Seelöwe - Diversion Operations by the KM

Discussions on WW2 in Western Europe & the Atlantic.
RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

#31

Post by RichTO90 » 05 Jun 2007, 20:01

LWD wrote:I think he's including the CLs as heavies. :)
Comparied to the rest of the functional KM at this time they are.
Actually I suspect he is about to claim that Bismarck, Scheer, and Hipper were all going to participate in Herbstreise as well, since they were 'available'. :roll:

User avatar
fredleander
Member
Posts: 2175
Joined: 03 Dec 2004, 21:49
Location: Stockholm
Contact:

#32

Post by fredleander » 06 Jun 2007, 22:09

RichTO90 wrote:
LWD wrote:I think he's including the CLs as heavies. :)
Comparied to the rest of the functional KM at this time they are.
Actually I suspect he is about to claim that Bismarck, Scheer, and Hipper were all going to participate in Herbstreise as well, since they were 'available'. :roll:
I am not. But, as I have pointed out before, an important fact is that the RN didn't know the status of the KM heavies. Or maybe you guys could shed some light on this. Not what the RN could, or should, know. But what they really knew..... :)


Andreas
Member
Posts: 6938
Joined: 10 Nov 2002, 15:12
Location: Europe

#33

Post by Andreas » 06 Jun 2007, 22:17

According to Fleming, quoting Roskill 'The War at Sea', the Admiralty was unaware that the twins had been damaged and expected the Germans to have six to eight light and heavy cruisers in commission. Aerial reconnaissance did not cover the Baltic ports.

All the best

Andreas

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

#34

Post by RichTO90 » 06 Jun 2007, 22:29

leandros wrote:I am not. But, as I have pointed out before, an important fact is that the RN didn't know the status of the KM heavies. Or maybe you guys could shed some light on this. Not what the RN could, or should, know. But what they really knew..... :)
I already did, you have a short memory. :roll: And the important fact is that the deception could only effect the Home Fleet at Scapa and Rosyth, since they were positioned there for just those contingencies. But I am unclear how drawing the Home Fleet to sea is actually of advantage to the Germans anyway....there is simply nothing in Herbstreise designed to anything more than that, which would just reduce the response time of the fleet when Seelöwe kicks off?

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

#35

Post by RichTO90 » 06 Jun 2007, 22:43

Andreas wrote:According to Fleming, quoting Roskill 'The War at Sea', the Admiralty was unaware that the twins had been damaged and expected the Germans to have six to eight light and heavy cruisers in commission. Aerial reconnaissance did not cover the Baltic ports.

All the best

Andreas
Which makes the dispositions of the two battleships, two battle cruisers, two carriers, four heavy cruisers, 7 light cruisers, and numerous destroyers very sensible.

User avatar
fredleander
Member
Posts: 2175
Joined: 03 Dec 2004, 21:49
Location: Stockholm
Contact:

#36

Post by fredleander » 06 Jun 2007, 22:50

RichTO90 wrote:
leandros wrote:I am not. But, as I have pointed out before, an important fact is that the RN didn't know the status of the KM heavies. Or maybe you guys could shed some light on this. Not what the RN could, or should, know. But what they really knew..... :)
I already did, you have a short memory. :roll: ?

I dont think you have stated what they "really" knew....?... :)
RichTO90 wrote:And the important fact is that the deception could only effect the Home Fleet at Scapa and Rosyth, since they were positioned there for just those contingencies. But I am unclear how drawing the Home Fleet to sea is actually of advantage to the Germans anyway....there is simply nothing in Herbstreise designed to anything more than that, which would just reduce the response time of the fleet when Seelöwe kicks off?
Wouldn't that be of value to the Germans....? With the Home Fleet would have to follow a lot screening vessels.

User avatar
fredleander
Member
Posts: 2175
Joined: 03 Dec 2004, 21:49
Location: Stockholm
Contact:

#37

Post by fredleander » 06 Jun 2007, 22:55

Andreas wrote:According to Fleming, quoting Roskill 'The War at Sea', the Admiralty was unaware that the twins had been damaged and expected the Germans to have six to eight light and heavy cruisers in commission. Aerial reconnaissance did not cover the Baltic ports.

