If Germany had won the air, could Royal Navy have prevented a German invasion ?

Stovepipe

What if the Germans had put in decoy attacks on the Shetlands and the Orkneys, both of which were within range of bombers from Norway? Also, the British coastal defences were very thinly spread and badly equipped in early 1940 and even later, were often dependent on relic weapons and elderly manpower from WW 1 for defence. The coast from Cornwall to the top of Scotland is about 1200 miles long, which would have required a huge amount of troops to offer even a basic level of defence. The radar coverage was also known by both sides to be patchy and not fault-free. The populations of South Coast cities were often to feel the brunt of Luftwaffe attacks, especially Plymouth, Portsmouth and Southampton and the germans showed that they could inflict pinpoint attacks such as the smashing of the Supermarine factory, so I don't think that the automatic assumption that the RAF and RN would prevail against a concerted air/sea assault is correct.

regards
Stovepipe

mountainyman

Fr.Jack wrote: »

So the English kept the Germans back. Right. LOL

The English channel kept the Germans back.
If England had surrendered the Germans would have beaten the Russians.

mountainyman

Snickers Man wrote: »

It was the Soviet Union who won WWII, not the British Army. That should be self evident, but it's to be expected that the average Briton experiences a bit of cognitive dissonance on that point.

The Americans won WWII for only 250,000 lives.

Fr.Jack

No particular Ally won WW2 It was Hitlers incompetence that lost it.

johngalway

Would it not have been foolish to try to invade directly after gaining air superiority? Bide your time once the RAF would have been defeated, pick targets and eliminate them properly. Including the RN. In the mean time, if invasion was to be a goal, build up the proper forces and equipment to get that job done. Then there would be a much improved situation for invasion, RAF gone, RN mostly sunk, infrastructure, manufacturing and defence instillations destroyed or damaged.

Then invade.

Speed is great, but sometimes it's the wrong move. An invasion of Britain would have to be faultlessly planned to succeed.

Stovepipe

@jg, Britain was in bad shape, defence-wise, right after Dunkirk and had no armour or heavy artillery worth the name ready to use. The population was not yet blooded by bombing and had never experienced refugee flight or major deprivation of resources, nor were they really aware of the scale of losses of men and material. Their industrial might was not yet fully up to speed to generate replacement fighters, nor was it's flight training system generating enough new pilots. I think that if the Germans had established even a small toehold on UK home soil, especially within a short Panzer-march on London, then the psychological shock of having had the Channel breached might have tipped the scales in Hitler's favour.

regards
Stovepipe

cloud493

Well, without air cover, yes, the Royal navy would have been in a lot of trouble. But the fact is, even if the RAF's losses in the south/south east had become unsustainable, the plan was simply to withdraw them further back.So there would have been british air forces, in one way or another. Plus the simple fact, the Royal Navy was the most powerful navy in the world, and deployed over half available destroyers(around 100 off the top of my head) around the expected invasion areas, even at serious risks to convoys. Now while its true, the Meditarren experiences of 1941 - 1943 saw that in hostile waters, without air cover, the royal navy almost always found itself in serious trouble, in the English channel, the royal navy/ raf(even the remnants) would have mauled the german invasion fleet, poor as it was, to a point where it would have been unable to invade. The British losses would have been severe, no doubt. But the royal navy was too large, and too effective a force. Churchill knew it. Hitlers admirals knew it. Hitler himself eventually knew it.

bwatson

Snickers Man wrote: »

It was the Soviet Union who won WWII, not the British Army. That should be self evident, but it's to be expected that the average Briton experiences a bit of cognitive dissonance on that point.

You are very, very bitter.

It was a combination of many factors which led to the final outcome of WW2. That should be self evident - to any person who has chosen to study the conflict in depth with an open mind.

It is to be expected however that the average Irishman experiences a hell of a lot of cognitive dissonance when confronted with this most unwelcomed of truths.

It is (not so) surprising that many seek to underplay any British achievement. It is as if many are saddened by the fact that Germany did not succeed in defeating Britain and seek still to focus upon the failings and weaknesses of the British military as if to convince themselves of what would have been a welcomed German superiority!

