WI: Luftwaffe focused on Liverpool docks

[Garrison]

A basic problem with this idea is that the whole point of the Luftwaffe campaign over Britain in the summer of 1940 was to destroy the RAF and clear the way for an invasion. Bombing Liverpool by night does nothing to advance that plan and given the issues with navigation and the limited bomb loads it doesn't seem like a sound use of the Luftwaffe bomber forces regardless.

 

[sparky42]

I don't know UK that well but in my head maybe across from Belfast is a place to build a port and rail??

I took the ferry over that route only a couple of weeks ago, and imo there’s no way Cairnryan could be made to offset any major port. There would have been only a single track railway and a single carriageway out of the area then with nothing like the needed population locally for a major port.

 

[Ramp-Rat]

Minor point. Last time I looked at a map. Liverpool was in Europe. The United Kingdom and its Home Nations are in Europe. I don’t particularly desagree with the rest of your argument and I don't want to broke the rule about modern politics out of Chat so I shall stop here.


Edited to add that I was probably reading too much in a minor mistake. Sorry for that.

Sir I assume that you have never heard of the famous headline in a British newspaper, Fog in Channel, Europe cut off.

RR.

 

[James Ricker]

Liverpool was beyond fighter escort range. Also damaged bombers that would make it home from London might not make it home from Liverpool.

 

[Ramontxo]

Sir I assume that you have never heard of the famous headline in a British newspaper, Fog in Channel, Europe cut off.

RR.

So very true..

 

[raharris1973]

Edited to add that I was probably reading too much in a minor mistake.

ya think?

 

[raharris1973]

A basic problem with this idea is that the whole point of the Luftwaffe campaign over Britain in the summer of 1940 was to destroy the RAF and clear the way for an invasion. Bombing Liverpool by night does nothing to advance that plan and given the issues with navigation and the limited bomb loads it doesn't seem like a sound use of the Luftwaffe bomber forces regardless.

Relax and toss out the invasion objective then. To this day we still don't know how seriously the Germans took it, or for how long, if they ever did. And if we know anything on this board, we know invading wasn't going to work. So invasion and its prerequisites can easily be made into a non-issue for purposes of this discussion.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Why this particular geographic distribution of air and undersea attack assets?

Are the submarine ROE in terms of how far into the Atlantic and any other seas submarines are authorized to launch unwarned attacks on neutral ships going to be exact same as OTL in this period, tighter, or looser?

The German bombers of 1940 did not enough range to cover the Northern Approaches. He111 with auxiliary tanks were about it. So concentrating submarines there makes for some effciency. Keep one or two on station off the Western Approaches just to keep the RN guessing.

In 1940 the submarines were mostly patrolling close in. Coastal Command was not able to drive them out into the Atlantic until late in the year.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Back on topic, attacking Liverpool more intensely and attacking London less intensely [1] would indeed be very disruptive, and while there are other west coast ports available the increased rail demand will cause problem in distribution.
But while this is a real burden, reduced attack of London and its rail, industry, ports and business will be a useful benefit.

The railways system is important here. Many of the assumed alternate ports were oriented towards local use, the rail service could not support through traffic at the scale of London or Liverpool.

But I am looking at more than just damage to the docks. The inclusion of submarines, mines, and air attacks on ships also reduces overall capacity. Britan was headed for a global war & was vulnerable in terms of needs vs capacity & vulnerable in construction capacity vs potential losses. All this may not force Britain into negotiating a peace, but it may substantially reduce its ability to wage war in Africa and the Middle East for the winter of 1940-41.

 

[Somedevil]

I took the ferry over that route only a couple of weeks ago, and imo there’s no way Cairnryan could be made to offset any major port. There would have been only a single track railway and a single carriageway out of the area then with nothing like the needed population locally for a major port.

Okay I've only been to any part of the UK once and it was London and area plus Stonehenge and Cambridge. Was just thinking of alternatives.

 

[Gudestein]

A basic problem with this idea is that the whole point of the Luftwaffe campaign over Britain in the summer of 1940 was to destroy the RAF and clear the way for an invasion. Bombing Liverpool by night does nothing to advance that plan and given the issues with navigation and the limited bomb loads it doesn't seem like a sound use of the Luftwaffe bomber forces regardless.

You are absolutely right. Bombing Liverpool is not a strategic goal. Throwing Luftwaffe fully into the trade war to starve Britain out is. This might include Liverpool bombings and a whole lot of other things, which might be just as interesting.

 

[fastmongrel]

I took the ferry over that route only a couple of weeks ago, and imo there’s no way Cairnryan could be made to offset any major port. There would have been only a single track railway and a single carriageway out of the area then with nothing like the needed population locally for a major port.

Looking at the 1948 British rail map there were 2 double tracked main lines from the area one going north to Glasgow (still in use) and one (now disused) going east to the West coast mainline near Carlisle.

I agree about the lack of local population to work the docks but it was a government operation so I presume conscription would have sorted that.

I doubt that it could have completely replaced one of the major west coast ports but would have been used to temporarily cover a heavily damaged one.

 

[PMN1]

Info on the Cainryan military port

Cairnryan Military Port | Solway Military Trail

During World War 2, the country needed a ‘spare’ deep water port on the west coast and thus Cairnryan Military Port was built at Loch Ryan.

www.solwaymilitarytrail.co.uk

Cairnryan Harbour - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

OTL a number of Inland Sorting Depots were built to handle goods where existing port warehouses had been wrecked, IIRC they are mentioned in one of the Hyperwar article.

