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.Richard Anderson wrote: ↑09 Dec 2019, 18:51There 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.
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.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.
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.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.
Ah, that helps explain matters. Thanks.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.
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?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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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."Elite hunter killer groups"? What is a "perfectly sized formation"? What "advanced training and doctrine"? What "radar fire control"? What "specific intelligence"?
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?