The British played a vital, very significant role in the war. The British should be (and are) very proud of the actions of their servicemen and women. I do not believe there are many, if any, who believe that Britain "won the war" as you suggest.

I think you become frustrated when any Briton, be they an academic or just somebody with interest in the topic, expresses a sense of pride or gratitude towards their nation's actions during the war. This may come about through a sense of shame at your own nations inaction or a desire to see the destruction/humiliation of the British state, however with that I am now speculating.

Jawgap

Didn't read through all the postings but the short answer to the OP's question is "Yes" - for further information read "The Royal Navy and the Battle of Britain" by Anthony J Cumming - there's a review of it here

there's also this paper - "The Air Marshal versus the Admiral: Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Morton Forbes in the Pantheon" but you'll need library access to see the full version.

The reason an invasion would not have succeeded are manifold:

• The Luftwaffe lacked squadrons capable of attacking ships - only one squadron of He111s was practiced in such tactics
• They lacked armour piercing bombs and planned to use modified naval shells to pierce the decks of the RN's capital ships.
• The RN showed, despite the losses at Norway and Crete, that a well handled destroyer is both a difficult target and a formidable anti-aircraft opponent.
• The RN Home Fleet's orders at the time were to remain north of the Wash, and Forbes' stuck to this, but Cummings makes the not unreasonable point that if the invasion fleet launched then no doubt the Home Fleet would have come charging into the Dover Straits all guns blazing, minefields or no minefields
• The towed invasion barges would have been slow (3 to 5 knots) and they had a low freeboard - meaning in the choppy waters of the Channel many would likely have been swamped, unless the water was flat calm, and even then they would still be very easy targets - a couple of destroyers in amongst them would have wreaked havoc
• As the Allies proved in 1944, even with their superior technological development, crossing the Channel, getting a shore and establishing a beachead was very difficult - the German Army viewed a potential invasion a river crossing on a broad front, so its quite possible that any planning based on this faulty concept would have been disastrous.

Even if the Germans had crossed, landed and established themselves it's still doubful that the outcome would have been a successful one in their favour. The plan (like Overlord) depended on capturing a major port within 24 to 48 hours of landing to allow their forces to be adequately supplied - but as the Germans demonstrated later in the War, it doesn't take long for a skilled team of engineers to completely wreck a port and render it unusable.

Unless they totally destroyed the Home Fleet there would still be elements of it, including its submarine force, capable of disrupting the flow of supplies. Also, the invasion barges would need to be returned pretty quickly to the Continent to allow the flow of supplies to continue up to the coast for any trans-shipping - therefore any major loss of barges would have slowed the future supply of materiel.

Finally, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Churchill was quite prepared to use poison gas on any invasion beach.

Jawgap

Snickers Man wrote: »

It was the Soviet Union who won WWII, not the British Army. That should be self evident, but it's to be expected that the average Briton experiences a bit of cognitive dissonance on that point.

WWII was not just fought in the European Theatre - even Stalin acknowledged the part played by the Brits - in his view, they (the Brits) provided the time, the Americans provided the money and the Soviets provided the blood!

getz

Jawgap wrote: »

Didn't read through all the postings but the short answer to the OP's question is "Yes" - for further information read "The Royal Navy and the Battle of Britain" by Anthony J Cumming - there's a review of it here

there's also this paper - "The Air Marshal versus the Admiral: Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Morton Forbes in the Pantheon" but you'll need library access to see the full version.


The reason an invasion would not have succeeded are manifold:

• The Luftwaffe lacked squadrons capable of attacking ships - only one squadron of He111s was practiced in such tactics
• They lacked armour piercing bombs and planned to use modified naval shells to pierce the decks of the RN's capital ships.
• The RN showed, despite the losses at Norway and Crete, that a well handled destroyer is both a difficult target and a formidable anti-aircraft opponent.
• The RN Home Fleet's orders at the time were to remain north of the Wash, and Forbes' stuck to this, but Cummings makes the not unreasonable point that if the invasion fleet launched then no doubt the Home Fleet would have come charging into the Dover Straits all guns blazing, minefields or no minefields
• The towed invasion barges would have been slow (3 to 5 knots) and they had a low freeboard - meaning in the choppy waters of the Channel many would likely have been swamped, unless the water was flat calm, and even then they would still be very easy targets - a couple of destroyers in amongst them would have wreaked havoc
• As the Allies proved in 1944, even with their superior technological development, crossing the Channel, getting a shore and establishing a beachead was very difficult - the German Army viewed a potential invasion a river crossing on a broad front, so its quite possible that any planning based on this faulty concept would have been disastrous.

