New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Non-naval discussions about the Second World War. Military leaders, campaigns, weapons, etc.

Which was the historic action in which Germany was defeated

Dunkirk, 1940
1
7%
Battle of Britain, 1940
1
7%
Battle of the Atlantic, 1940-1943
2
13%
Changing the axis of advance from Moscow to Kiev, summer 1941
2
13%
At the gates of Moscow, fall and winter 1941
2
13%
Declaring the war to USA, winter 1941
3
20%
Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943
4
27%
El Alamein and North Africa 1942-1943
0
No votes
Daylight strategic bombing over Germany, 1943-1944
0
No votes
Kursk, summer 1943
0
No votes
Normandy, June 6th, 1944
0
No votes
Battle of the Bulge, winter 1944-1945
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 15

lwd
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by lwd »

No. You don't plan an major invasion in weeks and succeed on a logistic shoe string.
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RF
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by RF »

You are only looking at the projected invasion forces and not considering how weak the defences are. The only strong barrier to invasion in the early summer of 1940 was the RN. Eliminate that factor the land defences didn't come up to much. A much smaller operation than that of Overlord would have succeeded if properly marshalled and used by a supreme commander who knew exactly what he was doing.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by Vic Dale »

Hi RF.

When I say he was determined to get Britain, that does not imply he knew what he was doing or that he had the courage necessary to make the thing work. He vacillated so much over the invasion of France and the lowlands that he cancelled 26 times. His wish was for capitulation and invasion as the absolute last resort, so to that extent he was determined and also the way the Luftwaffe was commited indicates a certain desire. Goering had convinced him that Britian could be reduced by air attack alone so he went for that option.

Never mind about Eienhower, what about Manstein or Rudstedt, Rommel or Guderian, they were the architects of some of best actions and I am sure they would have seen how a combined operation carefully thought out and logistcally planned could have been made to work. I doubt that Galland for example, would have wanted the Luftwaffe to show it's hand fully until the softening up prior to invasion began and then that arm would have been used to it's best advantage, instead of trying to covert a military support arm into a strategic bombing force, by the wave of a baton.

We come right back to the way in which the nazis gained their power in Germany. Largely they were given a helping hand by industrialists, agencies of the state and not least Stalin's mishandling of the comintern. Very few people even today fully understand how and why the nazis came to power and least of all the nazis themselves. I don't suppose even they knew, so having gained all that power and having made German industrial development so easy in comparison to other nations, who still had to pay the going rate for labour, they seem to have believed their own propaganda in thinking themselves supermen and capable of anything. That is one of the reasons there was such inadequate planning for some of the most startling and far reaching military adventures. Military success came Germany's way despite the nazis and ther meddling. Who knows what Germany might have acheived with an adequate military leader.

Vic
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by lwd »

RF wrote:You are only looking at the projected invasion forces and not considering how weak the defences are. The only strong barrier to invasion in the early summer of 1940 was the RN. Eliminate that factor the land defences didn't come up to much. A much smaller operation than that of Overlord would have succeeded if properly marshalled and used by a supreme commander who knew exactly what he was doing.
What could the Germans realistically put ashore in early summer? What did the British have in the way of defence? The RAF may well have been stronger in the early summer compared to the LW (who took significant damage during the campain vs France and were still relocating their bases).

Indeed the British defences may have been weaker but the German invasion force would also have been much weaker. For instance almost none of the barges would have been available. That means most of thier lift isn't there. They have nothing to land any armor until they capture a port and the barges were supposed to supply a lot of fire support at least initally. Mean while the British are rapidly gaining in strength especally during July when they are reequipping the Dunkirk force with a huge load of weapons from the US.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by Bgile »

I don't believe the person in command would make and difference. The Germans lacked:

1. Air supremacy.
2. Naval gunfire support.
3. A large number of specialized landing and logistics ships.
4. Specialized "mulberry" type logistics structures.
5. Three large airborne divisions (+ needed air supremacy)

Putting some troops ashore is one thing. Keeping them supplied in the face of British attack and bad weather is another thing entirely.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by Vic Dale »

Bgile wrote:I don't believe the person in command would make and difference. The Germans lacked:

1. Air supremacy.
2. Naval gunfire support.
3. A large number of specialized landing and logistics ships.
4. Specialized "mulberry" type logistics structures.
5. Three large airborne divisions (+ needed air supremacy)

Putting some troops ashore is one thing. Keeping them supplied in the face of British attack and bad weather is another thing entirely.
It is a mistake to rule out invasion in 1940 because of shortcomings in comparison to what the allies required in 1944. The opposing forces were vastly superior to anything which could be envisged in 1940.

