Battle of Britain, won by the Navy.

Plus German doctrine for airborne assaults included the deliberate crash-landing of transport planes full of troops... Not a problem in terms of getting the first wave of troops down, but a heck of a problem when it comes to reusing transport planes.

 

Yes for one thing you won't get the repairs done under warranty.

 

Supply by air is not practical, look at Stalengrad.

You can take in men, you can take in starvation rations and limited light defensive rounds.

But you can't bring in enough heavy ammunition, food and fuel by air to maintain offensive opperations especially given the limitations of 40's air transport and grass fields.

FNG

 

And while you might be able to ship over some light anti-tank weapons (37mm), there is not much chance of anything heavier, and of course no artillery (except piossibly for mortars).

Much like the British at Arnheim...

 

Even more killingly you predate any bazooka type weapons, meaning even the wimpest bit of a tank is an unstopable monster.

 

Not quite - Anti-Tank rifles could deal with any British Light tank and most of the Cruisers. Still, all it takes is one Matilda I (the crappy one with a single mg) and they're doomed.

 

Here's a post by the poster RichTo90 on the Axis history forum on British tank levels available

 

Didn't they?
Ofcoarse the germans had aerial torpedo's in 1940 (LTF5) they even had torpedo bombers to drop them
He-115 and He-59 were used in that role....
But still at the time of this invasion surely they could use the torpedo's and the aircraft they captured when they took all those countries they invaded (and not even speaking of the torpedo's wich could be bought from italy)?

"During extensive torpedo-dropping trials, carried out in 1939, both the He-59 and He-115 floatplanes were used and the failure rate of the torpedoes was a staggering 49 percent. The single operational squadron of He-115 floatplanes managed to sink two merchantmen in August, 1940."

William Green's Warplanes of the Third Reich also notes that 1./Ku.Fl.Gr.406 and 1./Ku.Fl.Gr.906 operated Norwegian-based torpedo-carrying He 115Cs against the convoys on the Murmansk run, 1./Ku.Fl.Gr.406 remaining operational on the type into mid-1944.

 

There were also a fair few mobile pill boxes around (lorries with concrete armour) often in places a German paratrooper might be trying to capture (like airfields)

 

I stand corrected.

However, the point that they had few aerial torpedos, few capable delivery planes, and few pilots trained in such attacks does stand.

 

well... a few. Lots of odd armoured vehicles were produced for the defence of Britain. Most were eventually assigned to airfields (as after Crete they eventually realised that these were prime targets for paratroopers) but IIRC this decision was made after Seelowe was cancelled - and the actual appearance of the vehicles was later still.

Many airfield defences in SE England (in common with all other planned anti-invasion defences) had not been finished by 1943/4 when the decision was taken that they were no longer needed.

 

So do I.

Agreed entirely.

 

Even better, ask Mussolini if he could send over some squadrons of torpedo dropping planes. Cause, IIRC, the Italians had more experience (if not training) in this field then the germans.

 

The Italians did send a number of bomber and fighter squadrons to Belguim to take part in the tail end of the Battle of Britain..... the only thing they achieved was an increase in the scores of a number of RAF fighter pilots :roll:

:lol:
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/falco_bob.htm

 

Of course they could have potentially done both, although the problem wasn't just the lack of available effective Torpedoes, but also training for Luftwaffe crews in their use. I can only imagine that such training woudl be complicated if a multitude of different torpedoes from different nations were used and again AFAIK at this stage only the He115 and He59 could carry torpedoes (Although only a handful of crews had been trained in their use), the He111 clearly could be modified to do so but this only occured later. I doubt the aircraft and crews could be practically trained in sufficient time.

Would Goering have considered asking the Italians to help his Luftwaffe? Would his ego permit it? Even if Hitler intervened and requested RA assistance on Georing's behalf, this does presume a kind of 20/20 hindsight knowledge on the effectiveness of torpedo bombers which was clearly lacking in summer 1940 otherwise greater provision for torpedo planes would have already been made.

I would suggest that such a cry for help would only be made after the relative ineffectiveness in anti-shipping became apparent, by which point it would be a case of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.

 

Actually there were more...the Fi-167(only 12 built but in service in 1940) and the Do-22 (altough strangely not in german service but i think you'll get the picture as it surely was german built) for instance