Even if the Germans had crossed, landed and established themselves it's still doubful that the outcome would have been a successful one in their favour. The plan (like Overlord) depended on capturing a major port within 24 to 48 hours of landing to allow their forces to be adequately supplied - but as the Germans demonstrated later in the War, it doesn't take long for a skilled team of engineers to completely wreck a port and render it unusable.

Unless they totally destroyed the Home Fleet there would still be elements of it, including its submarine force, capable of disrupting the flow of supplies. Also, the invasion barges would need to be returned pretty quickly to the Continent to allow the flow of supplies to continue up to the coast for any trans-shipping - therefore any major loss of barges would have slowed the future supply of materiel.

Finally, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Churchill was quite prepared to use poison gas on any invasion beach.

the poison gas bit was not that big a problem,every soldier would have had a gas mask,as did every man woman and child in the UK did.mine was a donald duck one, the setting of the channel on fire bit, was the horror

Jawgap

getz wrote: »

the poison gas bit was not that big a problem,every soldier would have had a gas mask,as did every man woman and child in the UK did.mine was a donald duck one, the setting of the channel on fire bit, was the horror

It was only a non-problem if it didn't drift and cause British casualties and - it's a big AND - the Germans didn't retaliate and escalate the situation by, for example, dropping gas on cities.

Also Churchill's reputed weapon of choice was mustard gas - if the Germans had responded in kind with that, no doubt giving its persistence and blistering qualities (gas mask wouldn't protect all exposed skin) the civilian medical services would have been overwhelmed with casualties.

Churchill's argument was based on it's use in the First World War, but then it was largely confined to the front - presumably with air superiority and better bombers, the potential for civilians being gased was greater.

Thankfully we'll only ever have to discuss this in the abstract!

Stovepipe

@jawgap, then I guess the Stuka and Ju88 squadrons must have learned how to destroy ships on the job. The cruiser, HMS Fiji, survived dozens of air attacks but was destroyed by two ME-109s with standard bombs, so it could be done. I'm not entirely convinced that the RN would succeed in smashing an invasion force without incurring their own heavy casualties.
Stretching it, imagine if Rommel got ashore, at a South Coast landfall, with his "Ghost Division" and enough Panzers, 88s and 105s? He'd be at Bristol inside two days and threatening London. It'd be a hell of a job to shift him, then.

regards
Stovepipe

jonniebgood1

bwatson wrote: »

I think you become frustrated when any Briton, be they an academic or just somebody with interest in the topic, expresses a sense of pride or gratitude towards their nation's actions during the war. This may come about through a sense of shame at your own nations inaction or a desire to see the destruction/humiliation of the British state, however with that I am now speculating.

Being neutral in wartime is not something to feel 'shame' about. Particularly a war with so much tragedy and deriliction of morals as took place in WWII.

Jawgap

Stovepipe wrote: »

@jawgap, then I guess the Stuka and Ju88 squadrons must have learned how to destroy ships on the job. The cruiser, HMS Fiji, survived dozens of air attacks but was destroyed by two ME-109s with standard bombs, so it could be done. I'm not entirely convinced that the RN would succeed in smashing an invasion force without incurring their own heavy casualties.
Stretching it, imagine if Rommel got ashore, at a South Coast landfall, with his "Ghost Division" and enough Panzers, 88s and 105s? He'd be at Bristol inside two days and threatening London. It'd be a hell of a job to shift him, then.

regards
Stovepipe

The Stuka force was withdrawn within a week of Eagle Day and almost a full month before any proposed invasion took place.

Yes, the sunk some shipping during the Channel Phase of the BoB, but it was mostly merchantmen in slow moving coastal convoys and in the case of HMS Foylebank, a moored anti-aircraft ship.

