What if Germany pulled a Pearl Harbor on the U.K.?

[Miragu]

I was just reading around in https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...eat-british-navy-with-planes-and-subs.915694/ and just remembered something that crossed my head about a week ago that I could never Google an answer for since it'd just ping me back to USA v. Japan.

Everyone knows the Royal Navy and its battleships kept Hitler from easily mounting any operation involving naval transport.

But what if Germany, in the opening years of WW2, before the Battle of Britain or even Poland, decided to break Allied naval superiority at the start with a surprise, coordinated attack on the British fleet with the Luftwaffe? Assuming they achieve similar results as Japan did, could this have affected things a whole lot?

Of course, this plan assumes a lot of things:
1. That the British fleet just happened to pull a Pearl Harbor as well, amassing their ships in a single port. I don't know much about the RN so, where could have this happened, if ever? How were British AA, especially around ships during 1939?

2. That the Luftwaffe was properly trained and geared for a port strike in 1939. I know they were at least ready for a good hit against Britain in 1940, which is quite early enough. They didn't have a carrier-centric navy ofc, but I'm assuming even with their doctrine being centered on subs they'd think about attacking British ships at port, no?

3. Would it have even mattered though? Battleships aren't the traditional counter to German subs, and I don't see them doing any more than go down to the Mediterranean later in the war to mess the Axis up in Italy and North Africa.

4. It could've mattered. Could the RN have repaired the ships in a timely manner like the U.S. did for its Pearl Harbor fleet?

Any other thoughts? Write them below

 

[Sanny]

And forget about France?

 

[Damiani]

Assuming the RN was docked in Scapa Flow I don't think the Luftwaffe would even have the range to complete the mission. Plus there is so much more to an amphibious invasion that just battleships. A successful Sealion invasion would require probably about the same amount of effort that was put into Operation Neptune. Given the pitiful size of the Kriegsmarine and the much weaker German industry (compared to Anglo-American industry) I think that Sealion was thoroughly an impossible operation from the get go. So no, a surprise attack on the RN probably wouldn't result in the fall of the British Isles, although it may have given the Germans better mobility for a few months.

 

[Veer]

The British were aware of this possibility so kept their fleet well out of range of the Luftwaffe, in Northern Scotland. Since the Germans didn't have carriers there was no way for the Luftwaffe to strike the main British bases.

The only danger were submarines, and the Germans did have some success sinking British capital ships in that regard. But again, early in the war the Germans had too few submarines to make a difference.

 

[ringhloth]

It wouldn't have made a difference, unless Germany was able to cripple 6 battleships, 5 aircraft carriers, 50 cruisers, and maybe 150 destroyers. Then it might have been able to achieve force parity.

 

[egslim]

But what if Germany, in the opening years of WW2, before the Battle of Britain or even Poland, decided to break Allied naval superiority at the start with a surprise, coordinated attack on the British fleet with the Luftwaffe? Assuming they achieve similar results as Japan did, could this have affected things a whole lot?

Of course, this plan assumes a lot of things:
1. That the British fleet just happened to pull a Pearl Harbor as well, amassing their ships in a single port. I don't know much about the RN so, where could have this happened, if ever? How were British AA, especially around ships during 1939?

2. That the Luftwaffe was properly trained and geared for a port strike in 1939. I know they were at least ready for a good hit against Britain in 1940, which is quite early enough. They didn't have a carrier-centric navy ofc, but I'm assuming even with their doctrine being centered on subs they'd think about attacking British ships at port, no?

Pre-war the RN was spread around the country's many naval bases. After mobilization the RN concentrated at Scapa Flow.
So in the first scenario the Luftwaffe wouldn't know where to find the RN, in the second the RN is out of range.

In 1940 the Luftwaffe was unable to prevent the evacuation at Dunkirk, so it's hard to argue they were effective against British ships.

 

[sunsterson]

impossible to do while france still stood.

 

[rossBurglar]

Impossible to do full stop.

