Re: Britain with 20 tanks and 100 arty in 1940??

"RICHARD ANDERSON" <richto90@xxxxxxx> wrote

Really? Some examples please? But remember, most 'professional opinion'
tends to confuse the Heer plan with the later Kriegsmarine plan.

Not in this case.

And that the plan was 'well thought out' doesn't imply in the least that
it was workable, which appears to be part of the source of your confusion.
It was 'well thought out' in that it made the best possible use of
inadequate means and unachievable demands, the KM planning staff and
commanders had no illusions about that.

That appears to be a non-standard use of the phrase 'well thought out'.

And in any case, my point is that the KM planners did not by any means make
the best possible use of their inadequate resources; they in fact made
fundamental mistakes in planning which were not due to resource issues at
all.

The first of these was the fact the KM planners did not even check the
holding conditions of the sea bed in their proposed invasion area. This was
not a matter of resources or of an unachievable demand: it was sheer
incompetence. This fact in itself means that the KM plan cannot be regarded
as 'well thought out' by any reasonable interpretation of that phrase.

Incidentally, the solution to the holding problem was reasonably simple and
cheap. It was to make some large and heavy concrete anchors, either
floatable chambers like a caisson or supported with temporary buoyancy aids,
and sink them to act as buoy markers for the offshore logistics base
flotillas. The KM were familiar with this concept and had used it in the
Baltic; there is no reason apart from incompetence that it could not have
been at least tried in the Channel.

And the manufacture of concrete caissons was also both known and available -
there was a very large manufacturer in Kiel whose output was carefully
watched by SIS via Denmark.

(snip interesting discussion of German terminology, thanks)

And the "off shore logistics base" was at least better than the Heer
notion of just running the supply steamers ashore to be picked over. Of
course the fact that it was unlikely to work in the circumstances was
painfully obvious, which is why there was so much concentration on gaining
a port, down to the fantastical notion of seizing Dover in a coup de main.

You cut my conclusions about the holding conditions of the sea bed, which is
unfortunate as this was a major deficiency of the KM plan.

And in terms of workability, the Heer plan actually had more merit that the
KM one. Small coasting vessels can be relatively easily fitted with hull
strakes to support their hull when beached, and they have the deck gear to
both firmly moor themselves to the coast to avoid broaching and to unload
themselves.

But you are cavailing over something the KM did not have the luxury of
skirting around. They had neither time nor resources to build MULBERRIES
or LST. Your argument is simple kvetching.

That's silly. I am manifestly not merely "complaining persistently and
whiningly": I am making reasoned arguments about why you are wrong. You may
not like that, but that's no reason to make ad hominem remarks.

And I'm not arguing that the Germans had to copy Overlord to be successful.
I'm saying that the KM could have done a far better job than they did *using
the same resources*. Their basic defect was intelligence, not resources.

(snip the correct and rather obvious assessment, which ignores the simple
fact the Germans *had no alternative* and so had to make do with what they
could)

But it simply isn't true that the Germans had no alternative. For example,
they could have equipped their landing barges with twin powered bow winches
(readily available in very large quantities) with a few hundred metres of
buoyed hemp robe or steel cable (ditto) and a couple of sand/earth anchors
(ditto). The motorboats take the anchors ashore with the assault wave, dig
them in, then the barge strings haul themselves safely and tidily ashore,
forming in the process a continuous platform over which cargo and even light
wheeled vehicles can be moved. Clearly, this is only a temporary solution,
and not one which will work in anything over a Force 3-4, but it is a good
practical solution which would require, if anything, less resources than the
elaborate tug/motorboat/barge farrago actually adopted by the KM.

The winch method, incidentally, was one examined by the RN before and during
WW2, but rejected on the ground mainly that it is resource-wasteful, blocks
the landing beach and prevents subsequent re-supply waves. However, this
objection is not valid for the KM 'one-shot' invasion plan.

Equally, the Heer plan of grounding small steamers on the beaches (with hull
strakes to support the hull) was rather more sensible than the KM
expedients. Grounding supply ships in this way has been used in navies for
200+ years - it was used in the Crimea and at Walcheren Round 1, for
example. It is probably the first expedient which would suggest itself to
any mariner faced with the Sealion objectives, which is why its rejection is
indicative of the KM's utter incompetence.

Both solutions, incidentally, minimise the anchor-drag problem.

I am unclear what other material they might have constructed the props of
except steel or bronze? Paper-mache? Concrete?

