Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Historigraph" channel.

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  11.  @jddallas7274  Congratulations on getting so many facts wrong in so short a post. Quite an achievement. The Germans had 27 operational U-boats by September, 1940, of which an average of 13 were at sea on any one day. At the same time, they had only seven operational destroyers. For comparative purposes, at the same time the RN had 70 or so destroyers and cruisers based within five hours steaming of Dover, and a further 40 or so destroyers in Home Waters if needed. Magnetic mines might have caused problems in shallow waters, had the Luftwaffe not managed to drop a couple on mud flats near Shoeburyness in November, 1939. A team from HMS Vernon recovered them and determined how they worked. As early as 27 November, tests (successful ones) were carried out on HMS Manchester, and degaussing methods were rapidly introduced. By 9 March, 1940, over 600 vessels had been successfully treated, and the procedure was quickly gathering pace. The RN didn't seem to have been 'afraid of getting shot to bits by the Luftwaffe in the channel' at Dunkirk when they evacuated over 323,000 men of the BEF & French 1st Army without serious losses. Nor did they seem deterred as they undertook daily destroyer, cruiser, and MTB patrols through the Channel for the rest of the summer. Out of interest, and because it is clearly another fact of which you are ignorant, in the whole of WW2 your mighty Luftwaffe sank 31 RN destroyers, and no RN warship at all larger than a light cruiser. 'The Germans would have conducted the landing at night and the Royal Navy would not have responded till the day that is a head start. Every amphibious operation of WW2 succeeded and the British destroyers did not have the guns to shoot the German landing craft till 1942' This is idiocy on a masterful level. The Germans did not have any landing craft. They intended to transport their troops in barges towed in pairs by tugs or trawlers. The barges were to be towed in cumbersome block formations. For example, Barge Convoy 1, from Rotterdam, Ostend & Dunkirk heading for the area between Folkestone & New Romney consisted of 150 barges from Dunkirk & 50 from Ostend, together with a further 114 barges & 57 transports from Rotterdam. Have you even considered how long it would take to extricate these barges from their ports, assemble them into some sort of formation, and then set sail? The quickest convoy required two days, and the largest three. 'The British destroyers did not have the guns to shoot the German landing craft till 1942 the Germans conducted a successful landing without control of the sea in Crete and they were intercepted by the Royal Navy and still all made so just saying your argument is weak not my.' What do you think that the 6 inch and 4 inch guns aboard British light cruisers, or the 4.7 inch, and 4 inch guns aboard British destroyers in 1940 were? Wooden mock ups? Or,of course, the 4 inch & 3 inch guns aboard supporting vessels, such as minesweepers, gunboats, sloops, and corvettes? The salient point about Crete was that the Axis were not able be land troops from the sea, at least not until the British had decided to withdraw. Two convoys sailed from Greece, one bound for Maleme & one for Heraklion. The Maleme convoy was annihilated by a RN cruiser squadron, and as a result the Heraklion convoy turned back to Greece. One of your comments, however, is correct, that 'Every amphibious operation of WW2 succeded.' Do you know why that was? Because those in Europe & North Africa were planned and executed by the Royal Navy, and those in the Pacific by the United States' Navy. I assume from your post that you are just an immature child. The other possibility, that you are a remarkably stupid or ignorant adult, does also exist, however. Would you like me to recommend a few book for you to read, or have read to you?
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  40.  @georgegonzalez-rivas3787  There was never any suggestion that the Home Fleet would 'rush down' to intercept an invasion. The Home Fleet was at Rosyth, and would only be sent further south if any (actually non-existent) German heavy ships were detected heading towards the Channel. Home Fleet heavy ships were not intended to operate against a ramshackle invasion fleet of towed barges for the same reason that duck hunters generally do not use field guns. The rapid firing 4 & 4.7 inch destroyer guns, backed up by the 6 inch of the cruisers, were far more suited to the task. There were 61 U-boats in commission in September, 1940. 34 were older training boats, or new boats working up. Of the remaining 27, only 13 were operational on any one day. The rest were either en route to, or returning from, patrol areas, or refitting/repairing after completing patrols. Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by torpedo bombers, flown by crews who had been trained in anti-shipping techniques. In September, 1940, the Luftwaffe had had no such training, and until mid 1942, didn't even have torpedo bombers. Why do you think the Luftwaffe failed so badly at Dunkirk. Furthermore, on what basis do you think they would do any better against fast moving warships, when three months earlier they had proved themselves largely ineffective against ships stopped close inshore? In the whole of the war, the Luftwaffe managed to sink 31 RN destroyers, and no RN warship larger than a light cruiser. In September, 1940 the RN had around 70 light cruisers and destroyers within 5 hours of Dover, and a further 40 or so more destroyers in Home Waters. The status of the German navy in September, 1940 :- Scharnhorst & Gneisenau were both under repair, which wasn't completed until November 1940. Bismarck was completing trials in the Baltic, followed by modifications in Hamburg until early 1941. Tirpitz did not even commission and commence trials until early 1941. Prinz Eugen's construction only completed in December, 1940. The only heavy ship available at the time was a single heavy cruiser, with three light cruisers and six destroyers also operational at the time. Finally, I don't do war games, but I did do a degree in Modern History, specialising in WW2 Naval History, and came away with a first.
