Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Military History Visualized" channel.

  1. 'Where was the Kreigsmarine? On the sea bed, mainly. From the South Atlantic to the Mid Atlantic to the Bay of Biscay, to the Norwegian coast.
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  2. Hitler didn't issue it. Von Rundstedt did, in order the have his armour serviced for the second phase of the invasion of France. Hitler simply confirmed the order.
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  3. Good luck with the Graf Zeppelin. An outdated design even when conceived, with an air group of modified land based aircraft. Bf109 undercarriages were frail enough even when landing on terra firma.
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  4. The Bismarcks were built in response to the French Richelieus, as part of the Franco-German naval arms race, rather than as an attempt to challenge the Royal Navy. The U-Boat offensive, by the way, never actually came close to 'strangling' the British. Certainly, it never approached the level of threat that the Kaiser's boats did in mid 1917.
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  5. How, exactly?
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  6. To be correct, Operation Berlin succeeded because Tovey concluded that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would use the Iceland-Faroes Gap, and concentrated his forces there. Sir John learned from his error, and for the Bismarck action put two of his four fast capital ships into the Denmark Strait, whilst retaining the other two in the Gap. His dispositions worked, as Lutjens abandoned his mission after Bismarck had been damaged by Prince of Wales, and immediately made for St. Nazaire.
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  7. Equally, in 1940 the Luftwaffe hadn't had any training in anti-shipping operations, which is largely why they performed so badly at Dunkirk.
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  8.  @youraveragescotsman7119  No. They had become quite skilled later in the war, particularly in the Mediterranean and Arctic, but in 1940 the Luftwaffe was still primarily an army support force.
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  9. Can't understand what held Montgomery up. After all the British and Canadians only had eight Panzer Divisions and a couple of independent Tiger Battalions facing them.
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  10.  @tedcleveland8488  But in 1940 the Soviet Union was not an active enemy of the Germans. Hitler was able to concentrate all the resources at his disposal against Britain, but still couldn't hope to invade. By June 1941, the very idea of Sealion was a fading memory.
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  11.  @tedcleveland8488  It really didn't matter how wonderful the German army was. Without any means of crossing the Channel, what could it actually do?
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  12.  @tedcleveland8488  Oh, so the East India Company played a major role in the events of 1940 did it? As you have given up answering, and resorted instead to vague, ill-informed, generalisations, further comment would be superfluous.
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  13.  @tedcleveland8488  The Channel is not a lake, but a seaway. 22 Miles wide at the narrowest point, and in 1940 defended by the largest navy on Earth. As Napoleon wrote concerning his own problems 'Can an Elephant fight a Whale?'
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  14. The RN anti-invasion weren't at Scapa, they were at Plymouth, Portsmouth, Harwich, & Sheerness.
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  15.  @xavierthorn1273  Trouble is, 'all the Kriegsmarine' amounted to one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and about a dozen destroyers & torpedo boats.
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  16.  @xavierthorn1273  Nonsense! In September, 1940, the Kriegsmarine had one heavy cruiser (Hipper) in service. Prinz Eugen did not complete until early 1941. The two battleships (Scharnhorst & Gneisenau) had both been torpedoed during the Norwegian campaign, and didn't complete repairs until November, 1940, the eleven light cruisers were actually three (Emden, Koln, & Nurnberg) although you could add Leipzig, I suppose. She had been extensively damaged in December 1939, and was partially repaired for use as a training ship. 57 U-boats? In September, 1940 actually 61 in commission. However, 34 of these were older training boats or new boats working up in the Baltic. There were only 27 frontboote, of which 13 were at sea on any one day in September. You could add the armoured cruisers, except that Deutchland/Lutzow had been torpedoed off Norway, and repairs didn't complete until April, 1941, whilst Scheer didn't complete a refit in Danzig until late September. As to destroyers, in September, 1939, there were 22. However 12 had been sunk mid 1940, and in September 1940 three were refitting, leaving seven operational. There were also six Wolf/Mowe class torpedo boats (similar to British escort destroyers or American DEs). Don't believe me? Look them up for yourself.