All the best

Andreas
That is all well but did the RN have hard information that the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Lützow, Bismarck and Prinz eugen were not available end September...?

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

#38

Post by RichTO90 » 07 Jun 2007, 04:33

leandros wrote:I dont think you have stated what they "really" knew....?... :)
That whatever units the Germans might have available - Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and possible six heavy and light cruisers - the most important thing was detecting them and engaging on the run out through the straits. Detection meant analysis of signals traffic and radio direction finding, the standing cruiser patrols, and air reconnaissance. Which made the forces at Scapa and Rosyth critical. Which is what I just said. What they were exactly facing was irrelevent so long as they allocated sufficient frces to deal with a worst case, which they did. Two battle cruisers and six heavy and light cruisers doesn't really match well with two battleships, two battle cruisers, two heavy cruisers (if we are talking September, I forgot Devonshire and Australia were with Force M, they don't get back until early October), and seven light cruisers. That they would only 'really' face three light cruisers and a training ship improves the odds a bit more. :roll:
Wouldn't that be of value to the Germans....? With the Home Fleet would have to follow a lot screening vessels.
At Scapa (as of 16 Sep): 1 BC, 1 CV, 2 CA, 1 CL, 1 CLAA, 6 DD and 1 DE
At Dundee: 3 TB
At Rosyth: 2 BB, 1 BC, 3 CLAA, 13 DD, 4 DE, 1 TB
At the Humber: 3 CL, 5 DD

None of these are vessels previously counted as reaction forces versus the invasion fleet.

And no, it isn't of 'value' for the Germans to induce the Home Fleet to up anchor and steam out of Scapa, Rosyth, and the other northern ports....it actually decreases the response time required to alert the fleet and get it to sea. The whole notion of the deception plan is somewhat odd, drawing the grand fleet east and southeast towards the deception fleet actually puts them closer to the invasion than where they start from, not further away, and makes them more alert, not less. One might question, like Schenk, whether or not the Germans had more interest in the feint than the actual invasion?

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

#39

Post by RichTO90 » 07 Jun 2007, 04:36

leandros wrote:That is all well but did the RN have hard information that the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Lützow, Bismarck and Prinz eugen were not available end September...?
They 'knew' that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were working up from HUMINT IIRC from the history of the Bismarck chase, but they did not believe she was operational, something they could easily judge from their own experience. And as has been mentioned, they were already considering Gneisenau and Scharnhorst as possibles, with Lützow counted as one of the cruisers. Except for the twins they had a very good estimate of the losses inflicted during Weserübung.

User avatar
LWD
Member
Posts: 8618
Joined: 21 Sep 2005, 22:46
Location: Michigan

#40

Post by LWD » 07 Jun 2007, 13:59

RichTO90 wrote:.... And the important fact is that the deception could only effect the Home Fleet at Scapa and Rosyth, since they were positioned there for just those contingencies. But I am unclear how drawing the Home Fleet to sea is actually of advantage to the Germans anyway....there is simply nothing in Herbstreise designed to anything more than that, which would just reduce the response time of the fleet when Seelöwe kicks off?
That seams to be the only naval impact and as we both have now stated that might actually be counter productive. On the otherhand its primary purpose may have been to get the British to commit as muchc as possible of the army to the north buying them a day or two with less landward pressure on the beaches .

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

#41

Post by RichTO90 » 07 Jun 2007, 15:19

LWD wrote:That seams to be the only naval impact and as we both have now stated that might actually be counter productive. On the otherhand its primary purpose may have been to get the British to commit as muchc as possible of the army to the north buying them a day or two with less landward pressure on the beaches .
That would be insane wishful thinking on the part of the Germans. Luftflotte 5. had already demonstrated that it could not conduct extended daytime operations over the north, so they would have been at best a very minor supporting factor. The bulk of the heavy fleet units would be just 3 to 5 hours away from a possible landing fleet instead of 10 to 18 hours. And the ground defenses of the east and northeast were as complete and as well manned as those in the southeast, while the GHQ reserve was fully mechanized so could move easily to any point.

