Operation Lucid ships reach their targets

PMN1

Operation Lucid was a British plan to use fire ships to attack invasion barges that were gathering in ports on the northern coast of France in preparation for a German invasion of Britain in 1940. The attack was initiated several times in September and October that year but unreliable ships and unfavourable weather caused the plan to be aborted on each occasion.

Operation Lucid - Wikipedia

If the ships had reached their targets, could the attack have been useful?
 

Monk78

PMN1 said:
Operation Lucid was a British plan to use fire ships to attack invasion barges that were gathering in ports on the northern coast of France in preparation for a German invasion of Britain in 1940. The attack was initiated several times in September and October that year but unreliable ships and unfavourable weather caused the plan to be aborted on each occasion.

Operation Lucid - Wikipedia

If the ships had reached their targets, could the attack have been useful?
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It was the only hope British had , otherwise as we all know the overwhelming might of Kriegsmarine and hordes of Stukas would have crushed the few RN warships that remained by 1940.

serious note : who in Royal Navy was so obsessed with Byzantines to concoct such an outlandish scheme?
 
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CaptainCalvert

Burning a few dozen or a few hundred barges that are essential to the enemy economy and war effort does have some attraction, especially if the enemy has helpfully gathered them into one place.
Expending some barely seaworthy ships where you have a possibility of blocking the port entrance even if the fires don't catch sounds worth a try. Personally, I'd have thought incendiary bombing might have been a better bet, but then again they were already bombing ports etc at that time.
 
tonycat77

tonycat77

Banned
Monk78 said:
It was the only hope British had , otherwise as we all know the overwhelming might of Kriegsmarine and hordes of Stukas would have crushed the few RN warships that remained by 1940.

serious note : who in Royal Navy was so obsessed with Byzantines to concoct such an outlandish scheme?
Click to expand...
Lucid had the backing of Churchill. The idea of using fire ships against Hitler's invasion as the English had attacked the Spanish Armada in 1588 appealed to Churchill's sense of history.
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Who else...
LMAO.
Churchill was a great leader, but he should had kept out of military affairs entirely from the Gallipoli disaster.
100 Ton mole tanks, Invading germany through the baltics plan, the "soft underbelly" that took 3 years to fully defeat with the enemy using sub-standard divisions and minimal airpower, etc.
 

Look More Closely Later

Gone Fishin'
PMN1 said:
Operation Lucid was a British plan to use fire ships to attack invasion barges that were gathering in ports on the northern coast of France in preparation for a German invasion of Britain in 1940. The attack was initiated several times in September and October that year but unreliable ships and unfavourable weather caused the plan to be aborted on each occasion.

Operation Lucid - Wikipedia

If the ships had reached their targets, could the attack have been useful?
Click to expand...
Useful?
Maybe, if it looks great in propaganda reels in USA cinemas, without hampering the chance of Hitler attacking Russia.
 
Workable Goblin

Workable Goblin

Gillan1220 said:
This sounds crazy. Those fireships would have been destroyed by the KM and the Luftwaffe.
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I dunno, Operation Chariot managed to get what was basically a fireship to the St. Nazaire dry dock and blow up the entrance gates; it doesn't seem unbelievable to me that something similar could have been done here, at least to some degree.
 
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