In the week or so around Eagle Day they suffered 20% casualties, that's not learning on the the job, that's being target practice:)

Even during Operation Dynamo the Luftwaffe 'only' managed to sink 3 of the 9 destroyers sunk, the other falling to E-boats, U-boats and mines.

HMS Fiji was sunk after she had expended all her anti-aircraft ammunition and as she was participating in the evacuation of Crete, she was operating in a relatively defensive role. Her situation and sinking are not comparable to a naval force moving offensively with freedom to manoeuver.

In Bungay's book - "The Most Dangerous Enemy" he shows how a destroyer moving at flank speed provides a 1.25 second window within which a dive bomber must release it's bombs, if attacking from astern, to score a direct hit. This time window reduces considerably if the ship is manoeuvering aggressively and unpredictably or if the attack is delivered from a quarter, beam or bow-on direction.

Don't believe everything you read about Rommel - such a move assumes the Germans could have transported, off-loaded and supplied an armoured force that would have freedom of action once it assembled.

For France and the Low Countries, the 7th Division, like all the German formations, was able to assemble, organise and attack in a benign environment at the end of short and secure supply lines against a badly handled, largely unco-ordinated enemy force who had no idea of the type of warfare they were facing into and who retreated in disarray.

getz

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Being neutral in wartime is not something to feel 'shame' about. Particularly a war with so much tragedy and deriliction of morals as took place in WWII.

irish goverment neutral yes,irish people no,70,000 irishmen and woman joined the british army,also countless others joined the canadian,american and south african armed forces,over 200,000 irish citizens went over to the UK to help in the war effort,

Jawgap

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Being neutral in wartime is not something to feel 'shame' about. Particularly a war with so much tragedy and deriliction of morals as took place in WWII.

We - as in Ireland - had a neutrality guaranteed by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in the first instance. If we didn't have these to "hide" behind we probably would have been subject to the same fate as Denmark.

I'm not sure if shame is the right word to use in connection with the government's initial stance in the conflict, but Dev offering his condolences on behalf of the Irish people on the death of Hitler should certainly be a matter of some disquiet, if not shame - and it is not excusable by saying he was only following protocols.

The real shame lies in how those who fought and were lucky enough to return alive - how they were vindictively hounded by officialdom and how former Defence Forces personnel who effectively "deserted" to fight with the Allies were court martialled and, in many cases, discharged with ignominy.

Stovepipe

@jawgap,
Certainly the Stukas were withdrawn but the 88s weren't and continued to carry out both level and divebombing attacks to the end of the Battle. While they weren't routinely trained to dive against ships, they learned on the job in Poland, France and Norway. Any accounts I've read of Dunkirk and the war in the Med is rich with accounts of fighting against Stukas and how afraid the RN was of them. I used the example of HMS Fiji as an example of where simple non-dedicated fighters were used as fighter-bombers and sank a large vessel with two bombs, which apart from anything else, is incredibly efficient bombing. Apart from that, the RAF couldn't be everywhere and the radar wasn't as good as claimed. Rommel was overrated but he was a dab hand at achieving good results with scant resources. If he had got ashore, he would have frightened the daylights out of the British.

regards
Stovepipe

getz

Stovepipe wrote: »

@jawgap,
Certainly the Stukas were withdrawn but the 88s weren't and continued to carry out both level and divebombing attacks to the end of the Battle. While they weren't routinely trained to dive against ships, they learned on the job in Poland, France and Norway. Any accounts I've read of Dunkirk and the war in the Med is rich with accounts of fighting against Stukas and how afraid the RN was of them. I used the example of HMS Fiji as an example of where simple non-dedicated fighters were used as fighter-bombers and sank a large vessel with two bombs, which apart from anything else, is incredibly efficient bombing. Apart from that, the RAF couldn't be everywhere and the radar wasn't as good as claimed. Rommel was overrated but he was a dab hand at achieving good results with scant resources. If he had got ashore, he would have frightened the daylights out of the British.

regards
Stovepipe

this is what happened,to HMS fiji, she had expanded all of her ammunition fighting off numerous attack for over two hrs,she was hit by several bombs from messerschmit bf 109s, before a aircraft jagdeschwader 77 dropped a bomb close alongside and blew in the fijis bottom plates,she was then hit by three bombs dropped by a junkes ju 88, thats a lot different than your story,she was a sitting duck that could no longer fight back.

