Greetings, and welcome to the World Affairs Board!
The World Affairs Board is the premier forum for the discussion of the pressing geopolitical issues of our time. Topics include military and defense developments, international terrorism, insurgency & COIN doctrine, international security and policing, weapons proliferation, and military technological development.
Our membership includes many from military, defense, academic, and government backgrounds with expert knowledge on a wide range of topics. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not register a World Affairs Board account and join our community today?
for those with more german skill that me, how do translate this
Gegen die sich im September versammelnde Landungsflotte führte die Royal Air Force empfindliche Schläge aus. Bei Angriffen auf Antwerpen, Le Havre, Boulogne und Dünkirchen fielen bis zum 21.9. insgesamt 2 Torpedoboote, 12 Transporter, 51 Prähme und 4 Schlepper ganz oder für längere Zeit aus; 9 Transporter, 163 Prähme und 1 Schlepper wurden beschädigt. Diese Verluste konnten allerdings noch durch Reserven gedeckt werden. Größere Ausfälle hingegen hätten nicht mehr ersetzt werden können.
i know what it means but grammar is killing me :bang:
The results of the RAF's attacks on the assembled landing fleet in September. Overall attacks were down to 29.1* on the cities of Antwerp, Le Harve, Dunkirk and Boulogne. Losses were 2 torpedo boats, 12 motorized vessels, 51 barges and 4 tugs sunk or destroyed. Other losses include 9 motorized vessels, 1 tug and 163 barges damaged. The last of the reserves were able to cover the losses, but further losses will result in a loss of capacity.
Not sure if 29.1 is number of attacks per location or an intensity scale.
The results of the RAF's attacks on the assembled landing fleet in September. Overall attacks were down to 29.1* on the cities of Antwerp, Le Harve, Dunkirk and Boulogne. Losses were 2 torpedo boats, 12 motorized vessels, 51 barges and 4 tugs sunk or destroyed. Other losses include 9 motorized vessels, 1 tug and 163 barges damaged. The last of the reserves were able to cover the losses, but further losses will result in a loss of capacity.
Not sure if 29.1 is number of attacks per location or an intensity scale.
Pretty close, the only difference are not really worth mentioning (for example the orignal describes the RAF strikes as serious/effectiv, or "further losses would have been uncompensable"). The basic gist is all there.
The Ju-88 could dive bomb which a much heavier bomb load.
The Stuka pilots had been mauled in Kanalkampf, the attempt to destroy the British Merchant Marine from the air.
Richthofen, the Stuka commander, complained to his superiors that he could not stop the Royal Navy and the loss of 20 percent of the force in ten days forced their withdrawal on August 18th.
They were slow and poorly armed, while in 1940 the pilots lacked training for the mission and the armour piercing bombs to take on real naval vessels. The Ju-88s had exactly the same problems except they were faster in level flight.
In fact, as I understand it, during the war even when better equipped and trained the Luftwaffe never sank a RN ship bigger than a light cruiser.
There were only 37 aerial torpedoes in Luftwaffe stocks in September 1940. Goering did not take assisting the Kriegsmarine seriously.
The U-boats could not operate as effectively in the channel proper but the approaches to it were open.
The Channel is too shallow for a submarine of any nation to avoid being depth charged.
Because of this, neither side intended to use subs inside the Channel during the BoB. Any U-boats (about 13 were at sea, complete with malfunctioning torpedoes) were to stay at either end, while the Brits actually had 37 of their own subs based in home waters but other than reconnaisance didn't include them in their anti invasion plans.
British minefields lay along the approaches to the Channel. When three U-boats sunk in 1939, Doenitz ordered his subs to avoid the Channel as much as possible. They returned after D-Day to act against the Allied invasion force, with terrible results.
235 vessels, mainly small commercial craft, were lost, of which 72 were to all forms of enemy action and 163 to other causes.
The RN initially tried to rescue 25,000 troops, but the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe in fact let them evacuate 338,000 over nine or so days.
The destroyers were heroes ... stationary while loading or moving slowly while overloaded in what was to the Luftwaffe a 'target rich' environment, they carried 100,000 troops to safety by themselves. Yet, only four of these thirty nine warships turned into crowded ferries were lost to air attack during the campaign.
