ot - Kenneth Macksey bok about nazi invazion to uk in 1940

[wdolson]

From what I've read, X-Gerät was successfully counter measured by late November 1940, 2 1/2 months after the night bombing campaign started. Knickebein was counter measured before that. I suspect if the Germans had started night bombing sooner, the British would have figured out how to jam the systems sooner. I have also read that the British tried the two beam technique in 1941, but the Germans were very quick to jam it.

Bill

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

BTW, I also wholeheardtedly reccomend the:

Most Secret War
By R. V. Jones



http://www.amazon.com/Most-Secret-Pengu ... 0141042826



Leo "Apollo11"

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: wdolson

From what I've read, X-Gerät was successfully counter measured by late November 1940, 2 1/2 months after the night bombing campaign started. Knickebein was counter measured before that. I suspect if the Germans had started night bombing sooner, the British would have figured out how to jam the systems sooner. I have also read that the British tried the two beam technique in 1941, but the Germans were very quick to jam it.

Bill, in the book "Most Secret War" by R. V. Jones (the guy who actually created the countermeassures for the Birish) he writes that it was difficult and that it took time.

He also writes that "Kampfgruppe 100" was very accurate (within hundreds of yards at night) and even with countermeasures in place it was very very hard work.


In other words, the Germans had the technology even early on - but they didn't have the strategic wisdom to use it properly and the tactical operational procedures to employ it effectively.

Thus they could have used the "Kampfgruppe 100" to be a "pathfinder" striking force with "X-Gerät" to mark the area and then let the follow on force of other bombers with "Knickebein" to saturate the area - but they didn't!

The RAF simply didn't have answer for that kind of threat at the beginning (especially if employed against selected few most important targets like Rolls-Royce and Spitfire/Hurricane factories which would also be a complete surprise) - but, luckily, the Luftwaffe never thought of it...



Leo "Apollo11"

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

BTW, I also wholeheardtedly reccomend the:

Most Secret War
By R. V. Jones



http://www.amazon.com/Most-Secret-Pengu ... 0141042826



Leo "Apollo11"

warspite1

Leo does one need to be scientifically minded to enjoy this book? I am hugely interested in the subject (who had what and the capabilities it gave each, the internal battles to get ideas accepted and time taken to get working) but do not want to read a load of deeply detailed scientific blurb that I couldn't pretend to understand [:)] Relatively high level descriptions of what it is and what it does is my limit.....

[warspite1]

Anybody in any doubt as to what a few MTB's (let alone destroyers and cruisers) would have done to the slow moving German tugs and river barges should reacquaint themselves with this sad tale.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27312953

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Leo does one need to be scientifically minded to enjoy this book? I am hugely interested in the subject (who had what and the capabilities it gave each, the internal battles to get ideas accepted and time taken to get working) but do not want to read a load of deeply detailed scientific blurb that I couldn't pretend to understand [:)] Relatively high level descriptions of what it is and what it does is my limit.....

It is readable book - I think you can freely enjoy reading it!

BTW, I think that there is possibility to read few pages of a book via Amazon (as sample) so you can see for yourself...


Leo "Apollo11"

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Anybody in any doubt as to what a few MTB's (let alone destroyers and cruisers) would have done to the slow moving German tugs and river barges should reacquaint themselves with this sad tale.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27312953

It's worth remembering that the RN had an old destroyer destined to accompany the American ships, but was damaged and fell out of the convoy.

Events would have went very differently if the LST's had been escorted by something much better than a Flower-class.

Then again, if the E-boots performed so well, I wonder what would happen when the Home Fleet entered the narrow waters of the Channel...

[Numdydar]

A lot of sunk E boats [:D]

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

A lot of sunk E boats [:D]

The Russians and Austrian-Hungarian Navies had the same thought process, no doubt

[warspite1]

As has already been agreed upon, the Germans would have suffered huge losses to the best part of 9 divisions, the Luftwaffe losses alone would have likely made Barbarossa impossible (as it was – even with postponement of the operation in September - the Luftwaffe that took part in Barbarossa was significantly smaller than it had been a year before (if the troop losses hadn't been bad enough)) and the Kriegsmarine would have been effectively finished (although the “heavy units” were not earmarked to take part in the operation other than to try and divert the Home Fleet).

All of that would not have come cheap. The RAF and the RN would have been hurt - no one has attempted to say otherwise. But would they have been hurt sufficiently to allow the operation to be successful? The simple answer – and you yourself have admitted this – is no.

Just picking up on another point:

You mentioned the Home Fleet sailing into the confined waters of the Channel, but as already discussed, the capital ships of the Home Fleet would not have just been thrown into battle – at least not initially – and then only if your 5% chance of success (actually 1% as there was no German air superiority) looked like it might possibly have come to pass. Stopping the river barges and their tugs initially was the job of cruisers, destroyers, MTB's and just about anything else that could carry a machine gun (or could provide more than a ripple by way of wake).

Do you know how successful the one(!) practice run carried out by the Germans was? And this is without enemy interference – this is just trying to land!!!