Jawgap

Stovepipe wrote: »

@jawgap,
Certainly the Stukas were withdrawn but the 88s weren't and continued to carry out both level and divebombing attacks to the end of the Battle. While they weren't routinely trained to dive against ships, they learned on the job in Poland, France and Norway. Any accounts I've read of Dunkirk and the war in the Med is rich with accounts of fighting against Stukas and how afraid the RN was of them. I used the example of HMS Fiji as an example of where simple non-dedicated fighters were used as fighter-bombers and sank a large vessel with two bombs, which apart from anything else, is incredibly efficient bombing. Apart from that, the RAF couldn't be everywhere and the radar wasn't as good as claimed. Rommel was overrated but he was a dab hand at achieving good results with scant resources. If he had got ashore, he would have frightened the daylights out of the British.

regards
Stovepipe

Sorry, I don't think I'm explaining myself well.

A large capital ship such as a cruiser, battleship, battle cruiser and even down to a light cruiser is a juicy target and because of it's size is relatively easy to hit.

The early stages of WWII, and the destruction of HMS Fiji, along with the sinking of Royal Oak, Hood, Repulse, Prince of Wales, the Battle of Taranto, Pearl Harbor, Battle of Mers-el-Kébir, the various battles in the Pacific etc showed how large capital ships were vulnerable to attack from the air, the sea and from below the sea.

What the Pacific Battles, Norway, Crete, and even Dunkirk also showed was that a well handled destroyer free to manoeuver is very difficult to hit and, because it can shoot back, is dangerous to attack. Also, it's even more difficult to attack at night.

If the invasion barges had launched then it would have taken them at least 8 hours to cross the Channel at it's narrowest point - that would be a long 8 hours if the RN's Home Fleet was bearing down on you, and difficult for the air force to provide protection unless the crossing takes place during daylight hours.

Simply put, the RN didn't neet to meet the invasion fleet with it's capital ships, they could have quite happily met their opposite Kriegsmarine numbers and slugged it out. All it needed was for a couple of destroyers and MTB boats to evade the German air and naval forces to get among the invasion barges and it would have been carnage. The incident at Slapton Sands in 1943 when E-boats attacked a D-Day training exercise gives some idea of what could have happened if small fast boats got in among any prospective invasion fleet.

Finally, the RN had four destroyer flotillas in the Home Fleet - some were in Gibraltar, but around 25 were available for action or already deployed - it's doubtful the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine and the minefields would have taken out all 25 before at least some of them reached the invasion fleet. They also had 5 submarine flotillas to hand.

Another point I missed earlier, which underlines the paucity of planning from the Germans, was their intention to land at high tide - their logic was to get their landing forces as far up the beach as possible. This logic was later displayed in their placing of beach obstacles along the Atlantic Wall at the high water mark.

The problem with landing at high water is you are landing on a falling tide which increases the risk of landing craft beaching and not being able to move until the next high water - it was one reason why the Allies landed at low water and rising tides in nearly all their amphibious operations, so their boats could float off the beaches easier.

Stovepipe

@getz, the account I read was from an RAF pilot's story as one of the Hurricane pilots operating over the Med. He said that one 109 struck Fiji with a 250 kg bomb, which stopped it. A second 109 finished it.His words, not mine. Fiji's decks were said to have been crowded with soldiers.
@jawgap, there is plenty of photographic evidence of German beach obstacles well out from the high tide mark, such as poles with Teller mines on them.

regards
Stovepipe

BlaasForRafa

getz wrote: »

this is what happened,to HMS fiji, she had expanded all of her ammunition fighting off numerous attack for over two hrs,she was hit by several bombs from messerschmit bf 109s, before a aircraft jagdeschwader 77 dropped a bomb close alongside and blew in the fijis bottom plates,she was then hit by three bombs dropped by a junkes ju 88, thats a lot different than your story,she was a sitting duck that could no longer fight back.

