Intended FJ role in Sealion

[Knouterer]

Footnote & apology: I now realize that the list of units I gave above was not from the actual Defence Schemes of the divisions involved as I misleadingly stated, but lifted from a wargame played out on forum.panzerarchiv.de a couple of years back. So while the units and artillery I mentioned were certainly present in the sector, actual dislocation may have been a little different.

[fredleander]

@Phylo
To my modest opinion it is impossible to have 7,000 airbornes ready by late Summer 1940. If they had 4,000 well trained airbornes ready, it would already have been quite an achievement. That took around 400 planes to get them in, come with their equipment and so.

So, what is "well trained airbornes"........

Fred

[Zuylen]

So, what is "well trained airbornes"........
Fred

Well trained airbornes were much more than simply soldiers that could hang on the end of a bundle of ropes. In 1940 the standard of this build-up was still high.

[jeger]

Intended role for the FJ was rush and hold, but even for a rush-job you need more than pistol, knife an MP m/38/40 Schmeisser if you also are supposed to hold, and you cannot hold unless you have heavy weapons which the FJ never had. At Dombås - thats the right name-in Norway 1940,FJ on the ground had to give in when confronted by ordinary units Norwegian infantry.The lesson learned, paras can never do it alone unless backed by other forces.That goes for Sealion as well as for Crete were the FJ was backed by mountain troops brought in by air and sea
Jeger

[fredleander]

Intended role for the FJ was rush and hold, but even for a rush-job you need more than pistol, knife an MP m/38/40 Schmeisser if you also are supposed to hold, and you cannot hold unless you have heavy weapons which the FJ never had.

Do you know how the 7th FJ division was organized - and its mission for Seelöwe?

At Dombås - thats the right name-in Norway 1940,FJ on the ground had to give in when confronted by ordinary units Norwegian infantry.The lesson learned, paras can never do it alone unless backed by other forces.

I find that your description of the Dombås raid can be somewhat misleading. This raid was executed by a reduced FJ company flying from Fornebu airport outside Oslo to more than 250 km. behind enemy lines in the evening of April 14th after quite hasty preparations - the order for their mission came directly from Hitler. This was 5 days after the German invasion started. Due to bad weather not all reached their planned jump areas and those who did were spread out over an area 20 km. long and 10 km. wide. They landed in deep snow without ski equipment. The CO, oberleutnant Schmidt, was able to round up 63 men. A few more joined up during the following day walking towards the sound of battle. Eventually, he and his men blocked the main route between Lillehammer and Trondheim, as was their mission. Schmidt was wounded with a bullet through his hip on the first day. Unfortunately for the Germans a complete Norwegian infantry battalion, II/IR11, was based near by, at Dombås. This used 5 days to reduce the German force into survival. In the meantime 28 Norwegian soldiers had been taken prisoners.

That goes for Sealion as well as for Crete were the FJ was backed by mountain troops brought in by air and sea
Jeger.

Operation Merkur is probably one of the most misunderstood operations of WW2. The important conclusion should not be the German losses, which were considerable, but the fact that the operation was successfully concluded in spite of those. Crete was garrisoned by 30.000 allied troops that knew exactly what to expect in accordance with regular Ultra information received from Egypt. The first German waves were half-massacred, many while still in the air. Even then this reduced force, dropped at three different points, kept the defenders down in 5 days till the 5. mountain division, singularly flown in by Ju52's, arrived in some force. None by sea. It was all over in 10 days with around 15.000 British and Greek POW's. Not to talk about the Royal Navy's losses during the Greek campaign as a whole in spite of less than ideal working conditions for the worn-down Luftwaffe units there. Not at all comparable to the more than 100 prepared airfields, or Luftwaffe forces, in Northern France and Belgium.

Fred

[fredleander]

So, what is "well trained airbornes"........
Fred

Well trained airbornes were much more than simply soldiers that could hang on the end of a bundle of ropes.

I'd appreciate if you would elaborate a little on that.

Fred

[phylo_roadking]

Intended role for the FJ was rush and hold, but even for a rush-job you need more than pistol, knife an MP m/38/40 Schmeisser if you also are supposed to hold, and you cannot hold unless you have heavy weapons which the FJ never had.