The Germans put 50 barges to sea in good weather, no navigation hazards, and no enemy to worry them. Less than half managed to land at the right time – so troops would have come ashore in penny packets. Many of the barges could not lower their ramps because they got blown off course in the surf and so were side on to the beach.

For Sealion men and equipment loaded in those open river barges were to steam in column until ten miles from the landing site, then turn sequentially and steer parallel to the coast. Upon signal all vessels were to execute a flank turn and proceed in line abreast to the beach. This intricate manoeuver by barges under tow would take place at night with minimal lighting, controlled and coordinated by loud hailer! Right……

It would have been carnage.

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

What's more, they assumed that the Germans didn't yet have control of the airspace, which is a fairly big assumption concerning the topic. There are various other issues that you can nickpick (like the Royal Navy not commiting major surface ships - the RN destroyers are just going to beat the KM heavy surface units on their own?), but that's the main issue.

Was it possible for Sealion to succeed? Yes.

Was it likely to suceed? That would depend on who won control of the airspace.

Sadly, none of these points hold up in the real world.

1) Airspace Control. The RAF had, to that point, committed only 55% of their total strength to the Battle of Britain, the rest were north of the unescorted Luftwaffe Bomber range line and therefore virtually untouchable.

With only 55% of their forces, the RAF were winning ... slowly, sure, but winning nonethless.

If Sealion was staged, then sortieing the remaining 45% of RAF strength south is a doddle.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe has to do three things simultaneously ...

a) Maintain air superiority* over SE England
b) Maintain air supremacy* over the Channel
c) Act as artillery to support the Wehrmacht, who were to be landed with nothing heavier than mortars.

(There is a difference between these. Supremacy means making sure NO RAF AT ALL appears over the Channel, so vulnerable were the Barges)

Historically, they were unable to do even ONE of these things. Against 55% of the RAF strength.

Splitting their forces three ways? Snowballs in hell would have a better chance of succeeding.

KM Heavy Units?

WHAT KM Heavy Units?

NO BBs in service, NO BCs serviceable, NO Pocket Battleships serviceable, 1 Heavy Cruiser (possibly), 1 Light Cruiser.

The RN Home Fleet alone had 50 destroyers, 21 cruisers and 8 battleships, and that does not include the Channel Squadron nor does it include the Western Approaches Command, the former entirely in the Channel area and the latter with significant elements available for deployment there.

The Home Fleet could easily have steamed south from Scapa Flow and attacked the German Barges at night, when the Luftwaffe would have been quite useless and then retreated northwards far enough to be outside the escorted Bomber range for the Luftwaffe by daylight, under an RAF umbrella.

They wouldn't have even have needed to fire their guns, just do a high speed pass along the line of barges ... which, when loaded, had such a low freeboard (about 6") that the wake of the passing ships would have swamped them!

And, of course, what most people don't know is that the forces the Germans landed were not to be resupplied or reinforced for THREE WEEKS after the landing. That was their 'plan' ... assuming any barges survived, which, given the level of seamanship displayed by the barge crews (there weren't enough spare sailors to man them all, let alone man them adequately), is not terribly likely.

No, Sealion was a joke, and the Kriegsmarine, at least, knew it ... on Wehrmacht wish fulfilment planning papers the Kriegsmarine Officers were reduced to scrawling nasty comments on their ancestry and intelligence, evidently, because they were forbidden by Hitler to actually say anything that would show the operation to be impossible ... which they KNEW it was.

Phil

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: Miller

One problem for the Luftwaffe is they had very limited anti ship capability during that period. Yes the Stuka could be an effective ship killer, however against anything bigger than a cruiser it would struggle and the torpedo carrying He111 did not really come into the war until mid 41. Granted the RN may have been reluctant to risk BBs in the early stages of the operation, but I cannot imagine they would keep them out of harms way indefinitely whilst the fate of the entire country was in the balance.....

Like they were at Crete? Where one British DD drove off repeated Stuka attacks even after it ran out of actual ammo for its AA guns ... by firing practise rounds?

Note also that the Luftwaffe had exactly *one* Squadron trained and equipped for aerial torpedo attacks against naval vessels in 1940 (equipped at the time with float planes) but, sadly, their aerial torpedoes DIDN'T WORK ... they ALWAYS either broke up when they hit the water, porpoised (and lost aim completely) or dove into the sea bottom.

The latter problem proved insoluble. In the end, the Luftwaffe eventually had to buy ITALIAN aerial torpedoes, which had the virtue of actually working ... but that was much later.

Phil

[aspqrz02]

"It takes three years to build a ship. It takes 300 years to build a tradition. The navy always supports the army, the evacuation will continue."
- Admiral Cunningham at Crete.

"No Captain can do very wrong if he places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy."
- Admiral, Lord Nelson, 1805

The RN was NOT the same as the Italian, or even the German, Navy and never has been.

The Barges WOULD have been attacked ... and destroyed ... regardless of the losses (which, given that the RN would have attacked at night as the German Barges had to take longer than 24 hours to cross the channel, would have been light(ish)) ...

Phil

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Basically, the Germans would have needed to take some English port by suprise with a huge para drop. Then rush ship convoys - xAKs with troops and heavy equipment.

