Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Timeline - World History Documentaries"
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@davidbradford7105 Your understanding is in error. Both Repulse and Prince of Wales were hit each by one bomb. Damage was slight. Torpedo bombers sank them.
All Mitchell demonstrated was that a battleship without a crew, without the means of self defence, with armoured bulkheads left open, and remaining motionless could, eventually be sunk by aircraft.
I observe that, once again, you, like most Sealion fans, say what the Luftwaffe 'would have done.' I have already told you what, historically, it did (or, more accurately, did not) do. What makes you think that the Royal Navy would have been sent to Canada? Did Cunningham abandon the army on Crete in May, 1941? Crete was lost because of the failings of Freyberg and his commanders, but the Mediterranean Fleet achieved everything that was demanded of it. No axis forces landed by sea until the decision to evacuate had been made. One invasion convoy was annihilated by a cruiser squadron and a second withdrew to Greece to avoid the same fate. Why do you think that the British Chiefs of Staff would have abandoned their greatest asset?
Put simply, you are making claims without any credible arguments to support them.
I wasn't making any point about Dover. I was simply pointing out how close to the Channel huge RN defensive forces were in September. What, indeed, does 'Dover would not have been possible without the RAF' even mean?
'Untrained pilots with heavy bombs sunk a few heavy cruisers in WWII.' Really, which RN heavy cruisers were sunk by German heavy bombs in WW2? The historical records must have missed them.
Finally, I observe that you haven't explained the failure of the Luftwaffe at Dunkirk. Understandable, as Sealion promoters tend to avoid that subject.
Perhaps you should look up the Sandhurst War Game of 1974? Even with a few adjustments to the facts in order to make a German landing even possible, the bulk of the RN forces being moved back to avoid the immediate annihilation of large numbers of towed barges, for example, the result was a crushing victory for the Royal Navy.
'Nearly all Sealion was a success.' How? It was never attempted. No barges ever put to sea. The only contribution to the German cause it made was the increase in British convoy losses until November, because most destroyer escorts had been withdrawn in order to bolster the anti-invasion flotillas in Plymouth & the Nore.
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No, they didn't. The essential difference was that the Germans were attacking a neutral country, which had previously refused to allow RN warships into their waters. Once the RN was able to act, the German surface fleet was badly mauled, losing 50% of their entire destroyer force.
By September, 1940, the German operational surface fleet had been reduced to one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, seven destroyers and seven large torpedo boats.
Moreover, unlike Norway, British was fully prepared.
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@VascoDaGamaOtRupcha My point is clear enough, and I certainly didn't suggest that Norway was not occupied.
As I wrote, Norway was a neutral country, and had not allowed the Royal Navy into her waters. The Germans had already occupied Denmark, and the waters between Germany & Norway were not patrolled by the British.
Calais to Dover is irrelevant, as the invasion barges were towed, in pairs by tugs and barges, from Dunkirk, Rotterdam, & Ostend to Folkestone & New Romney, Calais & Antwerp to Hastings & Rye, Boulogne & Le Havre to Eastbourne & Bexhill, and Le Havre to Beachy Head & Brighton.
As these barges were being towed at little above walking pace, some of them, according to the Kriegsmarine, would require three days to make the crossing. By September, the Royal Navy had 70 light cruisers and destroyers within five hours steaming of the Straits, with around five hundred smaller warships in support.
By contrast, Norway had a tiny navy, and was attacked without warning. In the campaign, the Germans lost ten destroyers (half of their total availability), one heavy cruiser (half of the two they had available), and two, of six cruisers, with a third so crippled as to be fit only for training duties thereafter. One panzership, of two available, was so crippled as to be unfit for service until Spring 1941, and both battleships crippled and put out of action until November, 1940.
As the German campaign was described by a naval historian, Dr. P. R. Possony, later, 'A fleet had been sacrificed to gain a base, but the base had little value without the fleet.'
The fact is that the Kriegsmarine never recovered from the losses it suffered during the campaign, with the result that it could offer nothing more than superficial protection to any attempt to invade Britain.
