The Phoney War.
MA40. Axis #3. Storms over Western Europe force a continuation of Germany's Stizkrieg. However, the storms didn't prevent the Germans from trying to carry the war to Great Britain and France on the high seas. A plan is hatched by Grossadmiral Raedar to do so. A plan that he sells to the Fhurer who tactility approves it, taking less than five minutes to consider it. A plan that is flawed and one that will generate more than its fair share of criticism from Admiral Donitz, Commander of Germany's u-boat fleet.
Grossadmiral Raedar's Operation "Tidal Wave", a joint Kriegsmarine and u-boat operation.
Objective: destroy allied convoys, disrupt allied shipping lanes and establish amphibious resources in the North Sea for capture of Rotterdam during the next non-storm/non-blizzard impulse.
If successful this operation would keep in reserve the II FJR para corps and make a "late turn" invasion of Belgium possible.
Operational Orders.
1. Adm Donitz will send u-boat flotillas into the Faeroes Gap and North Sea. He will order his u-boat crews then to initiate search for allied convoys, which once found will be attacked and sunk.
2. The KM based in Keil will establish Task Force A composed of the Pocket Battleships Grap Spee, Deutshland, Heavy Cruiser Blucher, Battleship Schernhost and destroyer groups 1-4 (8 DD's total).
3. The 14th SS infantry division will be loaded aboard selected ships of Task Force A (i.e., CA Deutshland).
4. Task Force A will then proceed to location [******] in the North Sea and wait for the Rotterdam invasion order.
5. Under no circumstances should Task Force A attempt to engage any elements of the RN or French Navies until after the successful amphibious invasion of the 14th SS into Rotterdam.
6. Additional, Task Force A should employ every measure possible to avoid detection by the allies prior to the invasion.
Execution.
German u-boat flotillas in the Faeores Gap and North Atlantic, searching during storms, fail to find any allied convoys.
KM Task Force A attempts to avoid allied detection, but are found during the non-phasing combat phase on search rolls of 2 for the allies and 7 for the KM. This means that a combined 14 allied capital ships are pitted against the 4 KM capital ships of Task Force A. With storms in the North Atlantic, it's a surface action and with the search rolls the combined RN and French naval forces have 6 surprise points. The allies are faced with some interesting choices of how to use those surprise points. Do they use them to increase risk to the KM ships, reduce risk to the allied ships or "save" 4 in order to have 3 to select the pocket battleship Deutshland, which is carrying the 14th SS, for the risk of being sunk. In the end the allies use their 6 SP's to increase risk to the 4 KM capital ships. While the 14th SS div might survive, the CA Deutshland will either be damaged or aborted thus negating any attempted amphibious invasion by the Germans against Rotterdam. Given that the amphibious invasion is now stopped, the overriding consideration for the allies is to inflict as much damage as possible on the KM, ignoring risk to their own ships.
The Second Battle of Jutland.
The combined RN and French navies manage to sink the Pocket Battleship Grap Spee and Heavy Cruiser Blucher. The pocket battleship Deutshland, carrying 14th SS div, and battleship Schernhost are damaged and forced to return to Kiel. Also, all 8 destroyers of DD groups 1-4 are sunk. In return, the allies see the French battleship Dunkerque damaged, RN heavy cruiser Cornwall aborted, 2 French DD's sunk and 2 RN DD's damaged. Winston Churchill is ecstatic, "The Second Battle of Jutland" as he has coined this battle is a roaring allied naval victory.
Admiral Donitz's After Action Report on Grossadmiral Raedar's Operation Tidal Wave.
Executive Summary
1. Operation objectives and the hope of keeping the FJR II corps in reserve for a late turn invasion of Belgium
are valid.
2. It was the operation orders for the plan'execution that were
extremely FLAWED.
3. The employment of u-boats to search for convoys during storms (or blizzards) significantly minimizes their chance of success. In addition to the +1 search roll modifier for weather, no reduction to the search roll is given due to the presence of CP's. At the time of this operation, and in the case of the Faeroes Gap and the North Atlantic, this would have been -1, which would have provided a 10% boost to detection probability.
4. Under the operational orders of the plan, Task Force A would have had to survive a
minimum of two search attempt by the allies. The first during the non-phasing search of the impulse employed and the second during the phasing search of the next (allied) impulse. For every impulse pair the storms continued Task Force A remained at sea, then it would have had to faced another phasing search by the Allies.
5. Alternate operational orders that would have greatly improved the chance of success would have been to use two combine impulses instead of the one naval. The first combined, which would have been during storms, would be used to deploy (but not search) the u-boat flotillas. Then, when the weather allowed for amphibious operations, take another combine to send out KM Task Force A and have the u-boats search for their quarry. These alternate operations orders would have exposed Task Force A to one, and only one, (non-phasing) allied search attempt and allowed the u-boat flotillas to benefit from the -1 search roll modifier.