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  17.  @xavierthorn1273  I don't think that they could have mounted a successful invasion, as the RN was still more or less unharmed. What might have been more possible, however, was a British government under Halifax being much more willing to come to terms in the event of the evacuation failing.
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  18.  @SuperiorAmericanGuy  Apart from the fact that both the Nelsons and the King Georg Vs were better armed and better armoured, of course. Bismarck was only superior in speed which, until the torpedo hit, might have enabled her to avoid action.
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  19.  @JacobA6464  Except the Iowas were not in existence at the time.
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  20. Except that France & Britain declared war over Poland. If Hitler was to achieve his ultimate ambition, the destruction of the Soviet Union, then he simply could not afford to have France & Britain active in the west.
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  21.  @youraveragescotsman7119  Surely you are aware of what the mighty Luftwaffe 'would have' done?
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  22. Why? Because Eisenhower & Bradley were caught unprepared?
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  23. By the time the Fleet Air Arm did what it had been trained for since the mid 1930s (disable an enemy capital ship in order to bring it into the range of the battlefleet) and what it had already done once in the Mediterranean, Lutjens had already abandoned his mission and was running for St. Nazaire.
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  24. Well, Dr. Cooper, PhD, I would have thought that someone as academic as yourself would have known the Soviet-German pact didn't influence Churchill to prepare for war. He had not held any government position since 1929, and only became a member of Chamberlain's cabinet when Britain was already at war.
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  25. I'm not sure what post you are referring to, but the correct figures from the relevant RN Pink List of 16 September, 1940, show around 70 operational RN light cruisers and destroyers within about 5 hours' steaming (based on 20 knots) of Dover, with a further 500 or so smaller warships in support. There were a further 40 or so destroyers in Home Waters. I haven't included the heavy ships of the Home Fleet, which were in Rosyth and Scapa Flow.
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  26.  @PoliticalRiskPod  Absolutely miles out. The RN Pink List for 16 September lists the following dispositions, of operational warships only, excluding vessels under repair or refit.:- Scapa Flow :- 1 battlecruiser, 1 carrier, 2 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, 7 destroyers. Rosyth :- 2 battleships, 1 battlecruiser, 3 light cruisers, 17 destroyers. Humber :- 3 light cruisers, 5 destroyers. Harwich :- 6 destroyers. Sheerness :- 2 light cruisers, 18 destroyers. Portsmouth/Southampton :- 1 light cruiser, 19 destroyers (including 5 French & 1 Dutch). Plymouth :- 1 battleship, 2 light cruisers, 11 destroyers (including 3 Polish & 3 French). Liverpool :- 3 destroyers. Firth of Clyde :- 1 light cruiser, 10 destroyers ( including 3 RCN). Belfast/Londonderry :- 3 destroyers. At sea on escort duties :- 10 destroyers. Halifax, Nova Scotia :- 3 RCN destroyers. Gibraltar :- 1 battlecruiser, 8 destroyers. Freetown :- 2 battleships, 2 carriers, 3 heavy cruisers, 11 destroyers. Mediterranean Fleet :- 4 battleships, 2 carriers, 2 heavy cruisers, 7 light cruisers, 22 destroyers. These are for vessels of destroyer size and upwards, and don't include smaller vessels (sloops, fleet minesweepers, submarines, MTBs, etc) or ships on more distant stations (East Indies, China, Australia, South Atlantic, Red Sea, etc., as if I did I would be typing all day!
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  27. Germany had no navy. In September 1940 they had one operational heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and about 15 destroyers and torpedo boats. U-boats didn't last long in the Channel. The Germans tried to send three through in 1939. They are still there. The Germans had heavy guns on the French coast. They fired at coastal convoys throughout the war, and hit precisely nothing. By September, 1940, the Germans had managed to assemble/commandeer just under 400 tugs/fishing boats. All were required to tow invasion barges. There were no reserves. The best the Germans could muster at the time was a small number (about a third of a division) of paratroopers. Not that this mattered, as they only had just over 200 Ju52 transport aircraft anyway. What, by the way, do the Germans at night, when their invasion barges are completely unprotected, and the Royal Navy's cruisers, destroyers, and supporting auxiliary craft are running riot? As Andrew Cunningham said to his fleet later in the war 'sink, burn & destroy. Let nothing pass.'
