Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Historigraph"
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Indeed, as hitler said to raeder & goering, ' Let's requisition and convert 200+ transports, 2,000+ barges, 400+ tugs, and 1,100 motor boats, then allow ourselves to lose 2,500+ aircrew and around 1,800 aircraft, just to show how unserious we are.'
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@LordZontar The Kriegsmarine had, by September, 1940, converted around 2,000 barges, and moved them into French & Belgian ports. They had also assembled around 550 coasters, tugs, & trawlers, together with almost 1200 motor boats, in the same ports.
In the meantime, the army had ten divisions set aside for the initial assault, with a second wave of nine divisions and a third wave of six divisions, allocated to the operation. They had also positioned around 150 coastal batteries in the belief that these would be capable of protecting the barges from the Royal Navy as they attempted to cross.
Certainly, Raeder had massive and justified misgivings about the chances of success, but his doubts alone were insufficient, in the face of a degree of confidence within the army that, after the simple 'extended river crossing' had been completed, the British land defences would be wholly inadequate.
With the strength of the Royal Navy, there was, in reality, no likelihood that Sealion would succeed, but the order might still have been given, and the German army & navy did far more than simply go through the motions.
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Oh dear, once again the old 'The Germans didn't attempt Sealion because they chose not to attempt it, not because they couldn't.'
By September, 1940, the European canal network had been largely stripped of boats, because some 2100 had been commandeered, modified, and sent to Channel ports, along with 170 freighters, just over 400 tugs, and almost 1200 motor boats.
23 divisions had been earmarked for the landing, in three waves.
The Luftwaffe used 2500 aircraft for Barbarossa. Have lost 1700, and 2700 trained aircrew, during what your apparently believe was part of the bluff, the Battle of Britain.
If you want to know whether Sealion was 'real' or not, you should read the manner in which an amateur author condemned Kaiser Bill for trying to wage a war on two fronts, in a book called 'Mein Kampf.'
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@senakaweeraratna741 'There are so many ' Nanking' type massacres on the side of the Allies.' Really? You are clearly very selective in you admiration of the Japanese. Aside from the German extermination of certain selected groups, there is no other example in recent history of the treatment of innocent people in this manner. You could, by the way, add to it the mass murder of Chinese slave labourers on the Burma railway. Your comment is so immature that it is barely even worth comment.
'The British Empire in Asia collapsed after the Royal Navy was defeated in the Indian Ocean by the Imperial Japanese Navy.' Nonsense. The realisation that the Empire was ending pre-dated WW2. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, & South Africa were independent Dominions, and similar moves were being proposed for India. If you don't actually know history, you really shouldn't post as if you think you do.
'No other country was able to sink so many British Ships as Japan did in WW2' Have you never even heard of the Battle of the Atlantic? The RN lost nine ships of destroyer size or larger to Japan in the whole of the war. Read up on the war in the Mediterranean, or the Arctic convoys, or, as I wrote, the battle of the Atlantic.
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@jimmiller5600 'Slow to detect an invasion?' The time taken to extract the towed barges from harbour, form them up into some sort of box formation, and send them down the Channel at little more than walking pace meant that the sailing time, from the extrication of the first barge to arrival off the landing beach was three days, in the case of the largest convoy. 'Slow to detect an invasion?' As the barges supposedly passed down Channel, Admiral Ramsay would be able to see the things from Dover Castle, for Heaven's sake!
The Royal Navy sailed regular destroyer patrols every night through the Channel from Plymouth and Sheerness, often pausing to shell a barge port or two. Moreover, the Germans had seven minelayers, mainly converted merchantmen, available to them, possibly supported by a small number of minelaying destroyers. The British had, by contrast, several hundred fleet & auxiliary minesweepers, largely courtesy of their huge fishing fleet. Finally, the minelaying could only take place at night, when the destroyer patrols were active. The effect of a 4.7 inch high explosive shell landing on a laden mine deck was likely to be quite dramatic.