The Luftwaffe could have delivered the killing blow to both the RN and RAF had the RN ventured south
The Luftwaffe could not stop the British/French landings or evacuations in Scandinavia, or Dunkirk, or even Crete the next year against no aerial opposition.
The Luftwaffe was IIRC down to 600 single engined fighters by late autumn 1940. By September 14, there was a crisis similar or worse to RAF's 11 Group. As an indicator, Bf 109 squadrons were down to "only 67 percent operational aircrew against authorized aircraft. For Bf 110 squadrons, the figure was 46 percent; and for bombers, it was 59 percent. A week later the figures were 64 percent, 52 percent, and 52 percent respectively.
The proud Luftwaffe, whose JG2 had originally aimed at inflicting 5:1 losses on its RAF opposition, had to give up.
Goering made a tactical error in September 1940 by changing the primary targets from British airfields to British population centers.
There's quite a myth about this, Stitch.
It was always part of the Luftwaffe plan to move from attacking convoys to airfields/radar to London itself, because it was thought that with airbases around the country, the last RAF fighters could be drawn out by being scrambled to protect the capital.
The retaliatory terror bombing of London in that sense is irrelevant, as IIRC only Luftlotte 3's Hugo Sperrle amongst the commanders wanted to spend longer in the earlier phase of the plan (originally, only four days had been allocated for breaking the back of Fighter Command). Luftflotte 2's Kesselring, Goering and Hitler were all made happier by moving directly to the 'endgame' part of the operation.
610 Bf109s were shot down during the BoB, and they shot down 770 Spitfires and Hurricanes, a bad exchange ratio when you add in the Bf110 and bomber losses, and note that the German deaths were of generally higher quality pilots.
Given that post war staff exercises are highly suspect
As I understand it, the Sandhurst exercise partly out of courtesy to its German participant (Admiral Ruge) let the first wave make it to shore, and then spent its time examining the subsequent land battle (Sandhurst is the Army college, after all!).
Not to be taken all that seriously! :)
No one German or British (propaganda aside to try to get the US into the war), thought Sea Lion was ever possible, and the British concluded as much from Enigma decrypts. In fact, in August while the aerial battle raged over head, the British allocated tanks and artillery to send to the Middle East.
There are no real “winning” options for the Kreigsmarine that I can see, at least as far as their surface fleet was concerned. Of all branches of the German armed forces they were the one least prepared for the war when it broke out and I suspect it was obvious the commanders of the Kreigsmarine that whatever Germany did it was probably going to lose it's capital ships eventually unless they spent the entire war just trying to “hide”.
I think you're right, Monash.
Geoff Hewitt says the two options presented by Raeder to Hitler as late as January 1939 were for "a force of submarines and pocket battleships, which could threaten the sea lanes to Britain and be constructed comparatively quickly; or a much larger fleet, with a nucleus of heavy capital ships, which though it would take longer to build, would not only threaten the sea lanes but could also challenge the British fleet itself."
Raeder was a surface ship man (along with most of the KM guys, who thought that the U-boat had been a defeated weapon in WWI, and that in the next war it would be subject to new countermeasures like sonar), and Hitler went with the more ambitious option, supposedly reassuring Raeder that the fleet wouldn't be required before 1946.
When the Navy went to war just four years after the post-Versailles expansion began, Raeder knew he had the wrong kinds of vessels and was in no way ready, writing gloomily in the SKL war diary that "The surface forces ... can do no more than show that they know how to die gallantly."
Raider's narrow front option would have been the wiser choice for the Germans.
Was it Halder or Rundstedt who said that would have been simple murder of the landing troops?
Edit: "'I utterly reject the Navy's proposals [for landing on a narrow front],' exclaimed General Halder. 'I might just as well put the troops through a sausage machine.' "
No one German or British (propaganda aside to try to get the US into the war), thought Sea Lion was ever possible, and the British concluded as much from Enigma decrypts. In fact, in August while the aerial battle raged over head, the British allocated tanks and artillery to send to the Middle East.
how about stories about overeager home guard units seeing paratroopers everywhere
and church bells ringing through the country ? :whome:
As you're fully aware, 1979, the general public (of any nation) is not fully informed by the decision makers! ;)
Your comment was NO ONE, a a patently false comment since the British were busily sinking block ships, building defensive lines, assembling mobile reserves, hauling out Great war surplus for the home guard and putting together anti-invasion flotillas...
Tweet
Comment