 

[Trentos]

If the British had not taken evasive action due to rising tension in Europe and decided to dock most of their warships at Scapa Flow they were indeed somewhat vulnerable to attack like that of Pearl Harbour. Scapa Flows air and costal defences from world war 1 had aged and fallen into disrepair by 1939, so much of the defence given the theoretical air attack would have primarily come from the the warships themselves.

For those who say Scapa Flow was out of range for the Luftwaffe you are unfortunately mistaken. On the 17th of October 1939 ships based at Scapa Flow were bombed by a small number of Junker Ju 88's which badly damaged HMS Iron Duke thus proving the Luftwaffe's ability to strike at that range. This bombing which was one of the first bombings of British assets of the war caused Churchill to build more anti-aircraft defences in various points across the area.

As radar capabilities of the British were still developing and the fantastic Hurricane and Spitfire were not yet widely available for air defence, the Junker 88's may not have had a problem reaching Scapa Flow if undetected across the North Seas. Assuming they would have flown throughout the night for the cover of darkness to reach Scapa Flow by early morning, there may have been a real chance they could have caused the element of surprise like the Japanese achieved at Pearl Harbour.

At the time the Junker Ju 88 was faster than most late 1930's fighters and certainly one of the best military aircrafts at the time. Exceptional range, speed and armaments were a significant advantage. Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe the airframe on the 88 was not strong enough for the pin-point dive-bombing (like the 87) which proved to be most effective against shipping through the war, which for me would have remained the question on bomb accuracy during the attack.

Now all this said, by September 1939 Germany had only 12 Junker 88's in service and they were producing them at a terrible rate of only 1 per month. This means that had they attacked Scapa Flow it would have not cause any serious and long lasting damage to the RN. The German's would not be able to use their other bomber the Dornier Do 17 as it did not have suitable range, even if flown from the geographically closest major Luftwaffe airfield of Nordholz on the German coast.

Had Germany adequately prepared for this raid and released sufficient industrial resources to produce significantly more Junker 88's, I can see no reason to why this couldn't have had a larger impact on the BN than some would expect. With decent intel from German spies about ship locations I expect that a fair bit of damage could be dealt on many main capital ships sitting at port. To supplement the attack U-boats sitting further out at sea could come in (due to poor submarine defences and obstacles at Scapa entrances) and clean up any fleeing or crippled ships.

Possible but not probable.

 

[Wimpola]

I think a German sub (I just remember watching a documentary on TV like a year ago on it) got through the nets at Scapa Flow and destroyed some British Vessels.

 

[Wimpola]

It was against the HMS Royal Oak. I don't know if that counts but pretty sneaky .

 

[Wyrm]

I think an operation involving a large amount of mine-laying U-boats would have been more realistic to achieve than any aerial operations. Laying belts of mines outside Scapa Flow and other RN bases could have temporarily kept a lot of warships from departing, creating a window of opportunity to perform whatever operation you need to pull off with minimal RN-involvment

But still, it would not be enough for an invasion.

 

[Veer]

From this site:

http://ww2db.com/facility/Scapa_Flow/

14 Oct 1939 German submarine U-47 penetrated defenses and entered Scapa Flow in Scotland, United Kingdom and sank British battleship HMS Royal Oak, killing 833 out of a crew of 1,257.
17 Oct 1939 German aircraft attacked the British naval base at Scapa Flow, Scotland, United Kingdom, damaging the training ship HMS Iron Duke.
16 Mar 1940 32 German Ju 88 dive bombers bombed the Royal Navy Home Fleet base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. HMS Norfolk was hit with one bomb, blowing a hole below the water line and killing 6. James Isbister became the first British civilian to be killed by a German bomb when his house in the nearby village of Bridge of Waithe.
17 Mar 1940 In the wake of a German raid on Scapa Flow, the British Admiralty admitted that the Home Fleet base was vulnerable to air attacks. The fleet was ordered to depart Scapa Flow between 19 and 26 Mar. In anticipation of this move, German submarines U-57, U-19, U-21, and U-22 began to move toward Scapa Flow in an attempt to attack the departing warships.

