Interesting info on the naval blockade

[SMK-at-work]

Casualties may not have meant much to the Germans...but losing the shipping would have stopped the invasion cold - you can't invade the British isles unless you have ships.

Germany had so few ships available in 1940 that the 2nd and 3rd waves would have to wait for the 1st wave to unload so the shipping could return to pick up the subsequent troops.  The loss of any significant portion of the 1st wave of shipping would have posed major problems for the rest of the invasion.

and remember they were going to park those ships off eth coast of England for 3 days jsut to offload the 1st wave - the RN would probably have sunk a huge portion of them on the 2 nights they would be anchored there.

sure they might have built more....or wrecked the economy a bit more by taking even more barges off the Rhine.....but not in 1940.

[wargamer123]

SMK, indeed, the 1940 KG was relatively weak. The Royal Navy was a true Power. Though we always forget the bigger picture. The RN was also sorely needed to protect Empire. I think your accessment is true, that it would be a nightmare to attempt to cross the channel. The Allies did it with state of the art landing craft and everything at their disposal in '44. They had did so on a smaller scale in '43, an experiment... So they were very very determined to do it right. Though just the threat of Sea Lion, with the buildup of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe over time may have forced the British to the Table.

In '41 there would be some nice KG ships, U-boats, FW-190...
There were plans for a lot more, the Germans always had an obsession with Navys...

Also one has to imagine at Stalingrad, the loss of hundreds of thousands of Germans meant nothing really. Though if it would have gained England...It would have meant everything...

Egypt and the MiddleEast will open up if you lay too much threat on England, and so will India. Though some of this may be stepping on Stalin's toes the Axis grand strategy was to meetup in India... I personally think the USSR could of and virtually defeated the Germans 'alone'.... Though the Second Front fear tied up a lot of resources of the Axis in Europe.

Lastly, the British Army of 1940 was shredded a part, 1 army group across that Channel of Germans would've been very dangerous. The British were mobilizing the People to fight the war at this point, even old men...

[hjaco]

Ahhh where to begin [8|] Interesting discussions.

The potential 40 Sea Lion would have been a disaster and no sane (or insane) German considered it as a viable strategy. In fact the Army exaggerated its demands toward the Navy and vice versa because neither believed in the project. And it was not only the enormous problems with the initial landing to consider but the whole concept about fighting a campaign on foreign soil.

If we consider all kind of "what ifs" sure the Nazis could have won in Europe and dominating it for a long period. But the view on Germany to eat losses and fight on with grim determination was proved again and again as history has shown. But then again the same complies to the Allied major powers so thats not conclusive support for a potential Nazi victory. I mean you could hardly expect Germany to fight on more than they did [&:]

It was RN who adopted carriers in WW1. I think it was in mid 17'. Did you by the way know that Germany had a semi operational carrier (Graf Zeppelin) during WW2 ? It was only used for aviational training purposes in the Baltic though.

But the whole situation behind German failure to get a peace settlement with Britain was due to the fact that Germany was completely unprepared in all areas to fight a large scale war and no serious planning or provisioning had been made. Had Germany invested heavily in SUB technology and production before WW2 it would have been an entirely new ball game. But even given the situation as it is Germany may with a good probability have gained a peace settlement in the west by making a general peace settlement with occupied minors and France on the provision that the occupied territories would have been abandoned when Germany and CW were at peace. Now THAT would have been difficult for the shaky Churchill fraction to find support for a prolonged fighting with Germany if being presented with a generous peace offer as they were.

[Joel Rauber]

ORIGINAL: hjaco

Ahhh where to begin [8|] Interesting discussions.

The potential 40 Sea Lion would have been a disaster and no sane (or insane) German considered it as a viable strategy. In fact the Army exaggerated its demands toward the Navy and vice versa because neither believed in the project. And it was not only the enormous problems with the initial landing to consider but the whole concept about fighting a campaign on foreign soil.

I assume you mean fighting a campaign on foreign soil across a sea. The axis only did it once and with great difficulty (I.e. in N. Africa) and there they had an established base already set-up.

[hjaco]

ORIGINAL: Joel Rauber

I assume you mean fighting a campaign on foreign soil across a sea. The axis only did it once and with great difficulty (I.e. in N. Africa) and there they had an established base already set-up.

Yep [;)]

I think you overlook Norway and Crete [8D] In both campaigns they suffered heavy losses amongst the Navy in Norway and Paratroopers at Crete.

