What if thread #1: A German Dieppe

[martinexsquaddie]

proberly properganda germans would have crowed about even a half succesful raid.
The nazi war machine had no effective means of crossing the channel.
even with the royal navy out of the picture the barge crossing would be a disaster the invasion force would be reduced to manpack weapons and whoat could be carried.
those barges are massive but without cranes your not going to get kit off quickly

[Leandros]

proberly properganda germans would have crowed about even a half succesful raid.
The nazi war machine had no effective means of crossing the channel.
even with the royal navy out of the picture the barge crossing would be a disaster the invasion force would be reduced to manpack weapons and whoat could be carried.
those barges are massive but without cranes your not going to get kit off quickly

I am afraid this is not correct. 3.200 barges were actually modified with drive-off bow ramps for Operation Sea Lion. During trials it took 3-5 minutes to assemble these ramps. 1.900 barges were assembled in French ports ultimo September 1940. In the Sea Lion planning Engineer Infantry was specifically drawn from the home divisions to serve these ramps during the landings. As such the forward landing units were reinforced by specialists. The barges dedicated to transport tanks carried 4 mk III's or IV panzers which was no problem as their carrying capability was more than 500 tons.

That said, the defending forces didn't exactly have a surplus of heavy support weapons, either......

[Leandros]

I could see the first 4000 landing, but not successive waves in anything like the numbers required. On Crete the German paras only succeeded in taking Hill107 because the NZ commander had mistakenly withdrew, without the control of the airstrip and incoming airborne troops it would have been a disaster.

While the German assault on Crete was a minor disaster as regards German paratrooper losses (about 4.000 men..?...) the real lesson is that a piecemeal injected para force of 8.000 men, and a follow-up air-landed mountain division, cleaned the island of 40.000 British and Greek troops (and some guerillas) in prepared positions within 10 days. Allied losses were, if I remember correctly, approx. 15.000 dead and prisoners. In the evacuation process the Royal Navy also lost heavily by the actions of Luftwaffe.

[TheKiwi]

The barges, whatever their carrying capacity were designed for the rivers and canals of Euro. Their freeboard and ability to manoeuvre were very (very) limited. All it would take would be a typical day on the Channel with a bit of breeze and a little chop on the sea and most of the barges were going to sink without any intervention from the RN or RAF. Bring in a RN destroyer squadron firing 4.5" shells into these barges moving at 3-4km per hour and you have a military disaster of epic proportions just waiting to happen.

[martinexsquaddie]

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com...soverlord.aspx

very good summing up sea lion on the fly planning not enough material German navy completely inadequate luftwaffe while may have taken the raf out of the game would have been in the poo massivly if german forces were on the ground.

barges not really viable one exercise in daylight calm water out of 50 lost one.
12000 barges at night attempting complicated manouvers in the channel recipie for disaster

[Leandros]

The barges, whatever their carrying capacity were designed for the rivers and canals of Euro. Their freeboard and ability to manoeuvre were very (very) limited. All it would take would be a typical day on the Channel with a bit of breeze and a little chop on the sea and most of the barges were going to sink without any intervention from the RN or RAF. Bring in a RN destroyer squadron firing 4.5" shells into these barges moving at 3-4km per hour and you have a military disaster of epic proportions just waiting to happen.

Hi, Kiwi - freeboard is dependant on the load. You surely understand that when a vessel has a loading capacity of 500 tons (as an example) and it is only loaded with 100 tons it should have a lot of freeboard. Actually, during Operation Sea Lion, the limiting factor on the barges would always be space, not weight.

Secondly, the barges were much more seaworthy than usually believed. The German 17th infantry division made some bad-weather towing trials and found that they did well in up to wind force 6-8 - sea state 4-6. That's pretty rough as the Channel goes. There were several reasons why the barges were better in this respect than feared. BTW, the speed of the towing convoys was set at 5 knots - almost 9 km/h.

Did you know that the Allies used several hundred barges during Overlord? In quite bad weather, too. Worked fine.

I am not sure if the barges' speed would influence much on the results of destroyer fire against them.......... But, to fire at them the destroyers would have to be there in the first place. Actually, very few destroyers were in the Channel area ultimo September. Besides, none had 4.5" guns. the V&W's and Hunts had 4" guns. These were the main types available. Not that it makes much difference......

