How Sealion could have been made workable?

No its not you. Apparently they seem to him to be two seprate subjects LOL. Which is funny because events before WWII helped shaped what happened just as what events happened after the war was shaped by WWII. Just another example I guess of his knowledge.

 

Nobody is trying to insult you or otherwise bust your chops over your opinions, just trying to inject a sense of reality into a discussion which sorely lacks it.

The reality is that the Germans had no way of transforming Operation Sea Lion into a workable proposition. The "Wonder Weapons" that you reference simply did not exist in 1940-41, nor would they have changed anything if they had somehow existed. The Germans weren't supermen, nor were their weapons that much better than any others, in some cases, they were inferior to Allied weapons.

But wars are seldom won by superior hardware; they are won by better strategy, better tactics, and better logistics. This is where the Germans lost the war, they were out thought, out fought, and out produced.

You have a choice; you can open your mind and learn some real history, or you can go on believing the myth of German invincibility. If you choose the latter you can expect frequent correction on this forum.

 

I still believe that my 'shopping list' in post #58 is the ONLY way Hitler could have made it work, and even then the RN would probably have prevailed.

John.

 

you obviously didn't read my posts because they weren't even related to SeaLion, they were about the V-2 program and Hitler not invading Russia. -Two things which could have resulted in the defeat of England.

 

I am better than most of the morons and talking heads on THC. I doubt there are many on this board or many others that would question that statement.

As for the V-2 it was a waste of materials and time. It was never "effective." Here is a weapons system that costs as much in materials as an Me 110 to construct. It can deliver a 2000 lb warhead to a distance of about 300 NM with a CEP (circular error probable) of about 10 miles when working right and about 100 miles when the guidance partially fails (about one in three shots historically).
It requires about 2 tons of fuel (alcohol and LOX 1 ton each) to achieve this. The alcohol requires about a third of the potato crop of Germany to manufacture while the LOX plants are asorpbing about a quarter of Germany's electrical power to produce it.
In looking at this, what you have in the V-2 is a very expensive kamikaze without the pilot. Think in terms of the Me 110. If you sent an Me110 on a single flight and it delivered a single 2000 lb bomb to its target roughly one third of the time at the loss of the aircrarft... Well, you should get the picture here.

As for the Allies:

Had the US really, really wanted to just retaliate for the V 1 and V 2 they could have literally made Germany's efforts look like the miniscule pin pricks they were.
The US had a flying copy of the V-1 a mere 60 days after the first one was launched on Britain. The USAAF then decided to go into the V-1 business themselves. Ford was instructed to set up a plant to manufacture the pulse jet at the initial rate of 5000 per month. Willys Overland would build the airframes at the same rate. The USAAF then planned to begin launching by October 1944 5000 V-1s into Germany per month escallating this to about 8000 by 1945.
Just for comparison, the Germans launched less than 5000 V-1s during the ENTIRE war. Thus, the US would have been firing more V-1s on Germany per month than the Germans could fire in over a year! But, the project was cancelled as the USAAF realized it was a waste of effort by October 1944 to carry it through. Instead, the JB 2 as it was designated remained just a research and development cruise missile for the US.
As for the V-2, it too was copied but, Convair under the project code MX 774 had been tasked with also improving it. One of their engineers, Charles Bossart, and his team redesigned the V-2 airframe to make it far more efficent. Rocketdyne redesigned the V-2 engine to produce more usable thrust at the same time. While their efforts didn't fly until 1946 due to low priorities (the US realized that rockets like the V2 had only limited usefulness with conventional warheads as military weapons) this too could have been sped up to make a useful missile earlier.
By the by, the MX 774 proved to have twice the payload and triple the range of a German V-2. Bossart's intergral tank design using the skin of the missile as the tank wall and using nitrogen to pressurize it and give rigidity has remained to this day a standard of missile design worldwide while the German rigid airframe with seperate tanks was discarded.

Basically, the V1 and V2 were wastes of effort for Germany.

 

This is just stupid. And, I want you to note, I rarely just friviously or gratitutiously insult anyone on a board.

Exactly how do you propose to fire a V-2 on New York when it has a 300 NM range?
As for the Tiger v. Sherman: Let's go with this scenario: The Sherman using its stabilized gun is moving at slow speed and out traverses the Tiger and gets on target first. The crew then quickly pumps two white phosphorus rounds into the Tiger. These blind it and cause the crew to choke on the fumes as they are drawn in by the ventilation system.
The Sherman crew then proceeds to pump a half dozen AP, APHE and, HE rounds into the Tiger stunning the crew or damaging it sufficently that it is unable to respond. From there, the Sherman (assuming it is just a 75mm model) continues to close peppering the Tiger until it is knocked out.
That is one one-on-one scenario.
The other is that the 76mm armed Sherman simply drills the Tiger I from 1500 meters with APCR rounds again using its much faster on target time due to faster turret rotation and stabilization.
Any other Allied weapons you want to debate?

