Operation Sealion

Discussions on High Command, strategy and the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) in general.
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glenn239
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Re: Operation Sealion

#91

Post by glenn239 » 10 Dec 2019, 20:41

Richard Anderson wrote:
09 Dec 2019, 18:51
There is actually little or no evidence for the idea the M-Boote were escorting a "convoy" small or large. It seems very likely the "merchants" were actually V203 and M4615 who went out to rescue survivors of M343 and were then attacked and damaged by allied fighter bombers the next morning.
Noted. The purpose of the excel file was to accumulate a large amount of data on a large amount of battles to get the big picture on just how effective - ship for ship - the Allies were at night combat in WW2. The answer is extremely effective - ship for ship they dominated the Germans.
Yes, they turned away from Battery Roon's fire...four 22cm guns firing on destroyers at under five miles would tend to elicit that reaction, even though none of the rounds fired had effect. However, they turned away once at 0057, the second time they turned away after Roon fired at 0228 was two minutes later and not because of the fire, but because they were "low on ammunition". Except Piorun had expended only 679 rounds of 4.7 inch, while she carried 1,800, and 104 4 inch, while she carried 150, plus 100 star shells (undifferentiated between 4 inch and 4.7 inch). The last is rather important, since there was a heavy overcast that night, no moon, and visibility was only 4,000 to 6,000 yards. It was the star shells she was almost out of after the multiple encounters in the low visibility.
Interesting. Are there sources available for all ammunition expenditure in all battles? You're indicating that Piorun expended 883 rounds of all types in that action out of approx. 2050 carried. Result - one German minesweeper was sunk. Do you have the ammunition expenditure figure for the second destroyer? I'd be interested in complilating all ammunition expenditure of all ships in all battles.
So fighting in the constricted waters south of Jersey in the Gulf of Malo in poor visibility, against a smallish group of vessels able to act independently. Not similar to a SEELÖWE scenario at all.
Visibility in the English Channel at night in late September was not assured to be good, and operations of small convoys between Jersey and Granville versus Pas de Calais and Dover seem similar in some respects.
I see O'Hara made the same mistake many do and did not realize there were two engagements on successive nights that get mashed together, but Borum's war diary makes it clear. Shore batteries were not a factor...they fired on Borum both nights and she replied both nights, neither had effect.
Ah, that helps explain matters. Thanks.
In both engagements, the night of the 13th and the night of the 14th, the allied destroyers were covering PT boats, which were tasked with getting close inshore to attack the German vessels sheltering in the close waters between Guernsey and Sark off St Peters Port. Again, not similar to a SEELÖWE scenario at all.
If there is no similarity between Sealion's coastal batteries and the situation in 1944, why did the larger Allied warships in this particular engagement not approach closer to shore to attack the convoy themselves at closer range? It was because of the coastal batteries, was it not?
That small-scale actions between a handful of vessels on either side in the constricted waters of the Gulf of Malo in poor visibility bear no similarity to the conditions the Germans required for SEELÖWE.
I disagree. I think that the sum total of all these smaller engagements, when added together, start to form an overall picture of what a larger, more compressed (in time), dispersed (in sea area), battle would have looked like. According to the excel file (available on request), from 1943 to the end of the war in Northern waters, 128 Allied warships with a gunnery factor of 1385 engaged 165 Axis warships with a gunnery factor of 429. Four Allied warships were sunk for the loss of 55 German ships (all types, including one battlecruiser). These battles were real data. There is no substitute for that.
Why do I need to model this hypothetical? I honestly have no idea how many of whichever will shoot who and have no interest in trying to calculate such.
Well, the compilation of the data from 1943 and 1944 suggests that if 128 RN warships engaged Sealion at night that they'd be doing well to sink in excess of 55 German ships and expect to lose no more than 1 or 2. One might argue for more Germans sunk, or fewer on the basis of various factors, but that's now speculation. The data is what the data is, and the only question is whether the various cells contain any errors.
However, I do know that for the German system to succeed it required good visibility, moonlight, perfect order in the convoys, and very precise timing...all of which would be compromised by any interference by the Royal Navy. The only way the German plan could work is if the Royal Navy essentially never encounters the convoys, which is the sticking point upon which the plan finally foundered.
My impression of the dog pile that is Sealion is that even if the Royal Navy had helped the German invasion forces to the coast the invasion itself would have become scrambled and disorganized and totally jumbled. The collision of RN forces into the invasion convoys would have been highly disruptive.
"Elite hunter killer groups"? What is a "perfectly sized formation"? What "advanced training and doctrine"? What "radar fire control"? What "specific intelligence"?
Are you stating that the Royal Navy of September 1940 had superior training, doctrine and radar directed search and fire control to the Allied hunter killer groups of 1944/1945? My understanding was the total and complete opposite of that - that the late war Allied ships were much more lethal, had better intelligence, were better trained and had better doctrine than in 1940.