Can you quote a source for the Ju88 attack?, because I can't locate any.

I've checked several books for the attack on the Fiji. From The Lost Battle by Calum MacDonald (Fiji had been under attack by Ju87's by this point for several hours and her companion ship HMS Gloucester had already been sunk)

At 1745, however she was spotted by a Messerschmitt 109 which dived out of the overcast and scored a direct hit with a single bomb. The blast blew out the bottom of the ship, the engines stopped and she lay dead in the water, listing heavily. Shortly afterwards a second bomb hit the main boiler room and brought down the mainmast, which was still flying a yellow air-raid warning flag. At 2015 she turned over and sank

From Junkers Ju87 in North Africa and the Mediterranean by John Weal

Singled out by Oblt Dr. Ernst Kupfers 3./StG 1, the 9,400 ton Gloucester was hit repeatedly and brought to a standstill, badly on fire. The ship which had survived attack by II/StG 2 off Malta in January was not to escape a second time. Within minutes she had gone under. (Retiring southwards still under heavy air attack, the Fiji was sunk soon afterwards by Bf109 fighter-bombers)

And from the same book, in reference to comments made about destroyers being flung about making for hard targets the fate of the Kelly and Kashmir might make enlightening reading

At 0755 hours they were spotted by more than 20 Ju87s of I/StG 2 led by Gruppenkommandeur Hubertus Hitschhold. The dive-bombers attacked immediately. After taking a hit amidships, Kashmir sunk in less than 2 minutes. Despite violent evasive manoeuvres, Kelly could not escape the same fate, a bomb striking her in the engine room and causing her to capsize almost at once - half the ships company went down with the destroyer.

Ellis Dee

When I studied history, it was driven into my head that what it is all about is what happened (Leopold von Ranke "Wie es gewesen ist"), not what would have happened in some or other alternative timeline. However, the Japanese demonstrated very clearly in Pearl Harbour that the era of dreadnoughts and capital vessels was well and truly over and that the future now lay with air power, including the carrier-based sort. It was just too bad for them that they missed the American carriers and the USA was able to match them, and to spare, when it came to building both aircraft and carriers.:cool:

The attack on Pearl Harbour was a surprise, and happened without a declaration of war, but only three days later two of the Royal Navy's mightiest vessels - the Prince of Wales and the Repulse - were sunk in a couple of hours near Singapore. They were in a declared war and as well prepared as they could be, but against air power they had no chance.

Accordingly, it seems unlikely that the Royal Navy could have stopped a German invasion of Britain without the support of the RAF. The Germans could have taken their time and bombed the fleet to shreds and then invaded, and by then there would have been no Royal Navy.:)

Jawgap

Stovepipe wrote: »

......
@jawgap, there is plenty of photographic evidence of German beach obstacles well out from the high tide mark, such as poles with Teller mines on them.

regards
Stovepipe

that is indeed true - there are obstacles further up beaches out of the water which were designed to impede mobility, but the teller mine topped nutcrackers, hedgehogs, tetrahedrons etc were all placed in the inter-tidal area. Why place a mine on a 2 metre high hedgehog if it's on the dry beach? Better to plant an explosive just behind it to catch troops out as they shelter from incoming fire. Even better - save the mine and plot the obstacles for pre-selected artillery fire missions to hit anyone unfortunate enough to duck behind them.

The idea for the teller mine equipped stuff was that the Germans thought the Allies would land at high-water which meant the mines would be just under the water where landing craft could trigger them as they came in over them.

If the Germans expected the Allies to land on a rising tide, they'd have found some way to plant explosives just below the water level at low tide - that they didn't suggests they expected any landing to be conducted according to their flawed logic, at high tide.

to come back on topic, the Germans might have been a formidable land army, but they lacked a tradition of amphibious operations and as a result they had trouble defending against operations such as Overlord and Shingle (the Anzio landings) - they might have been masters of the counter-attack, but, apart from Jubilee (the Dieppe Raid), is there an example of them pushing a determined landing back into the sea?

This lack of tradition, an unsuitable doctrine and unimaginative planning would have doomed any potential crossing of the Channel.