If you think that the two operations have any similarity whatsoever, you are sadly mistaken.
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@Youve_GotABeard No, I simply base my judgements upon verified historical facts. In Britain's time of greatest peril, the Summer and Autumn of 1940, the United States stood by and watched. Certainly, weapons and supplies were sold to Britain, but only at the going commercial rate.
By the time Germany & Japan had dragged the US, unwillingly, into WW2, Germany had already attacked the Soviet Union, and Britain was, if not yet sure of victory, no longer in any danger of defeat.
As Churchill said, 'The United States can always be relied upon to do the right thing. But only after all other options have been exhausted!'
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@gernotfischer7908 Try again. In 1940 the Luftwaffe was not trained in anti-shipping warfare, as demonstrated by the manner in which it failed at Dunkirk. Perhaps you should read up on the Kriegsmarine plan, which assumed that it would require eleven days to land nine infantry divisions (without most of their artillery and motor transport, by the way) provided, of course, that the Royal Navy didn't intervene, as there were, literally, no reserves of towing vessels for the converted barges.
As, by mid-September, 1940, the Royal Navy had around seventy cruisers and destroyers within five hours' steaming of Dover, supported by some 500 smaller warships, do you really wish to argue that the Royal Navy would adhere to the Kriegsmarine's hopes?
If you don't believe me, why not read what Oskar Dinort, the Stuka ace, wrote about the difficulties of hitting destroyers at sea, and what Wolfram von Richtofen told Goering about the same problem?
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@gernotfischer7908 But we are not talking about 1942 onwards, we are talking about September, 1940. The Luftwaffe hadn't any training in anti-shipping operations, and had failed badly at Dunkirk. The relevance of 5 hours' steaming from Dover is that the destroyer bases were outside the range of German bombers in any case, unless they were unescorted, and you can read for yourself what happened to German daylignt unescorted bomber raids on North Eastern British ports.
In a battle of attrition, the Kreigsmarine is outmatched. Their plan left them no reserves of towing vessels, and required eleven days to get the first nine infantry divisions across. This also, of course, means eleven nights, when the invasion barges and tugs were unprotected, and the Royal Navy had a completely free hand.
It is always fascinating to read comments from Sealion enthusiasts about what the Luftwaffe would have done. The historical record rather demonstrates how far short it tended to fall in reality.
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@iemjgf No, I'm not. The ACTUAL ship losses at Dunkirk, both British and French, were as follows. Numbers of ships present first, followed by losses in parentheses:-
Cruiser 1 (0), Destroyer/Torpedo Boat 56 (9), Sloop 6 (0), Patrol Vessel 7 (1), Gunboat 2 (1), Corvette 11 (0), Minesweeper 38 (6), Trawler 230 (29), Special Service Vessel 3 (0), Boarding Vessels 3 (1), MTB 15 (0), Schuit 40 (4), Yacht 27 (3), Personnel Vessel 45 (9), Hospital Ship 8 (1), Cargo Ship 13 (3), Tug 40 (7), Landing Craft 13 (8), Lighters 48 (12), Small Craft 242 (142).
Thus, of warships at Dunkirk, of 372 present, 39 were lost. The vast majority of the so-called 235 ships claimed lost at Dunkirk were actually small craft. Most of these, around 150, were simply abandoned on the beach at the end of the operation.
The British lost 6 destroyers, by the way, and the French 3. Not 'many.'
Pedestal is hardly relevant, although five merchant ships reached Malta, not three. However, the question under discussion here is not about the RN defending merchantmen from air attack in 1942, but whether the Luftwaffe of 1940 was capable of keeping the 70 British light cruisers and destroyers, backed up by around 500 smaller warships all within five hours steaming of Dover, away from the towed barges carrying the assault troops.
Certainly, the Luftwaffe's command realised after Dunkirk how poorly trained in anti-shipping operations their crews were. Even after training, however, in the whole of WW2 the Luftwaffe sank 31 RN destroyers, and no RN warship larger than a light cruiser.
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Evidently, you are ignorant of the technology that the British generously did invent and provide to the United States in the first half of the 20th century?
