An Alternate History Idea

[Leandros]

Originally Posted by Marcello

Without an invasion there were good reasons to minimize warships losses in the Channel if that could be done. With an invasion everything that floats or flies would be thrown at it, losses be damned. The Kriegsmarine was in shambles so the Luftwaffe would have to carry the burden of dealing with both the RAF and the Home fleet pressing forward no matter how many ships they lost.And the bridgeheads might need support in the meantime too..

The Home Fleet was never planned to intervene in the Channel. The RN had learnt their lesson. For the same reason many of their best destroyers would also be kept away from the Channel as those were integrated in the battleship and cruiser formations of the RN.

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.

Actually, according to some usually reliable sources - two being Churchill and Lord Alanbrooke, it is not at all sure that the RN would throw itself recklessly into a Channel struggle. Parts of the naval leadership was not keen to offer up their valuable ships to the Luftwaffe in case of an invasion. Their opinion was that the navys' mission was not to block an invasion but to secure British trade lines. That was the mission of the army. This fact has been much subdued after the war.

Even if they did, what RN had immediately available for a Channel struggle was pitifully little. Immediately being the key word..

Originally Posted by Marcello

The Luftwaffe torpedo bomber force in 1940 was a rather pathetic affair, to the point that italian assistance was eventually required....)..

Hmm....another slight misconception. The Kriegsmarine had, in their Küstenfliegers, a quite professional torpedo-bomber force. Actually, their anti-ship torpedo capacity was larger than the Coastal Command's at the time. Even inclusive the Swordfish'es of the FAA. Up till Fall of 1940 quite a few Allied merchants had been sunk by Küstenflieger He115's. 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. Also, Italian Whitehead torpedoes were purchased in this period. Later, when the torpedo missions were transferred from the navy to the Luftwaffe (1941), torpedo training was for a large part moved to Grosseto, Italy. But, that was later. Many of the pilots of KG's 26 and 30 were transferred from the navy.

Originally Posted by Marcello

......and if I have understood correctly not much in the way of proper AP bombs were in the inventory until late 1940, which should be an hint of how much anti-shipping was taken seriously (not much)..

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

Originally Posted by Marcello

Sinking destroyers hampered by carrying out rescue ops or scoring own goals like Z1 is one thing, wiping out (and given the stakes, nothing less will do) large naval formations determined to push throught quite an other.

This is an interesting point. Would the RN destroyers be better off if their PRI 1 target was the German invasion vessels...? What should they do, concentrate on the hundreds of small invasion vessels, the S and U-boats lurking around them - or the hundreds of Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine bombers....?

Originally Posted by Marcello

German amphibious transport capability was already insufficient, losses would have crippling effects.

As a matter of fact their amphibious transport capability was more than sufficient. Where do you get this information from? Of more than 2.300 converted barges only 1.150 were planned for the first assault wave (all had bow or rear ramps). In addition to the barge fleet they had assembled 150 merchants of, in average, 4.000 tons displacement, 1.200 motor boats of various sizes, 300 coastal cutters and yachts (for Beach E), 450 tugs, more than 200 patrol boats (naval auxilliaries), 800 small storm-boats and a similar number of large engine-driven dinghies. Most the transport vessels had some sort of armament.

The Seelöwe operation wasn't some kind of game or fictitious idea. it was all there and ready to go. In the first wave nine reinforced infantry and mountain divisions, one panzer division shared between them, one complete paratroop division dropped concentrated around Lympne airport, extra specialist personnel added from home and 6th army divisions.

To this came the proper warships assigned to the operation. Approx. 25 light and heavy destroyers, 25 S-boats, 30 R-boats, 44 U-boats, 19 Type 35 minesweepers, 25 converted artillery ships and a number of Siebel ferries with anti-air detachments onboard. Available for later transport duties was also the minelaying force which was considerable.

A British War Ministry study in 1942 estimated the German transport capacity to be even much larger on sight.

Fred