[wargamer123]

I guess watching dozens and dozens of documentaries of German Gliders, Barges, etc... All the Battle of Britian footage can be a bit misleading, plus 18 years of boardgaming. We do always want to leave open the 1940 Sea Lion. It is not only interesting, but fun for wargames and for T.V. and Books. I am aware after the amount of Effort that went into Normandy D-Day '44 and that could've easily failed with some backup Panzers smooshing the beachheads before they dug deep into France.

I have never done a barge for barge, ship for ship, aircraft for aircraft account. Plus accounting that the RAF could've always moved and that the RN could've all been pulled back to England quite quickly to do Hellish Damage to anything crossing.

I always loved to watch the Various Nazi Gliders they showed how they packed them to the brim. The idea of it, is sorta Sci-Fi in comparison with the thousands of craft used during D-Day built for the rough English Channel.

It is possible at a later date but most wargames make it feel possible whenever you want, Even GOA during WW1, where no real Amphibious Assualts were ever really successful...in fact left with a bitter taste with the British attempts to KnockOut Turkey.

Though there is one thing, the British were preparing, They were afraid as were the Americans of the Japanese. There are thousands of pillboxes all over the UK CountrySide, there was a massive effort and mobilization and Churchill put his country up for the Fight, didn't wait for the Germans to put anymore fear into the hearts of the British. He went for it.. Even Hitler was so reluctant to step foot across the Channel and he was never a good military tactician.


I think for Fear Factor, that counts more than the actual event. That is why we include it in Wargames. The Fear Factor forces the "What If," makes one prepare, for if you abandon all defenses and completely act like That Could never happen, you wouldn't station 1 corps in all of England because you'd feel overly safe in that any time a nation can be threatened.




The Japanese and Americans unlike the ETO were quite amazing with their Naval ambitions. They were way ahead of their time. Everyone expected Pearl Habour to be taken by Foot soldiers, and Midway was going to be... Shows how advanced these nations were!

[boogada]

fact:  the original german navy planing was aimed at a war in ~1944, so quite some ships were planed or in production. Hitler had to start the war earlier, and so the navy was anything but prepared!

[Joel Rauber]

ORIGINAL: hjaco




Yep [;)]

I think you overlook Norway and Crete [8D] In both campaigns they suffered heavy losses amongst the Navy in Norway and Paratroopers at Crete.

Yes, I overlooked those, but as you point out those rather prove the point.[;)]

Crete was minor IMO and in the Med theatre of operations, which is probably why I overlooked it. No excuses for Norway however.

[hjaco]

Crete was important in the sense that the experience weighed heavily on Germany's hesitation to do the same with Malta.

[wargamer123]

The Germans were ahead in the area as far as I know.. There giant Gliders could carry very light 1 tank and an assortment of equipment and troops. I recall watching a training film...I forget the name of the glider, a I think it was a Junkers something... Of course after Crete I know that they'd lost sooooo much they were unable to commit to Malta out of fear of losses... that and a failure to do in the Island

[SMK-at-work]

Me-321, subsequently developed into the Me-323 6-engined transport - the glider was produced early 1941-early 42, and a few were converted to Me-323's

[hjaco]

And they generally was a failure. Way to expensive to research and produced and as usual with German WW2 research/production was rushed into production before time with predictable results.

[SMK-at-work]

The 321 was just too big for a glider - initial tows consisted of 3 x Me-110's, but the performance was marginal and actually flying the 4-aircraft combo fraught with problems.  The He-111Z (2 x He-111's joimed bya wing section with a 5th engine) was built to do the job instead, but even then it was only just capable of getting a loaded glider into the air.
 
The Me-323 was not a bad aircraft....albeit slow, ugly and a fairly easy target.

[hjaco]

Well but if I remember correctly the main problem was it needed an excessively long runway which was hard to find in those days [8|]

[SMK-at-work]

The glider needed somethign like a 3km concreete runway...and yep they were hard to find!

[wargamer123]

some rocket packs would be useful getting such a bird off the ground and getting rid of the runway.. I'm sure that was considered later in the war?

[SMK-at-work]

The were used right from the get-go in 1941 - and the rockets were huge - the glider could have 3 x 1000kg rockets under each wing!
 
Eg see photos at http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/me321.html , and models at http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Messerschmitt-Me321/gigant.php

[wargamer123]

that is a massive Glider, though as mentioned in the documentary and on the web resource, it was riddled with issues...A panzer 4 or 88 gun fit in that, very very daunting

also:

in the end of the page mentions the world's largest glider for this type of use. Rockets on the wings are innovative. Behemoth of the sky