How Hitler could have won

Well, do you want a calculation example or you are so convinced that it would be a waste of my time?

 

Please try, it takes five pounds of cork to float twenty pounds of dead weight, please show me how to make barges "unsinkable" using cork without making them nothing but "cork transports".

 

Dang,this sounds like a good thread and i missed it.

Well you know how the saying goes"you cant keep a cork man down"and"you cant sink a cork man"

Good luck to the rebels(cork) on sunday.

BTW,I'm definately in the sealion would have succeeded camp so can somebody please tell me how much space 1 kilo of cork takes up,i know 1kg of water(1 litre) takes up a cubic meter of space(thats 10cmx10cmx10cm),
Plus who said the cork had to be on the inside?

And lest we forget the RN would have been destroyed by the luftwaffe,i'm sure everybody knows what happened the RN in norway.

 

Glad to oblige.

Your proportions seem correct, but if you don't mind I prefer the metric system.
The density of the cork Is ~0.250 ton per cubic meter i.e. 1/4 th of water density.
Lets begin by noting that the barges were historically never intended to cross the channel fully loaded for the following reasons:

1) It would make them sink from the first wave that crosses the gunwale.
2) It would slow their speed to a crawl
3) It would not allow them to beach close enough to the shore so that the troops can exit without drowning.

The average estimate was ~ 20% of their maximal water disposition to be loaded on them.

So to the numbers

Let's say V is the volume of the barge.
let's say alpha is the proportion of that volume that we want to load with cork.
M1 is the hull mass of the barge - the average was 10% of the water disposition of the barge.
M2 is the usefull load (i.e. troops etc.)
Let's assume that sea water is as dense as clean water for simplicity (i.e. a 1 ton /cub meter)
so M1 = V*1*0.1
M2 = V*1*0.2
In order for a barge with a leaking hull to be afloat we need :
V*alpha*1 (water disposition of the cork) = V*alpha*1*1/4 {the weight of the cork) + M1 + M2
which means:
V*alpha = V*0.25*alpha + V*0.1 + V*0.2
V*alpha*0.75 = V*0.3
alpha = 0.4
Now if we place 1/10 of the volume of the hull as a belt around the hull (above the waterline) we get:
alpha_inside_hull = 0.3
That is 2/3 of the internal volume of the barge is free for troops and equipment.
Doesn't seem that terrible.
The total weight of the cork would be V*0.4*0.25 = 0.1*Total water disposition of the barge ,i.e. half the useful cargo.

Seems to be acceptable price for the considered benefits.

 

Brrr:this is giving me bad memorieshysics ! :you are nor a teacher of physics ?

 

And we also know what the RN went through getting their troops off of Crete so just imagine what the RN would have attempted to try & save the Home land.

 

Undoubtedly.
However the germans had their own fanatics as well, so I wouldn't rule out a LW kamikadze
attacks on RN ships... And LW had way more bombers than RN had destroyers.

 

Sorry about that.
I'm not a physics teacher,so it wasn't intentional.

 

Well actually the Friegkorps,I think that's how it's spelled ,really didn't come onto it's own for about another year later so the Luftwaffe's anti-ship assets aren't what you might think.Further just how many Nazi kamikaze's were there?

 

That's a rather large leap of faith. As a counter example I suggest you read up on Plan Orange.

Unwinnable yes but then they didn't know that. Unnecessary well at that point what else could they do. The RAF could have stopped the invasion by the way especially with all the tasks the LW would have had to perform. Not to mention that they couldn't take out the RN without taking out the RAF.

And done what? Without first taking out the RAF they would have suffered prohibitive losses of vital planes and probably not inflicted enough damage on the RN to have made much difference.

Got anything to back that up?

The RN can reconsentrate at sea a lot faster than the barge fleet can move.

That opinion seems to not only excced the facts that support it but be in contradiction to them.

The LW didn't have the planes to take out the RAF. Without taking out the RAF they could neither take out the RN or support the invasion anywhere near the level it required. They simply didn't have the resources to do it in the time frame required.

 

Perhaps or perhaps they just get written off. And even beaching them may damage them. Storms may also. These are river barges for the most part after all

And what good are 20mm, 35mm, or 75mm guns going to do if British capital ships decide to shell the barges? Even 105 and 150mm guns aren't going to be of much use. Aside from provideing additional targets that is?

And where are you going to get the quantities you need and how are you going to pay for it and move it?

You seem awfully sure of that. How much is needed? 50 tons per barge? 100? (the barges were in the 300-600 ton range for the most part). Say you've got 2,000 barges that's between 100,000 and 200,000 tons. According to wiki at: Cork material - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia curent production is about 340,000 tons a year with 80% from Spain and Portugal. Oh and what are the Germans going to use to pay for it? And how are they going to move it?....

Looks like you went with ~13% of the rating of the barge for the weight of the cork so that's between 40 and 80 tons per barge so over 1/3 the current yearly production of Spain and Portugal. Oh and what's hanging all this on the outside of the hull going to do to the speed of the barges?

 

I disagree, it's has nothing to do with faith.Simple common sense.
In addition Manstein in his memoirs clearly states the same conclusion - I suggest you read it, quite fascinating btw.