The file suggests that late war Allied hunter-killer groups were 2-6 warships. The RN plan for Sealion, would they have used this size formation, or gone with larger formations of more than 6?

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Re: Operation Sealion

#92

Post by modelbouw nederland » 11 Dec 2019, 14:51

I'm think that it was a terrible mistake to let the French and British escape. They then had the time, because Germany didn't attack. To reequip and setup defences to defend the home land. So I think if they had acted quickly and attacked and everything. They would have won.


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Re: Operation Sealion

#93

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 12 Dec 2019, 09:54

Glenn239 wrote:The purpose of the excel file was to accumulate a large amount of data on a large amount of battles to get the big picture on just how effective - ship for ship - the Allies were at night combat in WW2. The answer is extremely effective - ship for ship they dominated the Germans.
Sounds like a valuable piece of analysis; I'd appreciate you sharing it via DM.

History as an intellectual field is, IMO, replete with anachronistic aversions to certain modes of analysis. It probably reflects a self-consciousness about the domain's boundaries and about the standardized test scores necessary to enter a history program versus one in other social sciences and in law (history pre-req's are much lower in my experience). Conventional wisdom in academic history is more "sticky" than in other fields where empirical analysis has greater salience.

To adapt a phrase regarding another field, history is far too important to leave to the historians.
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Re: Operation Sealion

#94

Post by HistoryGeek2019 » 12 Dec 2019, 19:26

Yep, being a history geek means you're a low IQ useless eater. I'd much rather be autistic at something useful.

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Re: Operation Sealion

#95

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 12 Dec 2019, 20:21

HistoryGeek2019 wrote:
12 Dec 2019, 19:26
Yep, being a history geek means you're a low IQ useless eater. I'd much rather be autistic at something useful.
I dunno this history geek often does very useful eating. Like are you going to finish those fries? No? OK I'll do it for you. So helpful!
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Re: Operation Sealion

#96

Post by glenn239 » 13 Dec 2019, 23:22

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
12 Dec 2019, 09:54
Sounds like a valuable piece of analysis; I'd appreciate you sharing it via DM.
Send your email offline and I'll send the file. I want to expand the it to the Med and get as much information as possible on ammunition expenditure. (I think the 883 shells expended by the one warships in the one battle discussed is a high side event. I suspect - gut hunch - the average number of shells per kill was probably more around 300 or 400 rounds. But, that was with radar).
History as an intellectual field is, IMO, replete with anachronistic aversions to certain modes of analysis. It probably reflects a self-consciousness about the domain's boundaries and about the standardized test scores necessary to enter a history program versus one in other social sciences and in law (history pre-req's are much lower in my experience). Conventional wisdom in academic history is more "sticky" than in other fields where empirical analysis has greater salience.
There were no battles in WW2 where 3,500 mostly small vessels were going to tangle with a hundred real warships while thousands of planes duked it out overhead at maximum possible sortie rates. It never happened. But, there were plenty of battles in which small fleets of similar composition to what would have happened in Sealion actually clashed in miniature, and these battles contain valuable data. My theory is that assembling all the small battles creates a general picture of what a larger battle would have looked like that's better than posters in 2019 exchanging opinions. That is to say, when 134 Allied warships sank 58 German ships for no losses in a data set picked for battles without capital ships or Allied losses, then this will resemble to some degree what Sealion would have looked like, because for those 134 Allied warships they had 216 German ship targets that were for the most part, poorly armed. Was the final result - 58 ships sunk - the result of a lack of more targets, or was the time, emotional energy, and ammunition expended for 134 warships to sink 58 targets about what could be expected? But, if the data is really about what RN warships could have accomplished against Sealion in one night action, is sinking 60 vessels out of 3,500 going to win the battle?

