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Harry Bennett highlights German coastal forces’ failure in contesting the D-Day invasion effectively.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 10, 2024

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This video video discusses an analysis of the German motor torpedo boats (SBOs) during World War II, specifically their potential impact had they been better utilized against the Allied invasion fleet during D-Day on June 6, 1944. Initially, these boats were highly effective but began to lose their potency by 1942. The speaker reflects on historical "what ifs" and emphasizes the importance of considering alternative strategies the Germans could have adopted to disrupt the D-Day preparations.

This video video details the strategic context leading to D-Day, highlighting the limitations of German naval power in the English Channel compared to the overwhelming force of the Allied invasion fleet. The speaker posits that if the Germans had focused more on a defensive strategy, particularly in using their SBOs to attack invasion vessels, they might have posed a greater challenge to the Allies.

Key points include the insufficient number of SBOs to effectively counter the invasion and the lack of a coordinated response among German forces, which weakened their operational effectiveness. The speaker notes missed opportunities for spoiling attacks and the importance of integrating land, air, and naval forces for a comprehensive defense against the invasion.

Ultimately, the analysis suggests that although the Allies were likely to secure victory, a more unified and proactive German strategy could have significantly affected the success of the D-Day landings, particularly at critical locations like Omaha Beach. The conclusion urges a reconsideration of how we understand the dynamics of coastal warfare and the factors that contribute to the success or failure of complex military operations.

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Here are some key quotes from the video, which discuss the German motor torpedo boats (SBOs) and the strategic considerations surrounding them during World War II:

1. **Convideo of the German Motor Torpedo Boat Project:**
- "This is part of a longer convideo piece of work that I've been engaged in a project on the German motor torpedo boat of the Second World War."

2. **Effectiveness and Historical Reflection:**
- "This is a kind of amazing weapon of war in 1940... but it begins to sort of fade in its effectiveness in 1942."
- "History is about what happened, but you must also think about the what ifs, what might have happened."

3. **Strategic Opportunities:**
- "What if the German Navy had been able to play a fuller role, for example, in trying to delay and disrupt D-Day on the 6th of June, 1944?"
- "The Germans never really kind of tried to conceptualize how they would actually defeat that invasion fleet."

4. **Defensive Strategy:**
- "The Germans by 1944 are... they know the invasion's coming. So how do they begin to prepare for it?"

5. **Assessment of German Capabilities:**
- "The Germans are always gonna be up against it... it sort of rather beg[s] the question about what could have happened?"

6. **Missed Opportunities:**
- "Should we be really thinking about whether the Germans actually missed a sort of strategic opportunity?"

7. **Failure of Coordination:**
- "The preparations that are put in place are simply insufficient, and there's no sort of joined up government in terms of the way in which these different parts of the German state are gonna operate."

8. **Impact of D-Day Outcomes:**
- "If the landings on Omaha Beach had been a failure... it could have made a significant difference in terms of the way in which the invasion would have worked out."

9. **Logistics Considerations:**
- "We should actually be thinking more about Operation Neptune... maintaining that flow of logistics across the English Channel for weeks after the 6th of June."

10. **Lessons for Future Warfare:**
- "Coastal warfare... is something of a hot topic... the capacity even of a potentially weaker power to potentially affect the outcome of an operation launched by a larger coalition of powers."

These quotes capture the essence of the analysis regarding the German motor torpedo boats, their strategic implications during World War II, and the broader historical what-ifs surrounding the D-Day invasion.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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This is part of a longer context piece of work

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that I've been engaged in a project on the German motor

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torpedo boat of the Second World War, the Chanel boot,

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or the sbo, as we could call it for short.

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Um, and this is a kind of amazing weapon of war in 1940,

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the British, you've got sort of no answer to it,

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but it begins to sort of fade in its effectiveness in 1942.

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Uh, and by 1943, they're beginning to go over

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to something which is rather more defensive in terms

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of their strategic orientation.