 

[raharris1973]

You are absolutely right. Bombing Liverpool is not a strategic goal. Throwing Luftwaffe fully into the trade war to starve Britain out is. This might include Liverpool bombings and a whole lot of other things, which might be just as interesting.

Yes - this is the alternative strategic objective to invasion or posing an invasion threat.

And I want to hear more responses to Carl's ideas about Luftwaffe use in minelaying around British ports, what that does to cargo operations, and Britain's mine-clearing capacity.

 

[sparky42]

Info on the Cainryan military port

Cairnryan Military Port | Solway Military Trail

During World War 2, the country needed a ‘spare’ deep water port on the west coast and thus Cairnryan Military Port was built at Loch Ryan.

www.solwaymilitarytrail.co.uk

Cairnryan Harbour - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

OTL a number of Inland Sorting Depots were built to handle goods where existing port warehouses had been wrecked, IIRC they are mentioned in one of the Hyperwar article.

So that's what that pier is, I was chatting with the family as we passed it, never thought it was WW2 related.

 

[thaddeus]

The railways system is important here. Many of the assumed alternate ports were oriented towards local use, the rail service could not support through traffic at the scale of London or Liverpool.

But I am looking at more than just damage to the docks. The inclusion of submarines, mines, and air attacks on ships also reduces overall capacity. Britan was headed for a global war & was vulnerable in terms of needs vs capacity & vulnerable in construction capacity vs potential losses. All this may not force Britain into negotiating a peace, but it may substantially reduce its ability to wage war in Africa and the Middle East for the winter of 1940-41.

the information on the Hyperwar site (which for some reason I was not able to view at the present, thus will not link to) had detailed the complex shipping system, where damaged ships were sent overseas for repair or even rebuilding.

my point being anything that delays unloading, the LW has the second (or more) chance attacking already damaged ships, which common sense would say are at greater risk of becoming a total loss(?)

the LW used a mix of different munitions, I've speculated numerous times the use of butterfly bombs could have snarled port operations (cannot find where they were used historically on Liverpool during the relavant period)

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I think bombing London less and the west coast ports more in combination with a more intensive aerial mining campaign would have been a good idea (for the Germans) but it won't be a panacea.

For the benefit of people who have been writing that it was harder to find Liverpool at night than London, the Luftwaffe was a lot better at night navigation than the RAF in 1940 & 1941 (because it had the Knickebein, X-Gerät & Y-Gerät navigation aids and a pathfinder unit in the form of Kampfgruppe 100) which is evidenced by the fact that IOTL Liverpool was the most heavily bombed area of the UK outside London.

It has also been written that losses would be higher, which is probable, but they would not have been prohibitively higher. This is because because the British night fighters and anti-aircraft guns didn't become effective until April & May 1941 when (according to the Air History Branch Narrative) 215½ enemy aircraft were claimed destroyed. This was more than half of the 419 enemy aircraft claimed destroyed by night fighters & AA guns between 01.06.40 & 31.05.41. However, the 419 aircraft destroyed between 01.06.40 & 31.05.41 represented only 1.02% of the Luftwaffe's sorties against land targets. Furthermore, the 88 aircraft claimed destroyed in April 1941 were only 1.07% of the 4,535 enemy sorties against land targets & the 127½ claimed destroyed in May 1941 were a more respectable 3.14% of the 4,055 enemy sorties against land targets.

The Luftwaffe did conduct an aerial mining campaign against Britain IOTL, which was conducted by a special, which was formed on 01.02.40 as 9. Flieger-Division and was redesignated IX. Fliegerkorps in November 1940. Its commander from its formation until 29.12.42 was Joachim Coeler who IIRC was a Reischsmarine officer who transferred to the Luftwaffe in its early days.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

I mean the big issue I see is that you are going into the Battle of Britain with an even more vague goal and under even tougher conditions. You are flying farther which means less damaged bombers/fighters get back, lesser bomb load AND more time for the RAF to ping you on your return. This is even worse for mining operations in the Irish Sea, because they are (generally) even farther west and north.

Second, the goal of 'bombing the harbor' is a really vague one. How do you know when you are done? Or even know if you are doing a good job? Photo recon is primitive and haphazard at best, while German spy networks are basically useless. The best news will come out of the media but that will be on wartime lockdown.

It's really a tough mission for the German air force to proceed with.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Liverpool Blitz - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[PMN1]

the information on the Hyperwar site (which for some reason I was not able to view at the present, thus will not link to) had detailed the complex shipping system, where damaged ships were sent overseas for repair or even rebuilding.

my point being anything that delays unloading, the LW has the second (or more) chance attacking already damaged ships, which common sense would say are at greater risk of becoming a total loss(?)

the LW used a mix of different munitions, I've speculated numerous times the use of butterfly bombs could have snarled port operations (cannot find where they were used historically on Liverpool during the relavant period)

This one?

HyperWar: British War Economy [Chapter X]

HyperWar: British War Economy (UK Civil Series)

History of the United Kingdom in the Second World War: British War Economy (UK Civil Series)

www.ibiblio.org