Intended FJ role in Sealion

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Knouterer
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion - Ireland also

#301

Post by Knouterer » 09 Jul 2015, 15:02

sitalkes wrote: “Then a discussion followed about the use of the 11th Air Corps in an invasion of Great Britain. In this respect I expressed my doubts about using the Corps directly on the South Coast, to form a bridgehead for the Army - the area immediately behind the coast was now covered with obstacles. These doubts were accepted by Hitler. I then proposed that, if it proved absolutely necessary to use the 11th Air Corps on the south coast, then airfields in the hinterland (25 to 35 miles distant from the coast) should be captured, and infantry divisions landed on them.

"Suddenly Hitler pointed to the waist of the Cornwall- Devon Peninsula, and drew a big circle on his map round Taunton and the Blackdown Hills, saying: ‘Your airborne troops could be used here as flank protection. This is a strong sector and, besides, this important defile must be opened.’ He then pointed to Plymouth and dwelt on the importance of this great harbour for the Germans and for the English. Now I could no longer follow his thought, and I asked at what points in the south coast the landing was to take place. But Hitler kept strictly to his order that operations were to be kept secret, and said: ‘I cannot tell you yet.’"
A bit hard to take any of that seriously. Both Hitler and Student must have realized that by the spring of 1941 the British defences had become very much stronger, both in absolute and in relative terms; for instance, by the end of 1940 Britain was producing about twice as many fighters per month as Germany.

Naval forces were also much stronger than they had been eight months before, and in Oct.1940-March 1941 Britain produced over a thousand tanks, even if many of those went to the Middle East.

The Germans by contrast were not appreciably stronger than they had been the year before, as regards their amphibious warfare capabilities; they would have to assemble all those converted barges, freighters, sailing coasters and whatnot again. The production of purpose-built seagoing landing craft had barely begun; Marinefährprähme were not delivered before July_August 1941. A few Pionierlandungsboote 39 would have been available. So would a few more Siebel ferries, but not enough to make a difference.

And a landing west of Portsmouth seems a particularly hare-brained idea. In 1940 the Kriegsmarine had rejected a landing in Lyme Bay for several good reasons. For starters, where would the invasion fleet come from? Not from the ports originally foreseen from Rotterdam to Boulogne, that would be much to far away, certainly for the barge convoys moving at five knots.
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#302

Post by Knouterer » 09 Jul 2015, 15:10

Little map from M. Faulkner, War at Sea. A Naval Atlas 1939-1945:
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#303

Post by sitalkes » 10 Jul 2015, 02:01

The Nazi capacity for self-deception should not be underestimated! There is a new Oxford University Press book called "Germany and The Second World War" that lists what the Germans thought of British aircraft strength and defences in 1941 - it says the Germans thought their bombing campaign was affecting the British aircraft industry and they thought the British had produced about a tenth of the actual figure - something over 2,000 planes vs the real figure of over 20,000 for the year. Otherwise there's nothing much of interest in the Sealion section of that book.

The Lyme bay invasion was to have been launched from Cherbourg (and maybe ports west of that location) not from the Belgian and north French ports, but it was just an Army fantasy, there wasn't enough shipping for it. It looks crazy anyway as it is so far from the other landings though maybe it would work if conducted after British forces had been drawn elsewhere or as a threat to encourage British forces to stay in the West Country.

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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#304

Post by Knouterer » 10 Jul 2015, 15:13

To compare with the maps on the previous page: interesting views of the coastline, from the "Channel Pilot" (produced by the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty), 1947 edition.
These drawings show - what is perhaps not immediately apparent from maps - how Folkestone, while itself up on cliffs, is dominated by the hills behind it.
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#305

Post by Knouterer » 18 Jul 2015, 17:38

Knouterer wrote:I would be a bit careful about accepting Wikipedia articles as hard fact, in any case "between 1940 and 1941" is pretty vague. My understanding is that the first dummy airfields or "daytime decoys", which required a lot of work to make them look realistic, were set up towards the end of 1940. Definitive answers can probably be found in Dobinson's book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fields-Deceptio ... s=Dobinson
It's a little bit off topic, but in the meantime I've had a look at Dobinson's book and it's very interesting. In the BoB literature, as far as I've read it, not much detail is mentioned about this subject, possibly because documents about the decoy operations were kept secret for several years longer than other RAF documents such as Operations Records Books etc.