The Germans sent three U-Boats into the Channel in late 1939. They, and their crews, are still there. The Channel was a death trap for such boats, which is why the Germans avoided sending any there until after D-Day when, of course, the British & Canadian Escort Groups inflicted heavy losses on them.
The German plan for Sealion envisaged that 11 days would be required to land the first wave. Cerberus involved three heavily protected fast modern warships fleeing west to east through the Channel in a matter of a few hours, at a time when the invasion threat had long passed, and the concentrated RN forces of late 1940 had long dispersed to other duties. Can you really not understand the difference between the two?
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@koookeee How is a 'stalemate' a success? The Germans either land successfully, or they fail.
If I recall correctly, he refers to Admiral Forbes not wishing to commit the Home Fleet. Unfortunately, the Home Fleet was never part of the Admiralty's anti-invasion planning in any case, for the sensible reason that small fast warships with quick firing 4 & 4.7 inch guns are much better equipped to sink barges and tugs than heavier warships.
The RN effectiveness in sinking small convoys. Like the annihilation of one small troop convoy making for Maleme (Crete), and the German recall of the second, Heraklion, convoy? Or the destruction of the 'Duisburg' convoy, or the 'Tarigo' convoy? Those convoys?
The RAF was never intended to attack invasion barges at sea in any case, but was used to bomb barges in the invasion ports, which they began doing from 5 September.
I haven't read the book for years, largely because of the many flaws within it and the basic lack of research, which I am now recalling to mind.
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You make the common mistake of all Sealion enthusiasts, in that you apparently believe that the Luftwaffe was on a par with the Imperial Japanese Air Force. Just to correct you, please note that Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by torpedo bombers, whereas the Luftwaffe didn't acquire similar aircraft until mid 1942. The Luftwaffe had just failed to prevent the evacuation from Dunkirk, largely because it had had no training in anti-shipping operations. In fact, in the whole of the war, the Luftwaffe sank no RN warship larger than a light cruiser, and a total of 'only' 31 RN destroyers. To put that into perspective, the RN started the war with 193 destroyers (ending it with over 400) and in September 1940 had around 70 light cruisers & destroyers within five hours steaming of Dover, over 100 in total in Home Waters, and supporting forces of around 500 smaller warships.
Good luck, by the way, with the U-Boats. Generally, U-Boats sought to avoid attacking fleet destroyers, as it tended to end badly for them. In any case, in September, 1940, the average number of boats at sea on any one day was 13. The Germans did try to operate U-Boats in the Channel in October, 1939. The three they sent were promptly sunk.
Finally, surface attack. What with? The German navy had, in September, 1940, one heavy & three light cruisers, seven operational destroyers, and precisely thirteen S Boats.
The probability is, indeed, of slaughter in the Channel, but of towed German barges, not of the (huge) Royal Navy.
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What makes you think that this was a Japanese 'offensive?' It wasn't. As the title suggests, it was a 'raid,' intended to ensure the safety of a large Japanese troop convoy from Singapore. There was no wider ambition on the Japanese part, no large landing force intended to occupy Ceylon or Madagascar.
You apparently feel able to talk glibly about the destruction of the Eastern Fleet as being acceptable if in exchange a Japanese warship or two might have been damaged. How would this have been acceptable? What strategic benefit to the Allied cause would have been accrued if Somerville had sought a surface action, when only one of his battleships and two of his carriers were modern or modernised, whilst his four old 'R' class ships, although marvels of WW1 technology, were utterly obsolete, and fit for nothing except Atlantic convoy escort duty, acting as a Fleet in Being, or, as they later demonstrated, use as naval artillery in support of assault landings? How could the Eastern Fleet have made any significant contribution to defence of Colombo from bombing?
Perhaps you feel able to make such damning judgements from a comfortable chair 80 years after the event. Perhaps you might answer the questions I asked above without waxing lyrical about 'cowardice?'