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Re: Operation Sealion

#97

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 14 Dec 2019, 07:15

glenn239 wrote:
13 Dec 2019, 23:22
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
12 Dec 2019, 09:54
Sounds like a valuable piece of analysis; I'd appreciate you sharing it via DM.
Send your email offline and I'll send the file. I want to expand the it to the Med and get as much information as possible on ammunition expenditure. (I think the 883 shells expended by the one warships in the one battle discussed is a high side event. I suspect - gut hunch - the average number of shells per kill was probably more around 300 or 400 rounds. But, that was with radar).
History as an intellectual field is, IMO, replete with anachronistic aversions to certain modes of analysis. It probably reflects a self-consciousness about the domain's boundaries and about the standardized test scores necessary to enter a history program versus one in other social sciences and in law (history pre-req's are much lower in my experience). Conventional wisdom in academic history is more "sticky" than in other fields where empirical analysis has greater salience.
There were no battles in WW2 where 3,500 mostly small vessels were going to tangle with a hundred real warships while thousands of planes duked it out overhead at maximum possible sortie rates. It never happened. But, there were plenty of battles in which small fleets of similar composition to what would have happened in Sealion actually clashed in miniature, and these battles contain valuable data. My theory is that assembling all the small battles creates a general picture of what a larger battle would have looked like that's better than posters in 2019 exchanging opinions. That is to say, when 134 Allied warships sank 58 German ships for no losses in a data set picked for battles without capital ships or Allied losses, then this will resemble to some degree what Sealion would have looked like, because for those 134 Allied warships they had 216 German ship targets that were for the most part, poorly armed. Was the final result - 58 ships sunk - the result of a lack of more targets, or was the time, emotional energy, and ammunition expended for 134 warships to sink 58 targets about what could be expected? But, if the data is really about what RN warships could have accomplished against Sealion in one night action, is sinking 60 vessels out of 3,500 going to win the battle?
I love the intellectual ambition and creativity here. I have some nascent critiques/suggestions but I'll reflect a bit and look at your files before attempting to form them into coherentish thoughts which your research might render moot anyway. I'll DM an email address.
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Re: Operation Sealion

#98

Post by glenn239 » 14 Dec 2019, 18:57

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
14 Dec 2019, 07:15
I love the intellectual ambition and creativity here. I have some nascent critiques/suggestions but I'll reflect a bit and look at your files before attempting to form them into coherentish thoughts which your research might render moot anyway. I'll DM an email address.
Ok. Intention is to design a Sealion boardgame. Practically all Sealion boardgames are the land campaign with the sea and air battle abstracted out. I want to do the exact opposite - a game about the sea and air battle in the Channel, and the land campaign presented in the abstract.

As an example of sea battles between regular warships and small underarmed vessels, a really famous one off the coast of Crete here,

http://niehorster.org/019_italy/41-05-20/convoys.html

Two convoys intercepted by Force C and D, a net total something about 15 warships, (CL, DD) in perfect conditions taking on 54 caiques escorted by 2 torpedo boats. Net total of 10 caiques sunk and 297 troops out of 6,500 embarked killed. One convoy roughly handled (10 out of 16 transports sunk), the other escaped unscathed, (RN force commander deterred by prospect of air attacks).