Planning had already started in 1938, it appears, and after a couple of false starts the first useable and affordable decoy aircraft were delivered in January 1940. Every decoy airfield was linked to a real one; it was decided that there was no point in replicating sector stations, as the Germans already knew where they were, and also knew that it took a while to build them - two years or so in peacetime - so any springing up overnight like a mushroom would be self-evidently bogus. The decoy airfields were therefore intended to represent satellite airfields. The first map below shows the situation in the summer of 1940; when those decoys were planned, it was still assumed the Luftwaffe would come from the East, operating from airfields on German territory. Q sites were arrangements of lights to simulate an airfield by night, K sites were daytime decoys, a number of sites were both.

Westenhanger is nowhere mentioned, and neither is Lympne as "parent station" of a decoy. Hawkinge had a Q site (known as Wootton), but apparently only after the BoB. From July 1940 some decoy airplanes were also deployed on real airfields, where the real aircraft were carefully camouflaged, and according to Dobinson a few fake Hurricanes and/or Defiants were sent to Lympne.

The K sites did not last very long for several reasons; by the end of 1940 the Germans had identified most of them as fake, they required too much manpower (up to 30 men, some types of decoys suffered from the weather and needed a lot of maintenance to remain presentable), and finally the sites were increasingly needed for real airfields. They were effective to some degree, K sites drew seven raids in September and ten in October. Q sites did better, 37 attacks (by night) were recorded in Sept. and 23 in Oct.

QF sites were controlled dummy fires near airfields and aircraft factories to simulate targets already bombed and on fire, to draw following waves of bombers away from the real target.
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion - Ireland also

#306

Post by Knouterer » 27 Aug 2015, 17:51

sitalkes wrote:B H Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, Pan, London, 1978 gives Student's account of how the paratroopers were to be used.

"If I had been still on the scene I should have urged the use of the parachute forces against England while your evacuation from Dunkirk was still in progress, to seize the ports where your troops were landing. It was known that most of them had left Dunkirk without any of their heavier weapons.

"Even if this project had been vetoed my plans for the airborne part of the invasion would have been different to what was actually decided. I should have used my force to capture airfields considerably deeper inland than the intended bridge-head. Having captured these, I should have transported infantry divisions over by air, without tanks or heavy artillery - some to turn outwards and attack the coast defences from the rear, and some to move on London. I reckoned that one infantry division could be brought over by air in a day and a half to two days, that this reinforcement could be kept up.”
That too is all pretty bizarre stuff if you think about it. Surely Student must have known that at the time of Dunkirk, his parachute forces were in no shape to attack anyone? Of the 1st battalion of FschJgRgt 2 (minus one company) for example, there were only 28 men left who were fit to fight by 15 May (Golla, p. 247-248) and the battalion had to be completely rebuilt.

Not to mention the fact that the Luftwaffe had lost half its transport aircraft.

Also, in Holland the paras had been saved by the arrival of the ground troops (9th Panzer Division), showing that a quick linkup was vital. So this idea of seizing airfields far inland which the invasion forces would reach much later if at all is odd enough, and the idea of landing masses of troops by air with only a few light vehicles and no artillery, who would then march on London, makes me think that both Student and Liddell Hart had had a few drinks too many.
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#307

Post by Knouterer » 27 Aug 2015, 20:05

As a mildly amusing footnote: I'm just going through the War Diary of XII Corps (GS) (WO 166/344) and at the end of April 1941 an exercice was held involving enemy landings from the air and sea on the northern coast of Kent. The officer writing the scenario tried to insert realistic detail:

"A native of MINSTER, a fluent German speaker, who escaped from SHEERNESS by swimming to the Isle of GRAIN, states that he saw 2 small tanks in MINSTER on the evening of the 26th and 4 small howitzers (presumably 75 mm Inf Guns) near the WORKHOUSE 3991. He also claims to have heard General von SPONECK referred to by name although it was too dark to distinguish the speakers. This tallies with the prisoners' statements that the Isle of SHEPPEY is occupied by 22 Inf Div, which carried out the air Invasion of THE HAGUE in May 1940."
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion - Ireland also

#308

Post by sitalkes » 28 Aug 2015, 05:50

Knouterer wrote:
That too is all pretty bizarre stuff if you think about it. Surely Student must have known that at the time of Dunkirk, his parachute forces were in no shape to attack anyone? Of the 1st battalion of FschJgRgt 2 (minus one company) for example, there were only 28 men left who were fit to fight by 15 May (Golla, p. 247-248) and the battalion had to be completely rebuilt.