 

Yes, I do know more than the 'historians' on THC. I would also say that the role of German scientists in making the moon landings possible was minor compared to the total effort. If you really want to discuss that feel free to start a thread. But, I warn you, I probably know a near infinite amount more about post war US missile development than you do.

 

Inferior weapons, inferior soldiers, yet the Allied forces still won? Go figure.

 

actually its inferior weapons and superior numbers my friend.

 

wow, what color is the sky in your world?

 

you go jump in your Sherman and I'll jump in my Tiger and we'll see who wins.

 

Most likely the Sherman. I'll take an M4A3E2 76mm wet with APCR ammunition.

 

So far I guess all of my fellow posters who do not agree with you and who have posted the historical facts to counter your are "biased against the German military"? Which looks like ALL so far. And thats all you have to counter with? Kinda desperate. How about facts and real sources to back up your assumptions?

 

ok, i'll be the one running circles around you blowing holes in your backside! hehehehe!

 

Makes you wonder when a Sherman has a faster turret speed and more manuverable and can fire accurately on the move and sure is hell more faster on the move LOL. That Tiger is sure a speed demon LOL

 

LOL!!!!

 

On the contrary,I did read your posts in their entirety. If you will go back and read my responses, you will find that I have quoted your posts verbatim in my messages. I could hardly do that if I hadn't read them.

While your arguments are not very clear or coherent, I assumed you were going by the rules and addressing the original what-if scenario, not creating a new issue. Even though you did say, "Forget Operation Sea Lion...." I took this to mean that you felt the Germans should have canceled Seal Lion, and bombarded England with V-2's instead.

This, of course, was impossible because Operation Sea Lion was scheduled for the Summer/Fall of 1940, and the V-2 didn't exist until 1944. Unless, of course, you're suggesting the Germans should just sit on their duffs for four years until they were able to field an operational V-2.

Either way, as I've pointed out, the V-2 never did that much damage to England's war-fighting capability; it just ticked them off and contributed to their determination to crush Germany. As for not invading the Soviet Union, how does that help Germany defeat Britain? They couldn't do it in 1940, when Britain was at it's weakest, how do they do it in 1941 when Britain is relatively stronger, or in 1942 when the US has joined Britain? Your logic just doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

 

Though I can't find it now, I remember a thread that someone posted on the forum about a German scheme to build large submersible barges containing all the material and equipment to enable a V-2 rocket to be launched at sea. The idea was to have a U-boat tow the barge across the Atlantic and then launch the V-2 against New York or other American cities. Apparently the scheme never came to fruition, but it was claimed that a few of these canisters were actually built.

I believe this may have been the method that Amonmauser heard about in the documentary that he mentioned.

But the documentary, of course, probably never mentioned the practical problems associated with such a dumb plan. The U-boat would have to surface in order to prepare the rocket for launching, this would take some time and it would have to be within 300 miles of the US coast. It would be a simple matter to have air patrols off the coast watching for just such activity; that equals suicide for the sub crew.

Furthermore, each sub could only tow one canister, so only a few V-2's could be launched at any one time, and the sub likely wouldn't survive. The V-2 would still be unguided, and random, and so unlikely to hit any useful target. And without the ability to carry a nuclear warhead, would do only minimal damage even if it did hit near a target. It's difficult to imagine a more wasteful way to conduct a bombardment; it would be akin to using a B-29 to deliver a hand grenade.

Of course, none of this has the slightest bearing on Operation Sea Lion, so I wonder why anyone brought it up?

 

Yes there was DA. It was posted by darkice and look at the result.

http://www.ww2f.com/what-if/26391-if-page-ranking-fstand-xii-successful-new-york-blitzed-v-2s.html

 

Or how about the poor bastards in the Sherman using their poor 76mm gun having to close in at point blank range (i mean right up to the Tiger and whammo, nothing because even at point blank range it would still bounce of the armour, while the Tiger would slaughter the sardine can at 1500 metres with it's mighty 88.

The only time the Sherman became a Tiger killer is when they threw on several more tonnes of armour and up gunned it with the British 17lb'r.

v.R