Is this result (20 soldiers KIA per RN cruiser or destroyer committed) about what is to be expected for 15 warships in Sealion, or was it more or less than average?

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Re: Operation Sealion

#99

Post by Knouterer » 15 Dec 2019, 12:50

A Tribal class destroyer in 1940 had:
Eight 4.7in (120 mm) guns in twin turrets with 2,000 rounds in total
A quadruple 40 mm pom-pom (dual-purpose weapon) with 2,700 rounds
Two quadruple .5 machine guns with 20,000 rounds
Four torpedo tubes
Twenty depth charges (which set at minimum depth were also useful for blowing surface vessels out of the water, as practiced by British MGBs on various occasions)

The idea that ships with that kind of firepower would be unable, in a target-rich environment, to sink more than one or two defenceless barges rather stretches the imagination, to put it politely.

Also, it would seem that the British would figure out pretty soon that there was no need to sink any barges, just disabling the tugs/trawlers towing them would be sufficient to ensure that the barges weren't going anywhere, at least not were they were intended to go. And that might take no more than a well-aimed burst of MG fire through the wheelhouse.

Lastly, those who argue that Sealion would have had some chance of success often seem to imply that the Germans would "win" unless the RN sank the entire invasion fleet within 24 hours. But in fact just throwing the convoys into disarray and sinking 10-20% in the first night would already very seriously degrade German capabilities and completely disrupt their plans.

Then there's the point that the steamers transporting about 80% of the vehicles and artillery of the first wave, if they made it across, would lie offshore for about 48 hours to unload, according to German estimates. Plenty of time for the RAF and the RN to attack and sink them, or just damage them badly enough to prevent unloading.

Of all the authors on the subject of Sea Lion, Walter Ansel, as a Rear-Admiral USN with much experience of planning and carrying out amphibious operations in WWII, was far and away the best qualified to give an opinion on the chances of success. In addition, in the 1950s he interviewed an impressive list of German navy, army and air force commanders who had been involved in the planning. His scenario borders on the lurid (Hitler Confronts England, p. 315): “The night promised a veritable destroyer sailor’s dream. Fulfilment lay easily within their capability. Disaster portions could have been dealt Sea Lion in one grand orgy, his wretched bubble whipped into a red froth on the sea.”

The majority of German sailors were scarcely more optimistic at the time. Captain Kleikamp, in charge of the Calais barge convoy, wrote in his final report, dated 2 November 1940: “On account of starting too late and of insufficient preparation and of the complete lack of training of the vessels and barges concerned in sailing in formation, there would have been, in my opinion, the very greatest difficulty – or it would not have been possible at all in consideration of the desired success – to conduct a transport fleet in the desired order to the landing area requested by the army on the opposite enemy coast at the end of September or at the beginning of October, especially not at night.” His colleagues in charge of the Ostend and Dunkirk barge convoys, captains Lehmann and Bartels respectively, took a more optimistic view when Ansel interviewed them in 1953, a view which seems to have been inspired by Zweckoptimismus or forced optimism rather than a level-headed professional assessment: it would have worked, because it had to.
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Re: Operation Sealion

#100

Post by HistoryGeek2019 » 15 Dec 2019, 19:52

Knouterer wrote:
15 Dec 2019, 12:50

The idea that ships with that kind of firepower would be unable, in a target-rich environment, to sink more than one or two defenceless barges rather stretches the imagination, to put it politely.
Thank you for injecting some common sense into this thread. I would add that the British didn't even need to sink any German ships the first day or even the first week. They could let the Germans unload their first wave and even their second wave (which would have had their precious motorized units), and then cut off the German supply lines at their leisure. It would have been a "Dunkirk at Dover" moment for the poor Germans who had landed in England.