Not to mention the fact that the Luftwaffe had lost half its transport aircraft.

Also, in Holland the paras had been saved by the arrival of the ground troops (9th Panzer Division), showing that a quick linkup was vital. So this idea of seizing airfields far inland which the invasion forces would reach much later if at all is odd enough, and the idea of landing masses of troops by air with only a few light vehicles and no artillery, who would then march on London, makes me think that both Student and Liddell Hart had had a few drinks too many.
Well I don't know about Liddel Hart but Sudent's knock on the head seems to have done some permanent damage!!! If his troops landed on Dover w how would they hold out and how on earth would they get back??? Yes, quick link-up with ground troops was shown to be necessary right through the war e.g. Arnhem

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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#309

Post by sitalkes » 15 Sep 2015, 14:08

Some interesting extracts from "The German Airborne Threat to the United Kingdom" John P. Campbell, War in History 1997 4 (4) 411-33

The DFS 230 was really an engineless aircraft, committed to a downward glide after release. In February 1941 the British had still not produced their first eight-seater glider, so that the Air Fighting Development Unit (AFDU) at Duxford had to work with unsuitable sporting types in tests to determine the best tactics for day fighters engaging a glider in free flight.

Student was wounded in Holland and out of the picture for the planning of 'Sealion', which initially called for elements of 7th Air to be dropped on the downs behind Dover. An assault regiment of gliders had been formed, towed by three groups of 53 Ju 52s each. While normal operational practice called for the tugs to fly empty and with only one glider in tow, it was to be modified on this occasion to the extent of having the Ju 52s carry a full complement of parachutists. In mid-September the dropping zone for 7th Air was moved to high ground northwest of Folkestone after obstructions and increased anti-aircraft (AA) defences were discovered around Dover.29 No clear documentary record of 22nd Airlanding's 'Sealion' assignment has survived. Still, there is no concealing the comparatively modest role entrusted to airborne forces for Sealion. It was a far cry from scattered landings deep in the hinterland or from using airborne forces for a major diversion in East Anglia or the south-west. Student later said that if more troops had been available he would have recommended using them to capture airfields up to 30 miles from the landing beaches. It was also a far cry from the expectations of airborne forces shared by the German naval and military studies in December 1 939 and earlier by Kirke. While there were some similarities in airborne assignments, those for 'Sealion' had far less urgency for the outcome of the operation as a whole.

But there was no carefully conceived German cover plan to pin down what few reserves there were in the interior of the country. In july 1942, the threat of airborne landings in the Nile delta by the Ramcke brigade was used in the hope of keeping troops back from the front at El Alamein; but 'Sealion' was planned in too big a hurry for anything comparable to be attempted in 1940.30 Even after the tempo of events picked up in mid-August, reliable intelligence remained sparse. The secret service (MI 6) had the greatest difficulty providing basic order of battle intelligence for the German army in the invasion zone. Little was heard about the two airborne divisions except that 7th Air had been hurriedly withdrawn to Germany in May. A decrypt of 29 August mentioning 'S detachment' of 7th Air was later footnoted as the first reference to 'Seelowe' in 'secret messages'. Otherwise, the sum of intelligence from Ultra was that a conference of 7th Air group commanders had been called in Berlin for 19 August, and that Rotterdam would serve as the divisional loading point.31 Once the Germans moved invasion barges by night through the straits of Dover in the first week of September, the picture became clearer. The threat was to the south coast, not East Anglia, and the Germans were committed to beach landings using an armada of self-propelled barges and lighters. To appreciate how innovative this was - leaving aside the question of its practicability- it is necessary merely to recall Kirke's concept of an infantry division crossing the North Sea in 20 ships and taking up to a week to disembark at Harwich. The British underestimated the reliance which the Germans were prepared to put on the self-propelled barge, and searched for nonexistent shipping for the 'main force' until October.32

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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#310

Post by Knouterer » 16 Sep 2015, 10:20

Indeed - the British could not really bring themselves to believe that the Germans were really planning to invade with a motley collection of river barges, fishing vessels, sailing coasters, etc. and suspected that was just a feint, or at best a subsidiary effort.