You don't neccessarily try to acheive air supremacy prior to the attack, any more than you try to demonstrate military supremacy. The battle of the air is fought and won or lost as part of the whole campaign. The air assault has to be compared to a heavy artillery barrage which softens up the opposition in ppreparation fo attack. Heavy artillery does not attempt to flatten the ground and defeat the enemy bfore the infantry advances, it is to disrupt his ability to fight back. That is what the Luftwaffe would have been doing, prior to the assault.

The aim would be to attack airfields over a wide area and push the RAF back. ALl the while this is going on the fighters have it out in the higher altitudes. The RAF must commit or give way and in that commitment, the Luftwaffe would try to capitalise on it's superiority in numbers of aircraft and battle hardened pilots. Simply sendng the bombers over daily would play right into Dowding's hands. He would let the bombs drop on their targets and then attack the bombers on the way home. The enemy fighters would have little fuel left for defensive enagements whilst the Brtiish fighters would be fresh and ful of fuel so they could give pursuit.

That is how Dowding tipped the scales. If the bombers had been carrying bombs to strategic targets he would have had to try and prevent them getting to their targets and the scales would have been in balance. Factories, cities and workers housing would not be legtimate targets during the preparation for invasion, it would be airfields, naval bases and anchorages and military build-up and the fight for supremacy would begin there. It is the urgency of actual invasion which would give Dowding no alternative but to commit in strength and in depth. That would have been a very different battle to the Battle of Britain we have come to know. The preponderance in numbers could have overwhelmed the RAF very quickly - not without cost to the Germans of course, but one side or the other would have come out on top.

The Luftwaffe would hold the attackers initiative and the RAF would be chasing round trying to intercept them. Such a battle could cost either side 2 or 300 aircraft in one day, so the question of air-supremacy would be decided in just a few days. If the British won it the invasion would certainly fail, if the Germans won it, then an invasion could continue and the Luftwaffe would continue activity with suppression raids against land and surface forces.

Any ships which ventured into the area could be hunted down by the Luftwaffe. Destroyers are not armoured and a cannon attack alone could do immense damage and impair fighting efficiency and this says nothing of the possibilities for torpedo attacks, or the unwelcome attention of dive-bombers.

With the RAF intact, British naval forces would be able to operate quite feely, though constantly under threat of attack, without the RAF they would be lucky to remain afloat.

Vic
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by Bgile »

Vic,

Why do you think that the LW is going to destroy the RAF at a rate of 200-300 aircraft per day when the combined allied air forces were not able to do that to the LW over several years? The RAF is not nearly as badly outnumbered, and if it is taking too many losses, they withdraw for a day or two and attack at a time of their choosing. The LW is tied to whatever force they have managed to get ashore, while the RAF can choose when to attack it and the vulnerable supply ships.

Why do you think the logistics problems of the Germans would be significantly less than that of the allies in the Normandy invasion? The ground forces need huge amounts of supply during combat operations. Where is it all coming from? Their landing craft would continue to be attritted, unlike those of the allies in 1944.

Remember also that the allies had years of experience with amphibious landings. The German army would be doing it for the first time, and there would be lots of screw ups.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by lwd »

Vic Dale wrote: ...
It is a mistake to rule out invasion in 1940 because of shortcomings in comparison to what the allies required in 1944.

I don't think that's what was intended. It was comparing what the Germans had to what they would need for a successful invasion.
The opposing forces were vastly superior to anything which could be envisged in 1940.

You've said this before and it isn't particularly relevant or true. Indeed in 1940 the US envisioned an even greater force than it had in 44.
You don't neccessarily try to acheive air supremacy prior to the attack, any more than you try to demonstrate military supremacy.

If you don't you risk disaster. If you also don't have control of the sea you pretty much guarantee it.
The battle of the air is fought and won or lost as part of the whole campaign.

Winning the battle in the air after you have lost the invasion fleet and all its troops is hardly a win.
The air assault has to be compared to a heavy artillery barrage which softens up the opposition in ppreparation fo attack. Heavy artillery does not attempt to flatten the ground and defeat the enemy bfore the infantry advances, it is to disrupt his ability to fight back. That is what the Luftwaffe would have been doing, prior to the assault.

It's far from clear that they could have done so. In fact it's pretty well guaranteed that they couldn't.
The aim would be to attack airfields over a wide area and push the RAF back.

They tried this and in doing so the correlation of forces went against them. And that was only facing part of the RAF. In the face of even greater RAF opposition they are going to loose even more relative to the RAF.
ALl the while this is going on the fighters have it out in the higher altitudes. The RAF must commit or give way and in that commitment, the Luftwaffe would try to capitalise on it's superiority in numbers of aircraft and battle hardened pilots.

How does this differ from the actual BOB? It's far from clear that intercepting after the bombing was intended or practiced as widely as you seam to believe.