Have you read Robert Forczyk's book on this subject, We March Against England? It has got to be one of the most irresponsible pieces of alternative history fiction, peddling this absurd idea that Sea Lion had even the slightest chance of success.

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Re: Operation Sealion

#101

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 16 Dec 2019, 00:00

HistoryGeek2019 wrote:Have you read Robert Forczyk's book on this subject, We March Against England? It has got to be one of the most irresponsible pieces of alternative history fiction, peddling this absurd idea that Sea Lion had even the slightest chance of success.
My jaw hit the floor when Forczyk says that keeping in home waters the 2 BB's and 5 Cruisers that attacked Vichy would mean "not even the slightest chance of success" for Sealion. Right there he gives away that his analysis rests 100% on Britain sticking with its admittedly weaker Channel forces for the duration of Sealion, even in the face of existential threat. If the Germans gained a lodgement on the coast, Britain's survival would depend on risking every ship they had. They would do so, the KM/barges would be destroyed, the landed forces would whither and collapse. It wouldn't matter if RN lost half its navy, as now Germany has not the resources to try again for at least a year, by which time the U.S. is involved.
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Re: Operation Sealion

#102

Post by Knouterer » 16 Dec 2019, 11:45

There is an important difference between all the naval engagements referred to above and Operation Sealion, namely that in reality the Germans always tried to avoid battle unless they were in (far) superior strength.

German naval commanders were painfully aware that they could not afford to trade ships one for one, or even one for two. When German destroyers or Torpedoboote met RN destroyers in the Channel, they invariably ran for home, making smoke and firing torpedoes to discourage pursuit.

If Sealion had gone off, they would not have had that option. They would have had to stand and fight, and as the RN forces available locally (that is, within a few hours' sailing) included several modern Town class cruisers with twelve 6-inch guns, that fight might not have lasted very long.
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Re: Operation Sealion

#103

Post by glenn239 » 16 Dec 2019, 21:09

Knouterer wrote:
15 Dec 2019, 12:50
A Tribal class destroyer in 1940 had:
Eight 4.7in (120 mm) guns in twin turrets with 2,000 rounds in total
A quadruple 40 mm pom-pom (dual-purpose weapon) with 2,700 rounds
Two quadruple .5 machine guns with 20,000 rounds
Four torpedo tubes
Twenty depth charges (which set at minimum depth were also useful for blowing surface vessels out of the water, as practiced by British MGBs on various occasions)
A Tribal Class destroyer in 1944 also had all that. Therefore 1943-45 battles automatically reflect the heavy armament you're talking of. In 1944, in the battles in the file, 53 Allied warships of destroyer or cruiser sank 25 German vessels out of 79. From your numbers, those 53 Allied warships probably had in the order of 100,000 rounds of main gun ammunition, from your inventory, to achieve those 25 kills.
The idea that ships with that kind of firepower would be unable, in a target-rich environment, to sink more than one or two defenceless barges rather stretches the imagination, to put it politely.
Let's assume that 70 RN warships intercept Sealion carrying 2,000 rounds of main gun ammunition each, for a total of 140,000 rounds, of which 75% is fired and 25% is held in reserve against air attack. Let's also assume that given the lack of fire control and the visibility conditions, it takes 300 rounds per target sunk, and, due to the confusion and visibility, the targets sunk are 50% barges and 50% other craft. The total number of vessels sunk would be 140,000*.75/300 = 350, or 10% of the invasion force. The total number of barges sunk is 175.

