German Gibraltar?

[freebird]

Originally Posted by Vincenzo

How many fleet assets can the RN can send for defence on the Rock in '40.

Well, I posted this earlier.

Originally Posted by freebird

Not even close. Consider the situation in late Oct 1940 at the time of the first Hitler/Franco conference.
Naval power was still measured at this time by Battleships, and in the fall of 1940 the British had 14 BB/BC, + King George V + Prince of Wales launched and almoste complete. The Italians had 6. The Germans had not completed the Bismarck yet, and both of the Scharnhorst Battlecruisers was severely damaged by torpedoes and out of action.

The war between the UK and Germany had been describes as a battle between a Lion & a Shark, very apt description. While Germany was running roughshod over all of Europe, they were getting their asses kicked in the Naval war (sorry Adler )

Germany started the war with 2 Battlecruisers, 6 light cruisers and 3 heavy cruisers + 3 "Pocket" BB's

By the fall of 1940, they have both Battlecruisers out of action, 1 pocket BB sunk, 1 Pocket BB out of action, 1 CA sunk, 2 CL sunk and 1 heavily damaged by torpedo, + about 60% of their DD's sunk .

By Oct 1940 the Germans therefore have less than half of their starting naval assets left,


In exchange, the British have lost the BB Royal Oak, and 2 carriers lost (out of 8 ) The British also have a total of 23 CA (of 9,000 tons+) and 44 CL remaining by Oct 1940, and have lost only 1 CA (Effingham) and 2 CL. This does not even include the ships of the Allied navies, Dutch, Australian, Canadian, etc

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In Oct 1940 the Italians have 6 Battleships, but Germany has no capital ships operational. By the time Germany repairs the two BC's, (and assuming that they rush Bismarck into service early) by Christmas 1940, the Italians are down to 3 BB operational.

The British have 3 BB in Egypt, 3 BB at Gibraltar, and 8 more in the UK or in the N. Atlantic. The best the Axis could hope for is about 6 BB vs. 10 or 12 for the RN.


The problem for a June/July scenario is that the Luftwaffe & needed German troops (Paratroops, Amphip etc) are all deployed in Northern France waiting for Sealion. It is only with Sealion cancelled that they are ready to mount this operation.

[freebird]

Here is the second map, of the smaller guns & AA.

3.7" AA twin mounts are dark blue
3" or 75mm are green
25 pdr field guns are light blue
6 pdr guns are yellow
Light AA positions are red circles
The 2 pdr pom-pom is purple

For all - circle is single mount, a square is twin mount.
Map has only guns smaller than 4" coloured, all larger guns are small black dots. (everything on previous map)
There are 42 light AA positions shown, in 1941 these are about 1/3 40mm Bofors, and 2/3 20mm, with some 20mm being replaced by Bofors in 1942
The positions listed as "17 pdr" were 75 mm guns in 1941

[vikingBerserker]

Excellent find freebird!! I wonder how willing they would have been to fire on the runway with it being filled with British aircraft?

The Germans also started the war with a couple of older Deutshland Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleships armed with 4 x 280mm and 14 x 170mm guns and both were active in Poland during the invasion. Probably not something I would want to engage the RN with, but good for bombarding and were both pretty active during the war.

[Vincenzo]

Originally Posted by parsifal

Hi Vincenzo


THe harbour defences are unlikely to damage the Battleships, but that was not their intention. They are intended to to break up the co-ordination of the landing forces and lighter ships operating operating inshore. And the allied experiences later in the war showed that it was the lighter ships that provided the most effective gunfire support. During the landings at Sicily, for example it was the Destroyers that prevented the Axis from succeeding at places like Gela. DDs would manouvre to very close to the shore and pump 5in shells into the attacking formations, providing heavy and direct gunfire support on demand. Battleships were good at attacking fixed defences, but not as efficient at attacking mobile targets.

Now, the Allied experiences demonstrated that it took weeks to suppress and destroy seward defences that were comparable to those at gib. The defences at Normandy, Sicily and southern France were nowhere near as formidable those at Gibraltar Dieppe Sevastopol Okinawa and the like. And the allies had radar assisted gunnery, which made their accuracy much higher. Moreover the forces employed in all these operations were specially trrained for shore bombardment work, having spent several years perfecting the techniques needed.

In order to get the defences reduced to a level that assault forces could approach the fortress, you are looking at weeks or months of continuous bombardment. The best analogy would probably be either Sevastopol or Odessa. Sevastopol took over three weeks of continuous bombardment, by the heaviest German artillery concentration of the war. Odessa took about 2 months to do the same job.

With say 3 battleships available, the italians are going to need several months of continuous bombardment to destroy the port defences of the port. In that time the RN will have -plenty of time to intervene.

To give some idea of what the Italians themselves thought, it is interesting to look at their plans for the invasion of Malta, the so called Operation "C-3" . They were planning to support several divfision (some italian, some German) for several weeks to subdue the island.