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And as I began to look at this, it began

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to make me wonder about the kind of what ifs of history.

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Obviously history is about what happened,

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but you must also think about the what ifs,

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what might have happened.

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What if the German Navy had been able to play a fuller role,

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for example, in trying to delay

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and disrupt D-Day on the 6th of June, 1944?

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What would that actually have meant?

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Because these German motor torpedo boats,

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they're almost, they're one of the few weapons

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that Germany has got

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to deploy in the English channel against the invasion fleet.

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The, narrow shallow waters

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of the English channel really aren't much good

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for submarine operations.

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You really want the Atlantic depths,

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which can really hide a submarine,

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but these small, very powerful, very quick

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and heavily armed, motor torpedo boats.

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They're really rather good as a potential weapon to get in

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amongst an invasion fleet firing, torpedoes the same

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as the German submarine, the type seven C, which are capable

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of sinking a battleship.

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So what it,

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what would've happened if the Germans had have gone over

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to a more defensive strategy?

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And it seems to me that where is we, would we,

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we could never work out precisely what would've happened.

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I do think there are one or two questions that would've come

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to come to light if the Germans had begun to consider that,

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because essentially the Germans by 1944 are, you know,

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they know the invasion's coming.

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So how do they begin to prepare for it?

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What's the right way to go?

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And really, as early as, mid 1943,

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they'd settled on a strategy

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where they were gonna build a lot more of these German SBOs,

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the 1943 building program called

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for turning out over 70 of these SBOs.

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It's never gonna be enough in terms of

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what the allies are turning out.

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Whereas the Germans are turning out very, very high quality,

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motor torpedo boats for the allies.

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It's largely about mass.

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And whereas the Germans are gonna be able to put,

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potentially bring six flotillas of SBOs three

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to five operational SBOs per flotilla along the English

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channel, the allies are gonna be sailing over 6,000 vessels

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as part of the invasion fleet. So

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The Germans are always gonna be up against it.

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But to me it's sort of rather beg the kind of question about

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what, what could have happened?

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How much, how should we have thought of this?

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And even though we can't determine what would've happened,

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should we be really thinking about whether the Germans

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actually missed a sort of strategic opportunity to,

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in effect move from a position where they're trying

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to take the fight to the allies in the Atlantic

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with the submarine,

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and much more towards trying to think, well,

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how do we disrupt the invasion fleet?

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How do we begin to target that?

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So I think there are a number of interesting questions

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here in terms of the kind of key elements.

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In terms of the key elements.

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Uh, really the Germans have got this decision to make,

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how are they going to try and delay the invasion fleet?

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How are they gonna try and postpone it?

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How are they gonna try and defeat it at the water's edge?

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And it struck me that the Germans never really kind of tried

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to conceptualize how they would actually defeat

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that invasion fleet.

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There's almost a kind of mo a sense of fatality,

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you know, it's gonna get here.

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And we we're not gonna do terribly well with this

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because, as it were, you know,

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the one thing the Germans can actually begin

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to think about here is how can we mount spoiling attacks

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against the allies as they're beginning to

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build up in the invasion ports?

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What can we do to disrupt them there?

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You know, densely packed shipping stores are plenty,

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which can be attacked.

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We can use aircraft and we can use, we can use ships.

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And there is some evidence to suggest

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that the Germans were trying to do some of that.

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So we do, for example, have bombing raids

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on places like Plymouth and Portsmouth,

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but they're not effective and they're not repeated.

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There's no sort of sense of, you know, we we're trying

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to deal a knockout blow.

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We've also got some evidence of the way in which the German

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Navy was actually trying to, you know,

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carry out reconnaissance, try

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and disrupt the invasion preparations most famously

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with the attack of German SBOs.

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On the exercise con exercise Tiger Convoy at the end

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of April, 1940, four, which

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resulted in the sinking of two American tank landing ships

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and bad severe damage to a third with an official death toll

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of some 749.

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So they are, they are, they are sort of tinkering,

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but it's never very systematic.