That is how Dowding tipped the scales. If the bombers had been carrying bombs to strategic targets he would have had to try and prevent them getting to their targets and the scales would have been in balance.

Hint. In the initial stages of the BOB that's just what the Germans tried. And they weren't winning.
... The preponderance in numbers could have overwhelmed the RAF very quickly - not without cost to the Germans of course, but one side or the other would have come out on top.

What preponderance of numbers?
The Luftwaffe would hold the attackers initiative and the RAF would be chasing round trying to intercept them. Such a battle could cost either side 2 or 300 aircraft in one day, so the question of air-supremacy would be decided in just a few days. If the British won it the invasion would certainly fail, if the Germans won it, then an invasion could continue and the Luftwaffe would continue activity with suppression raids against land and surface forces.

Even if the British loose the battle in the air the RN could destroy the invasion fleet. I can only think of one battle that saw losses like you are describing in even a couple of days.
Any ships which ventured into the area could be hunted down by the Luftwaffe. Destroyers are not armoured and a cannon attack alone could do immense damage and impair fighting efficiency and this says nothing of the possibilities for torpedo attacks, or the unwelcome attention of dive-bombers.

Strafing DD's is not exactly a safe occupation. Good way to loose a bunch of planes. How many tropedo bombers do you think the British had? How are you going to hunt down DDs that make a run in at night shoot up the invasion fleet for a couple of hours and pull out?
With the RAF intact, British naval forces would be able to operate quite feely, though constantly under threat of attack, without the RAF they would be lucky to remain afloat.
The LW in this scenario has too many taskings. Note that during the BOB around half the LW's losses were operational in nature. You are proposing a vast increase in optempo LW losses would climb dramatically even without RAF opposition. Add in attacks vs protected targets increased optempo and such and the LW might even destroy itself.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by Vic Dale »

Bgile wrote:Vic,

Why do you think that the LW is going to destroy the RAF at a rate of 200-300 aircraft per day when the combined allied air forces were not able to do that to the LW over several years? The RAF is not nearly as badly outnumbered, and if it is taking too many losses, they withdraw for a day or two and attack at a time of their choosing. The LW is tied to whatever force they have managed to get ashore, while the RAF can choose when to attack it and the vulnerable supply ships.

Why do you think the logistics problems of the Germans would be significantly less than that of the allies in the Normandy invasion? The ground forces need huge amounts of supply during combat operations. Where is it all coming from? Their landing craft would continue to be attritted, unlike those of the allies in 1944.

Remember also that the allies had years of experience with amphibious landings. The German army would be doing it for the first time, and there would be lots of screw ups.
Read what I wrote.

I said that either side could lose as many as 2-300 planes in a day if they commited totally. I said nothing about the Luftwaffe prevailing. I said one or other would win.

I do not make light of the logistical problems and logistics as I have said is one way Hitler would never have made it. That is a long way from saying "It can't be done" When people say things like that for too long somebody turns around and bloody well does it.

Whether or not the Germans would have been able to take London eventually is not my concern. What I am saying is that invasion was possible and that was recognised by the most forward thinking military men in Britain. They had an army which had been roundly beaten and morale was at an all time low. I don't have to remind you of the importance of morale I suppose. You don't build morale simply by re-equipping. You need victories and you need to show your men that they can be successful against what appears to be a superior force. There were no victories for the British, so their Post rout R&R would not have the same effect as it did for the German troops who had yet to be beaten

The opposition which German forces would have faced would have compensated for a considerable lack of logistics in the summer of 1940 and if instead of showing their hand the Luftwaffe had held back in readiness for the big push - whenever the state of landing and support vessels would make that possible they would have held and maintained the advantage.

When considering logistical support, you think about the rate of advance. If all you need to do in the first instance is take and hold a limited area and supply it, you don't need such a heavy train of supply, so a landing which secured a beachhead sufficiently powerful to gain a harbour and hold it could be supplied to saturation even by the limited logistical support available in August - September 1940. The main focus would be reducing the RAF and naval vessels capable of disrupting supplies.

So your move. How many men to hold Rye and Folkstone and cover an airfield? I require infantry in large numbers and anti-tank-brigades only at this stage. The task is to hold and resist infantry assault. Tank assault is not expected as air cover is tasked to prevent enemy movement by day and to give adequate protection to own troops. The area is to be secured and held so as to permit gradual build-up of forces strong enough for eventual breakout and assault on London. Paratroops will be dropped in night raids to sabotage communications and establish temporary advanced pickets to report on enemy troop movements and give warning of any attempt to advance on our positions.

This BTW is not neccessarily the way I would go about invasion of Britain, but it is intended as an exercise to see if a small incursion using heavy force could be made and held and gradually swelled to hold massed forces and eventually tank brigades.

