John Halliwell wrote:
In article . net,
Steven P. McNicoll writes

The Germans needed the concealment of night to have a chance of survival
against what? The Royal Navy? Surface vessels could not survive against
determined airpower without air support of their own.


You could take Crete as a good example, where the LW had complete air
superiority but the RN still smashed the naval invasion.

The LW had about thirty HE 115 floatplanes able to drop (unreliable)
torpedoes. Level bombing of ships in open water is very inaccurate and
dive bombing requires clear weather to 8,000ft (we're talking about the
English Channel here!), even so the LW bombs (available for dive
bombing) would have struggled to penetrate the large armoured decks of
battleships.

Air support would come from Britain in the form of remnants of Fighter
Command, plus Coastal Command and Bomber Command.


Add to that Training, Army Co op and anything else the RAF can find.
Also there is the Fleet Air Arm. _. If they can sink the Koninsburg off
Norway they can make a mess of the Channel in the general all out melee
that would ensue.

The LW could indeed hammer the RN in the Channel battle but you have to
ask your self how expendable the RN was when it came to a landing and
how expendable the LW was. There were WW1 battleships around that would
have been pressed into the battle and as the losses on both sides
mounted convoy escorts would have been pulled out of the Atlantic and
Force H from Gib would have been arriving.

It is clear that little of the German Army view took into considerations
the differences between a large river crossing and open Sea.

The Convoy's of Barges would have trouble making 4 knots through the
water. Water that in places can be moving up to 6 knots over the
ground. The presence of minefields and sandbanks means that anything
with more draft than a rowing boat can't cross the channel at right
angles and the need to steer into the tides means the water distance is
greater still. Basically the minimum time has got to be at least one
tide cycle. Also at what state of tide do you want to arrive ? High or
Low water ? - the barges can't cope with significant cross tide effects
while landing. (Powered landing craft and DD tanks had problems in
Normandy!).