The trouble with an amphib operation is that once you are committed to the landing, you must stay there, or abandon you troops to their fate. Marine forces are totally dependant on the support fleet until they get a permanent foothold.....for places like Malta or Gibraltar, that means getting control and subduing all resistance permanently

imho the occupation of the rock are not comparable with the invasion of sicily, normandy and south france. Sevastopol/Odessa maybe more near but afaik this were best defended and more large.
if it's true need months for destroy the defences the operations it's hard to do, the italian ready BB are few only 2 for true at declaration of war but were 5 in september, the long time bombardment can be a advantage the RN can put for months their BB to protect the Rock and left the atlantic route and home water.
Gibraltar was not first target for italian royal navy the first need Malta after this maybe. (C-3 it's for a '42 invasion too late, malta need invade in summer '40 (best in june '40) fast invasion before of up defence we small, relative, landing force

[Vincenzo]

para on The Rock hard where need take off? i think no more that commando operations were possible

[vikingBerserker]

Originally Posted by parsifal

I agree that a prolonged approach is suicide for the Axis fleets, but how are you proposing to do this otherwise. The experiences at Sevastopol and Iwo, which are both comparable, indicate a clear need for a prolonged campaign. In the case of Sevastopol it took about three months to complete the prepration and several weeks to complete the assault. In the case of Iwo it took three days of bombardment by the navy (which proved insufficient anyway), and 25 days of support afloat as the ground forces inched their way ahead. Unless the Germans are supermen, how are they going to
A) get 100000+ men to the target
B) get those men safely ashore
C) provide the necessary support to prevent those men becoming guests of His Majesty?
without the fleet hanging around??????

and Eben-Emael fell after 31 hours.

I never said anything about Germany needed to land 100,000+ men, where did you get that from??

[comiso90]

Great info Freebird... do u know if the 25 pounders are still there?


2 out of 8 carriers lost.... by subs?


.

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by vikingBerserker

and Eben-Emael fell after 31 hours.

I never said anything about Germany needed to land 100,000+ men, where did you get that from??

I know you didnt say anything about 100K in men. However, the Americans needed a force of 110000 men to subdue a garrison of 18000 on Iwo. The garrison on Gibraltar was never less than 16000, and was rapidly expanded to something like 25-30000 by early 1941.

Against the defences of Malta, the Axis (both German and Italian planning staffs) allocated a force of over 100000 men to subdue a force built around just two brigades and believed they could complete the operation in about 25 days

It is unrealistic to try and plan a successful assault against a target as strong as Gibraltar with anything less than a 5:1 superiority, and thats assuming that the force multipliers render the attackers equal to or superior to the defenders in terms of quality. That means, for a start that the defenders dont have gunfire support, or air support, It means that the shore defences are suppressed. It means that in issues like landing craft, command and control, supply, and a myriad of other variable, the attacking forces have parity or more often, superiority to the force miultipliers that will be favouring the defenders.

I cannot see the Germans or the Italians enjoying any of these advantages with the historical or near historical forces thney could be reasonably be expected to have access to. In just about every area that can be examined, or postulated about, they will come up short. They will be hopelessly short of landing craft, their fleet will be at huge risk, they will not enjoy air superiority. Their fire support will be second rate, or third rate, or most likley non-existent. From what I can see, from the photos, the landing area will be small rendering the assaulting forces highly vulnerable to enfilade fire. The problems are endless, and in my view insurmountable

You endlessly rely on the example of Eban Emael, without giving the applicabilty of this battle to the one in front of us anything more than a cursory, and quite inadequate assessment. As a staff officer you would get court martialled for that , because about all you would achieve is to get a lot of friendly troops killed or captured, and a lot of equipment lost.

Eben Emael was a special operatioon, carried out brilliantly, with special weapons and techniques that had never been see before. I seriously doubt that such an approach would work in a fort the size of gibraltar, and at such a distance from support. If nothing else, if you wanted to adopt a straight extrapolation in time.....the fortress at Eban Emmanuel was garrisoned by just 1300 men and as you say fell in just 31 hours. The garrison at Gibraltar was somewhere in the order of 25000 men, so extrapolating the time taken to take and assault forces for Eben Emael (with a garrison of 1300 men, requiring an assault force of 75 men) to the garrison of Gib (25000 men), means that you would need an asault force of about 2000 men (roughly, and about 300 hours to complete your special operation. Plus you would need to find a way to spook the garrison in the same way that the Belgians were rattled. In their case they believed the entire german army was shelling them, and that they (the Germans) were attacking them in massive strength. I cannot think of a single instance where such a charade worked against a british garrison so cheaply (the closest I can think of is Singapore).

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by comiso90

2 out of 8 carriers lost.... by subs?


.