Vic
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by lwd »

Why don't you start by detailing what forces you think the Germans could commit to this? If you also specefy a date I think we can handle the British end of it.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by Vic Dale »

You don't start with a date until you know what you require.

The starting date for inquiry would be beginning of June, though with allowance for enemy build up. Whatever that condition was, it would be impossible to resist a heavy landing with ground troops alone since there is a considerable amount of coast to be defended and an attack could focus in any area. Enemy forces would be diffused until it became clear where the focus of the invasion was to be.

So back to the question, How many men to secure and hold Folkstone and Rye?
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by RF »

Vic Dale wrote:Hi RF.

When I say he was determined to get Britain, that does not imply he knew what he was doing or that he had the courage necessary to make the thing work. He vacillated so much over the invasion of France and the lowlands that he cancelled 26 times. His wish was for capitulation and invasion as the absolute last resort, so to that extent he was determined and also the way the Luftwaffe was commited indicates a certain desire. Goering had convinced him that Britian could be reduced by air attack alone so he went for that option.

Never mind about Eienhower, what about Manstein or Rudstedt, Rommel or Guderian, they were the architects of some of best actions and I am sure they would have seen how a combined operation carefully thought out and logistcally planned could have been made to work. I doubt that Galland for example, would have wanted the Luftwaffe to show it's hand fully until the softening up prior to invasion began and then that arm would have been used to it's best advantage, instead of trying to covert a military support arm into a strategic bombing force, by the wave of a baton.

We come right back to the way in which the nazis gained their power in Germany. Largely they were given a helping hand by industrialists, agencies of the state and not least Stalin's mishandling of the comintern. Very few people even today fully understand how and why the nazis came to power and least of all the nazis themselves. I don't suppose even they knew, so having gained all that power and having made German industrial development so easy in comparison to other nations, who still had to pay the going rate for labour, they seem to have believed their own propaganda in thinking themselves supermen and capable of anything. That is one of the reasons there was such inadequate planning for some of the most startling and far reaching military adventures. Military success came Germany's way despite the nazis and ther meddling. Who knows what Germany might have acheived with an adequate military leader.

Vic
I have reproduced this entire post deliberately because of the dramatic going off at a tangent in paragraph three.

Determined to get Britain? Where does this idea come from? Hitler only adopted that atitude in response to the Bomber Command raid on Berlin in return for the Luftwaffe accidently dropping a few bombs on London.

None of the officers you cite in paragraph two had any experience of seaborne landings or amphibious operations. River crossings yes, and a supreme commander outside of the specialist three services could have injected some new thought and approach that would be required. As it was even the invasion of the Channel Islands was an ignominous exhibition of military planning.....
What was missing at the end of June 1940 was any sense of urgency or planning, which should have been completed by the end of that month. The air battle of Britain should have started five weeks earlier than it did.
You are correct in saying in paragraph three that the nazis had no real idea of conducting military campaigns and whilst what you say about the nazis coming to power I can agree with I don't think it is directly relevant to Operation Sea Lion.
The General Staff had the job of planning the invasion once Hitler had got round to issueing his war directives, in fact Hitler at the time wanted invade the USSR in September 1940..... Therefore the detail would be out of the hands of the nazi apparachiks and in professional military hands, and if applied properly landings could have been done.

I might add that if Iwas planning Sea Lion in 1940 I would have gone about things very differently, but there again I would not be encombered by land minded military thinking. But that perhaps is for another thread elsewhere.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by RF »

lwd wrote:
What could the Germans realistically put ashore in early summer?
With proper foresight and military planning probably quite a bit more than most people think. You make use of what is available.
As in my post above, the way I would deal with this operation would be very different from what the German General Staff
could dream up, and perhaps this is the real difference between our views. But what I could have planned the Germans could have done.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by lwd »

Vic Dale wrote:You don't start with a date until you know what you require.

The starting date for inquiry would be beginning of June, though with allowance for enemy build up. Whatever that condition was, it would be impossible to resist a heavy landing with ground troops alone since there is a considerable amount of coast to be defended and an attack could focus in any area. Enemy forces would be diffused until it became clear where the focus of the invasion was to be.

So back to the question, How many men to secure and hold Folkstone and Rye?
Looks like you are trying to dog the question to me. A landing in June of any strength is out of the question. The Germans don't have access to any working French ports until after 25 June. A German invasion before August is highly unlikely to contain any significant amount of armor or motor vehicles so even if it establishes a beach head it's not going anywhere.

The balls in your court tell us how much the Germans could land and where.
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Re: New Poll: critical moment for Germany

Post by Vic Dale »

The question is; How many men to secure and hold that area?

Leave the logistics to me.
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