Sadly, if you investigate the readiness status of the Luftwaffe Parachute units, they were not ready for combat at the time.

Even if they had been, losses to the Ju-52 transports during the Battle of France had been so high that they did not have enough transports to carry more than 1/3 of a division at a time.

And it would have been a one time thing. The chances of the Ju-52s getting back and then bringing in another drop load were, essentially, nil ... if they even had a chance of getting over intact in the first place, which is minimally likely given that the Luftwaffe never achieved air superiority and the UK had radar.

Flying pigs would have had a better chance [;)]

Phil

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Of course military organizations wargame for different reasons than we do, but your point is valid. To get elements of 9 divisions ashore to begin with is approaching a miracle, but if the Germans can't do that it's a pretty short exercise.

The actual initial Sealion plan (not the later fantasy plan by the Army) was for elements of 12 Divisions to be landed ... but the 'elements' amounted to only THREE Division equivalents.

The rest of the Divisions and resupply were to arrive ... THREE WEEKS LATER!!! [:D]

Oh deer!

Phil

[aspqrz02]

Yes, the Bombers may have had the range. Sadly, they would have been unescorted ... and the RAF had kept 45% of its strength NORTH of the unescorted bomber line.

Even at night there would have been unacceptable losses.

Phil

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

What's more, they assumed that the Germans didn't yet have control of the airspace, which is a fairly big assumption concerning the topic. There are various other issues that you can nickpick (like the Royal Navy not commiting major surface ships - the RN destroyers are just going to beat the KM heavy surface units on their own?), but that's the main issue.

Was it possible for Sealion to succeed? Yes.

Was it likely to suceed? That would depend on who won control of the airspace.

And, of course, what most people don't know is that the forces the Germans landed were not to be resupplied or reinforced for THREE WEEKS after the landing. That was their 'plan' ... assuming any barges survived, which, given the level of seamanship displayed by the barge crews (there weren't enough spare sailors to man them all, let alone man them adequately), is not terribly likely.

warspite1

I've never seen three weeks. All the accounts I have read have been 10 days for the second wave. Not that it matters 10 days, 21 days who cares? It's just fantasy anyway.

[Ralzakark]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

In other words, the Germans had the technology even early on - but they didn't have the strategic wisdom to use it properly and the tactical operational procedures to employ it effectively.

Thus they could have used the "Kampfgruppe 100" to be a "pathfinder" striking force with "X-Gerät" to mark the area and then let the follow on force of other bombers with "Knickebein" to saturate the area - but they didn't!

The RAF simply didn't have answer for that kind of threat at the beginning (especially if employed against selected few most important targets like Rolls-Royce and Spitfire/Hurricane factories which would also be a complete surprise) - but, luckily, the Luftwaffe never thought of it...



Leo "Apollo11"

The Germans did use KG100 as a path-finder force with a main body following, so certainly had the tactical skills to do so.

The attack on Coventry on November 14th used KG 100 to lead some 449 bomber over the target from 509 dispatched. Conditions were near-perfect as bright moonlight illuminated the city and its defences were very weak. The targets were the aircraft industry and its ancillary services such as the Standard Motor Car Company’s factory.

Damage was severe, especially to housing. The factories, however, proved less vulnerable than closely packed houses as they were less flammable.

21 important factories, 12 of them closely associated with the aircraft industry, were severely damaged by fire or direct hits. A bigger obstacle to production was damage to cables, gas and water mains, and these affected 9 important factories which were not severely damaged themselves. Work did resume rapidly though – the Standard motor Company had half its staff back at work by the 16th for example.

The British verdict on the raid was that while the aircraft industry had suffered a bad setback, no irreparable damage had been done. The Official History of the Defence of Britain comments that a further two or three similar raids over the next few nights might have curtailed output over a longer period, but the Luftwaffe switched its attacks to other targets and bad weather intervened – on the 15th only 16 bombers targeted Coventry and less than half of them found their target.

It is difficult to know what the effects of a more concerted campaign might have been. Coventry was probably the best that the Luftwaffe could achieve with 1940 technology, but it was achieved when everything went right for the attackers, especially the weather. Unless the German could have radically improved their intelligence they would have continued to run in to the difficulties they had elsewhere in the Battle of Britain, believing they had done much more damage than they actually had and not correctly identifying the all of the critical set of targets they needed to cover. Bombing aircraft factories is also a tactic for a lengthy campaign, whereas the Luftwaffe believed that it was just about to seize victory throughout the Battle of Britain.

A concerted attack on the aircraft industry would also have resulted in a rapid redeployment of defences to the threatened factories, but Luftwaffe loses at night in 1940 were very low, the best that could have been hoped for was to disturb the aim of the attackers.

The Germans also tried precision bombing against individual factories at night in February and March 1941 using small numbers of Y-Great equipped aircraft. The Official History notes that though technical difficulties hindered the countermeasures the usual result was a ‘spectacular near miss which left the factory untouched’.

The Luftwaffe was without doubt the best equipped airforce in 1940 to carry out accurate night bombing. In contrast Bomber Command’s doctrine was well developed but it was completely incapable of carrying it out due to neglecting the essential but not very glamourous art of navigation.