An Alternate History Idea

[GJO]

Although many believe the population of Ireland to be anti-British, that does not mean they would have provided any comfort to the forces of Nazi Germany. This is a myth that has appeared many times in fiction but in reality the Irish are (and always have been) a strongly independent people albeit with strong ties to both Great Britain and the United States. Large numbers of young men from Ireland travelled across the border to join the British Army and RAF - many more in Ireland provided all manner of help and support for their friends in the UK.

The Irish nation had gained its independence after a long and hard struggle - they would not readily to give it up - had an attempt been made to occupy Ireland, it might well have brought the USA into the conflict much earlier. Nevertheless, the possibility was regarded as a real threat by the British Government and thousands of troops and aircraft were stationed near the border in Northern Ireland ready to repel any such action.

But hey, this is a game and without the British in the conflict who would there be to sink? Before the end of World War II the vast majority of ships at sea flew flags of the British Empire - the game wouldn't be the same if there were only friendly or neutral ships to sink.

The game is a very good one based on the brave exploits of some of the most daring combatants in the conflict but we must never forget that in real life it wasn't a game. The Germans and their allies were following a power hungry madman on a course for certain destruction. The ordinary people of Germany and the countries that they occupied suffered unbelievably as a result. For those reasons, even in countries where a majority were sympathetic to the Nazi ideal, resistance and sabotage against them was carried out on a huge scale. My own father owes his life to an anonymous saboteur in a German munitions plant - the shell that should have blown him to Kingdom Come was a dud - examination by the UXB team revealed that the fuse had been deliberately sabotaged.

[Leandros]

Originally Posted by GJO

Although many believe the population of Ireland to be anti-British, that does not mean they would have provided any comfort to the forces of Nazi Germany.

I believe you......

Originally Posted by GJO

Nevertheless, the possibility was regarded as a real threat by the British Government and thousands of troops and aircraft were stationed near the border in Northern Ireland ready to repel any such action.

Oh, well, we saw how other British "repellings" developed during this period.......Thousands of aircraft...?...


Fred

[Marcello]

How much the Kriegsmarine was in shambles for the mission in hand can best be illustrated by the fact that they had assembled more than 3.000 vessels for the first day's assault.

I was referring to warships, not the barges & miscellaneous.Not that they did not have quite a number of problems and delays assembling those.

Their opinion was that the navys' mission was not to block an invasion but to secure British trade lines.

I would recon the majority had grasped that if an invasion had suceeded trade lines would be largely a moot point. As of 1st July there were over thirty destroyers and five cruisers, a fairly respectable force, based at Harwich, Portsmouth Sheernessh etc. earmarked for anti-invasion operations even if that meant that just twenty something destroyers were left on duty on the western approaches. Also that the Royal navy was not hanging off the beaches in the Channel en masse misses the point that an amphibious operation on such scale required a stream of supplies and reinforcements beyond the intial landings. Disrupt/destroy those and the beacheads are in a world of trouble.

They used torpedoes bought or license-built from Norway. These torpedoes were built by the same Norwegian factory (Horten) that made those that sank the cruiser Blücher.

All the sources that go in detail over the engagement such as "Heavy cruisers of the Admiral Hipper class" note that the torpedoes used against the Blucher were Whitehead types (from the early 1900s as far as I have read elsewhere), which naturally says nothing for the reliability or lack thereof of the F5. If Oscarsborg fortress actually used modern torpedoes I would not mind a source as I have a bit of personal interest in torpedoes .
The the u-boat torpedoes had had less than stellar performances during the norwegian campaign as well.

Up till Fall of 1940 quite a few Allied merchants had been sunk by Küstenflieger He115

About 7-8 merchants in 1940, with about 150-160 torpedoes spent to achieve that by accounts. Is such a record something to boast about?
The FAA of course would smash the bulk of the italian battlefleet at Taranto few months later, that with all the favorable circumstances was what I would call a bit tad more impressive.

No need to comment on this. Just go through the RN loss lists.

As a matter of fact I have, and frankly I am not impressed by the Luftwaffe anti-shipping capabilities.Nor are most people that have looked at them:a few merchants, a few destroyers some of which stationary or in very constrained conditions, largest warship sunk was a single light cruiser apparently.
To gauge that the Luftwaffe could accomplish one needs only to look at the attack carried against the Home fleet on the 9th April. 88 He 111 and Ju-88 sank one destroyer which had put itself in bad position, HMS Rodney was hit by a bomb which failed to penetrate the armored deck, some near misses on cruisers and not much else. While it gave the british some pause the inability to cause serious losses it does not bode well for german chances of stopping a determined british attack.
The Stuka were a bit more effective,provided that they were left alone, of course they lost nearly one fifh/sixth of the force early in August and were withdrawn to lick their wounds...
It should be noted that we are not under the assumption that the Luftwaffe has beaten the RAF to a bloody pulp as per usual Sealion requirement, so it is not like the Luftwaffe bombers can do some kind of indisturbed day long target practice against the RN. And once the RN and the german forces mix the Luftwaffe has a fairly interesting target identification problem. Imagine Stuka pilots having to decide at altitude whether something looks like a british destroyer or a german torpedo boats while knowing that a Spitfire might get behind them at any moment...

...what was there to be afraid of...?

Look,aside from the fact that even the u-boats usually avoided the Channel, it is not like I have been arguing that thee Luftwaffe could not sink ships at all , just that it would be very hard pressed, to say the least, to stop the RN from attacking in force. In general there were good reasons to keep clear of the Channel under ordinary circumstances (mines, batteries) however losses that would be undesiderable in other circumstances would become acceptable when national survival was directly at stake.

As a matter of fact their amphibious transport capability was more than sufficient. Where do you get this information from?

Frankly the logistics of Seelowe were threadbare at best.The initial proposed force had to be downsized despite army objections due to lack of sufficient transport. The germans had no LSTs or similarly suitable vessels for conveying large amounts of motor transport, divisional artillery etc.. Conventional vessels needed ports to be captured in first place to be used efficiently and there were relatively few harbors available in the invasion area with limited capacity and quite likely they would not be captured intact in first place.There were no mulberries or similar of course.

Approx. 25 light and heavy destroyers

Ehm, some of the earlier torpedo boat types could maybe pass themselves for very light destroyers, maybe. Stuff like the Type 35 or the Type 37 were nothing but conventional torpedo boats with fairly minimal artillery armament. The RN too had a hundreds of armed vessels below the destroyer threshold for that matter if you want to count every two bit boat with a gun on the german side.

The Seelöwe operation wasn't some kind of game or fictitious idea.

No, it was such a long shot that even a political and military leadership that made betting the farm and burning their bridges behind them at every step the cornerstone of national policy thought it could not be pulled off under existing conditions. Occasionally even Hitler and his minions had an attack of common sense.

[GJO]

Originally Posted by Leandros

Oh, well, we saw how other British "repellings" developed during this period.......Thousands of aircraft...?...


Fred

Oh dear! Did I fail with punctuation? Thousands of aircraft would have made a difference but whereas the Army could and did provide thousands of troops, aircraft were still in short supply at that time. The Brits do have a pretty good record at repelling though - can anyone remember the last successful invasion?