By 1941 they did - get yourself a good overview of Crete

At Dombås - thats the right name-in Norway 1940,FJ on the ground had to give in when confronted by ordinary units Norwegian infantry.

However - given that Dombås was a blocking mission, how many days did they hold out first? AND with half the force knocked out of the sky before they even jumped...

EDIT: just noticed Fred's post above...although -

Due to bad weather not all reached their planned jump areas and those who did were spread out over an area 20 km. long and 10 km. wide.

Fred, don't forget the casualties they took flying in BELOW the Norwegian machinegunners on the heights above

The lesson learned, paras can never do it alone unless backed by other forces.That goes for Sealion as well as for Crete were the FJ was backed by mountain troops brought in by air and sea

The FJ were never meant to do the job "alone"....except for the specialist combat engineer!"-type operations; otherwise, even it their earliest days, they were to secure landing points/fields for 22 Luftlande...

[phylo_roadking]

Well trained airbornes were much more than simply soldiers that could hang on the end of a bundle of ropes.

I'd appreciate if you would elaborate a little on that.

Fred - IIRC, the FJ received a much higher degree of training in small-squad tactics, and tactical decision making down at squad NCO level than was normal for the Heer, to allow them to function far better as "light"/unsupported skirmkishing troops than the average landser was. It required greater squad cohesion and training...

One of the lacks MacDonald and Lucas noted in the preparations for Sealion was the sheer number of squad "empty files" that had to be filled after May-June 1940 with new recruits/volunteers, requiring training time as squads to make them capable of that increased independence of action and decisionmaking mentioned above that they hadn't all received by September...

[jeger]

Gentlemen,
Just for the record, we all agree then that the role of the FJ in Sealion was rush and hold, but that they never were mend to do the job "alone",right? As for Dombås,after heavy fighting ,the FJ were isolated at a farmhouse and had to surrender without fulfilling the mission, and finally concerning Crete; German re-enforments were in fact brought in by sea.The German Admiral South East disposed of two flotillas made up of steamers and motor vessels together with two destroyers ,12 motor-torped-boats and about 20 caiques escorted by the Italian destroyer Lupo which sailed for Crete on the 21 May 1941. The ships carried a battalion of Ringels 5th Mountain Div. ( III Bn of 100th Reg),part of an anti-aircraft regiment and a number of different heavy weapons detachments including light lorries, motorcycle combinations and some tanks.There was also an artillery detachment with 50 mm anti-tank guns.The total strength of troops carried is given by XI Air Corps reports as 2.330 crack-troops. The Royal Navy charged this flotilla and at the time it was thought that the Germans must have suffered losses exceeding 4.000 dead. That assertion is reported both in Churchill`s and Cunningham`s accounts published after the war.However, we know from XI Air Corps reports that the total strength was only 2.331 and that in the daily morning report to 12th Army GHQ on 22 May there was a warning that" loss of about 50 per cent must be accepted". The final report dated 4 June shows ,however, the losses to have been "only 309 killed" ( Ref NZOH Appx V , 487.)So also for Crete, -and in all other para operations in WWII,-the heavy equipment brought in after the landing of the FJ was vital to their success. And with that I rest my case.
Jeger

[Zuylen]

@Jeger. Why do you focus on German FJ alone, whereas all that you state applies to any light force, airbornes, commando's, SF, rangers, etc.. The reason that the aforementioned outfits are usually addresses as elite is their high individual standard as a specialist and soldier. They are no miracle fighters.

The German FJ by april/may 1940 had no more than four battalions of well trained men. That was 1st Regiment and the taskforce battalion for Eben-Emael. The other outfits were either attached from regular army or Luftwaffe units or still in training. The 2nd Regiment was poorly trained, and with still large voids in the lines. First battalion FJR2 would bear the entire operation of raiding three Dutch airfields around the Hague, but it failed. The battalion was nihilated, with many fatalities and hundreds wounded or POW. Most POWs were transported to the UK.

