Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[Andy_Ross]

"If we can hold out long enough, it'll give our regular troops time to regroup for the counter-attack, see? Mind you, probably be the end of us, but we're ready for that, aren't we, men?"

"Course, sir."

Dad's Army, "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage"

From the end of the last episode 'Never too old'

-Well, I know one thing, They're not walking straight through me.

-Nor me.

-I'll be beside you, Jonesy.

-We'll all be beside you, Jonesy. We'll stick together, you can rely on that. Anybody tries to take our homes or our freedom away from us, they'll find out what we can do, We'll fight And we're not alone. There are thousands of us all over England.

-And Scotland.

-And Scotland, All over Great Britain in fact. Men who'll stand together when their country needs them.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I think the Sealion ones were supposed to have exactly none.

Large vehicles and horses were't in the first wave of barges but it was planned to bring horses in the second wave.

Remember we are talking about dumb river barges with a single hold covered with a hatch. No proper seats, no toilets, no portholes and only a ladder and planking to get out and on to the beaches.

 

[Andy_Ross]

On another note, at this point I'm thinking the Germans SHOULD have snuck a division across the channel just as a practical joke. You know, just to see the British destroy half their own ports. It would have achieved more at playing silly buggers with the British economy than half the U-Boot fleet ever did. Then let those guys be taken prisoners, their job was done.

Ports wouldn't have been destroyed until they were threatened, they were defended.
How do you sneak a division across the channel? A large fleet of barges moving at 3kts is not difficult to miss.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Home Guard was different in different areas. ALong the South Coast it was well equipped and trained, it was literaly on the Front Line after Dunkirk.

Don't forget there was considerable 'defence in depth' behind the beaches as well.

Have a look at the 'Defence of Britain' project, you can search an area and see the local defences.

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dob/

 

[Henri McPhee]

From the internet about Chamberlain and appeasement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain#Relations_with_Ireland

Road to Munich (March 1938 – September 1938)[edit]

In March 1938 Austria became a part of Germany in the "Anschluß". Though the beleaguered Austrians requested help from Britain none was forthcoming.[92] Britain did send Berlin a strong note of protest.[93] In addressing the Cabinet shortly after German forces crossed the border, Chamberlain placed blame on both Germany and Austria.[92] Chamberlain noted,

It is perfectly evident now that force is the only argument Germany understands and that "collective security" cannot offer any prospect of preventing such events until it can show a visible force of overwhelming strength backed by the determination to use it. ... Heaven knows I don't want to get back to alliances but if Germany continues to behave as she has done lately she may drive us to it.

 

[Henri McPhee]

From that Wikipedia website:

Defence spending had been heavily cut in Chamberlain's early budgets.[60] By 1935, faced with a resurgent Germany under Hitler's leadership (see German re-armament), he was convinced of the need for rearmament.[61] Chamberlain especially urged the strengthening of the Royal Air Force, realising that Britain's historical bulwark, the English Channel, was no defence against air power.

 

[Klimax]

From that Wikipedia website:

Aka he dug hole himself...

 

[Garrison]

From the internet about Chamberlain and appeasement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain#Relations_with_Ireland

So basically Chamberlain repeatedly threw away opportunities to halt Nazi aggression, resisted rearmament, and handed Germany a lifeline at Munich that spared them from a war that German Generals and Finance Ministers were convinced would be catastrophic? If those links are supposed to be a defence of Chamberlain I think the old saying, 'with friends like these...' applies.

 

[lobosrul5]

There was rearmament when Chamberlain became Prime Minister, and I think when Lord Swinton became the Minister for Air. The British Navy could have been attacked by Stuka dive bombers if the RAF had been made non operational. That would have made some sort of invasion easier, even if the Germans had to be supplied by air. The British Navy were reluctant to operate in the Channel then because of the dangers involved, and they expected the army to protect their Navy bases.

The Stuka was never all that effective against warships that were under way. In fact no dive bomber was really all that effective against destroyers underway. Thats a tough target to hit. The Home Fleet mostly stayed out of range up in Scapa Flow... true because they were indeed vulnerable to air attack while anchored. Maybe, just maybe, in this planned invasion the Luftwaffe sinks 10% of the Home Fleet. Besides which a Stuka Ju-87B is stretching its range just to get over the English channel from Germany. Also, I'm having trouble pinning down production numbers, but even by 1 Sept 1939 only 360 had been built. So there wasn't some huge force of Stukas in '38.

 

[HansMustermann]

Large vehicles and horses were't in the first wave of barges but it was planned to bring horses in the second wave.

