Did Luftwaffe attack Royal Navy at all during Battle of Britain?

So I guess even in the event of an emergency such as a full scale war, some military branches still don't fully cooperate with each other due to everyone wants to have more power and more control...and hold grudge against someone who is in their way.

Do you believe if the German air craft carrier was completed, would it have been a game changer at least in that part of the ocean?

 

Luftwaffe was never succeed over Allied or Royal Navy,ie.,a few only destroyed during Dunkirk and some success only over Greek vessels,about 20-25 nos,where Stukas were involved.Provided Luftwaffe had less torpedoes or torpedo-bombers or other other some naval armor-piercing ordinances by that time.


Kreigsmarine had only half completed its Graf Zeppelin ('45).Later on Red Army used it for target practice.

http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/det…

A single carrier in that region cannot reverse situation strategically. Since the region had been in focus ,possibilities were high to be trapped . Royal Navy or RAF simply overwhelmed the Luftwaffe or Kreigsmarine if build earlier even. I think the number factors were there.

[ expecting better ideas or correction even.]

 

Diptangshu, at Dunkirk, air raids stopped daylight evacuation from 1 June, and more than half the destroyers were hit. Six British and three French destroyers were sunk, plus 19 damaged, and a further nine large boats sunk. In addition, over 200 of the Allied craft were sunk, with an equal number damaged. This was despite a delay until 29 May for the first heavy air raid (and I think the Luftwaffe was only operational for three days in total due to bad weather). That's a totla of 437 ships and boats damaged or sunk. More than just a few.

The record for the Battle of Crete is also not nearly as bad as you say. In fact air raids were so bad that on 23 May 1941 Admiral Cunningham, the local British fleet commander, signalled his superiors that daylight operations could no longer continue, but the Chiefs of Staff told him to continue. The ships were able to evacuate the troops because VIII Fliegerkorps was transferred to its start positions for Barbarossa before the battle finished. Here is the list of ships sunk and damaged by aircraft during that battle:


Cruisers Sunk
Gloucester: 22 May, 725 Dead
Fiji: 22 May, 5 Dead, 271 Missing, 24 Wounded
Calcutta: 1 June, 9 Dead, 108 Missing, 40 Wounded

Destroyers Sunk
Kashmir: 23 May, 82 Missing, 14 Wounded
Kelly: 23 May, 3 Dead, 127 Missing, 17 Wounded
Juno: 21 May, 12 Dead, 116 Missing, 21 Wounded
Imperial: 29 May
Hereward: 29 May, 5 Dead, 165 Missing
Greyhound: 22 May, 1 Dead, 83 Missing, 23 Wounded
Diamond: 27 April, 155 Missing,1 Wounded
Wrynek: 27 April, 108 Missing, 5 Wounded

Landing CraftSunk
A 15:26 April, 15 Dead
A 19: 25 April

Battleships Damaged
Warspite: 22 May, 19 Dead, 24 Missing, 69 Wounded
Valiant: 22 May
Barham: 26 May, 7 Dead, 6 Wounded

Carrier Damaged
Formidable: 26 May, 12 Dead, 10 Wounded

Cruisers Damaged
Orion:26 May, 1 Dead, 5 Missing, 24 Wounded
29 May, 115 Dead, 76 Wounded
Ajax:28 April, 5 Dead, 19 Wounded
28 May, 6 Dead, 19 Wounded
Perth (RAN): 24 May
29 May, 4 Dead, 3 Wounded
Dido:29 May, 27 Dead, 10 Wounded
Naiad: 22 May, 7 Dead, 31 Wounded
Coventry: 17 May, 2 Dead, 7 Wounded
Carlisle: 22 May, 14 Dead, 25 Wounded

Destroyers Damaged
Kingston: 21 May, 1 Dead, 2 Wounded
Kipling: 23 May, 5 Dead, 1 Wounded
Kelvin: 29 May, 2 Dead, 4 Wounded
Jervis: 30 May, 4 Wounded
Jaguar: 26 May, 2 Wounded
Nubian: 26 May, 15 Dead, 6 Wounded
Havock: 23 May, 15 Dead, 10 Wounded
Griffin: 24 May, 1 Wounded
Decoy: 29 May, 1 Dead, 8 Wounded

Assault Ships Damaged
Glenearn: 25 April, 4 Wounded
Glenroy: 26 May, 1 Wounded

Vash, I'm not sure but I would have expected that the Graf Zeppelin would need to be part of the fleet in 1939 to make any difference.