And then from this site:

http://www.scapaflow.co/index.php/history_and_archaeology/the_20th_century/war/battle_of_orkney

With radar now operational to provide early warning, agile front-line fighter aircraft on standby to intercept and increased anti-aircraft protection over Scapa Flow, the Luftwaffe began to suffer increasing losses with every raid. The raids peaked between 8 and 10 April 1940 when a succession of attacks were launched. These raids were aimed at neutralising the Home Fleet’s capacity to intervene in Germany’s invasion of Norway.

Owing to the increased defences around Scapa Flow the attacks made little impact on the British Forces and considerable losses were inflicted on the Luftwaffe. The air raids on 10 April 1940 marked an end to the German offensive on the Home Fleet at anchor in Scapa Flow as losses were considered far too great to justify further large formation operations over such a well defended base.

 

[Harada.Taro]

For sure sur a raid would be without great effect, Luftwaffe had nearly no training in naval bombing/torpedoing,and even with a good result it would not have set UK out of war. The only way it would have ruled UK out of war would have been to not follow the june 20 'stop order' in France, Panzer division would have captured an unoccupied Dunkerque, closing the net around the british and french army it would have made all the british army as POW and 400K more french POW.... For sure Churchill cabinet would have fallen and the following governent would have plaid for an armistice with Germany.
But a simple raid on Scapa Flow even with all the luftwaffe would have had really little if not no effect at all on war.

 

[Rubidium]

Yeah, the German performance against naval targets throughout the war doesn't lend much confidence to this (and remember, they will probably be using dive bombers, so even less so). But even if they somehow achieve as great success as the Japanese did against Pearl Harbor (sink 4 battleships and put 4 more out of service for a few months), the UK has plenty of more ships (and the RAF is still in business; a successful strike on an allied naval base will probably make the Kriegsmarine more hesitant about exposing its own capital ships). So the British are still capable of defending their moat.

 

[Loke]

This attack by the British more than a year before Pearl Harbour, now you know where the Japanese got the idea from.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto

 

[potski]

If it was easy then the RAF would have done it against the Kriegsmarine surely? They had far more capability of long-range bombing, and Germany wasn't protected by anything like Chain Home that could give advance warning of incoming bombers.

The raid on 16 Mar 1940 quoted above there was 32 dive bombers. The 17 Oct 1939 raid quoted doesn't give a figure, but was in fact only 4 planes. One was shot down by ground based AA fire.

The Japanese sank the Prince of Wales and Renown with more than 100 dive bombers and torpedo bombers. IIRC the mix of planes was important because the torpedoes forced the ships to turn and steer a straight course between them, and while they did that they were vulnerable to dive bombers. At Pearl Harbour, the carrier task force had more than 400 planes (360 in the attack on the naval base and nearby air base, plus 48 as the CAP to protect the carriers). And they were able to make two strike runs. So we are talking of the order of 20 times more attacks on Pearl than the largest raid the Germans were capable of. Plus they didn't have strategic surprise - UK was already at war with Germany. Nor, after the first raid by 4 planes, tactical surprise.

I don't know the figures, but I'd also imagine that the Japanese planes and pilots were much more capable in 1941 than the German ones in 1939. The IJN had been carrying out missions against China for four years.

 

[Axe99]

It's an interesting theory, but not unlike the 'build lots of subs' play by Germany, a Germany that builds lots of long range bombers and does lots of exercises practising using them against ships is pretty much broadcasting who it's going to be having a go at, which may make the raid a fair bit harder. That said, if they could find some way of developing long range dive bombers (or a carrier to deliver them) and do it without setting off the UK (a big if, and if they get the UK re-arming earlier then that's bad news for the Axis), then they might have a chance. That said, as others have said, they'd need to be far more successful than Japan was at Pearl Harbour to sink enough capital ships to be a threat to the home Isles, and depending on when the raid was, would miss significant parts of the fleet based elsewhere.

I'd say it'd have to be torpedo and (proper, not Ju 88) dive bombers to have a decent impact as well, which means it almost has to be either carrier-based or launched from Norway or Iceland.

Just my 2 cents, of course. An interesting what-if .