Seelöwe: Lets discuss:- German barges, sunk by fighters?

[JonS]

Barge interior. Inner metal walls........ ......which should protect the personell.

Sure. As long as the metal is thick enough. And the RAF chooses to attack from underwater. In those circumstances the passengers should be fine.

[fredleander]

Barge interior. Inner metal walls........ ......which should protect the personell.

Sure. As long as the metal is thick enough. And the RAF chooses to attack from underwater. In those circumstances the passengers should be fine.

The .303's would first have to pass through the wooden hull. Which, of course, might result in leaks. A fighter attacking a tow train would have to pass within range of some dozens of automatic weapons. Many of them 20 and 37 mm calibre.....

I would be very surprised if the Germans hadn't catered for a proper supply of wood-plugs - caliber .303......... .....

[T. A. Gardner]

I've looked at alot of photographs of the various barges the Germans were going to use. In none of them can I find any sort of permanently mounted AA armament, certainly not 20mm or 37mm that take up alot of deck space and would be obvious. Even the handful of Seibel type ferries that had been manufactured lack such weapons, let alone the river barge conversions.
Machineguns that the troops on board are carrying would be all but useless as AA weapons. Navies at the time were already discarding .50 machineguns because they proved nearly worthless as AA weapons on ships. I for one, would dismiss claims that somehow the troops could provide their own useful AA defense against anything.
Aside from that, using up what ammunition they had on AA defense is going to hurt alot more later if they indeed do manage to get ashore. So, the question I have is the claim these vessels had some useful heavier armament even valid?

On other related issues:

The barges also come in a wide variety of types. Some have covered holds while others are very open with low gunwales. A number of the originally unpowered barges received two or three old aircraft engines mounted in a very exposed rack at the stern for propulsion. The combination of exposed engines and aviation gasoline makes for a dangerous mix if strafing did occur. Such a barge would be very vulnerable to a gasoline fire that would very likely be unextinguishable, particularly if the passengers and crew panicked (a virtual certainty if a fire did erupt...been in enought shipboard fires in my naval career to know that even with training they are scary occurances).

[JonS]

Barge interior. Inner metal walls........ ......which should protect the personell.

Sure. As long as the metal is thick enough. And the RAF chooses to attack from underwater. In those circumstances the passengers should be fine.

The .303's would first have to pass through the wooden hull. Which, of course, might result in leaks. I would be very surprised if the Germans hadn't catered for a proper supply of wood-plugs - caliber .303......... .....

Like I said, as long as the RAF attack from underwater the passengers should be fine.

BTW, should a 'leak' occur, just how effective are 303 calibre wood plugs at staunching bleeding?

[LWD]

...
It doesn't seam likely that they will be hitting many airplanes. Indeed thre attmepts to shoot down strafing fighters my actually do more damage to the fleet than the fighers would.

So the 37 and 20 mm automatic cannons didn't count for anything....?.....Tell that to the RAF guys in France...... ......not to mention the dozens of MG 34's of the fixed installations and on board infantry...... [/quote]
Fire control on a barge at sea is a lot different from that of a staionairy weapon on land. Note the results of firing at a ship sized object. 3 near misses out of 100 rounds at ranges from 600-1000m. My guess is that theses same weapons would be hitting (not near missing) tanks with an order of magnitured better percentage if they were on land. Especially sense at least on the barges the crews would have had little or no experiance even firing the weapons at sea.

[LWD]

Actually the combination of wooden hull with metal plating inside might be a real problem. If you got hits on the wood that didn't penetrate the metal you could start shipping water and have no real idea where it is coming from. Might not even realise it was happening until it was a serious problem. It would also be entersting to hear what a naval architect says about this. It's my understanding that one of the advanteges of wooden boats and ships is they move or flex under the pressure of wave action. Now you are attaching a bunch of concrete and steel to the wood. This is certainly going to change these characteristics. Flexation is more likely to be concentrated at a few points rather than spread out across the hull. Certainly isn't going to be good for the barge long term. Question is what happens in the short term.

[Gooner1]

I've looked at alot of photographs of the various barges the Germans were going to use. In none of them can I find any sort of permanently mounted AA armament, certainly not 20mm or 37mm that take up alot of deck space and would be obvious.