Oh, and it seems you are in ignorance about Dunkirk as well. Perhaps you might explain what a BEF of 13 divisions was supposed to do after the Belgian army had capitulated, and most of the French army had begun to collapse? Perhaps you would recommend the same action as you require Somerville to have taken, charging blindly into certain disaster?
In point of fact, Dynamo was far from panic. Ramsay's plan brought out 336,000 troops, of which around 120,000 were French, and the British had begun landing new divisions in Cherbourg until told by General Weygand that the French army was no longer capable of organised resistance. The French and Belgian armies, by the way, totalled just over 100 divisions. As I said, the BEF consisted of 13.
Still, well done for making a comment about the Indian Ocean raid. Even if it was a facile and ill-reasoned one.
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The German fleet was built as part of the Franco- German naval race, and not as a challenge to the Royal Navy. Put simply, the Weimar Republic came up with the panzerships to intercept French troop convoys. The French responded with the Strasbourgs. The Germans responded with the Scharnhorsts, the French with the Richelieus, and the Germans with the Bismarcks.
If Germany started building U-boats, then these could only be aimed at Britain. The British response would be to commence an enhanced programme of escort vessel construction. Should the Germans focus on anti-ship capability for the Luftwaffe, then firstly, how do these aircraft even approach the Royal Navy, and secondly how does the invasion of France succeed without the airborne artillery close support that was the Luftwaffe. Serious planning against Britain could only commence after a successful invasion and conquest of France.
The Germans had no choice other than to pause after Dunkirk? How could they possibly consider an invasion of Britain with no assault ships, or landing craft. Indeed, without even the towed barges they later assembled. Moreover, the completion of the invasion of France required another two weeks.
Mine the Channel? With the seven auxiliary minelayers they actually had available? Mining in daylight was not a realistic option, if for no other reason than minefields are of limited use if your enemy (with over 400 available sweepers) knows where they are. At night, of course, what happens when the layers run into one or other of the regular RN destroyer patrols through the Channel?
Fix Enigma? First, they need to know that it wasn't totally secure.
Win the Battle of Britain. Didn't they try?
In short, none of the 'creative' ways have any basis in reality.
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@bobcougar77 There is rather more evidence that the Halt Order on the Aa Canal was issued by von Rundstedt. Indeed, Army Group A's War Diary confirms as much. In common with a number of other senior commanders, von Rundstedt feared a repeat of the Miracle of the Marne. He wished to rest & service his armour before getting into the next stage of the campaign. Hitler, who knew the country around Dunkirk from WW1, agreed with the order, especially since on the previous day Goering had told him that the elimination of the Allied forces trapped around Dunkirk was 'a special job for the Luftwaffe.'
More generally, there was a general difference in attitude between the Germans and the British. Von Rundstedt and his peers viewed an army backed against the sea as trapped, whereas the British, with their history of naval superiority, saw the sea as an available open door.
Certainly, Hitler did not want to attempt an invasion, but his assumption that Britain would come to terms was a major strategic blunder.
As to Sealion, no amount of creativity could make it work. Napoleon had expressed the issue neatly when he referred to his own invasion problems with the question 'can an elephant fight a whale?'
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@Andy-ub3ub 'Minutiae?' Since when have accurate historical facts been so described?
Your observations simply do not stand. On the one hand you come up with a whole series of 'would haves' ranging from questionable to impossible, and then you blithely assume that all subsequent events of WW2 still proceed as they historically did.
You take the same approach as those who merrily claim that, if Germany had built vast numbers of U-boats in the lead up to WW2, then they 'would have' won the Battle of the Atlantic. Utterly ignoring the fact that, had this actually happened, then the British, understanding that such construction could only have been aimed directly at them, 'would have' accelerated construction of escorts to a vastly greater degree than, historically, they did.
Thank you for your 'very very small acknolegement.' I don't much care, as I am right, and you are wrong.
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