Courageous was sunk two weeks after the outbreak of war (17-09-39), by two torpedoes fired from U-29. The British lost her needlessly, trying to carry out hunter killer missions in the Irish sea, when in reality they did not have the weoponry at that stage to undertake such a mission

Glorious was sunk 8-6-40, by the Battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. This was a memorable battle on several counts. The Scharnhorst very possibly scored the longest ranged hit against a moving target at over 25000 yards (though Warspites hit on the Cavour later that year can also be argued to claim that prize). The Glorious was the only Carrier (edit, there was one other, an American carrier at Leyte Gulf.....I forgot) in the war sunk by enemy surface forces, whilst still under command. Finally, the Gneisenau was heavily damaged by a torpedo fired at extreme range by the British Destroyer Acasta, commanded by Commander Glasfurd. Glasfurd is reputed to have cassually lit a cigarette on the Bridge of his sinking ship as the torpedo hit the German Battlecruiser. One amazingly brave sailor in my book

[Vincenzo]

are you sure on force of garrison afaik in '40 there were only 4 infantry btl, also the artillery situation presented are for '41 and imho in 40 was almost a bit inferior

[parsifal]

Hi Vincenzo

Have a look at my Post 19, which gives a lot of detail on the available forces. If the invasion occurred in 1940, the attacker would have faced 16000 defenders, of which 4 Battalions were INfantry. By the time the operation would have been ready, an additional two brigades of Infantry had been added, bringing the strength of the defence up to over 25000 men. To these 2 Infantry Brigades were added approximately 6 battalions of artillery, which I think are additional to those depicted on Freebirds map.

Gibraltar was one of the most heavily defended locations on earth. As others have pointed out, any position is capable of being taken, and Gibraltar is no exception. But the idea that the place could be taken without heavy losses, and without a long period of prepration is unrealistic iun my opinion.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by comiso90

2 out of 8 carriers lost.... by subs?
.

Yes, Parsifal got it already.
In Oct 1940 the RN had:

Illustrious - first of the new RN CV's
Ark Royal - modern carrier, no armoured deck but carried 60 aircraft
Furious - older CV, a BC conversion similar to Courageous & Glorious. carried 36 aircraft

Then there were 3 older carriers, slower (20 - 24 knts) and carried 20 - 25 aircraft each
Eagle
Hermes
Argus

In addition a 7th carrier Formidable was ready to enter service. (Nov 1940)

Originally Posted by parsifal

Courageous was sunk two weeks after the outbreak of war (17-09-39), by two torpedoes fired from U-29. The British lost her needlessly, trying to carry out hunter killer missions in the Irish sea, when in reality they did not have the weoponry at that stage to undertake such a mission

Glorious was sunk 8-6-40, by the Battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Just really, really in the wrong place at the wrong time. Glorious was actually being sent away from the combat zone for safety (oops!) and ran into the Kriegsmarine on the way home. The torpedo hit from the Acasta was a bad one, it took about 6 months to repair

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by vikingBerserker

Excellent find freebird!! I wonder how willing they would have been to fire on the runway with it being filled with British aircraft?

They would have fired on the attackers, with or without allied AC on the runways.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by comiso90

Great info Freebird... do u know if the 25 pounders are still there?

Thanks Comiso! I don't imagine they are still there, as many of the 4" guns were replaced by 5.25 DP mounts, and I imagine that the 25 pdrs (85 mm? IIRC) would have been replaced by more modern 105 or 155 howitzers.

Originally Posted by Vincenzo

are you sure on force of garrison afaik in '40 there were only 4 infantry btl, also the artillery situation presented are for '41 and imho in 40 was almost a bit inferior

Well certainly all of the heavy guns were in place by 1940. I believe that almost all if not all of the fixed 4" mounts were pre-war.

From GG's earlier post:

Originally Posted by GrauGeist

In 1940, there were some 20 3.7" guns, four 4" guns, 10 40-mm Bofors and two pom-poms, plus numerous searchlights. 1942, this complement had been increased to 30 3.7" guns and almost 20 Bofors.

The map shows 13 twin 3.7" AA mounts (26 guns), so presumably they are halfway from 20 in summer 1940 to 30 in 1942. There may have been a few less light AA positions, but they had 10 Bofors, and probably 20 - 25 of the 20mm sites in 1940.

I believe that the two twin 3" mounts (Signal Hill & Harbour Wall) were the older 3" AA models, that could still be effective as AA. They had been bringing in the newer 3.7" AA as the 3" didn't have the high level ability, but could still be effective.

It says ther were 4 of the 4" guns as AA, I'm not sure if that is the two 4" QF mounts? If the 15 of the 4" guns were naval models, they could also be used as AA (as they were used for this on ships.)

[freebird]

Originally Posted by vikingBerserker

Excellent find freebird!! I wonder how willing they would have been to fire on the runway with it being filled with British aircraft?

Originally Posted by syscom3

They would have fired on the attackers, with or without allied AC on the runways.

It is my understanding that all of the fighter aircraft were housed in bomb-proof hangers when not actually taking off/landing. This is the same system that was used on Malta.