships would use various materials.