Some extracts from intelligence summaries in the War Diary of the 45th Infantry Division (WO 166/536), which was holding the coastline in the invasion zone in Kent and Sussex:

11 Sept.: “In spite of many movements of enemy shipping, especially barges, there is still not considered to be sufficient tonnage in enemy occupied ports southward from DEN HELDER to transport a large scale invading force to the United Kingdom.
The present known position of shipping and barges appears to threaten EAST KENT as opposed to EAST ANGLIA or the south coast west of HASTINGS. There has been nothing to alter the opinion that if there is any immediate intention to invade, the expedition is probably being held in readiness in HAMBURG – where the quantity of shipping has lately much increased – or the BALTIC. Information about shipping in the BALTIC ports is not available.”

12 Sept.: “The reconnaissance reports on FLUSHING, GRAVELINES and CHERBOURG suggest that merchant shipping, as opposed to barges, is now also on the move along the coasts of HOLLAND, BELGIUM and FRANCE.”

14 Sept.: “The following information has been received from G.H.Q. Home Forces: – Enemy shipping FLUSHING-BOULOGNE capacity of barges and light craft approx. 100,000 men. Also enemy shipping BOULOGNE-CHERBOURG possibly extending to BREST, capacity another 75,000 men, in both cases with some equipment including A/Tk and Light Infantry guns. Increase of warships CHERBOURG.
Movement of ships has decreased numbers originally BREMEN and EMDEN, but it is believed there is considerable shipping in the BALTIC whence the main effort is likely, though no indication whether it is ready or will be launched simultaneously with attack from FRANCE. The purpose of Channel convoy movements still not clear but in their present position remains as potential invasion threat from FELIXSTOWE to LANDS END.”

And even at the end of the month (Intelligence summary of 26 Sept.):

“The existing state of the invasion preparations of the enemy may be summarized as follows:–
In Norway shipping is available for one division. This would presumably have some northern objective, Scotland, Iceland or Ireland. (…)
In Denmark and the Baltic from which the main weight of the sea-borne attack is likely to emerge, specific information is scanty. But a large amount of shipping is known to be available while troop concentrations and shipping activity have been reported from most of the Baltic ports.
From DELFZYL to BREST 280 ships are assembled with a carrying capacity of 460,000 tons. To this may be added a potential barge carrying capacity of 750,000 tons (of which 200,000 tons represents the increase in the last four days).
South of BREST along the Biscayan coast of France are a further 300,000 tons of shipping, which might represent the invasion threat to the West of England and to Eire.
Embarkation practises and other final preparations have been reported from almost all cases.”
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#311

Post by Knouterer » 16 Sep 2015, 10:40

It's not difficult to see why the British could hardly believe that the Germans would "place reliance on self-propelled barges". The LCI(L) below (IWM picture H28213), as built from 1943, was roughly the same size as the larger type of river barge.
But while the barges had engines of perhaps 100 hp at most, and many of those in poor condition, the designers of the LCI(L) put eight diesels with a combined 1,600 bhp in it ...
It could do 16 knots maximum and 14 knots sustained, while the self-propelled barges could make perhaps 5, if they did not have to fight any contrary current. Which was why the Kriegsmarine decided they all would have to be towed across.
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#312

Post by Knouterer » 16 Sep 2015, 11:11

And when the Germans developed their first "real" landing craft in 1941, the Marinefährprahm, which was also about the same size (46 m) as the larger Seelöwe barges, they put three diesels with a combined 390 hp in it, giving a top speed of 10,5 knots.
As the name implied, this was more a "sea-going lighter" than an amphibious assault craft.
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#313

Post by Knouterer » 28 Sep 2015, 10:07

Some speculations in the Defence Scheme (dated October 1940) of the 45th Infantry Division, which was holding the coastline from Dymchurch in Kent to Telscombe near Brighton in Sussex, about the kind of AFVs the Germans might try to land by air:
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#314

Post by Knouterer » 07 Oct 2015, 12:23

Another assessment of German capabilities, this time regarding airborne landings in Scotland “with a view to the neutralising of Fleet bases in the North”, in document COS(40)611 of 7th August 1940.
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Re: Intended FJ role in Sealion

#315

Post by Knouterer » 15 Oct 2015, 11:04

On the subject of the numbers of available aircraft: according to Volume 2 of "Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg" (the nearest thing to an Official History the Germans have), p. 390-391, in Sept. Göring wanted to convert about 100 Ju 52 to bombers to add some weight to the night attacks on industrial centres. In that context he stated "Seelöwe darf die Operation der Luftwaffe weder stören noch belasten".

Translation: "(preparations for) Seelöwe must not be allowed to disturb or hamper (constrain/limit) the Luftwaffe's operations".
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