 

I know the thread is now some 3 years old but it's a very, very good one. You're right, for the Germans to attempt a landing in Great Britain they would have had to knock out the Royal Navy. The German navy was in no shape to do this, Norway and the drubbing they got there proved that conclusively. So what can you do then ? The Luftwaffe didn't try and "take out" the Royal Navy, co-operation between the 3 services was awful, especially the Luftwaffe (remember Goering was Hitler's right-hand man and did pretty much what he liked) so they went off and had their own war with the RAF. Even if they had done, trying to hit a moving destroyer (if they could find them) with the equipment available to them was a no starter. On top of that the Luftwaffe would have had to contend with the RAF who'd be there and waiting. In hindsight it's easy to say "that would have not been possible" but with the Royal Navy being some 10 times the size of the German navy and RNs qualitative superiority they would have sunk most of the shipping that tried to cross to GB. One of the great "what ifs" and had they attempted and suffered a defeat one can ponder what Hitlers position might have been ? Toppled by his generals ? The US coming quicker into the war, the Soviets making a grab for it. Guess we'll never know. One thing that we do know was the iron clad determination of Great Britain to fight to the finish. Chris

 

On furtheer reading I find that the Graf Zeppelin might have been ready for Sealion (though without much crew training etc) but it would have been useless in the Channel except as a target for British ships. It's main use would have been to provide reconnaissance and an air umbrella for the Scheer and/or Hipper when they sortied. Even then the lack of a balanced fleet would make it a target for British submarines and land based aircraft(though to be fair these didn't find the other German ships when they sortied) .

The main problem was the lack of co-operation from the Luftwaffe. The Nazi leadership were a bunch of thugs who had got lucky and got into power, not professional military men. Hitler's insecurity prevented him from forming an effective body that would oversee all the activities of the armed forces in a co-ordinated manner. Instead he ended up with two competing bodies - OKW and OKH - though they were supposed to have different responsibilities. There was never a regular meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff as happened in the US and Britain. Thus Goering never attended a Sealion conference where Sealion was discussed with the heads of the other armed services (I think there was one or two but Hitler ranted about other things e.g. Russia instead). Until the bombing of London proved fruitless, though, the other service chiefs supported the effort to bomb the British into submission, as all previous attempts had succeeded (Rotterdam, Warsaw, Guernica etc) and it was the current theory of the time that it would succeed. Goering didn't order the Luftwaffe to support Sealion until 29 September 1940.

Anyway Goering hated the Kriegsmarine and Raeder, and wanted all aircraft to be under his command. He progressively removed all the aircraft that had been allocated to the navy and trained in air-sea operations, leaving only the aircraft on ship catapaults (though those aircraft went back to the Luftwaffe and were available to attack ships for Sealion). He refused to help the navy develop the aircraft they needed for the aircraft carrier and to help with training the air crews. This caused many delays as the ship had to be designed to fit the aircraft.

Destroyers were hit many times by aircraft during WW2, and the Luftwaffe did sink or damage British destroyers prior to September 1940. The destroyers didn't have to be moving to be hit - such as the ones off Dunkirk or the ones in Dover harbour. In fact, air attacks forced the British to abandon Dover as a naval base and move the destroyers to Southampton/Portsmouth and to the Nore command. So a systematic attack on the naval bases might have achieved something but everything that was being done by the Luftwaffe against Britain was new and they did not have a coherent strategy or plan for defeating Britian, or a leadership that was able to develop such a strategy (at least until August). Even the Channel Battles happened by default, because the local Luftwaffe leaders thought sitting around and not attacking Britain was stupid. The Luftwaffe kept attacking in penny packets all over the place -the mass raids on London were its first real attempt to systematically attack a specific target with as much force as possible.

 

Wow, what a conversation! I love it. With the original question being answered my only input that I can provide would be on Sealion. I think with a few tweeks to the plan here and there it could have been a much larger threat to Britain. I agree that the Germans would have to learn to agree to disagree at some point to move forward. It is almost impossible to please everyone when planning of this size is considered.

 

The fact of the matter was that the German Navy and to a lesser extent the Luftwaffe wasn't up to the job. On top of that come September, the only realistic month to cross, the British could field 26 divisions, fighting to defend their homeland. Even if the Luftwaffe had concentrated it's efforts on the Royal navy, it still wouldn't have gotten the results needed. One of the world's great "ifs".