[WarInEur] cross channell invasions.

[sgminfo]

A variant on this in a similar vein.

the channel is only 22 miles wide. true.

But the nature of the beast is very different from the North Sea, and 
home waters in the Baltic, with which the German navy was intimately 
familiar.
The German navy gowever, were well aware of these differences,
differences that the Wehrmacht simply did not have a conceptual 
grounding for.

1. the waves patterns and intervals are subtley different,
there are serious tide races,
and the tides themselves are  dangerouisly  different.
As descovered by the Spanish armada task force which was unable to make 
headway against them in 1588, and the Spanish were not exactly novices.

2.The barge traffic used as a basis for the amphibious capability, is 
seriously deficient in fundamental design parameters from blue water 
stuff, and whilst appearances can be deceptive, in moderate to severe 
channel sea states, such traffic is little short of one-way rickets to 
Davey Jones' Locker

So such a converted fleet, is limited to.

  calm states
Good wind conditions (anything else will probably make a barge unusable
And easy visual navigation states, Foggy channel days are also no go times.

We are not talking experienced deep water seamen,
but Large numbers of moderately trained men,
with limited navigational skills.

there is every chance in anything but good conditions the flotilla will 
scatter in all directions.

If you compare the converted stuffof 1940 in the ports, with the stuff 
built by the allies for 1944, you will see a quantum difference, in 
terms of freeboard, robustness, and engine power. Even in 1944 losses 
from sea states were not inconsiderable, and the autumn equinox 
proximity, and the frequency of storms, mean that as sooon as the 
operation is committed, you can no longer dodge the weather, and must 
stand and brace for it in relentless operations supplying the stuff 
dependant on the shore once you arrive.

Lastly...

That barge traffic had to come from somewhere, and whilst is true to say 
it was rounded up from all sorts of captured equipment, that stuff was 
not sitting around idle. These resources were essential or the 
functioning of the Lower Rhine transportation network. Removing them 
from the equation for a summer excursion in the channel caused major 
dislocations to the inland waterways network of Western Europe, in turn 
having a significant impact on German industry and war production, as a 
lot of bulk goods such as Iron ore and Coal would use this 
transportation network.


So if you wanted to simulate this resource.

The amphibs
cost 1/2 normal ones
take 1/2 time to build
And to appropriate these forces to add to the pool to build repair refit 
( or whatever), incurrs a 6 cycle penalty of reduction of the production 
muliple by one. Simulating the disruption, and time taken to fill in the 
hole in the transport resources. on the turn announcing that sealion is 
to go ahead, 6 Amphs are put in the production pool, and the reduction 
in production occurs.


As regards repair of German naval resources, you hit the achilles heel 
of any German naval operations, a serious shortage of yards and basins.
If The Royal navy was bedeviled by it, the German Navy was dooubly so...

Places to refit and repair could be almost counted on the fingers of one 
hand, as evidenced by the problems of Tirpitz after the St Nazaire raid. 
If you were going to be repairing large numbers of medium and small 
ships, the impact is going to be felt all over the place, and the 
largest casualty would be the u-boat yards, as you draw skilled 
personnel from ... somewhere.

At this time, you have...

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in dock, Tirpitz and Bismark fitting out, plus 
all the damaged stuff from the Norwegian operations, including a 
decimated Destroyer fleet. vital to escorting in the Channel  So a lot 
of naval resources are already otherwise committed. So much of the heavy 
maintenance and repair  regime is tied up on major projects.

 From WW1
A good illustration of this is how long the High Seas fleet took to 
return to operational readiness compared to the Royal Navy after 
Jutland... British yards got on with the Job, the backlog in German 
ports put the fleet out of action for months.