To mention a few things of interest. Radar (the cavity magnetron), asdic/sonar, codebreaking skills (Bletchley Park), the depth charge, advanced nuclear research, the tank, high frequency direction finding, the steam turbine, and the aircraft carrier.
Eould you like to know a few more, or are you simply content to remain ignorant?
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Repulse & Prince of Wales were lost to torpedo bombers. The Germans in 1940 had no torpedo bombers. Similarly, the attack on Taranto was carried out by torpedo bombers. Pearl Harbor, by the way, was an attack on ships of a neutral country in harbour.
'The royal navy lost 30 destroyers alone to the Luftwaffe in WW2.' Indeed, in the whole of WW2. In other words, in 68 months. Or, at a rate of less than one every two months. Are you completely unaware of the numbers of destroyers available for anti-invasion duties, and within five hours of Dover, in September, 1940? There were 63, with a further 50 within 24 hours of Dover, but operating with the Home Fleet, or on escort duty or in west coast escort ports. There were also, in September, 1940, six light cruisers on anti-invasion alert, as well as around five hundred smaller warships.
When the Royal Navy attacked the French Fleet at Mers el Kebir, didn't you know that they did it with battleships? The Channel Dash was a major German strategic reversal, which succeeded because of failures on the part of the RAF. The Royal Navy was in the north, providing protection for Russian convoys, at a time when any prospect of invasion had long passed. Moreover, a trio of three modern warships, rushing through the Channel at high speed in a few hours, can hardly be compared to an attempt to land troops from towed barges over an eleven day period.
The Royal Navy couldn't stop the German invasion of Norway because Germany attacked a neutral country, and used their warships to ferry troops into unsuspecting ports. Even so, the Germans lost most of their navy during the course of the operation, leaving them with virtually nothing available to protect their invasion barges in September.
'The combined power of the Royal Navy, French Fleet, French Army, British Army, French Airforce, RAF and norweigian military.' Please don't be silly. The forces committed by the French Navy, French Air Force, and RAF were tiny, as were the British & French (and Polish) land forces. Norway, by the way, had tiny standing armed forces. If you cannot understand the difference between a surprise attack on a weakly-armed neutral country, and an attempted assault landing on the south coast of the UK, then I urge you to do more reading.
'Of course once the German Army was landed by Sea and air.' You can forget the air part. In September, there was about half a division of parachute troops left to the Germans, and only, according to Luftwaffe records, exactly 226 operational transport aircraft. As to the sea bit, that presupposes that the barges, towed down the Channel at little more than walking pace, can get their troops (without divisional artillery, motor transport, or armoured support, as they would have been, as you should have known had you read the Kriegsmarine's plan) ashore, over an eleven day (and night) period.
By the way, the British army had no RAF support at all in Greece, and was itself only a tiny part of the Western Desert Force. What happened in Cyprus, by the way? I assume you mean Crete, where the Germans and Italians tried to send two troop convoys by sea to reinforce the airborne landings. One was annihilated by the Royal Navy, and the other returned to Greece before experiencing the same fate.
Finally, have a look at how effective (or rather, ineffective) the Luftwaffe were at Dunkirk. Even a Sealion 'would have' such as yourself should know that the Luftwaffe in 1940 had had no training at all in anti-shipping operations. Why would you seek to claim that the same Luftwaffe which had performed so ineptly against ships either stopped or moving slowly in restricted waters would suddenly annihilate the same ships when they were free to manoeuvre at speed?
How, by the way, would the Luftwaffe have provided any protection at all at night, when the RN could operate freely?
Seriously, you clearly have a simplistic, superficial, understanding of the true situation which existed in the latter half of 1940. You really need to read up on the facts, not the myths.
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Sorry, forgot about:- 'German U-Boats and of course the then pound for pound most powerful naval surface fleet in the world.' You mean the 27 front line operational boats, of which 13, on average, were at sea on any one day in September, 1940. Or, presumably, the German surface fleet, which in September, 1940, consisted of one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and seven destroyers. Is that what you mean?