1) You are right, they didn't know that. That's true to a point,considering their doctrine of "bomber always gets through" so that the enemy planes are bombed on the airfields.
However almost none of the lost RAF planes were. So it takes only common sense after several days of trying that the approach was wrong.
2) What else could they do?? I think I just mentioned that before.
3) Couldn't take out the RN without taking out the RAF?!? According to what argument?
RAF was presented in all it's might during the Dunkirk evacuation and still the LW sunk 4 destroyers + 2 large vessels + ~200 smaller vessels and damaged another 19 destroyers and all that during 10 days of OVERCAST with only 2 days of good flying weather.
At the same time the French air force was also a present threat that had to be considered.
And if that's not enough - they downed significant amount of RAF planes (more than LW losses)
So please , your logic is simply faulty.

Sure, look at the number of sunken Allied ships lost during the Greek and Crete campaign.

Sure, but how is that relevant?

If you agree that the facts support it, how could they simultaneously contradict it?

That's basically the same argument as above in different wording, I already addressed it.

 

Please let's leave the beached barges damaging storms and the falling meteorites to some other discussion.

Let me answer your question with a question:
During the Dunkirk encirclement the whole BEF could have been captured so it was of crucial importance to use all available military power.
How many british battleships assisted the evacuation?

Move it ? With trains I suppose. Pay for it? - I don't understand the question.

As I pointed previously if a strategic plan existed beforehand all these arrangements would have been sorted out in time.
Buying several train loads of cork wood from 2 countries next to France + obviously France,Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Poland have some stock, so what's the big deal?
There is nothing implausible to what I'm suggesting.

If the hull isn't leaking then .. nothing.

 

Wouldn't the buoyant forces from the cork rip apart the structure of the ship? And could the barge structurally survive attacks 4 to 8 inch naval guns, bombs, and torpedo. Also the Dunkirk example is misleading because the destroyer were being used as transport, they were not in a formation with coordinated anti-aircraft fire.

 

Nope.

If you mean direct hits - I doubt it. At least above the 4.7 inch.

By being used for transportation it suddenly is not a destroyer?!
There was plenty of AA fire, including the whole RAF fleet of fighters.
In my humble opinion the example is not only NOT misleading, but quite the opposite....
In extremely challenging and limiting circumstances LW delivered spectacular blow.
And keep in mind that while attacking the ships the LW were also attacking the ground forces!

 

During the Dunkirk encirclment thewhole BEF could have been captured:any proof for this,except for allegations after the war by some German generals(Blumen tritt) to cast the blame on Hitler and gratuitous taken over by generations of writers ?

 

"In one of the most widely-debated decisions of the war, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to halt for three days, giving the Allies time to organise an evacuation and build a defensive line. Despite the Allies' gloomy estimates of the situation, in the end, over 330,000 Allied troops were rescued."
Battle of Dunkirk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Here's an example of the fate of british destroyer in the channel:
"
These repairs lasted until July, after which Delight sailed from Rosyth, through the English Channel. She stopped at Portland on the way, departing there on 29 July. She was sailing in daylight, in contravention of local orders and placing herself at significant risk. After she had left the harbour, she was detected by German radar at Cherbourg, which directed German aircraft to attack the destroyer, by now some 20 miles (32 km) off Portland Bill. She attempted to fight them off, but was hit by a bomb on her fo'c'sle, which caused a major fire and a subsequent explosion. She finally sank in Portland harbour early the next morning, having lost six of her company in the attack.
She currently lies at a depth of approximately 55 metres, broken in half and upside down.
"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Delight_(H38)

 

The existence of a strategic plan does not preclude errors. In this case Hitler actually had a strategic plan. He wanted a treaty at worse or an alliance at best with Britain. Pushing the attack at Dunkirk may actually have been a greater mistake.

They also didn't know how strong the RAF was or how fast they were building planes and training pilots.

But they didn't know it was wrong. They thought they had the RAF on the ropes. Indeed the switch to bombing London was because they thought they'd accomplished what they needed in the first phase of the battle.

Not in any detail and nothing that sounds to me like it would work.

As a result of trying to take out merchant ships in the channel the Stuka's took enough losses that they were pulled out of the battle. Now you want to hit harder targets, further away, with much better AA cover.

There were a lot more than 2 days of good flying weather and Dunkirk had neither the AA fire power of a RN fleet base or the warning that said bases would have had of a LW raid. It's also hardly a case for the LW being very good at anti-shipping strikes.

No your just not considering all the tactical factors.

Not a huge number and most of the losses came after the ships ran very low or out of AA ammo. Something that's not likely to occur near a RN port.

Ok I'll put it a little clearer there is essentially no factual support for your argument.

 

I thought you were the one that suggested holding them on the beaches?

The whole of the BEF was in little danger of being captured. The RN used assets that it thought would be of the most use there.

How many were needed? How could they have helped?

How many trains is that going to take. Pay for it as in Spain and Portual will want some payment for the Cork and Germany was essentially bankrupt as far as international trade is concerned. And you are throwing a huge additional demand on a resource that has little or no excess production. Ever heard of "supply and demand"? Any idea what this would do to the price of cork.

Prior to the start of WWII Germany was experiencing severe economic problems. Try reading The Wages of Destruction. Once the war starts they aren't getting anything until after the fall of France. Just how quick do you think an order of this magnitude could be filled?

I've got news for you. The English channel has this phenomena called "waves" just because the cork is above the nominal waterline doesn't mean that it's not going to interact with them.