Those are pretty optimistic assumptions for the attackers, given that the assumed kill rate is far beyond anything ever achieved in battle in modern warfare, yet 350 out of 3,500 sunk still doesn't guarantee the level of attrition needed to assure a British victory. (The battle on Crete was lost with a higher rate of attrition amongst attacking forces). Further, given the Crete numbers of 297 killed on 10 transports sunk as a guide, then 175 barges sunk would translate into 5,250 KIA in the Channel by the RN in this hypothetical engagement. Compare that to 2,200 Germans killed with the Bismarck alone.
Also, it would seem that the British would figure out pretty soon that there was no need to sink any barges, just disabling the tugs/trawlers towing them would be sufficient to ensure that the barges weren't going anywhere, at least not were they were intended to go. And that might take no more than a well-aimed burst of MG fire through the wheelhouse.
In the 1943-1945 battles the Allies also had the ability to use these weapons at close range.
Lastly, those who argue that Sealion would have had some chance of success often seem to imply that the Germans would "win" unless the RN sank the entire invasion fleet within 24 hours. But in fact just throwing the convoys into disarray and sinking 10-20% in the first night would already very seriously degrade German capabilities and completely disrupt their plans.
The assumption is both that the German plan would be seriously disrupted, as well as that the fact of this disruption would not in and of itself assure the outcome. The Battle of Crete - the German plan was a shambles, an utter wreck, within hours of the attack commencing. Who won?
Then there's the point that the steamers transporting about 80% of the vehicles and artillery of the first wave, if they made it across, would lie offshore for about 48 hours to unload, according to German estimates. Plenty of time for the RAF and the RN to attack and sink them, or just damage them badly enough to prevent unloading.
Case in point. It might take 48 hours to unload a steamer, and that type of delay would no doubt create utter chaos as the landing plan disintegrated. But in and of itself, this does not decide the outcome because the British army was not good in the counterattack role; steamers finding a hot reception on the British side could in 2 hours be back on the German side under the guns of the coastal artillery, then come back later to continue unloading. This is the problem for the RN in Sealion - England is pretty close to France. It's not like Tarawa where the USN sails 2,000 miles to get to the beach.
Of all the authors on the subject of Sea Lion, Walter Ansel, as a Rear-Admiral USN with much experience of planning and carrying out amphibious operations in WWII, was far and away the best qualified to give an opinion on the chances of success. In addition, in the 1950s he interviewed an impressive list of German navy, army and air force commanders who had been involved in the planning. His scenario borders on the lurid (Hitler Confronts England, p. 315): “The night promised a veritable destroyer sailor’s dream. Fulfilment lay easily within their capability. Disaster portions could have been dealt Sea Lion in one grand orgy, his wretched bubble whipped into a red froth on the sea.”
I want you to provide the list of battles - lets say 10 battles - in which Allied naval forces achieved the most one-sided kill ratios in the war. From your description of this historical opinion, there must be at least a dozen such cases in which one Allied warship sank 10 opposing ships in one battle, or 4 of them sank 50, etc.

Provide the list please.
...it would not be possible to conduct a transport fleet in the desired order to the landing area requested by the army on the opposite enemy coast at the end of September or at the beginning of October, especially not at night.” His colleagues in charge of the Ostend and Dunkirk barge convoys, captains Lehmann and Bartels respectively, took a more optimistic view when Ansel interviewed them in 1953, a view which seems to have been inspired by Zweckoptimismus or forced optimism rather than a level-headed professional assessment: it would have worked, because it had to.
Right, but that's not what I find concerning about the threat of Sealion. The issue is, assuming that the Sealion landing plan is totally disrupted and is executed in a haphazard and disorganized fashion, that it is still possible that given the German army's elan at small unit improvisation, and given the British army's lack of training and equipment, that even with a disrupted muddle of a plan disgorging troops willy nilly over assigned and unassigned beachheads, the British landward defenses could still fail. That's the concern.

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Re: Operation Sealion

#104

Post by glenn239 » 16 Dec 2019, 21:42

Knouterer wrote:
16 Dec 2019, 11:45
There is an important difference between all the naval engagements referred to above and Operation Sealion, namely that in reality the Germans always tried to avoid battle unless they were in (far) superior strength.

German naval commanders were painfully aware that they could not afford to trade ships one for one, or even one for two. When German destroyers or Torpedoboote met RN destroyers in the Channel, they invariably ran for home, making smoke and firing torpedoes to discourage pursuit.