Airborne operations can only bear success when the are planned and executed on a tactical scale, which means in cohesion with 'other' forces, usually of a convention kind. Fredlander rightly stated that the Dombas action was a limited scale blocking mission. Airbornes are usually troops with a high 'write off ratio'. All military planners know this. Also then. The Germans were well aware of the fragile profile of the early FJ outfits. Student saw surprise as their biggest virtue, not their holding-capacity. Those were not overestimated, but then again they fought, with all due respect, ill prepared - trained - equiped forces like the Danish, Norvegian, Belgian and Dutch armies. The airborne successes of April/May 1940 were largely given in by surprise of the enemy and subsquently an inapt adversary, that failed to overcome the initial surprise. Particularly the Dutch failed big time in the Moerdijk-Rotterdam sector, where they had three days to close the gap, but relied on the French to do so, meanwhile failing to launch one single convincing counter-strike against the thinly spread airbornes and airlanding forces. Hardly challenged Student, who took more than a few tactical gambles, grew into too much confidence.

But the truly misguided side in this all, were the Allies. They falsely grew into the conviction that airbornes were some sort of wonder weapon, which they were not. But after Mercur it were the Allies that produced a whole series of screw-up operations with airbornes, using them against their first (operational) users. The biggest screw-up was Montgomery - who I personnaly count to the most devastating generals of the Allied side - who 'designed' a copy/paste plan of the original German airborne operation in May 1940 in Holland and use it against the Germans on the Eindhoven - Arnhem corridor. Notably the designer of the German 1940 plan was on the receiving end this time. He wasn't half impressed by what he saw. Nor was Model. The Allies were cut of by the head. Indeed, light forces like the airbornes of the British 1st could not compete with Tiger tanks ...

[phylo_roadking]

Just for the record, we all agree then that the role of the FJ in Sealion was rush and hold, but that they never were mend to do the job "alone",right?

That depends on the nature of the "job" as you put it, their specific tactical objectives; at Dover for example the FJ were to make "Eben Emael"-style combat engineer landings and take out the coastal batteries; this would indeed have been done unsupported.

As for Lympne - if we regard 22 Luftlande as an integral part of the the FJ, then indeed they were to take the airfield unsupported; 7th Flieger were to make the various battalion-sized parachute landings, formate, cross country and attack the airfield perimeter at the same time as 22 Luftlande were to land by glider Thus the "FJ" were to take that objective "unsupported".

As for Dombås,after heavy fighting ,the FJ were isolated at a farmhouse and had to surrender without fulfilling the mission,

What exactly do you think the "mission" at Dombås was?

and finally concerning Crete; German re-enforments were in fact brought in by sea.The German Admiral South East disposed of two flotillas made up of steamers and motor vessels together with two destroyers ,12 motor-torped-boats and about 20 caiques escorted by the Italian destroyer Lupo which sailed for Crete on the 21 May 1941. The ships carried a battalion of Ringels 5th Mountain Div. ( III Bn of 100th Reg),part of an anti-aircraft regiment and a number of different heavy weapons detachments including light lorries, motorcycle combinations and some tanks.There was also an artillery detachment with 50 mm anti-tank guns.The total strength of troops carried is given by XI Air Corps reports as 2.330 crack-troops. The Royal Navy charged this flotilla and at the time it was thought that the Germans must have suffered losses exceeding 4.000 dead. That assertion is reported both in Churchill`s and Cunningham`s accounts published after the war.However, we know from XI Air Corps reports that the total strength was only 2.331 and that in the daily morning report to 12th Army GHQ on 22 May there was a warning that" loss of about 50 per cent must be accepted". The final report dated 4 June shows ,however, the losses to have been "only 309 killed" ( Ref NZOH Appx V , 487.)So also for Crete, -and in all other para operations in WWII,-the heavy equipment brought in after the landing of the FJ was vital to their success. And with that I rest my case.

You're neglecting that the Royal Navy did indeed manage to scatter the two flotillas, and they were a week late arriving at Crete.

However THIS -

So also for Crete, -and in all other para operations in WWII,-the heavy equipment brought in after the landing of the FJ was vital to their success.

....is not correct; have you consulted a decent source on Crete as I suggested? First of all, and of course, not only will you find that the Commonwealth forces' withdrawal to the south of the island for evacuation begun several days before any of the heavy equipment landed by sea arrived...