Hardened steel, naturally.

It appears you are trying to describe the skeg keel utilized in American
and British landing craft design. It is not a "metal tube' around the
prop, nor AFAIK does that really describe the KM design? And the chief
reason is not "small stones and sand", it is to protect the prop from
damage when grounding.

No, I'm describing the usual way in which boats are *adapted* for beach
operations, not how they are purpose-built for such operations.

My point is that the KM failed to make this perfectly routine and typical
adaptation to their barges, which again is among the first expedients which
would suggest itself to any mariner faced with the task of beach-landing a
river barge.

But yet again, I wonder how you think the KM was supposed to incorporate a
workable skeg without building entirely new craft, which was more than a
little out of the realm of possibility in the timeframe they had to work
with?

I haven't suggested that at all: this is your invention.

And of course they recognized the problems with controlability and the
potential for broaching. Their improvisiation - which is all they could
do - was to employ auxiliary motorboats to help control the barge train,
on the order of 1,200 of them.

On the Rhine, the barge trains are organised in particular ways, designed to
maximise stability and manoeuvrability (for example, the double-8 or
double-16 configuration). The KM did not even follow those tried and tested
patterns: their trains appear to have been designed by landsmen looking for
military tactical utility, not mariners thinking about seaworthiness. Which
is pretty much the case.

The motorboats were not a bed idea per se, however. But they were a
sticking-plaster on a bad basic solution, whereas the same craft could have
been much better utilised by, for example, being used to ferry the bow
anchors ashore.

Of course that also governed their tidal requirement, they needed to land
at the turn of a high tide, so as to minimize broaching. But they were
forced to accept the potential for prop damage, they had no real
alternative beyond accepting and planning for attrition to the landing
craft.

The KM could have relatively easily minimised prop damage with the tube
adaptation, as above.

Yet again you are kvetching because the Germans were forced to improvise
and so your complaint doesn't actually address a lack of thought in the
German planning.

I am saying, with good grounds, that the KM's improvisations were bad
improvisations and that there were better ones available within the same
resource constraints.

You appear to be making ad hominem remarks about me in order to defend your
original claim that the KM "plan was 'well thought out' ".

You are again mixing the Heer concept of the barges grounding like
surfboats by wave action and the KM concept. They envisaged a tug towing a
powered barge, followed by a powered or unpowered barge (depending on the
eventual number gathered), assisted by two motorboats.

No, I don't believe I am.

According to the KM plan (as opposed to some rejected design concepts), the
barges would be towed across the Channel in long chains or strings by the
larger tugs, some motor vessels and small steamers, reflecting the acute
shortage of tugs. When these vessels reached the off-shore loosing point,
the smaller tugs would attempt to pick up (unmoor and re-moor) the barges
from the trains. It was in this complex off-shore casting off and
re-attaching process that the major problems arose.

In crossing the powered barge(s) would be used only as neccessary to
improve control, while the two motorboats would act as additional control
and as lifeboats in the not so unlikely case that was necessary. The tug
was to cast off prior to grounding, with final landing 'controlled' by the
powered barge and its two motorboat assistants.

The two barges per tug plus two attendant motorboats model was certainly
marginally more workable for the delivery of the barges to the shore than
the barge-alone model, but it was a long way inferior to the
winch-yourself-ashore model described above.

The tugs with the motorboats assisting would then drag
off whichever barges were undamaged to act as lighters for the supply
ships.

This was unmitigated fantasy. A ship moored to anchors on a soft bottom in
tidal water *cannot* unload hold cargo using its deck cranes. A ship moored
to heavy submerged caissons might just manage it, however. As I have said
before, the KM ought to have known this very well; their improvisation was
ill-judged in the extreme, whereas improvising submarine moorings might just
have worked.

(snip agreed stuff)

Without rudders? Really? That would be the steering thingie stuck on the
end of kempenaars and spitsen?

That's a rudder, singular. Rudders, plural, especially independently
steerable rudders, offer far finer control in shallow water operations.

The lack of kedges and winches was problematic though, which was why so
many extra barges were planned for, as far as the Germans were concerned
it was a one-way trip.

No, it wasn't problematic: that's merely spin. The lack of winches was an
absolutely basic failing incredible to any mariner.

The only real problem was a lack of Panzerprähme, when they were used up
there was no way to transport the bulk of the Zweite Welle Panzers except
by freighter to a captured port.