-|steve|-




Wardall Clark wrote:
> The English Channel is 22 miles wide at its narrowest point.  A ferry 
> ride on a rough day is no picnic.
> On the other hand, the boats that make this trip are hardly ocean 
> going vessels by any definition,
> They are almost exactly like the boats and ships that ply major rivers. 
>  
> Ergo, when the Axis conquered Belgium, France and the Netherlands, 
> they captured the wherewithal and
> transportation net (i.e. the lower Rhine) to create an invasion fleet 
> of Amphs and Trans that is outside
> their Military Ship building capacity.
>  
> Creation of these fleets required organization, energy and resources. 
> For reasons best known to Hitler
> and depicted in accounts of the War by the Army and naval staffs, the 
> creation of the invasion transport
> capacity was carried out half-heartedly.  By the time it 
> was completely, the Battle of Britain for Air superiority
> had been lost. Since these vessels had other uses, by 1941 the threat 
> of Sea Lion was essentially gone.
>  
> I wrote a post positing that (a) the German's ability was to create 
> the requirements for a reasonably successful
> Sea Lion were so limited by the rules that unless the Extreme optional 
> rule was in effect the Allied player was well or
> justified in stripping England in favor of Mediterranean operations. 
> (b) That the kill rate for SURFs under the HIGH SEAS
> INTERVENTION RULE WAS TOO HIGH.
>  
> I now believe that I was wrong on the second count.  The casualty rate 
> is correct.
>  
> However, the WIE consequences of surface casualties during Naval fleet 
> encounters is quite a-historical. Ships in combat were
> regularly damaged in ways that forced immediate return to port prior 
> to the decisive moment of the battle.  Such ships are worthless
> for other missions for weeks to  months, BUT ARE NOT TOTAL LOSSES. 
> (e.g. The Scharnhorst fought again after the Norway invasion.
> The Prince of Wales survived its encounter with the Bismarck and was 
> eventually sent to the Far East.)  The game allows rebuilding of AP
> using dead AP as cadres, it should also allow rebuilding of SURF at 
> reduced costs and above all reduced building times. For game balance
> purposes, SURF lost to ASW activities during Sorties should be Total 
> losses.
>  
> I believe that the problem (a) should be addressed by granting a 
> one-time capacity to ferry the channel using appropriated commercial
> shipping.  The axis spends Production points for a 4-week build of a 
> small number of Belgium AMPH and French and Dutch TRANS fleets.  
> These can be augmented with standard production of naval units. The 
> one-time appropriated shipping does not count against the Naval
> build percentage, but must be used within 6 weeks of being produced.  
> If not used it is considered lost and must be reconstituted at
> double the cost in time and Production points.
>    
> The principle impediments to Sea Lion then becomes the Royal Navy and 
> RAF.  If the Axis player builds SURFS rather then U-Boats from
> the start of the war(or at least manages to make the Allies think that 
> he has) The Sea Lion is a real threat,
>  
> I personally do not think that there was a realistic chance even after 
> Dunkirk, that the Axis could have conquered england. I do think they
> could have crippled the industrial capacity of any area they invaded, 
> temporarily disrupted the use of several points, and collected a
> great deal of militarily useful loot in the process.  These seem to me 
> to be reasons for keeping a number of full strength divisions on the
> channel ports so provided that the Battle for France decimates the BEF 
> there is some possibility of a return to historical play.
>  
> I dislike the all-or-nothing Air Supremacy Sea Lion of CWIE-1.  The 
> BWIE version is much better.  The Axis must both win Air Superiority and
> assighn many AP to Sea superiority in order to blunt the effects of 
> HIGH SEAS INTENTION.  I now wonder whether this may not be asking a 
> bit too
> much of the CWIE Luftewaffe.   Perhaps the Germans should be allowed 
> to exercise this option so long as the ALLIES don't have Air superiority.
> The number of AP required is quite large, which means that the Allied 
> AP have a better chance against the Germans on Air Superiority missions,
> which means more incentive to fly, which means more AP lost 
>
> BOB

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.halisp.net/pipermail/warineur/attachments/20071119/27dd249f/attachment.html