Interesting thread here: http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=21592.html
Basically it summarises some Kriegspiel after the war to estimate what would have happened, and the Germans would have got ashore then had their supply lines cut to pieces. Also contains information on the British defence plans. Enjoy!
i’ve seen some speculation about Sealion, how it may not work, etc. But it doesn’t account for the fact that the British army/airforce was at her infancy while the germans were at the height of their power.
I’m not one to judge, but Dieppe raid could be like Sealion. But who knows for sure?
In essence, only if the Germans are very lucky does this matter - the British Army and the Royal Air Force are supporting roles only; the Royal Navy would have ****ed the rather ad-hoc invasion fleet on all but the worst rolls of the die. Add to that the fact German plans for Sealion were woefully poor…
I believe Hitler’s impatience and Goering’s eagerness to destroy the RAF would be major contributing factors to Sea Lion’s failure. The main goal was to clear the decks for Babarossa. This is clear as after the Battle of Britain, the Germans completely abandoned the invasion England.
But history is history…
I’ve written somewhere else on here about this-
In my opinion, if the invasion fleet had left the French ports, Winston would have thrown the whole Home and Reserve Fleets into the fight - he wouldn’t have worried about losses of the heavy ships, because the German’s would have had their navy wiped out, there’s no way they could have fought them off. The Luftwaffe didn’t have a bomb heavy enough to penetrate the deck armour of the battleships or aircraft carriers, so even if the Germans had air superiority, it wouldn’t have mattered.
The above basically sums it up. Operation Sealion will never work because the German Navy was too weak. It couldnt even muster an aircraft carrier by the end of the war! And if the Kriegsmarine ever got to really build up, Hitler wanted huge ships of enourmous tonnage, that would be extremely vulnerable and practically useless.
The two threads below have a mine of info in them
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=20620
http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14949
Basing the strength of the entire german navy on the fact that it “couldn’t” build an aircraft carrier is rediculous. They never had any interest or intension or ever building one. The was a bold americanized comment.
They did - they developed carrier Bf-109s and Ju-87s ready for it, they just never got round to building it.
It was called the Graph Zepplin:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/germany/carriers/grafzeppelin/pictures.html
Had the Germans come ashore on the isle in any substantial number Britain would have been doomed.
Not neccessarily - how would they have supplied the invading armies?
It was called the Graph Zepplin:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/germany/carriers/grafzeppelin/pictures.html[/quote]
The Peter Strasser was also laid down at the same time as the GZ, but never launched.
Incidentally, I’m far from convinced the Germans could do very much with aircraft carriers before defeating the UK - there is just too little searoom, and the RN was just too powerful for them to sortie at will.
The idea that the Luftwaffe was at the peak of efficiency, whilst the RAF was only in its infancy is incorrect: The Luftwaffe had suffered considerable losses in the previous months, particularly amongst experienced aircrew, whilst the RAF had been gaining in both experience & equipment.
The bombing of barges at French Ports would have been pursued with much greater vigour IF the threat had been deemed imminent.
Some papers are available with reference to the disposition of our offensive air power during this period & the Kriegsmarine was seen as a greater threat than the transports.
If the Germans gained a foothold in Britain it means they would have had control of some coastal airfields so supplies and more troops would have been easily brought in. A sizeable number of Ju 52s existed since the type had been in service since 1934. GB was actually ringed with U-boats so that in reality she was just weeks away from complete isolation.
Once the Luftwaffe had planes based on the island the 109’s range problem would have been history and bomber escort sorties would have insured full coverage to and from targets. The 109s would have had ample fuel to stay and play with the interceptors.
And if we’re not talking an isolated group of German paratroopers here, most certainly the seizing of a port would have been top priority. So between the Ju 52s and Kriegesmarine transports, Jerry would have poured ashore and the yanks would have needed to expidite development of the trans-Atlantic bombers like the B-32.
Ah we love the what if’s on this site.
Its a big what if though, the Invasion of the UK. You have to balance out what the germans were actually capable of doing with what the British were actually capable of doing. But you have to keep in mind that you have to use the forces available at the time and not at a later time, hence no Torpedo carrying Axis aircraft, no bombs that can penetrate UK warships etc…
?
Jerry would have poured ashore and the yanks would have needed to expidite development of the trans-Atlantic bombers like the B-32.
Then of course you have to think about when the B-36 was actually conceptualised and what experience of building long range bombers had to happen before this arrived.
Its a bit like saying, what if the Wright Brothers skipped the little flyer and just made a 747 instead
They couldn’t keep the Sixth Army supplied in Stalingrad with air transport, what makes you think they could have done any better supplying the UK?
As for supply via the sea - against the country with the most powerful navy in the world? Their transports would have been slaughtered.
Have you ever done the numbers on the actual airlift capability of a Ju-52? I’ve seen what appears to be a highly plausible set done from what they actually carried in practice, and it averages out at something over 1 tonne per day per aircraft. Making what I suspect is a somewhat generous assumption that they could scrape together 250 serviceable aircraft per day and that they had ample fuel at the far end (see below for how likely I think that is) you’re looking at 300 tonnes per day of supplies arriving at a few discrete points on the bridgehead. They would then have to be manpacked (the Germans had no plausible plans for landing motorized transport beyond a handful of tanks or any horses until the invasion was well underway) to wherever they were needed. 300 tonnes is IIRC about the amount needed to keep a single leg infantry division going, although I would be glad to be corrected if we have any logistics guys on the forum.
