The Germans had to have felt that war with the USA could not have been far off. This type of operation might be the only chance Germany had to cause a major disruption in the British convoy system before that happened.
The UK endured massive shipping losses throughtout the war and survived. If they lose a convoy or two, but the KM loses nearly all its effective units, the Admiralty would have been quite satisfied with the deal. In any event, they would simply route the convoys further south, sink the KM tankers, and wait for the KM force to run out of fuel.
Total shipping losses were great but the percentage of losses at one time were not. The only time I can think of when imports were totally cut off was after Scheer's attack on HX84. I do not have my book on Scheer handy but I think the total disruption of shipping lasted 7 days.
How much difficulty would two weeks or a month cause? How many days supply of fuel did Britain have on hand throughout the British Isles?
How do you propose for the KM losses to occur? I see The Northern Battle Group breaking out with some damage most of GZ bombers and 1/2 her fighters. The Brest Group breaks out while the bulk of the Home Fleet is chasing the Northern Battle Group. The combined Groups break back through to Norway at the end of their fuel supplies. (Scheer might break off and head for the South Atlantic) The duration of the operation will depend on the number of tankers that are with the Germans in the mid-Atlantic. The Germans could extend their time by using fuel from any capturing tankers. (that would be in the Central Atlantic) GZ aircraft could the surface units to approach tankers during the night to aid capture.
Once break out occurs, the British have two options that I can see. They stop all convoys and relentless hunt the KM ships or they stop hunting and heavily escort the convoys with their carriers and battleships.
A question, does anyone know what the weather REALLY WAS during the period of 28 NOV-7 DEC 1941 in the North Atlantic?
srgt rock wrote:
Total shipping losses were great but the percentage of losses at one time were not. The only time I can think of when imports were totally cut off was after Scheer's attack on HX84. I do not have my book on Scheer handy but I think the total disruption of shipping lasted 7 days.
How much difficulty would two weeks or a month cause? How many days supply of fuel did Britain have on hand throughout the British Isles?
A question, does anyone know what the weather REALLY WAS during the period of 28 NOV-7 DEC 1941 in the North Atlantic?
The UK always maintained a ~3 month stock of food and strategic raw materials, and disrupting the North Atlantic convoys in winter (when there were lower deliveries anyways) would not stop convoys from further south.
I have another question. Where the British still trying to patrol the Iceland-Faroes Gap with surface ships at the end of 1941 or were they using ASV equipped aircraft?
srgt rock wrote:I have another question. Where the British still trying to patrol the Iceland-Faroes Gap with surface ships at the end of 1941 or were they using ASV equipped aircraft?
How can the Swordfish use ASV radar in 1941 , when it was first mounted in 1943. In 1940/41, what few ASV sets that were build were installed on medium and long range patrol bombers, because that was the only planes that could mount and operate them. Only a couple of sets were experimentally mounted on Swordfish. The main demand for ASV was for hunting surface Uboats around British waters.
Paul L wrote:How can the Swordfish use ASV radar in 1941 , when it was first mounted in 1943. In 1940/41, what few ASV sets that were build were installed on medium and long range patrol bombers, because that was the only planes that could mount and operate them. Only a couple of sets were experimentally mounted on Swordfish. The main demand for ASV was for hunting surface Uboats around British waters.
You are thinking of ASV III/XI which was a centimetric system.
ASV II was a metric wave radar and stemmed from ASV 1 which was first used in 1937. ASV II was introduced in 1940 and first successfully flown on a Swordfish on Dec 26 1939 (I guess they waited till boxing day to get it on sale... ). See:
In these types of attacks none of the torpedo equipped Sword Fish had radars, only the search planes. Thus all of the Torpedo planes had to attack visually. If the Swordfish have to rely on visuals to spot the Germans and get down to sea level to drop torpedos, then the Germans with an carrier could easily intercept them and shoot them down or drive them off.
Paul L wrote:In these types of attacks none of the torpedo equipped Sword Fish had radars, only the search planes. Thus all of the Torpedo planes had to attack visually. If the Swordfish have to rely on visuals to spot the Germans and get down to sea level to drop torpedos, then the Germans with an carrier could easily intercept them and shoot them down or drive them off.
All of the Swordfish including the ASV equipped ones carried torpedoes. ASV II used aerials on the wings and did not prevent the aircraft from carrying a torpedo:
In the above photo, you can see the ASVII antennae on the outer wing struts; they look like the TV antennae that used to be very common.
FAA doctrine was to make night attacks using parachute flares for illumination, (unless it was clear and there was sufficient moonlight). Horan's article hi-lights the problems that pilots had with visibility and navigation even in daylight, and this was in late May 1941. In December, things would have been much worse, visibility would be much less and snowstorms could easily render a carrier invisible even from its own fighters, making flying off nearly impossible or tantamount to suicide.
Pandora wrote:when was ASV II introduced?
wasnt ASV located between the wheels in 1941? if so, then how can they carry torpedo too?
I just posted a number of links to articles about ASV and and illustration of a Swordfish with ASVII
ASV MKII was developed at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough in early 1940.It differed from the Mk I mainly in that it was properly engineered and much more reliable. ASV Mk II was generally called a 1.5 metre radar, but its actual frequency was 1.7 metres. It had a range of up to 36 miles, and the minimum range was about a mile. Several thousand sets were manufactured and equipped a variety of RAF Coastal Command aircraft such as Hudsons, Whitleys, Sunderlands: Fleet Air Arm aircraft such as Swordfish; and American Navy patrol aircraft such as the Catalina. The first success was recorded on 30 November, 1940, when a Whitley Mk VI equipped with ASV Mk II damaged U-71 in the Bay of Biscay ASV Mk II rendered sterling service in the War at Sea in both the Atlantic, Mediterranean and the Pacific. A Catalina equipped with this ASV detected the German battleship Bismarck after her destruction of the Hood.Swordfish strikes from Victorious and Ark Royal, which ultimately crippled the Bismarck ,detected the battleship using ASV Mk II radar. Swordfish and Wellington bombers, some fitted with ASV Mk II, operated from Malta and inflicted heavy damage in night attacks on Axis convoys supplying Rommel's forces. Long-range Catalinas, equipped with ASV Mk II, ranged the Pacific searching for Japanese warships. 'Black Cat' squadrons specialised in night attacks on Japanese shipping. By late 1942 German U-boats were carrying Metox receivers, which enabled them to detect ASV Mk II emissions. This set was increasingly replaced with ASV Mk III. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30005843
Yes but these reports also say they had to make mutliple attacks because they could not locate the target to attack, even with ASV assistance. They had to spot them visually to launch the torps.
Paul L wrote:Yes but these reports also say they had to make mutliple attacks because they could not locate the target to attack, even with ASV assistance. They had to spot them visually to launch the torps.
As I explained, on moonless nights, the FAA would illuminate the target with parachute flares.
thanks
I dont know why I thought ASV was located between the wheels of Swordfish.
are there any photos (not illustrations) of Swordfish where the ASV can be seen?
Paul L wrote:Yes but these reports also say they had to make mutliple attacks because they could not locate the target to attack, even with ASV assistance. They had to spot them visually to launch the torps.
As I explained, on moonless nights, the FAA would illuminate the target with parachute flares.
I know some u-boats were sunk at night, but Ark Royal didnt launch the Swordfish in the night of 27 May and waited until the morning. Destroyers used parachute flares on Bismarck that night but the Swordfish waited until daylight.
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