[Leandros]

Everytime this sort of thing comes up i do wonder how the Luftwaffe that didn't do well enough against stationary civilian ships off Dunkirk to stop them carrying out their mission would somehow a few months later be able to stop enough moving, evading destroyers from carrying out the mission of sinking unarmed river barges.

Hmmm....do well and do well....Approximately 250 allied vessels were sunk during the Dunkirk evacuation - a similar number damaged. Most of this was executed by the Luftwaffe in only 2 1/2 days with ideal flying weather. That no more destroyers were sunk is mainly from two reasons:

1. Royal Navy stopped operating them in daylight
2. After June 2nd Luftwaffe regrouped for the renewed south-directed attack on the rest of France.

At Crete May '41 no RN vessels were lying still. They still were sunk by a Luftwaffe operating under difficult supply situation from newly occupied Greek airfields.

[Leandros]

In what way would facing a numerically superior foe operating from home ports under an air umbrella been easier than Norway? .

Which air umbrella, please...?

[martinexsquaddie]

even if the RAF had been forced back they would have had 600 fighters to put up. Which would have been operating on home turf
ROYAL NAVY HOME FLEET german navy

9 battleships 5 inculding pocket battleships
4 carriers
35 cruisers 7 cruisers
95 destroyers 22 destroyers
25 subs 56 subs

The german navy was defeated in the battle for norway and was in no fit state to take on the Royal Navy.
OP sea lion was a half arrsed plan that might have just worked compared with D-day

[Leandros]

even if the RAF had been forced back they would have had 600 fighters to put up. Which would have been operating on home turf
ROYAL NAVY HOME FLEET german navy

9 battleships 5 inculding pocket battleships
4 carriers
35 cruisers 7 cruisers
95 destroyers 22 destroyers
25 subs 56 subs

The german navy was defeated in the battle for norway and was in no fit state to take on the Royal Navy.
OP sea lion was a half arrsed plan that might have just worked compared with D-day

Such argumentation is like saying that England had to be conquered by the Germans because they had 200 army divisions. It doesn't help you much if the stuff isnt there.........

The German navy never meant to take on the RN, Luftwaffe was supposed to take care of that but that isn't to say that they were totally toothless. As a matter of fact ultimo September the KM had larger forces in the Channel area than the RN and in the preceeding months they had also gone along with their business (among other things, a lot of mining operations on the English side) with very little interference from the RN.

[Billy No Mates]

Which air umbrella, please...?

That provided by the bulk of the RAF operating from its own airfields rather than a token force of Hurricanes as in Norway .

As for your figures on loses during Dunkirk i am only privy to the British figures which on the face of it sound quite debilitating at 235 lost but 135 of those were classified as small craft mostly the 'little ships' of legend intrestingly out of all the loses 72 were due to enemy action where as 163 were down to other causes under lining the difficulty of ad hoc naval operations even from a nominally friendly shore....
Even if all the barges had of made 9kmh and the sea had been kind to them in September it would of still left the RN a large window of opportunity to attack them,the destroyer strength of the RN in home waters circa mid 1940 comprised 8 Rand S class,49 V and W Class( some of the latter ones would be armed with 4.7 rather than 4 guns),41 A to I class,17 J,K and Tribal and 5 Hunt class of that total 9 were lost and 19 damaged at Dunkirk the majority of which were back in service no latter than July,against which the Germans could put out maybe 8 destroyers and 9 torpedo boats .
Not all the British destroyers were concentated in the invasion area but when one considers that the Nore command(Sheerness/Harwich)alone could call on 24 destroyers,it underlines the disparity in strength between the two sides .

[Billy No Mates]

The German navy never meant to take on the RN, Luftwaffe was supposed to take care of that but that isn't to say that they were totally toothless. As a matter of fact ultimo September the KM had larger forces in the Channel area than the RN and in the preceeding months they had also gone along with their business (among other things, a lot of mining operations on the English side) with very little interference from the RN.

Indeed the Germans had some sucess laying hit and run minefields at Newcastle,Cromer,Thames estuary and Humber but these operations were from the North sea and these efforts obviously Slackened of after 1st and 2nd Narvik,there was very little of that sort of activity in the channel so i would be intrested to see what you base your claims of Kriegsmarine strength on in that area .

[TheKiwi]

Not to mention that by September, the Germans had effectively run out of mines.

[martinexsquaddie]

ships can move start a serious landing and the home fleet would have headed south from scarpa flow at max speed making life very difficult for the invasion fleet

[Leopardi]

i thought there was a landing of small force in scotland?