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@jmcfintona999 I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about Operation Sealion and the Battle of Britain. Clearly you aren't aware when the Battle of Britain was, nor when Sealion was intended to take place.
If you wish to debate the naval war as a whole, we could consider such matters as the failure of any German heavy warships to operate in the Atlantic after mid 1941, the suppression of German auxiliary raiders in the Indian Ocean, the total defeat of the German U-Boat offensive, the successful assault landings undertaken by Allied (mainly British) sea power in Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, and France, and the failure of the German surface fleet to challenge the Allied convoys to the Soviet Union. In fact, the failure of the German navy to achieve anything of note after Norway.
Is simply posting an extract from wikipedia the full extent of your 'knowledge?' You really must try harder, or perhaps read more.
To go back to the original subject, please check for yourself the details I gave you concerning the German surface fleet in September, 1940. To help you, the heavy cruiser was Admiral Hipper, the light cruisers were Emden, Koln, and Nurnberg, and the destroyers Karl Galster, Friedrich Eckholdt, Friedrich Ihn, Hans Lody, Theodor Riedel, all at Cherbourg, together with Erich Steinbrinck & Paul Jacobi, both at Brest after completing refits.
Don't feel so defensive about your lack of knowledge, by the way. Many people feel the same when communicating with me on the subject. Perhaps, should you actually buy a book, you might be lucky enough to acquire one of mine. Writing them is, after all, my career path.
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Again, an addition :- . 'The same German Surface fleet that tied up the British Home fleet for 5 years in scappa flow.' (It is spelled 'Scapa Flow,' by the way). Indeed, the 'tied up' British Fleet which disposed of Graf Spee, Bismarck, and Scharnhorst, prevented German heavy surface ships venturing out of port after late 1941 (except, of course for the flight from Brest known as the Channel Dash, and Scharnhorst's death ride mentioned above) ensured that the Russian convoys passed through more or less unmolested, pinned the remnants of the German surface fleet down out of the way fjords, whilst the rest of the Royal Navy dominated the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean, took back the Indian Ocean, and provided 892 warships to ensure the success of the Normandy Landings. Is that the Home Fleet to which you refer?
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@jmcfintona999 Again, what has the relevance or otherwise of Tirpitz got to do with Operation Sealion? Just to explain something to you, however, the Home Fleet had little relevance to the Battle of the Atlantic, which was conducted by (mainly) British and Canadian escort groups consisting of sloops, frigates, old destroyers, and corvettes. Usually, the Home Fleet resources to protecting the Russian convoys consisted of two battleships, a carrier, up to four destroyers, and a destroyer flotilla.
The Vichy French navy played no part in the war in the Mediterranean, or anywhere else, after 1940, by the way.
Perhaps you could explain the relevance of any of your ramblings to the Battle of Britain or Sealion?
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@jmcfintona999 Do you really believe that the Admiralty proposed using capital ships to protect convoys? Please explain how, for example, a King George V class battleship would protect a convoy from a U-Boat? The role of the Home Fleet was to prevent German heavy ships from carrying out raids against Atlantic or Russian convoys. Once the last German heavy ship was destroyed, of course they were sent to the last remaining battle zone.
The Vichy fleet was either interned or kept in French ports after 1940.
I really don't know where you get your ideas from. It was not the duty of the Royal Navy to protect neutral Norway. Indeed, the Norwegian government had objected to Allied warships even entering Norwegian territorial waters. Had the Norwegian government accepted that a German invasion was imminent, and asked for Allied protection, then the outcome would probably have been rather different. As it was, the Allies found themselves faced with a fait accompli. The British navy could, and did, largely cripple the German fleet, but could not change the outcome of the land campaign, apart from extricating Allied troops after the collapse in France brought about the abandonment of the campaign in Norway.
Incidentally, please tell me more about the failure of the Royal Navy to prevent the invasion of Malta. Could you provide the relevant source?
The largest Royal Navy warship sunk by German aircraft in WW2 was a light cruiser, by the way.
What actual sources do you use to obtain your information, as a matter of interest?
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