This heavy equipment that the FJ is supposed to not have had on Crete? I know Fred isn't a fan of Kuhn/Kurowski, but I know he won't mind me referencing him for details of the Fallschirmjaeger-Sturmregiment (FJStR) with it's section of 20mm machine guns, and Schram's Fallschirm Artillerie Abteilung (FAAbt). similarly, I wonder exactly what were the "heavy weapons" that put down the "barrage" under the cover of which Oberfeldwebel Gleitmann launched his attack on the copse on the western edge of Maleme?....not to mention that 105mm artillery peices that equiped the 2nd section of FAAbt 7 at Rethymnon?

And we have plenty of evidence, including pictorial, of 37mm PAK on Crete in May 1941...

[krichter33]

Small scale tactical missions, like Zuylen said, are the only real missions airborne forces can successfully carry out. Crete was a large scale operational mission. It was successful, but at a high cost. It would have been better had the Germans only had one airborne division, mostly equipped with gliders, and filled with well trained volunteers, rather than the 11 divisions they had by the end of the war.

[phylo_roadking]

Small scale tactical missions, like Zuylen said, are the only real missions airborne forces can successfully carry out. Crete was a large scale operational mission. It was successful, but at a high cost.

This is not correct; the "success" of a mission depends on both the nature of the mission AND the scale of losses you are prepared to accept to see it completed The obvious largescale use of paratroops being as blocking forces....where higher-than-normal %-age casualties might be acceptable to achieve the desired blocking effect.

The large scale use of airborne troops as blocking forces was not a wholly new theory when used in 1944 on OVERLORD and others by the Allies; a Captain F.O. Miksche was writing publically on the subject in 1942-3. (Faber&Faber, London, 1943, foreword by Liddell-Hart!)

[Zuylen]

This is not correct; the "success" of a mission depends on both the nature of the mission AND the scale of losses you are prepared to accept to see it completed The obvious largescale use of paratroops being as blocking forces....where higher-than-normal %-age casualties might be acceptable to achieve the desired blocking effect.

It is everyone's prerogative to be stubborn, so even this weak attempt to deny reality is welcome.

Basically you are mixing up wrong intentions and abuse of airbornes as a mere strategic means or outfit with the reality of airbornes being only suitable for limited tactical scale ops. All Allied large scale operations failed and even the German Crete operation cannot qualify as a airborne success; it was rather an Allied loss, like the large scale landing in Holland in 1940. An identical operation as Crete in an environment of an experienced defender would have resulted in a German loss. Basically The Germans felt the operation as a loss too. It sealed the end of large scale operations of the German airbornes. They appreciated the limited capabilities of light airborne troops deep inside enemy territory, whereas the Allies burnt their asses about a dozen times before they accepted the same.

[phylo_roadking]

Basically you are mixing up wrong intentions and abuse of airbornes as a mere strategic means or outfit with the reality of airbornes being only suitable for limited tactical scale ops. All Allied large scale operations failed and even the German Crete operation cannot qualify as a airborne success; it was rather an Allied loss, like the large scale landing in Holland in 1940. An identical operation as Crete in an environment of an experienced defender would have resulted in a German loss. Basically The Germans felt the operation as a loss too. It sealed the end of large scale operations of the German airbornes. They appreciated the limited capabilities of light airborne troops deep inside enemy territory whereas the Allies burnt their asses about a dozen times before they accepted the same

You know, your comment immediately before that paragraph would have been far more apposite had I been talking about offensive operations such as Crete OR small scale tactical operations...

...whereas I was replying to Krichter's comment "Small scale tactical missions, like Zuylen said, are the only real missions airborne forces can successfully carry out"....and it's quite clear that the Allies successfully used airborne troops as largescale blocking forces on several occasions.

Using airborne forces for largescale assault operations were indeed terribly vulnerable to local conditions, reactions, preparations etc...but used as blocking forces, their just being there created the headache for the enemy and the sponging/blunting effect that was desired. That's why I asked Jeger above...

As for Dombås,after heavy fighting ,the FJ were isolated at a farmhouse and had to surrender without fulfilling the mission,

What exactly do you think the "mission" at Dombås was?