I'm not altogether confident that the makeshift tank landing raft were
particularly well-designed for the task either. Given the amount of work
done on them, the lack of basic features like deck-winches, protected
propellers and so on is even more criminally negligent.

(snip agreed stuff)

Mind you the real crippling problem is the lack of logistical transport,
even if the supplies could be got to shore they would have a hard time
getting it forward to troops, but that of course was the Heers problem to
solve (and which is actually I think the better example of the lack of
inter-service co-operation).

I'm tempted to say that the front-line troops could just reach behind them
to the barges...

The Heer, IIRC, hoped to ship a lot of horses and mules to England, and
their reliance on horse-drawn transport might just help them in this
scenario. Horses can swim and limbers can be manhandled, neither of which
applies to trucks or lorries.

No, it was a case of nothing else was available. They knew full well that
they hadn't a prayer of hitting anything, which is why the majority of the
Geleitträger were armed with three 3.7cm Flak and/or 2cm Flak and at the
most a single 7.5cm le.I.G. in the bow, all rapid-fire light pieces -
spray and pray suppressing fire.

But why not fit the proposed gun-support vessels with four or more large
anchors to give at least a gnats chance of a stable firing platform? IIRC
they had no more than two small sand anchors which would leave the vessels,
if afloat, wandering about all over the place. Equally, why not fit winches
and kedges to ensure a firm beaching position, like the later Med barges?

Again, the KM ignored some cheap, basic practical measures that would have
made their improvised vessels significantly more practical: measures which
any competent sailor would have pointed out immediately. That's, again, why
I cannot agree that the KM plans were 'well thought-out'.

(snip)

Please show me - with your well versed military and naval competence -
what the alternative for them was? That involved actually attempting to
carry out their orders to the best of their ability instead of throwing up
their hands and squawking to Hitler that even making an attempt was
'criminal incompetence'? In other words, what were they supposed to do
besides kvetching?

I've listed some affordable practical measures above - better anchoring;
better beach moorings; better ways of getting supplies ashore - of which the
KM ought to have been aware.

Well, to be technical we don't *know* their expedients were 'unworkable'
since their tests seemed to indicate they might have been 'workable' so
long as a proper degree of 'self-sacrifice' was accepted. I suspect
strongly that they were in fact unworkable and the result of a full-scale
attempt would have been a ***-up of epic proportions, but that isn't
quite the same thing as an absolute.

There has never been an amphibious landing in Europe (I can't speak of the
Pacific) which was not to some extent a major ***-up, even Normandy. The
idea that Sealion would be the exception is pretty much an absolute.

No, it's precisely accurate. It is difficult to compare, but the German
requirement was that they meet winds of up to force 6 (the concern
actually being their freeboard exposed to the wind, which badly affected
their controlability), implying of course they could accept the associated
sea state as well....which is somewhat less than what NEPTUNE had to deal
with on 6 June. And so long as the Germans accepted that they would suffer
high craft attrition in beaching and planned for it by requiring a major
excess of craft in reserve, why you have a problem with it is a bit
mysterious?

I have no problem with the idea that the Germans expected to be able to
overcome high loss rates by building in a large degree of redundancy. I do
have a problem with the fact that you are not accepting that those loss
rates were exacerbated by basic errors not attributable to resources or
timetable, but simply to incompetence.

You seem to be stuck on the lack of sophistication in the plan, which of
course was necessary given their lack of four-odd years of purpose-built
landing craft construction and development.

It is not lack of sophistication but of basic seakeeping and marine
proficiency, which one can reasonable expect in a *naval* organisation.

(snip agreed stuff)

Er, I doubt Dönitz was motivated by anything at all with regards to
Seelöwe, seeing as how he was Befehlshaber des U-Boots and so had little
to do with the planning. You evidently mean Raeder.

Yes; thanks for the correction.

And given that it was a pretty professional improvisation, with all the
little kvetches you brought up at least recognized if not solved, it seems
that more thought and motivation went into it than is generally realized.

Except that it was not, from the perspective of any mariner, a professional
improvisation at all. A mariner would have gone for a simpler and more
effective solution; the KM plan was redolent of over-clever amateurism.

How does "requisite experience" - in or out of house - compensate for a
complete lack of purpose designed landing craft and a near complete lack
of a supporting fleet? When the initial planning cycle from conception to
execution was supposed to be on the order of two to three months?

Requisite seagoing and marine experience would have made the improvisations
easier and cheaper, not more difficult. Sometimes Brains help...

.

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