"The Royal Navy, Not the RAF, Won the Battle of Britain"

[bigZ]

Originally Posted by claidemore

HEHE, I'm just glad we never see German revisionist history writing 'floating' around. That would just be silly.

Marcel?, wasn't Taranto in 1940? 2 Swordfish lost while crippling the Italian fleet, would seem to indicate the British (RAF/FAA)were pretty good at anti-shipping airborne strikes in the early war. And lets not forget the Bismark in early 1941.

Luckly the FAA were better at hitting the Bismark than HMS Sheffield.

[glennasher]

I think the REAL way the RN helped win the BoB was by keeping the sea lanes open and fuel flowing to the RAF, and of course, food and materiel to everyone. Without that, nothing would have mattered anyway.

[Messy1]

Did/would Germany have the ability to give proper training to enough soldiers to make a invasion possible? Did they have the foresight to train their soldiers for a year, or how ever long it took to prepare their troops for a amphibious assault?

[renrich]

The way the RN "helped" the RAF in BOB and kept the Germans from invading was called "a fleet in being" The Germans knew that they could not match the RN in the channel, especially if the landings were on a broad front. Same reason the High Seas Fleet in WW1 only came out when the thought they could catch a piece of the Grand Fleet at sea..

[Negative Creep]

Originally Posted by Messy1

Did/would Germany have the ability to give proper training to enough soldiers to make a invasion possible? Did they have the foresight to train their soldiers for a year, or how ever long it took to prepare their troops for a amphibious assault?

In a similar vein, when they talk about the 'invasion barges' were they being literal? Did the Germans have any landing craft, amphibious vehicles etc?

[Messy1]

I wondered that myself NG!

In regards to my previous post, I was wondering basically the same, because it took the Allies years to get everything in order for D-Day, from plans, to training, to tactics, to ships to pull off the landing at Normandy. I doubt Germany had the means to do anything even close to that kind of preparation. Or even to keep their forces properly supplied if the managed to gain a foot hold in the UK.

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by claidemore

Marcel?, wasn't Taranto in 1940? 2 Swordfish lost while crippling the Italian fleet, would seem to indicate the British (RAF/FAA)were pretty good at anti-shipping airborne strikes in the early war. And lets not forget the Bismark in early 1941.

That's just two examples. The Bismark was indeed a lucky shot after first attacking (and totally missing) HMS Sheffield and it was in 1941. Taranto is just one of the very few examples where the British were successful in attacking ships. There are many examples in the years 1939-1940 of British bombers attacking ships of the coast of Germany, hitting nothing and being shot to pieces instead. The technique to effectively attack enemy ships still had to be developed in those early years, both sides not having much experience.

[Waynos]

Yes NG, they were being literal. they were river barges, totally unsuited to a channel crossing.

[syscom3]

We discussed this issue in depth in another thread from a couple of years ago.

The near unanimous conclusion was the Germans had little chance for success under any circumstance or scenario.

[Messy1]

Agree.

[Vincenzo]

in Taranto attack the ship were stopped in harbour, it's not a classical ship attacking versus ship in sea

[cherry blossom]

Originally Posted by merlin

Crete, not relevant - by then the Lw had larger bombs, that were not available in 1940. Moreover, by then the Stuka pilots had had more training in anti-ship attacks.

Merlin's point is even stronger than he knows. The RN did stop the attempts to send German troops by sea to Crete. The loses were severe (three cruisers and six destroyers were sunk with seventeen ships damaged) but that is not a large fraction of the total RN and did not even cost the RN control of the Eastern Mediterranean. Note also that Formidable was damaged attacking German airfields and that many of the RN loses occurred during the evacuation as at Dunkirk.

[Glider]

Originally Posted by Marcel

The technique to effectively attack enemy ships still had to be developed in those early years, both sides not having much experience.

This is the key point that applied to both sides. No one would doubt that at Crete the Germans proved that they were very effective at atacking ships and in the Med the British proved that they also were very dangerous.
They each used diffferent tactics abd equipment but both worked. If I remember correctly at one point Rommel was losng over 60% of the supplies sent to him by sea and we know how much that limited him tactically.

However in these early days, they were still learning.

[merlin]

Cherry Blossom: Thanks for that.
The other point about Norway, Dunkirk even Crete, it didn't stop the RN doing what needed to be done. For example in Dunkirk - Allied 56 Destroyers & Torpedo Boats accounted for 102,843 troops - of these 9 were lost to enemy action (not just to air attack).

To repell the invasion, as at 16th Sept. the RN had - in brackets is the steaming time from the Straits of Dover.

Harwich (3.5 hrs) 6 Destroyers.

Portsmouth (3.5 hrs) 1 Light Cruiser, 14 Destroyers.

Southampton (3.5 hrs) 2 Destroyers.

Sheerness/Chatham (4 hrs) 2 Light Cruisers, 18 Destroyers.

Plymouth (8hrs) 1 Battleship, 1 Town Class Cruiser, 1 Light Cruiser, 11 Destroyers.

The Humber (10 hrs) 3 Town Class Cruisers, 5 Destroyers.

Also these locations had numerous MTB available, and the bigger warships available at Rosyth (18 hrs), and Scapa Flow (26 hrs). Probably they would stay there - faulty intel led them to believe the the Kreigsmarine had heavy units available.

Fortunately in the 'battle' it was the British who were the professionals, with the Germans the amateurs.

[syscom3]

Great info Merlin!

Do you know if the RN had installed (sunk?) any blockships at likely beaches or ports during this timeframe?