Stovepipe

@jawgap, I don't know. I reckon they did well to give such a rigorous defence of Dieppe, given that they used a mix of sailors, regular soldiers, dockyard men, anti-aircraft gunners, artillerists and any other warm body that could be armed and sent into battle. I also think they gave a very good account of themselves at Anzio and Salerno, courtesy of Kesselring's ability to find enough men out of thin air to block gaps in the line. They also had the advantage in Normandy defensive positions, of being able to preregister the beaches for artillery fire and use a one-word coding system to bring down fire on any sector of the beach. So, they seemed to have some class of a grip on the job of defending beaches. I also think that what they didn't reckon on was intense Allied reconnaisance of the D-Day beaches by divers and submarines, even down to taking sand and gravel samples.

regards
GttC

Jawgap

@stovepipe - I think you're engaging in what John Mearsheimer called "wehrmacht penis envy"

Regardless of how tenaciously individual units fought at the tactical level, the German Army was bad at amphibious warfare - both defending against it and conducting it. Overlord & Shingle were a success for the Allies and a failure for the Germans because the Allies got ashore and stayed ashore.

Doctrinally the Germans were not geared for amphibious action, meaning from the outset any attempt at Sealion would likely have ended very badly. Is there an example of a successful German amphibious action, of any scale, against a determined defence? - Norway hardly counts!

The Allies had to learn through Torch, Husky and even Jubilee before they could do Overlord - I doubt the German Army with no experience of amphibious warfare and a combined arms doctrine that was exclusively land focussed, could have projected their power across the Channel succesfully at the first time of asking.

Fratton Fred

Ellis Dee wrote: »

When I studied history, it was driven into my head that what it is all about is what happened (Leopold von Ranke "Wie es gewesen ist"), not what would have happened in some or other alternative timeline. However, the Japanese demonstrated very clearly in Pearl Harbour that the era of dreadnoughts and capital vessels was well and truly over and that the future now lay with air power, including the carrier-based sort. It was just too bad for them that they missed the American carriers and the USA was able to match them, and to spare, when it came to building both aircraft and carriers.:cool:

The attack on Pearl Harbour was a surprise, and happened without a declaration of war, but only three days later two of the Royal Navy's mightiest vessels - the Prince of Wales and the Repulse - were sunk in a couple of hours near Singapore. They were in a declared war and as well prepared as they could be, but against air power they had no chance.

Accordingly, it seems unlikely that the Royal Navy could have stopped a German invasion of Britain without the support of the RAF. The Germans could have taken their time and bombed the fleet to shreds and then invaded, and by then there would have been no Royal Navy.:)

The Japanese apparantly visited Taranto just after the British decimated the Italian fleet (not that the British played any part in WWII according to Snickersman) and used that as the model for pearl harbour.

Any invasion wouldn't have been prevented by capital ships though, they would have simple stood guard to keep the German's capital ships out of action. The destroyers and patrol ships would have been the main weapon.

Also. As I said earlier (and another poster alluded to) it wouldn't have taken much to overwhelm the barges the Germans planned to use and Royal Navy MTBs and mine sweepers would have been effective and hard to hi from the air.

BlaasForRafa

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Also. As I said earlier (and another poster alluded to) it wouldn't have taken much to overwhelm the barges the Germans planned to use and Royal Navy MTBs and mine sweepers would have been effective and hard to hi from the air.

German E-Boats had a clear superiority over MTBs in 1940

Fratton Fred

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

German E-Boats had a clear superiority over MTBs in 1940

True, but even an e-boat v MTB battle in amongst the barges would have sunk them.

Jawgap

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

German E-Boats had a clear superiority over MTBs in 1940

I think it might be worth remembering how destroyers originated.

Destroyers were developed to protect larger battleships from torpedo boats - their original designation was "Torpedo Boat Destroyer" which was shortened to "destroyer."

The worth of the E-boat against the MTB is not the issue, it's how might E-boats have survived against destroyers?

Of the 153 destroyers the RN lost during the war, 55 fell to aircraft, 22 to other surface ships (http://www.naval-history.net/WW2aBritishLosses10tables.htm)

It's all speculation, and an interesting discussion.