The allies could of ended the U-boat war much earlier.

RoaldLarsen · 03-12-09, 01:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kptlt. Hellmut Neuerburg

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Very Super Market

It is a factory in the Ruhr valley, most important region in all of Germany for industrial production, and the most important factory in that region. Moreover, it isn't anywhere near the coast, so the SAS would have to be air-dropped, in years when escorts were far and few in between, and at quite a risk of being shot down, or at least alerting the entire garrison of a city against at best, 100 men.

Well the SAS wouldn't have to be parachuted into enemy territory, they could have been sent in by boat to the Dutch or Danish coast dressed in civilan clothes or German uniforms and make their way to the target zone as seperate units and then infultrate the local populis or garrison. Then after some time infultrate the target, sent charges, and exfultrate and then make their way to the coast to be picked up. Yeah I do realize it sound far fetched but who knows it could have worked, not a bad idea for a book though

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Ah, romantic military fiction!

There are a few slight problems with the idea.

The SAS wasn't formed until late 1941, and they were a unit organised in North Africa for operation in North Africa. Originally, air drop was their method of deployment, and it did not work very well. Later they switched to primarily vehicle-based approaches. They eventually operated in Sicily, Italy and Northwest Europe, but always at the operational, not strategic level.

They did have a few German speakers in the unit, but not enough of the men were fluent for them to pass in a major cross-country trip like what would be required to attack the factory in question.

The quantity of explosives necessary to destroy the factory would require vehicle transport, and there was no way the SAS could have got a vehicle into Germany, or the explosives without a vechicle, before late 1944.

The only practical way to destroy the factory would be the same as was used for other strategic targets: bombing by aircraft. And has been pointed out, to do that, they would have to know where the factory was, and would have to have known that production was concentrated at the one location.