Operation Sealion artillery

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vakarr
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Operation Sealion artillery

Post by vakarr »

Hi, in the notes for Operation Sealion it states that the Germans would have landed without any artillery support. The notes for Sealion look like they have been copied without any verification from Wikipedia or the unreferenced Alison Brooks essay. It is incorrect to say there was no artillery support. The complete German OOB for Operation Sealion is supplied in Peter Schenk "Invasion of England", Conway Press, 1990.

The German Fire Support Plan for Operation Sealion

Fire support was to be provided by artillery mounted on ships, barges, and rafts; armoured vehicles landed with the first wave, artillery landed with the first wave, super heavy batteries on the French shore; and by the Luftwaffe. The lack of artillery after the landing was to be compensated by air attacks. Co-operation between the German army and air force was so good in 1940 that Guderian’s armoured corps racing across France to the Channel could expect an aircraft attack within 45-75 minutes of a request being issued. The army had 40 Henshel Hs 123 aircraft of its own for reconnaissance, dive-bombing, and artillery observation.

1. The Cross-Channel Guns

Nearly 100 guns of calibres ranging from 21 to 38 cm (8 – 15”) were eventually assembled on the French side of the Channel by the invasion date. They were to provide artillery support to the troops in England and assist in sinking British shipping in the Channel Narrows. 24 15 cm (5.9 in) guns and 72 10 cm (3.9 in) guns were to be sent across with the second wave. About one third of them were to be deployed in England by the end of the first week and deployed to defend the supply ships. The super heavy guns, with ranges between 28 and 37 miles (plus one K12 8” gun allegedly with a range of 115 km /71 miles), were placed between Sangatte and Boulogne, aimed at the British coast between Ramsgate and Dungeness. The Channel at that point is 34 km (21 miles) wide, and the invasion beaches and main supply/invasion routes would have been in their effective range.. Nine of the largest naval guns (the firepower of a late war battleship) were installed in huge permanent emplacements or turrets that would later come to symbolise the Atlantic Wall. Others were railway guns or motorised batteries. Many were unsuitable for use against fast-moving naval targets but all would have provided effective gunfire support for the troops on the beaches or against static defences. Land-based guns have always been feared by navies because they are on a stationary platform and are thus more accurate than those on board ship. They started shelling the Dover area during the second week of August.

The 21 cm K12 (E) had an effective range of 45 km, which is far short of 75 miles. Shell fragments from the gun were found near Chatham, Kent, 88 km (55 miles) from the nearest point on the French coast. There were two guns and they stayed along the Channel Coast for the war as Artillerie-Batterie 701 (E). Special concrete shelters were built for them near Batterie Todt, which could be used when they weren’t firing.

Senior British naval staff thought that the Channel Guns would be a menace if both sides of the Channel were occupied. On 4 Sep 1940 the Chief of Naval Staff issued a memo stating that if the Germans "...could get possession of the Dover defile & capture its gun defences...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 RN could do little to interrupt the flow of German supplies & reinforcements across the Channel, at least by day, & he further warned that "...there might really be a chance that they might be able to bring a serious weight of attack to bear on this country".

2. Floating artillery
Nearly every boat in in the invasion fleet was armed, with one 20 or 37mm AA gun per barge. Some of The Siebel/Herbert ferries carried only a full complement of AA guns, including 88mm guns and are jokingly referred to as “destroyers”. These AA guns were to provide direct fire support to the beaches. Some ships and boats also had 75mm or 105mm artillery guns mounted at the front, and 30 coasters were converted just to provide fire support. The invasion fleet consisted of:
• 159 transports
• 1859 barges (after losses due to air attack)
• 397 tugs
• 11 Herbert ferries
• 12 Seibel ferries
• 1100 motor boats (only lightly armed, meant for command and control during the crossing and manoeuvring of barges to shore and between ship and shore)
• 68 command boats
• 300 coasters and large yachts meant to land at beach “E”.
• 5 Heavy Auxiliary Gunboats (four with one 150mm naval gun + 2 X 20mm AA, one with two 105mm naval guns + 2 X 20mm AA) – guns permanently installed in naval shipyard
• 25 Light Auxiliary Gunboats ( 1 X 75mm artillery + 2 X 37mm AA) – the guns were to be later removed and placed on shore
• These were to be escorted by 7 Destroyers, 13 Torpedo Boats (small destroyers), 13 S-Boats, 19 M-1935 Mine Sweepers, 20 U-Boats, 93 Vorposten Boats (aux.), and 40 Raum Boats (aux. Mine sweepers).

3. Artillery landed with the troops
Peter Schenk (Invasion of England, Conway Press, 1990, pp183-188) has shown that the assault divisions were given extra (or upgraded) artillery. The German 37mm Pak 36 was the standard German anti-tank gun and could penetrate the armour of all 1940 British tanks except the Matilda and Valentine. In the first wave divisions it was mostly replaced with Czech or French 47mm anti-tank guns. Two batteries in every infantry division with the 105mm light field howitzer ( leichte Feldhaubitze) were reequipped with the 75mm Gebirgskanone 15 mountain gun, giving them more mobile artillery. First echelon infantry battalions were also furnished with six heavy towed mortars. All First and Second Wave Armies were allocated one artillery regiment staff, a 10cm gun detachment (motorised), a heavy field howitzer detachment (motorised) and a recon­ naissance detachment. Each of the nine First Wave divisions had a company equipped with 2cm flak, some self-propelled. There was one flak battalion for each Army. Thus the two regiments of a typical 1st echelon assault division (arriving on S Day) had :

54 light mortars
72 heavy mortars
14 light field guns
27 anti-tank guns
8 rocket launchers
8 mountain guns

The second echelon of the division (the third regiment plus support troops), was supposed to have finished landing by the evening of S-day plus one. It had:

6 heavy field guns
9 light field guns
48 PAK anti-tank guns
28 light field howitzers
12 heavy howitzers

Armoured vehicles landed with the troops
By mid-September 1940 the Germans had converted over 200 tanks to be used in four battalions attached to the first waves to go ashore. Also to go with the first wave were 48 Stug III, some PzJgr 1’s (half a dozen or so – one company- per division). With the assault troops were 20 Flammpanzer II (increased to 36 Flammpanzers with subsequent waves), with a few gun-armed Panzer IIIs’ attached to their units. Up to 12 SturmPanzer 1s’ would have arrived a week or so later, with the second wave panzer divisions.

For more information, see the following Powerpoint presentations:
drive.google.com/file/d/0B_JIBYcrqYoOcjVvQlJ3ZjJqdUU (the barges etc, a very large download)
drive.google.com/file/d/0B_JIBYcrqYoOdWZoM0Y1Z0tSYjg (the invaders)
drive.google.com/file/d/0B_JIBYcrqYoORXc2VWJsMTI1MUk (the defenders)

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