Any real or feinted German attack in the north would be compounding German weaknesses while multiplying British strengths, any competent intelligence analyst would rate the probability of such a course of action as fairly low.

Another curious aspect of Herbstreise of course is that the bulk of the putative 'transports' were ocean liners rejected for use in Seelöwe because they were unsuitable for shallow waters. Why then are they supposedly going to constitute a threat to the shallow coastal regions of northern and eastern Britain? It's not like the problems withtheir draft would be missed by the British....it's a rather obvious problem. After all, they wouldn't be too scared of a few liners full of German sightseers trying to dock at Edinburgh now would they? :roll:

User avatar
fredleander
Member
Posts: 2175
Joined: 03 Dec 2004, 21:49
Location: Stockholm
Contact:

#42

Post by fredleander » 07 Jun 2007, 23:36

In this posting you are stretching the truth quite a bit......
RichTO90 wrote:That would be insane wishful thinking on the part of the Germans. Luftflotte 5. had already demonstrated that it could not conduct extended daytime operations over the north, so they would have been at best a very minor supporting factor.
We know what happened in the incident you are referring to - it was bad organising of that exct mission and, I would add, a little of bad luck. That they later preferred not to repeat it hardly demonstrates that they could not conduct extended daytime operations over the North. Furthermore, their value would be against seagoing enemy vessels. It was not under such circumstances Luftflotte 5 got their bloodied nose.
RichTO90 wrote:The bulk of the heavy fleet units would be just 3 to 5 hours away from a possible landing fleet instead of 10 to 18 hours. And the ground defenses of the east and northeast were as complete and as well manned as those in the southeast, while the GHQ reserve was fully mechanized so could move easily to any point.:
GHQ fully mechanized....?...."mechanized" in my language means not only truck or bus-lifted but with a certain element of armour interspersed.
RichTO90 wrote:Any real or feinted German attack in the north would be compounding German weaknesses while multiplying British strengths, any competent intelligence analyst would rate the probability of such a course of action as fairly low.
Did the British Leadership fear it or not....?
RichTO90 wrote:Another curious aspect of Herbstreise of course is that the bulk of the putative 'transports' were ocean liners rejected for use in Seelöwe because they were unsuitable for shallow waters. Why then are they supposedly going to constitute a threat to the shallow coastal regions of northern and eastern Britain? It's not like the problems withtheir draft would be missed by the British....it's a rather obvious problem. After all, they wouldn't be too scared of a few liners full of German sightseers trying to dock at Edinburgh now would they? :roll:
Wouldn't they....?....Think...!.... Which new force multiplier was foremost in the heads of any enemy of Germany after the campaigns of Spring/Summer 1940.

RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

#43

Post by RichTO90 » 08 Jun 2007, 06:24

leandros wrote:In this posting you are stretching the truth quite a bit......
No, I am not. But you are talking through your hat again.
We know what happened in the incident you are referring to - it was bad organising of that exct mission and, I would add, a little of bad luck. That they later preferred not to repeat it hardly demonstrates that they could not conduct extended daytime operations over the North. Furthermore, their value would be against seagoing enemy vessels. It was not under such circumstances Luftflotte 5 got their bloodied nose.
Any sortie by Luftflotte 5 of neccessity must be escorted by Bf-110. Curiously enough though, by 7 September all the Bf-110 units had been withdrawn from Luftflotte 5 (I/ZG 76 converted to a II/NJG 1 then and moved to Deelen). On 7 September it had just 44 (35 operational) Bf-109 scattered about defending Norway, 38 (14 operational) He-111, Do-17, and Ju-88 long-range reconnaissance aircraft, and 24 (17 operational) He-115 of the Küstenfliegerstaffeln. Basically everything else had returned to Germany for operational conversion, retraining or had been sent to France to bolster the losses in the BoB.