Here too, out of all the pictures of invasion barges I have seen I can only recall one that has had any AA armament fitted

http://www.angelfire.com/blog2/pics10/s ... lion21.jpg.

And indeed that 37mm does take a lot of deck space.

[fredleander]

BTW, should a 'leak' occur, just how effective are 303 calibre wood plugs at staunching bleeding?

I know nothing about this but "plugging" would have to be done from the outside when ashore.....Generally, I should think plugging would be quite effective. Wood expands when wet.

[fredleander]

I've looked at alot of photographs of the various barges the Germans were going to use. In none of them can I find any sort of permanently mounted AA armament, certainly not 20mm or 37mm that take up alot of deck space and would be obvious.

Here too, out of all the pictures of invasion barges I have seen I can only recall one that has had any AA armament fitted

http://www.angelfire.com/blog2/pics10/s ... lion21.jpg.

And indeed that 37mm does take a lot of deck space.

Nothing else on deck.......any better.....?.......

T.A.: Is it a problem that they are "obvious".....?....

[fredleander]

Actually the combination of wooden hull with metal plating inside might be a real problem. If you got hits on the wood that didn't penetrate the metal you could start shipping water and have no real idea where it is coming from. Might not even realise it was happening until it was a serious problem. It would also be entersting to hear what a naval architect says about this. It's my understanding that one of the advanteges of wooden boats and ships is they move or flex under the pressure of wave action. Now you are attaching a bunch of concrete and steel to the wood. This is certainly going to change these characteristics. Flexation is more likely to be concentrated at a few points rather than spread out across the hull. Certainly isn't going to be good for the barge long term. Question is what happens in the short term.

I am sure the German naval engineers knew nothing about this.......... ......they were known to be deficient in all such matters.....

[fredleander]

Like I said, as long as the RAF attack from underwater the passengers should be fine.

You mean.....U-fighters.....?....

[fredleander]

I've looked at alot of photographs of the various barges the Germans were going to use. In none of them can I find any sort of permanently mounted AA armament, certainly not 20mm or 37mm that take up alot of deck space and would be obvious. Even the handful of Seibel type ferries that had been manufactured lack such weapons, let alone the river barge conversions.
Machineguns that the troops on board are carrying would be all but useless as AA weapons. Navies at the time were already discarding .50 machineguns because they proved nearly worthless as AA weapons on ships. I for one, would dismiss claims that somehow the troops could provide their own useful AA defense against anything.
Aside from that, using up what ammunition they had on AA defense is going to hurt alot more later if they indeed do manage to get ashore. So, the question I have is the claim these vessels had some useful heavier armament even valid?

On other related issues:

The barges also come in a wide variety of types. Some have covered holds while others are very open with low gunwales. A number of the originally unpowered barges received two or three old aircraft engines mounted in a very exposed rack at the stern for propulsion. The combination of exposed engines and aviation gasoline makes for a dangerous mix if strafing did occur. Such a barge would be very vulnerable to a gasoline fire that would very likely be unextinguishable, particularly if the passengers and crew panicked (a virtual certainty if a fire did erupt...been in enought shipboard fires in my naval career to know that even with training they are scary occurances).

[T. A. Gardner]

Ok. So now we have a photo of a barge with a 3.7cm and what appears to be a 10.5cm with a very limited field of fire forward planted on the deck. This does little to show that these particular modifications - improvisations, which these definitely are, were common or widespread. If anything, it would appear that they were locally done modifications and very uncommon rather than the norm. There are just too many photos showing no such mountings to say otherwise, at least at this point in the discussion.

Oh, I'll put up more on British DD fire control systems in a bit along with a bit of an explaination on naval gunnery. Suffice it to say that weapons like those pictured above are better than nothing but not by much. The 10.5 would be worthless in a naval action while the 3.7 would have some definite value as an AA gun but little as a surface defense weapon.

[JonS]

BTW, should a 'leak' occur, just how effective are 303 calibre wood plugs at staunching bleeding?

I know nothing about this but "plugging" would have to be done from the outside when ashore.....Generally, I should think plugging would be quite effective. Wood expands when wet.

*WHHOOOOOOoooooossssh*

Hear that? It was the sound of a frigging great jumbo flying straight across the top of your head. Again.

[JonS]

Like I said, as long as the RAF attack from underwater the passengers should be fine.

You mean.....U-fighters.....?....

I have no idea. It was your suggestion.