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And in a sense, that critical loss in terms of

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what happens at Exercise Tiger two ships sunk

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that 749 lives lost, gives you some indication of just

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how potent these vessels are against invasion craft.

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And of course, the preparations

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for the invasion don't necessarily need to end there,

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because obviously there's the work

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that's gonna be done on the beaches in terms of trying

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to fortify them fest on Europa.

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So we're talking bonkers, we're talking machine gun posts,

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heavy gun positions, you name it.

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And then also inside in, in land, there's the preparations

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that the German army might actually make in order

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to not just defend what might be, we might describe

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as the coastal cross,

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but also to have mobile route units in the rear areas ready

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to respond to any breakthrough, any landing.

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And the German preparations on the sea

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and in the air were really sort of undercut

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by a whole series of problems.

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And on the land, they're undercut by a further series

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of problems, including the issue of who gets to command what

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and what the fah will actually allow,

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because the Fah thinks the invasion is coming on the paddock

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le so he's much more reticent in terms of, you know,

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you've gotta get my permission

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to release certain key things.

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There's also the potential for very, very effective use

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of mind warfare here as well.

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And the Germans do actually try

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and do this to a certain extent, both in terms

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of laying a mind barrage,

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but also keeping back a new kind of mine influence.

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Mines what they call oyster mines,

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which they're not gonna deploy until

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after D-Day has taken place so that the allies are going

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to meet a, a new technology

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that's gonna give them a lot of problems.

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But this kind of idea of using land, sea,

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and air in coordination, it never actually works.

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The preparations that are put in place are simply

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insufficient, and there's no sort

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of joined up government in terms

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of the way in which these different, parts

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of the German state are gonna operate.

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So it's really a kind of big failure of planning

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to actually think about, we're gonna be hit by an invasion.

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How do we make sure that we work together

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to carry out the most effective response to that invasion?

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When it comes, it's simple.

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You just actually want to integrate,

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integrate these arms more effectively.

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So in other words, more intensive bombing

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and potential strikes by air

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and sea at the invasion craft, which you're preparing

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for D-Day, you try

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and disrupt it as much as you possibly can

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because as we, as we now know,

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and as the Germans suspected,

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the allies parameter parameters for when they can land

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and how they're going to land are actually quite narrow.

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Um, you know, the allies are working

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to a fairly tight timetable.

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They're looking at weather conditions,

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they're looking at wind conditions,

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they're looking at Tide states.

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And if these things don't actually match up,

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the landings just don't happen.

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So the more that it can disrupt,

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the more they can potentially throw out the timetable for,

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D-Day in terms of what allied planners are thinking.

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And then there's a more effective use of, of mine warfare.

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The German plan to use mines got very,

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very seriously disrupted, partly

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because they, that that they had a kind

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of setting on the mines that they deployed, which meant

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that big parts of their mine warfare preparations,

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had effectively fallen apart by May.

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And as they're preparing to lay new fields,

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there's severe damage to one or more German mine layers.

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The new mines that they've kept back to sort of, you know,

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really, really wait for the invasion.

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Herman Goring is so worried as head of the Loft Vfa,

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and he controls the mine stocks

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that he actually has them shipped back

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to Germany at a critical moment

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because he's worried that the allies might land

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and cease control of the mines,

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and he never gets to actually use them.

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So they're actually too far in the rear

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to be effectively used.

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Then there's the sheer number of SBOs.

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The problem is the Germans have got too few of them

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to actually risk them

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and really push the offensive in a way

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where they know they're gonna lose substantial numbers

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of German motor torpedo boats.

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That's a kind of given, but they might just disrupt the

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invasion quite seriously.

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And if we think about what actually happens on Omaha Beach,

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where the early waves do meet significant resistance,

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they really are up against it.

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Um, and at one point the Lambings really have stalled on

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Omaha Beach until initiatives are taken

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to actually get it restarted.

