[WarInEur] RE house rule for invasion

[sgminfo]

Wardall Clark wrote:
> I think the problem here is that the rules protecting Great Britain 
> from invasion are too effective.
>  

There is the crux of the problem...

and beneath it lies the real question,

Have the German armed forces got the power to prevent the Royal Navy 
choosing to close the channel at any time of their choosing?

Bearing in mind that the heavy units are probably not needed, but 
destroyers and light craft (probably at some cost) are unlikely to 
shrink from entering these narrow waters and ripping the heart out of 
the invasion flotillas, the cost being outweighed by the direct threat 
to the UK.

The heavy units can act as distant cover,
and only come south once the German heavy units are known to be in the 
channel.


Practically with freedom of manoeuvre, the more up to date ships of the 
German fleet might have a chance of a fighting draw with long range 
gunnery, but if they are nailed to defending the invasion flotillas,  
then the RN gunline will close and annihilate them with weight of numbers.

And what heavy units do they have, post norway?
No fleet action battle line,
Scharnhorst is in dry dock after norway...

It is likely to a brutally short and extremely bloody battle of mutual 
annihilation...a battle in which numbers will tell...and the navy's well 
known penchant for getting up close and personal.


On another front,
The spring of 1940 is the early stages of anti surface air warfare, 
neither the air launched torpedo, nor the means to deliver it were fully 
developed, especially in the German fleet, so the Dive bomber has to be 
the principal means of attack.

So the Luftwaffe is going to have an almost impossible task trying to 
stop the RN in the run to the south, especially with the RAF able to run 
some interferance on the way south.

Whilst the German fleet is pinned to the defense andcannot run...the 
Stuka is going to need to run in with massive escorts, leaving the 
ground forces with limited aircover during the early stages of the 
battle. Andon the defensive the Luftwaffe in 1940 is going to suffer all 
the disadvantages of fighting out in the channel without GCI, a factor 
that they relied upon to prevent the RAF from concentrating in the 
battle of Britain, and were so desastrously unable to adjust to.


The reality might be even less enticing than the abstract version penned 
by SPI's design team.



In other words, the clear design balancing intention is there, but it 
may not be supportable by the realitiesof the situation...

-|steve|-
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