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  28.  @gabrielm.942  Sorry, but it is true. Assuming that an invasion attempt was to be made in the latter half of September, 1940, then :- Gneisenau : Torpedoed by HMS Clyde off Trondheim in June 1940. Repairing in Kiel. Repairs completed in December, 1940. Scharnhorst : Torpedoed by HMS Acasta in June, 1940. Undergoing repairs in Kiel. Repairs completed in December. Deutchland : Torpedoed by HMS Spearfish in April, 1940. Severely damaged, and undergoing repairs in Kiel. Repairs completed by April, 1941. Admiral Scheer : Refitting in Danzig for a raiding sortie. Refit completed mid October, 1940. Blucher : Sunk in April, 1940. Bismarck : Commissioned in late August, 1940, then sent to the Baltic for sea trials and working up. Modifications completed in January, 1941, and working up completed in April, 1941. Prinz Eugen :- Commissioned August, 1940. Baltic trials until December, after which modifications made in Kiel. Resumed working up in the Baltic, operating with Bismarck. Work up complete in April, 1941. Schlesien. : Secondary armament removed to equip merchant raiders late in 1939. Used as an icebreaker in the Baltic thereafter, until laid up as an accommodation ship with a skeleton crew July - December, 1940. Schleswig-Holstein : Supported the invasion of Denmark in April, 1940. Used as a training ship thereafter, with secondary armament removed for use on merchant raiders. I submit that using these two hulks as troop transports would have been the height of folly. The British had 18 destroyers and 2 cruisers based at Sheerness, 6 destroyers at Harwich, 3 cruisers and 5 destroyers in the Humber. Not to mention 2 battleships, 1 battlecruiser, 3 cruisers and 17 destroyers at Rosyth. That leaves Hipper, operational but with defective engines, the light cruisers Koln, Nurnberg & Emden, 7 operational destroyers (plus a further 3 refitting/repairing) and nine Wolf/Mowe torpedo boats.
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  29.  @gabrielm.942  Blucher was commissioned on 20 September, 1939, and sunk by Norwegian coastal defences on 9 April, 1940. The situation wasn't different though, was it? The invasion of Norway, which resulted in the crippling or loss of most of the German navy, took place mainly before the fall of France. The earliest that the invasion could have taken place realistically was September, 1940, because the German navy only managed to put their ramshackle invasion force of towed barges together by then. Even re-writing everything that happened between September, 1939 and June 1940, as you seem to want to do, still doesn't give the German navy the landing craft and numbers of escorts available to make a serious invasion attempt. Do you not understand the difference between a commissioned warship and an operational warship? Commissioning means that the navy has accepted the ship from the builders, but it then needs to undergo a long period of trials and working up.
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  30. Cloud was down to around 2000 feet, and the attack was carried out in semi-darkness. German AA didn't have radar direction at the time.
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  31. In September, 1940 there were just over 100 destroyers in Home Waters. There were 70 light cruisers and destroyers within five hours steaming of Dover.
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  32.  @johnburns4017  As Goering said to Hitler on 23 May, 1940, 'This is a special job for the Luftwaffe.' I wonder if Hitler ever reminded him of the comment in later years?
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  33. They didn't have the means to land any panzer divisions. Even the infantry divisions in the actual German plan would have been lacking motor transport and most of their divisional artillery.
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  34.  @maxmustermann9305  Did they collapse in WW1?
