Air supply of Stalingrad encirclement vs air supply of potential Operation Sealion..

[M. Bates]

.. invasion.

What were the comparative distances? How far away from the Stalingrad pocket were the airstrips?

TIA, just general layman info wanted.

[John Kettler]

M. Bates,

Here's a very good analysis of the Stalingrad airlift and why it failed so miserably, despite the earlier success in resupplying the Demyansk pocket.

http://www.joelhayward.org/stalingradairlift.htm

Here's a map showing the disposition of the Luftwaffe bases in France and the distance to various English targets.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://history.sandiego.edu/cdr2/WW2Pics2/81930bg.JPG&imgrefurl=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/Prelude13.html&usg=__mgJLDbZwXqID4QdxDpkfia2daj4=&h=760&w=964&sz=364&hl=en&start=6&um=1&tbnid=4sgJG7OZ-dyglM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=148&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbattle%2Bof%2Bbritain%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Don't forget to count thrice the distance flown within range of Chain Home.

[Stalins Organ]

And what airstrips woudl be used in the UK?

Fighter Command's coastal ones were not much more than paddocks used for emergency landings. Tangmere and a couple of satellites would have been suitable, but they weer way down by Portsmouth, which wasn't a target for the initial invasion.

Dunno where bomber & coastal command ones were located.

and how many Ju-52's were available? None of the LuftFlottes used in BoB had any in their OOB's but they were around somewhere in transport and training units.....

[Affentitten]

But you don't need high grade pavement to land a Ju-52 on. I guess it depends on the speed of the initial advance. Biggin Hill was a pretty decent facility and certainly proximate to the invasion area.

Of course, if you've bombed the crap out of all these airfields as a precursor to gaining air superiority.....

[Stalins Organ]

You need a decent field to take the weight of the loaded a/c when it lands or the tyres will sink into the earth and the plane will flip over - it doesnt' have to be tarmac, but it does have to be properly prepared.

Hence they didn't operate to and from any old flattened field at Stalingrad either.

Biggen hill was (and still is....) a couple of dozen miles inland - it's currently within the boundaries of greater London, as is the nearby Kenley - there were no major FC airfields in SE England.

I don't know what the timetable for advancing after Sealion was, but if they were relying upon Ju52's for resup, and they had to captuer suitable airfirelds to operate them from then it would seem a pretty dodgy proposition.

[gunnergoz]

Best initial use of air transports would have been to airdrop ammo and essentials to the ground forces and then, once an airfield was captured and repaired, landings could be done there carrying supplies in and wounded out.

All this happily assumes the RAF was down for the count, though, doesn't it?

[JonS]

Best initial use of air transports would have been to airdrop ammo and essentials to the ground forces and then, once an airfield was captured and repaired, landings could be done there carrying supplies in and wounded out.

uh, yeah. What else are you gonna do with transport a/c in an air transport role?

All this happily assumes the RAF was down for the count, though, doesn't it?

Yup. There are some rather amusing threads over at the Axis History Forum (in the "What If" subsection) that look at different ways SEALION could have been pulled off. Everything from subs running a supply shuttle service to GAF a/c dropping supply 'torpedos' into the surf to be recovered at low tide. Hilarious stuff, but in the middle of it all there is a lot of really good info explaining why the various Rube Goldberg schemes wouldn't work.

For example:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=112414&hilit=+sealion

[Michael Emrys]

What else are you gonna do with transport a/c in an air transport role?

Fly in great-looking babes for the entertainment of the troops?

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

You could use training aircraft in a transport role for that.

[Stalins Organ]

A map of the Stalingrad Airlift is available here - the distances are quite a bit further than the shortest distances from France to England, but comparable to those from the Netherlands, Western German & Brest

[ironbar]

Resupply airdrops are notoriously ineffecient, (pre GPS days that is). First sacrifice between 7 and 10 percent of capacity just for the airdop equipment (parachutes, webbing, containers and what not), not too bad for one sortie, but it becomes pretty painful for 100, 200 sorties.

While it's true that you save fuel and flight time in airdrop operations (after all no landing or take off at the downrange location, just one maybe two passes over the DZ) the number of man hours involved in prepping the airdrop loads will eat up any savings.

If the operation is aimed at one big, central DZ, then perhaps the off DZ numbers might not be too painful, they should actually improve each day (as the crews actually find the right DZ and drop on to it). Of course if the ground logisticians desire seperate DZ's for different units, then the off DZ drop rate will skyrocket. Any open field will look like the DZ, and any odd group of cows/sheep will resemble the DZ party exactly.

Just thinking of Luftwaffe airdrop operations, they had a pretty wide CEP, much like the Allies actually.