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Anything those motor torpedo boats can do

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to assist the fight of the German army on the land,

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maybe sinking troop ships, et cetera,

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targeting the invasion craft,

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it could have made a critical distance,

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a critical difference.

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And of course, the key thing is if the landings on Omaha

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Beach had been a failure, then you end up with

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four landing areas in operation

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and working, whereas it should have been five

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and one of them, Utah Beach is cut off by some distance

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from the British and Canadian landing zones at

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gold, Juno, and sword.

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And if one is cut off, then there's German mobile forces.

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As they're beginning to come up from the interior,

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they've got rather a different proposition,

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then actually meeting a united Bridgehead,

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the Germans can begin to move against, one

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or more of them separately.

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So it could have made,

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it could have made a significant dis

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a difference in terms

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of the way in which the invasion would've worked out.

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Uh, it's still, it's still likely the allies would've won,

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but the Germans could have given it more of a, more

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of a good shot if they'd have adopted more of a kind

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of uniformed, approach,

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A uniform approach where they're going

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to work all these different op operational arms together

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in to create a combined effect.

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One of the problems with D-Day is that we kind of draw

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our impression of that day from popular culture.

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You know, we've, we've seen the films, and those films

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and indeed many popular accounts almost suggest that the,

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the, the outcome of D-Day began at the water's edge.

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It's about those soldiers the first time they actually land.

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What I'm suggesting here is maybe we should actually be

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thinking more about Operation Neptune.

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That process of transporting across the channel,

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assembling them, transporting across the channel,

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getting them assure,

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and then maintaining that flow

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of logistics across the English Channel for weeks

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after the 6th of June.

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That's maybe something we should be giving more attention

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to in terms of the way in which we think about the outcome

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of something like D-Day.

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That's one thing. The other thing also is a,

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about coastal warfare.

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Coastal warfare, not just in historical terms,

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but actually in current naval professional circles,

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is something of a hot topic.

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Um, it's reckoned that in the future, you know, a lot

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of the naval, a lot

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of the fighting at sea will actually be occurring in

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zones close to the coast.

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And I think what this demonstrates is the capacity even

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of a potentially weaker power

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to potentially affect the outcome

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of an operation which is being launched by a co,

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a larger coalition of powers, even though they possess,

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you know, overwhelming strength.

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Um, you know, the ally planners as they're looking at D-Day,

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really are worried about a whole series of things

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and they take countermeasures, to a considerable degree

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where they possibly can do.

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And I think it's a kind of reminder

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that in a complex operation, like something like D-Day,

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it only takes one little element of that to begin

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to fall apart for the whole operation to be affected.

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So I think those are the two takeaways that I'd really sort

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of push people to consider.

00:00 - This is part of a longer context piece of work that I've been engaged in a project on the German motor torpedo boat of the Second World War, the Chanel boot, or the sbo, as we could call it for short. and this is a kind of amazing weapon of war in 1940, the British, you've got sort of no answer to it,

00:20 - but it begins to sort of fade in its effectiveness in 1942. and by 1943, they're beginning to go over to something which is rather more defensive in terms of their strategic orientation. And as I began to look at this, it began to make me wonder about the kind of what ifs of history. Obviously history is about what happened, but you must also think about the what ifs, what might have happened. What if the German Navy had been able to play a fuller role,

00:51 - for example, in trying to delay and disrupt D-Day on the 6th of June, 1944? What would that actually have meant? Because these German motor torpedo boats, they're almost, they're one of the few weapons that Germany has got to deploy in the English channel against the invasion fleet. The, narrow shallow waters of the English channel really aren't much good for submarine operations.