The 'incident' is immaterial, but it's effect is not, nor is the lesson it taught the Luftwaffe. So despite your 'analysis' of the 'incident' the effect was the same, by September Luftflotte 5 was emasculated. Try feeding your nonsense to someone who is a lot more gullible.
GHQ fully mechanized....?...."mechanized" in my language means not only truck or bus-lifted but with a certain element of armour interspersed.
By the end of September GHQ Reserves consisted of:

HQ IV Corps (Reserve North of Thames River)
2 Armored Division
1 Armoured (designated ‘Light Armoured’ until 14 April 1940) Brigade
1 KDG – at Newmarket (Lt Mk VI)
4 Hussars (Lt Mk VI)
22 Armoured (designated ‘Heavy Armoured’ until 14 April 1940) Brigade
2nd Royal Gloucestershire Hussars (1 Sep: 31 Lt Mk VIb, 5 SC)
3rd CLY – Hildersham (1 Sep: 41 Lt Mk VIb, 7 SC, 2 Lt Dragons)
4th CLY – Cambridge (31 Aug: 46 Lt Mk VIc, 2 Lt Mk VIb, 6 SC, 3 Lt Dragons)
2 Support Group
2nd RHA
1st Rangers
1st Tower Hamlets
42 (East Lancashire) Division (from 9 September) (1st Line Terr.) (52, 53, 111 Field regiments, 56 AT regiment)
125th Brigade (1/5, 1/6 Lancashire Fusiliers, 1 Border Regiment)
126th Brigade (5 King’s Own Royal Regiment, 5 Border, 1 East Lancashire)
127th Brigade (4 East Lancashire, 5 Manchester, 1 Highland Light Infantry)
43 (Wessex) Division (1st Line Terr.) (94, 112, 141 Field regiments, 59 AT regiment)
128th Brigade (1/4, 2/4 and 5 Hampshire)
129th Brigade (4 Somerset Light Infantry, 4 and 5 Wiltshire)
130th Brigade (7 Hampshire, 4 and 5 Dorsetshire)
HQ VII Corps (Reserve South of Thames River)
1 Armored Division (Regular)
2 Armoured (designated ‘Light Armoured’ until 14 April 1940) Brigade
Queen’s Bays – at Warminster (A13 Cruiser)
10 Hussars (A13 Cruiser)
3 Armoured Brigade (designated ‘Heavy Armoured’ until 14 April 1940)
3 RTR (reorganizing as a Cruiser regiment with A9/A10)
5 RTR (A13)
1 Support Group (no motor battalions were assigned)
11 (HAC) Regiment RA
101 LtAA/AT Regiment RA
1 Army Tank Brigade (- 8 RTR attached to Milforce)
4 RTR
44 RTR (from 12 September)
HQ 1st Canadian Division (Oxford)
1st Canadian Brigade
2nd Canadian Brigade
3rd Canadian Brigade
1st-3rd, 8th, and 11th Canadian Field Regiments – 24 18/25 or 25-pdr each = 120
1st Canadian Medium Regiment – 16 6-inch howitzers
No AA guns, 42 2-pdr AT, vehicles complete except carriers

The infantry divisions had their full complement of motor vehicles and were 'motorized' with conscripted motor coaches. 2 Armoured Division was fully equipped with light tanks with its regiments being at about 80+ percent, but had no cruisers. 1 Armoured Division was still reforming after Dunkirk and was at about two-thirds strength, but with all cruisers. The reserve qualifies as a 'mechanized' formation within the context of the time, a mixed armored and motorized formation. In the same sense I would refer to the later Panzergrenadier division as 'mechanized' while the Infanterie-Division (mot) was a motorized formation.
Did the British Leadership fear it or not....?
Huh? That's just silly, of course they were. But they were also rational men making rational decisions, as is evident by the defensive measures they took. The IGS and Admiralty were well aware of the defensive advantages conferred upon them by British geography and were well aware of the naval advantage they enjoyed. At the same time they were cautious as is indicated by the disposition of the Home Fleet. There is simply no rational way Herbstreise could every be considered a credible threat?
Wouldn't they....?....Think...!.... Which new force multiplier was foremost in the heads of any enemy of Germany after the campaigns of Spring/Summer 1940.
Oh the were afraid of the Fifth Columnist tourist invasion! How silly of me to forget. :roll: Can you possibly deliver an actual declarative sentence occasionally?