If Sealion had gone off, they would not have had that option. They would have had to stand and fight, and as the RN forces available locally (that is, within a few hours' sailing) included several modern Town class cruisers with twelve 6-inch guns, that fight might not have lasted very long.
A quick sort in the file brings up five instances where German torpedo boats were in escort battles. One of these appears to be the escort of a merchant raider in which the attackers were outgunned. In the other four battles, 2 cruisers and 19 destroyers attacked 12 German torpedo boats and 9 lighter warships escorting 6 ships. The gunnery was 142 Allied points to 45 German. Two Allied ships (one cruiser, one destroyer) were sunk, against six German ships, (0 torpedo boats, 2 light escorts and 4 out of the 6 ships they were escorting).

Your idea is that the German torpedo boats would be quickly sunk. The actual data of the 4 available battles that best fit the criteria is that 21 Allied warships engaged 12 German torpedo boats on escort and failed to sink any of them. What do you think the warship crews with excellent training and fire control and intel and tactics were doing wrong, that they could not deliver the result in escort battles that you assume would be so easy for RN warships with no fire control radar at all to achieve in night battle conditions?

(FYI - I see 6 battles in the file where 8 German TB's were sunk by 14 Allied warships, but in these 6 battles, there are no ships listed for the Germans being escorted, so none of them appear to be escort battles).

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Re: Operation Sealion

#105

Post by histan » 16 Dec 2019, 23:52

Just looked at the "www.german-navy.de" site

This is what it says about the German torpedo boats available in late 1940

Torpedoboot 1923 - 5 available
The torpedoboats of the Raubvogel class were the first six torpedo boats build in Germany after World War I. Although still based on World War I designs, those torpedo boats were much bigger than their wartime predecessors and proved to be very unproblematic ships.
Although those ships were almost ten years old at the beginning of World War II, they were successfully used at the Channel. During the war it got obvious that the ships were not very good protected against air attacks, but only a few 2 cm guns were added in the later years of the war.

Torpedoboot 1924 - 3 available
The Raubtier - class was a slightly improved Raubvogel class and build immediately after them. Although it was first intended to use 12,7 cm guns on those ships, they were finally equipped with a modernized 10,5 cm gun.
They showed the same pros and cons than their predecessors and were used in the same operational area. The ships got the same updates and improvements than their predecessors, the Raubvogel class.

Torpedoboot 1935 - 12 available
The Torpedo boats of the "Torpedoboot 1935" class were the first ships of this kind after 10 years. First designs for this ships were made at the end of 1933. Although officially called 600t ships, the ships were over 50% bigger.
Unlike their predecessors, those ships were a unsuccessful design. Because of a required high top speed, high pressure turbines had to be installed and proved to be as troublesome as those of the destroyers and heavy cruisers. Even worse, the small dimensions of those ships made it even harder to maintain or repair the troublesome engine system.
Their primary weapon system was the torpedo, therefore the concentration of a high number of torpedo tubes, only one 10,5 cm gun and the light Flak protection made the ships very vulnerable and not very useful in other tasks than torpedo attacks.
Caused by the need to keep the boats size blow the allowed 600 ts, first trials show that the light construction first made them very bad seagoing vessels, and it took up to the end of 1940 to solve this problem but even then their second offensive potential - the mines - could only be used during light seas. Some ships replaced one torpedo launcher with additional Flak guns later in the war, Funkmeßortungsgeräte (Radar) was only added in 1945 although passive radar detectors were refitted earlier.
Most of the ships were used for training submarine commanders in the Baltic Sea, some even were put into reserve status since there was no use for them during wartime.

I think that if you are looking at what contribution torpedo boats might make to countering RN surface warships you should exclude actions between the RN and Flottentorpedoboot 1939 class vessels, which seem to be a significantly better class of warship.

Regards

John

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