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  35.  @stephenarbon2227  The British were outproducing the Germans in aircraft, and particularly fighter aircraft, by mid 1940. By Spring, 1941, the RAF had 56 squadrons of Fighters & Fighter-Bombers carrying out regular fighter sweeps over northern France. Furthermore, also by Spring 1941, the new warship construction which the British had begun in 1939 was coming into service, in particular large numbers of L, M, & N class destroyers, supported by Hunt class escort destroyers, sloops and corvettes for convoy escort, and the ex American four stackers also for convoy duties. In cruisers, the remainder of the first group of Didos, and many of the Colony class, were now with the fleet. If the RN was out of sight in September, 1940, superiority was on a different planet by Spring 1941. As to U-Boats, firstly the Channel is a most unsuitable place for them. In 1939, the Kriegsmarine attempted to send three boats on operations in the Channel. They are still there. Furthermore, in May 1941, the Kriegsmarine had 33 operational front line boats, of which an average of 24 were at sea on any one day. Moreover, the usual role of a WW2 boat was to attack merchant shipping. The probability of success against large numbers of fleet destroyers and experienced convoy escort vessels was minimal. Finally, if you think that the Royal Navy of mid 1941 could not have survived, then you simply have no grasp of precisely how huge the Royal Navy of that time really was. Moreover, why should the British send capital ships into the Channel in any case? What purpose would they serve there? The RN anti-invasion preparations of 1940 had been built around large numbers of light cruisers, destroyers, and supporting smaller warships, actually, over 500 of them. What do you think might have changed by May, 1941?
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  36. They didn't have any battleships anyway. Both Scharnhorst & Gneisenau had been damaged during the Norwegian campaign, and didn't complete repairs until November. They also only had around half a division of paratroopers after heavy losses during the summer.
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  37.  @youraveragescotsman7119  And, of course, Rodney, Nelson & Hood were all at Rosyth in September, 1940. Ready & Waiting!
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  38. There was an alarm given at 2007 on the evening of 7 September, 1940, when the codeword 'Cromwell' was issued to Home Guard, regular army, and RAF units, telling them to expect an invasion attempt within 24 hours. The Royal Navy at the time carried out regular Channel patrols every night. On 7/8 September, the four destroyers from 1st Destroyer Flotilla, from Portsmouth, found precisely nothing. A MTB patrol entered Ostend harbour and torpedoed two freighters, and a patrol bound for Boulogne withdrew due to severe weather. The Admiralty, it seems, was baffled as to the reason the alert was issued, although it appears that an exercise had been mistaken for the real thing.
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  39. Easy to say, but much less clear cut, from Lutjens' point of view. Firstly, Bismarck was damaged, listing, and down by the bows. It was far from clear that she was still capable of catching Prince of Wales. If she could, Bismarck had no access to repair facilities, and one or two more hits could have left her more or less helpless. Secondly, as far as Lutjens knew, The two capital ships he had just engaged might well have had further heavy units coming up in support. He might well have ended up in a repeat of Hipper's predicament at Jutland. In pursuing Beatty's battlecruisers, he walked right into Evan Thomas's 5th Battle Squadron. I assume you know that Prince of Wales was barely damaged, by the way?
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  40. no tengo idea.
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  41.  @Obyss682  Aircraft Carriers never played the dominant role in western waters that they did in the Pacific. They were an important part of the fleet, but in a subordinate role to the battleship.
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  42.  @Obyss682  Because there was no need for them. British carriers were support vessels, whose air groups were intended to bring enemy vessels within range of the battle fleet, and to fly reconnaissance missions. Fleet carriers were too large and vulnerable for use on convoy escort duties, where escort carriers and Mac ships were more than adequate. The naval wars in the Atlantic/Mediterranean and the Pacific were totally different in nature.
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  43. If would have been easier if the Germans found a way of making their tanks float across the Channel, whilst their soldiers simply walked across.
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  44. The Germans were operating at comparatively long range, their fighters were hamstrung by the need to fly escorts for their bombers, the British fighters were at least as good as the Bf109s, and British control of their resources (radar, Observer Corps, Fighter Direction Rooms, etc) was far superior.
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  45. No. They were hoping that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen would break out into the convoy lanes and cause widespread disruption. That was the mission, and it failed utterly.
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  46. If a German invasion attempt was made and defeated, why on earth would the British attempt to keep it secret?
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  47. Correlli Barnett made the same argument in 'The Desert Generals' in around 1960, I believe.
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  48. The Channel defences made it a death trap for WW2 submersibles. The Kriegsmarine tried to send three, U12, U16, & U40, through in October, 1939. They are still there.
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  49. Indeed, around 6000 of them. Compared to 80000 T34s & 49000 Shermans.
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  50. Or drain it?
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