Well, that still leaves the number of trucks at exactly none, since it's trucks we were talking about.

Ports wouldn't have been destroyed until they were threatened, they were defended.
How do you sneak a division across the channel? A large fleet of barges moving at 3kts is not difficult to miss.

Well, I didn't say it would be easy. But the chucklenuts in me thinks it would have been worth getting the Brits to destroy at least one of their own ports, just for the lulz, if you can.

 

[Klimax]

Well, that still leaves the number of trucks at exactly none, since it's trucks we were talking about.



Well, I didn't say it would be easy. But the chucklenuts in me thinks it would have been worth getting the Brits to destroy at least one of their own ports, just for the lulz, if you can.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=540&pictureid=11767[/qimg]

Not "For the Evulz"?

 

[geoman]

Dad's Army was not organised in 1938. There were deficiencies in the army then, as well as the air force, though the size of the regular army did become much larger by 1940. The armed forces could not defend Britain then, let alone the Czechs:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Guard_(United_Kingdom)

It’s worse than that. The Home Guard was not organised until 1968

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad’s Army

 

[Rincewind]

The Stuka was never all that effective against warships that were under way. In fact no dive bomber was really all that effective against destroyers underway. Thats a tough target to hit. The Home Fleet mostly stayed out of range up in Scapa Flow... true because they were indeed vulnerable to air attack while anchored. Maybe, just maybe, in this planned invasion the Luftwaffe sinks 10% of the Home Fleet. Besides which a Stuka Ju-87B is stretching its range just to get over the English channel from Germany. Also, I'm having trouble pinning down production numbers, but even by 1 Sept 1939 only 360 had been built. So there wasn't some huge force of Stukas in '38.

A quick look tells me that a Ju-87 with a bomb load had a range of 311 miles. as I pointed out, the direct route from Essen to London, for example - over Belgium - was 400 miles one way.

Now try taking them on a big detour to fly around the Netherlands to get to the east coast of England? Good luck with that...

 

[lobosrul5]

A quick look tells me that a Ju-87 with a bomb load had a range of 311 miles. as I pointed out, the direct route from Essen to London - over Belgium - was 400 miles one way.

Now try taking them on a big detour to fly around the Netherlands to get to the east coast of England? Good luck with that...

But remember in Henri's world operation Fall Gelb goes off in '38 just as it did in '40 because all the captured Czech tanks weren't at all important. The mighty PzII would win the day!

 

[Hans]

I think the Sealion ones were supposed to have exactly none.

Interesting

What were they planning to use to move their artillery with then? Was the plan to capture and use British Civilian transport? Or were they going to stay with horses?

 

[Hans]

Henri you forgot to give us an answer for the following question I asked:

One question for Henri - tanks, armored cars, trucks and heavy artillery too - explain to us how you land such vehicles on a beach when you have no landing craft.......now you could use ferries but how well would harbor and river ferries do in crossing the North Sea and trying to operate against a beach exposed to ocean waves when they are built for calm water and well constructed landing site? Hmmmm

Are you conceding that you have no idea about the details of the things you've made up so people will respond to you? lol

 

[jimbob]

Yes, but logistics didn't exactly seem to be the strong point for the Third Reich.

Even down to the fundamentals of having far too many disparate types of equipment.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Interesting

What were they planning to use to move their artillery with then? Was the plan to capture and use British Civilian transport? Or were they going to stay with horses?

They didn't really plan on having artillery.

This was the true genius of the Prussian military tradition. By not taking any vehicles or artillery with them, they would obviate the need for the logistical requirements to transport shells and fuel.

In a stroke of further genius, by ensuring all the troops would have drowned in the channel, they could do away with logistics altogether!

The final evolution of superior Nazi engineering and tactics was to not invade the UK at all, thereby overcoming any possible argument that whole idea utterly mental to begin with, and that invading the Soviet Union, where supplies would run out at a precisely specified point in space and time, was a much better idea all around.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Interesting

What were they planning to use to move their artillery with then? Was the plan to capture and use British Civilian transport? Or were they going to stay with horses?

They were going to seize a port and bring armour, artillery and transport in through the port on ships.

 

[Garrison]

They were going to seize a port and bring armour, artillery and transport in through the port on ships.

Ironically in 1944 that German conviction that you needed a port to mount an amphibious assault helped sell Operation Fortitude. Even after the Allies were on the beaches at Normandy the Germans were still willing to believe it was a diversion and Calais was still where the real invasion would happen.