[Affentitten]

Yeah I keep thinking of Arnhem and that was in late 1944 when a lot of the kinks in airborne ops had been ironed out.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Oh man, the Axis history thread is funny.

The faith the main proponent of Seelion has in the powers of the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine is astounding.

They all seem to be forgetting the Brits were reading along with ULTRA. The Brits frequently used ULTRA to gank (yes, gank) Axis shipping, so I deem the chance the channel flotillas wouldn't get in amongst the initial wave of ships near nil.

How the guy assumes the JU-5s could go over near unescorted is laughable. The Dutch, of all people, accounted for 250 JU-52s in 5 days! Against a fully informed fighter command (again, at this time RAF was already using ULTRA to redploy it's strength as needed) they'd be torn to pieces. Heck, I wouldn't give them much of a chance with half the fighter strength of the Luftwaffe keeping an eye on them.

Nor do I believe the main proponents ease at which the Germans could land and maintain any decent sized tank force. A tank force I deem essential for the Germans to make any headway. And once they'd get bogged down, the game would be up. The Germans, if they were really, really lucky and über, might have gotten away with a swift landgrab. Supplying a long, gruelling ground campaign in Britain? Not a chance even if their air and naval transport capacity wouldn't have been decimated.

Churchill commented that Sealion would've been the best thing that could've happened to the Brits. I reckon he wasn't wrong on that. The best the Germans could've hoped for is hurting the RN badly enough to give the U-boats better odds in the battle for the Atlantic.

[Stalins Organ]

The losss of 250,000 men in England would have had massive political repercussions to - the Balkans might not have joined the Axis for example, Italy might not have been quite so eager to invade Greece.

Lots of "might have been"s to ponder!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

After a Seelion debacle, Vichy might need to start counting how many overseas territories they have.

[Michael Emrys]

The faith the main proponent of Seelion has in the powers of the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine is astounding.

Yeah, we do get those and a lot of them seem to home in on the What-If section of the Forum. They are a tiresome pain in the butt who never seem to consider how unoriginal they really are. The only upside is that sometimes the rebuttal turns up some interesting information.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

...Italy might not have been quite so eager to invade Greece.

I don't see that. Italy would probably have gone ahead anyway since Mussolini was dancing to his own tune...or at least thought he was.

Michael

[Bugged]

...Mussolini was dancing to his own tune...or at least thought he was.

Michael

Which tune was that? All Out of Love, Making Love Out of Nothing At All, Lost in Love, The One That You Love...?

Air Supply of Australia...

[Stalins Organ]

I don't see that. Italy would probably have gone ahead anyway since Mussolini was dancing to his own tune...or at least thought he was.

Maybe - but with a solid check to Germany, and Britain "triumphant" in Sealion leading to the complete destruction of the Kriegsmarine at the time there's room for a considerable boost to RN forces in "Mare Nostrum" and a perception that the UK would stand with Greece.

It is a possibility - nothing more.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I'd think it would make an attack on Greece more likely. Even with their on paper impressive navy they'd know it might not be a smart move to commit to a campaign in North Africa in the face of a RN looking for new things to do. They'd be too vulnerable supplying. Remember, the Italian staff never was keen on the Egyptian adventure in the first place.

But with a sizeable army and air force, a quick smash and grab in Greece would seem well within their means. Much more convenient and supply lines less vulnerable (on paper) to the RN.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

btw

Don't over-estimate the RN being freed up. Some captial ships maybe. But the destroyers would be mostly added to convoy duty. And Britain would still need guarding against a second attempt.

The DDs being freed up for convoy duty might actually be a bad thing. Propping up Britain with rifles and crappy old DDs was what set the US on the road to Lend-Lease and war with Germany. With Britain out of hot water early, what would Roosevelt do? He barely managed to do what he did.

[Stalins Organ]

There would have ben no 2nd attempt - Sealion was goign to use somethign like 10% of all of Europes barges, and 50% of it's (remaining) coastal shipping, plus all of the Kriegsmarine - about 25 or so (IIRC) Destroyers and Torpedo boats (the small destroyer type - not MTB types such as E-boats and S-boats), a handful of cruisers - likely most of that would have been lost.

plus all it's training U-boats were going to be diverted into operational service - again probably with heavy losses and commensurate loss of training abillity, prestige, etc.

At this stage of the war heavy units diverted to eth Med would have been the "headline" measure of force.

The Destroyers had already been signed for on Sept 2, so that was a done deal.

IMO a likely scenario is that an invasion attempt, even if defeated, would have alarmed the USA even more - they weer in no position to know the true ability of the Reich to launch another one, and an initial defeat might be seen as a prelude to a better organised attempt.

You are correct that Mussolini may have seen it differently of course - anything is possible - but I think a more likely scenario for him proceeding would be "let's show that German whippersnapper that we can do better than him"......