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  41.  @myclearwater1471  America wasn't 'holding back' the destroyers at all. As early as 15 May, the US Ambassador in Paris had spoken to the French Admiralty concerning the supply of twelve such vessels to France. At the same time an approach was made, on the initiative of the US, to Britain, concerning the provision of '50 or 100 such ships' to the RN. On 1 August, FDR, via the British Ambassador in Washington, suggested that 50 such ships could be sold to Canada, or in exchange for British bases. Churchill rejected the first option, but described the second as 'undesirable but acceptable.' The first destroyers began arriving in Canada on 1 September. The British saw them as useful stop-gaps for convoy escorts until their own new construction of better equipped escorts began to appear in early-mid 1941, but the initiative for the transfer was from the US, not Britain. Britain was not 'getting ready' for invasion in August, 1940, unless you consider sending a troop convoy including three armoured regiments with full supporting artillery & transport an appropriate preparation. This was the 'Apology' convoy, which left the UK on 22 August. The Italian 'invasion' of Egypt began in September, 1940. Far from attempting to take the Suez Canal, 10th Army advanced about 65 miles, then stopped, setting up a series of fortified camps. In December, 1940 the British, using the reinforcements from the 'Apology' convoy, counter-attacked, totally destroying 10th Army and for losses of 1900 men killed & wounded, took over 133,000 prisoners, and captured over 400 tanks and 800 artillery pieces. Put simply, the Vichy French & 'the Arabs' were hardly close friends, and there was no threat to the oil fields at the time. Air fields in Britain at the time generally had grass strips. Certainly, attacks did temporarily reduce their efficiency, but for brief periods only. A far more serious problem might have been a determined attempt to destroy the Chain Home radar stations, but no such concerted effort was made. Of course, if the RAF had been temporarily withdrawn from the Home Counties, all the towed canal barges of the Sealion invasion fleet needed to do was find a way past the seventy of so destroyers and light cruisers, with the support of five hundred or so smaller warships, which represented the force the Admiralty could deploy to meet them in the Channel! The RAF was never short of pilots. Post-War studies of RAF records actually demonstrate that there were more qualified pilots in non-flying roles during the battle than were actually in aircraft. Finally, there was a shortage neither of food nor of fuel at the time.
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  42.  @myclearwater1471  Indeed, Churchill worked with Stalin, just as FDR did. Both regarded Soviet Russia as the lesser of two evils, and the British worked on the principle that 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' or, as Churchill put it himself, 'If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least one favourable comment about the devil in the House of Commons.' Of course Churchill sought help from the U.S. Who wouldn't want the support of a great industrial power, and FDR give that support because it was in the interests of the U.S. to assist the last surviving democracy in Europe. As to 'nothing to stop an invasion.' Are you aware that, in the whole of WW2, the mighty Luftwaffe sank 31 British destroyers, and no British warship larger than a light cruiser. In September, 1940, there were over 100 RN destroyers in Home Waters alone, of which over 60 were within five hours steaming of the Channel. The Luftwaffe, by the way, had had no training in anti-shipping operations at the time, had no operational high performance torpedo bombers (in fact, didn't get any until early 1942) and had just failed badly to prevent the Dunkirk evacuation. Even senior commanders like von Richtofen & Dinort were outspoken in their beliefs that the Luftwaffe could not protect an invasion 'fleet' of canal barges towed at walking pace by tugs. Of course, as a Sealion 'would have' (i.e., an enthusiast full of what the Luftwaffe 'would have' done, but utterly unable to explain why it never actually 'did' it) I suspect that you didn't previously know any of this.
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  46.  @fdumbass  As the German plan (Read 'Invasion of England, 1940' by Peter Schenck, for full details) required eleven days to land the first nine divisions of the invasion force, and as one of the barge convoys required three days to form up, proceed down Channel, and land the leading elements of that force, a few hours of fog would not help much. Furthermore, as, for example, the initial landings between Bexhill & Eastbourne involved 380 barges being towed in pairs by 190 tugs and trawlers, the chaos likely to have occurred as these vessels, with inexperienced crews without radar or even wireless, proceeding down the Channel in thick fog at 6 knots can only be imagined. The Germans only ever, until 1944, sent three submarines into the Channel. All three were immediately sunk by the British mine defences. The British had around 70 destroyers and light cruisers, supported by around 500 smaller warships, in the immediate vicinity of the Channel. The Luftwaffe, untrained in anti-shipping operations, and having just failed at Dunkirk, didn't even have torpedo bombers until mid-1942. In fact, in the whole of the war, even after receiving the necessary training, the Luftwaffe sank 31 RN destroyers, and no RN ship larger than a light cruiser. The only way the Germans could fake an invasion would be by sending their barges to sea, risking running into the regular RN patrols from Plymouth & Sheerness. Frankly, the RN didn't really much care whether barges they sank were laden or empty. Moreover, the Germans only managed to assemble around 400 tugs, and had no reserves at all. By the way, in September, 1940, the operational German navy consisted of 1 heavy & 3 light cruisers, 7 destroyers, 7 escort destroyers, 13 S boats, and less than 20 fleet minesweepers.
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