And yet despite the complete lack of an invasion they didn’t work. There just weren’t enough in 1940, and what boats there were were simply not advanced enough. It wasn’t really until the Oberon class level of technology/SSNs that this became feasible.
Assuming you can get fuel somehow. What fuel you did capture from the RAF (and remember that fuel burns very nicely when a match is applied) would be the wrong octane rating and will also quite probably have several kilos of sugar, sand and ground glass per tankful. Chances are you’d have to fly in your fuel, which in itself limits your airlift capacity even more and will pretty much soak up all your remaining capacity with the fuel, munitions and spares you need.
Furthermore, the chances are that the airfields would be within range of British artillery for at least some of the time. That will NOT make them any more habitable.
Ummm… WHAT port? The only substantial ports between the Wash and the Lizard at the time were London and Southampton/Portsmouth. Portsmouth is pretty much the home of the RN, so any seabourne attack would be massacred while London is the communications nexus for England. Any landings would find themselves rapidly outnumbered, and in any case taking a city of 8 million which is pretty heavily garrisoned isn’t likely to happen by coup de main.
Incidentally, you’re thinking of the B-36 not the B-32. It would probably have become available at around the same time as nuclear weapons, meaning Germany would either get nuked on a Japan scale or IMHO more likely get a terminal dose of instant sunshine in around 1947 and effectively become extinct as a culture. A gentleman by the name of Stuart Slade has written an excellent alternate history series based on exactly this premise.
Furthermore, The channel is especailly choppy so the invaision barges would have had an interesting time trying to cross the channel. Also all of Britain’s coastline was covered in barbed wire, landmines and a strange device made from an oil barrel that when detonated covered the whole beach is burning petrol. Plus Britain had already organised a resistance movement of 70,000 called the auxunits (or auxiliary units) whom were well armed and trained and ready to cause absolute havoc in the invader’s rear areas. The Germans would not have had a fun time.
Well the initial concept of the thread seemed to be if the Germans got ashore and got a foothold… Hence extrapolating from there they would have endeavored to accomplish the aforementioned goals. Could they? is the ripe question. Not likely, but it is never smart to completely discount your enemy’s capability. As we view things knowing what we know 65 years hence it is an unfair advantage that clouds us with prejudice. It wasn’t so much that the Germans could have done it but that they didn’t bother to try.
The long-range bomber program was based on- “January of 1940, the Army issued a set of formal requirements for the “superbomber”, calling for a speed of 400 mph, a range of 5333 miles, and a bomb load of 2000 pounds delivered at the halfway-point at that range.”
The B-29 and B-32 were the direct results of those specifications. In 1941 the requirement was “…the Army Air Corps drew up requirements for an intercontinental bomber. Something that could fly from the U.S. to Germany, drop its bombs and return.”
Initial contingency plans that routed bombers from Gander Newfoundland to Russia were within both planes’ range perameters. Russia Shuttle missions were carried out from other starting points during the war. This was a viable possibility.
That’s where the B-36 came in. The US already had plenty of big bomber experience with the B-17 and the giant XB-19 so a true intercontinental bomber was a logical next step that actually occurred anyway. In the impetus of war the B-36 probably would have reached fruition earlier. As it was the B-36 program was put on the back burner with little attention due to attention to the amped up emphasis on B-29 and B-32 production. At any rate the B-36 was no impossiblity as someone thought. Certainly any American bombing campaign commencing on the west side of the Atlantic wouldn’t have been started before like 1944 thus lengthing the war a lot.
As far as Ju 52s in Russia vs England its an apple an oranges thing. The severity of the climate, distances and treacherous conditions in Russia bear no resemblence to Spring time over the Channel. There actually were, by the way, 571 Ju 52s available in Western Europe in May 1940.
Discounting the aircraft’s capabilities is dangerous in that in May 1941 the Luftwaffe’s greatest airborne assault and involved the landing of 22,750 men and their supplies on Crete. Of these, 10,000 were parachuted in from 493 Ju 52s used.
And simply to talk up the big Brit coastal defenses is empty bragadocia since far tougher stuff shielded the Continent and the Allies landed anyway.
Between June and December 1940 U-boats sent three million tons of shipping to the bottom. Only an average of 16 U-boats were on patrol at any given time and they inflicted this damage. In the Med 105 subs operated. By the end of 1941 before the yank influx U-boats were 250 strong. This was an ample amount to deal with any RN surface activities if it had been necessary to support an invasion. Would the Germans have gotten beat up? Sure, but if they were motivated they cerftainly wouldn’t have given up once any foothold in Britain was gained.
During the years of 1940-41 the German war machine grew immensely before the drain in the East began. It was in late 1941 Churchill was most concerned of the U-boat threat during which time the isle was in peril of collapsing.
As for seizing a port I would expect the Germans not to assault Southhampton but something lesser such as Dover, Brighton, Hasings or something else small once a sizeable force had come in by air or chute. And there are lots of sceanrios for fuel procurement with transfer from larger aircraft for one method. Wouldn’t be easy but feasible in the esoteric sense.
It’s easy to poo-poo the notion of a concerted landing but if the Germans were so soft why did they roll over so many enemies and fight doggedly even after the tide turned against them? Man to man they were the equal or superior to any fighting force in existence at the time.
Yeah it didn’t happen and “probably” wouldn’t have but events in history have a way of being open to multiple courses before one is decided upon and fate is set in irreversable motion.
There’s tons of interesting possibilities. What if Washington hadn’t crossed the Delaware? What if Germany had developed long range bombers? What if Custer had brought his Gatling gun? :? 