User avatar
Bronsky
Member
Posts: 825
Joined: 11 Apr 2003, 10:28
Location: Paris

#44

Post by Bronsky » 08 Jun 2007, 12:09

leandros wrote:That is all well but did the RN have hard information that the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Lützow, Bismarck and Prinz eugen were not available end September...?
Andreas gave you a detailed quote to the effect that the RN did not know of Gneisenau & Scharnhorst being unavailable at the time, and you're asking the question again? 8O Given how rude you are being, how can you complain that people become irritated with your manners? :roll:

So to sum it up, the RN believed that Scharnhorst & Gneisenau were available, and that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were not. The British didn't need "hard information" for the condition of the latter two, they had considerable experience in naval construction and knew how long it took before a new major warship was operational.
leandros wrote:Wouldn't that be of value to the Germans....?


You have asked this before, and been answered - in great detail. What part of "no" do you not understand?
leandros wrote:With the Home Fleet would have to follow a lot screening vessels.
So what? This is the Royal Navy we're talking about.

They had 3 tasks for their escorts:
1. protecting the Home Fleet,
2. anti-invasion duty in the Channel,
3. ASW work in the Atlantic.
They didn't have enough escorts to do all 3 properly, so they prioritized by allocating more than enough assets to tasks #1 and #2 while leaving the Atlantic short-changed. The price to pay was increased shipping losses, but the result is that drawing away the Scapa Flow and Rosyth destroyers would have no effect on the Channel defenses.

You would have come to that conclusion yourself had you bothered to look up the lists of ships available to the RN as of September, these lists having been posted in answer to your questions so ignoring them is doubly rude.

The problem with the Axis in naval warfare is that it was out of its depth. It had so few assets that it could no longer think big enough. The Japanese at Leyte made the same error: "we'll draw away the battleships, so we'll reach the carriers", and then they thought that their plan had worked and they had finally engaged the carriers. Bad luck: they had found ONE of the US carrier task forces, and that wasn't even the big one. The USN had enough CVs and BBs for one spare TF of each to remain in front of Leyte.

You are making the same error with German diversion plans. The British had the assets to more than match any German surface force AND still have more than enough to crush the Sealion amphibious force. So even assuming that the diversion was successful, even assuming that the surface units had magically been repaired, that wouldn't help Sealion any because the British had the forces to deal with whatever the Germans could sail to the North Sea without drawing upon their anti-Sealion command.

The Germans were outmatched, no going around that. I thought that Schenck's book was very good, for the insight it gives into German preparations. What you do NOT want to do, even though you keep doing it :roll: is assume that German preparations were ADEQUATE. They weren't. Just because the Germans had planned for a diversion to draw some of the British naval forces away doesn't mean that it would have worked. Even in a best case scenario, the diversion would have drawn NO force from the assets deployed in the Channel for anti-invasion duty. And of course, best case scenarios rarely happen in wars.

I note BTW that you don't even want to consider the worst-case option (e.g. surface Kriegsmarine sails out and is sunk by the RN, whoopee, the Home Fleet can be made available for use in the Mediterranean or the Pacific, Rommel and the Italians are gonna love this), though German planners would.

User avatar
fredleander
Member
Posts: 2175
Joined: 03 Dec 2004, 21:49
Location: Stockholm
Contact:

#45

Post by fredleander » 09 Jun 2007, 23:08

Bronsky wrote:I note BTW that you don't even want to consider the worst-case option (e.g. surface Kriegsmarine sails out and is sunk by the RN, whoopee, the Home Fleet can be made available for use in the Mediterranean or the Pacific, Rommel and the Italians are gonna love this), though German planners would.
Or the the RN could have a bloodied nose to the extent that they later got problems with protecting their convoy supply lines. Even if the invasion had been turned back...... :)

Post Reply

Return to “WW2 in Western Europe & the Atlantic”