01:17 - You really want the Atlantic depths, which can really hide a submarine, but these small, very powerful, very quick and heavily armed, motor torpedo boats. They're really rather good as a potential weapon to get in amongst an invasion fleet firing, torpedoes the same as the German submarine, the type seven C, which are capable of sinking a battleship. So what it, what would've happened if the Germans had have gone over

01:45 - to a more defensive strategy? And it seems to me that where is we, would we, we could never work out precisely what would've happened. I do think there are one or two questions that would've come to come to light if the Germans had begun to consider that, because essentially the Germans by 1944 are, you know, they know the invasion's coming. So how do they begin to prepare for it? What's the right way to go? And really, as early as, mid 1943,

02:15 - they'd settled on a strategy where they were gonna build a lot more of these German SBOs, the 1943 building program called for turning out over 70 of these SBOs. It's never gonna be enough in terms of what the allies are turning out. Whereas the Germans are turning out very, very high quality, motor torpedo boats for the allies. It's largely about mass. And whereas the Germans are gonna be able to put,

02:43 - potentially bring six flotillas of SBOs three to five operational SBOs per flotilla along the English channel, the allies are gonna be sailing over 6,000 vessels as part of the invasion fleet. So The Germans are always gonna be up against it. But to me it's sort of rather beg the kind of question about what, what could have happened? How much, how should we have thought of this? And even though we can't determine what would've happened, should we be really thinking about whether the Germans

03:15 - actually missed a sort of strategic opportunity to, in effect move from a position where they're trying to take the fight to the allies in the Atlantic with the submarine, and much more towards trying to think, well, how do we disrupt the invasion fleet? How do we begin to target that? So I think there are a number of interesting questions here in terms of the kind of key elements. In terms of the key elements.

03:40 - really the Germans have got this decision to make, how are they going to try and delay the invasion fleet? How are they gonna try and postpone it? How are they gonna try and defeat it at the water's edge? And it struck me that the Germans never really kind of tried to conceptualize how they would actually defeat that invasion fleet. There's almost a kind of mo a sense of fatality, you know, it's gonna get here. And we we're not gonna do terribly well with this

04:09 - because, as it were, you know, the one thing the Germans can actually begin to think about here is how can we mount spoiling attacks against the allies as they're beginning to build up in the invasion ports? What can we do to disrupt them there? You know, densely packed shipping stores are plenty, which can be attacked. We can use aircraft and we can use, we can use ships. And there is some evidence to suggest

04:37 - that the Germans were trying to do some of that. So we do, for example, have bombing raids on places like Plymouth and Portsmouth, but they're not effective and they're not repeated. There's no sort of sense of, you know, we we're trying to deal a knockout blow. We've also got some evidence of the way in which the German Navy was actually trying to, you know, carry out reconnaissance, try and disrupt the invasion preparations most famously

05:05 - with the attack of German SBOs. On the exercise con exercise Tiger Convoy at the end of April, 1940, four, which resulted in the sinking of two American tank landing ships and bad severe damage to a third with an official death toll of some 749. So they are, they are, they are sort of tinkering, but it's never very systematic. And in a sense, that critical loss in terms of what happens at Exercise Tiger two ships sunk

05:40 - that 749 lives lost, gives you some indication of just how potent these vessels are against invasion craft. And of course, the preparations for the invasion don't necessarily need to end there, because obviously there's the work that's gonna be done on the beaches in terms of trying to fortify them fest on Europa. So we're talking bonkers, we're talking machine gun posts, heavy gun positions, you name it. And then also inside in, in land, there's the preparations

06:10 - that the German army might actually make in order to not just defend what might be, we might describe as the coastal cross, but also to have mobile route units in the rear areas ready to respond to any breakthrough, any landing. And the German preparations on the sea and in the air were really sort of undercut by a whole series of problems. And on the land, they're undercut by a further series of problems, including the issue of who gets to command what

06:42 - and what the fah will actually allow, because the Fah thinks the invasion is coming on the paddock le so he's much more reticent in terms of, you know, you've gotta get my permission to release certain key things. There's also the potential for very, very effective use of mind warfare here as well. And the Germans do actually try and do this to a certain extent, both in terms of laying a mind barrage,

07:11 - but also keeping back a new kind of mine influence. Mines what they call oyster mines, which they're not gonna deploy until after D-Day has taken place so that the allies are going to meet a, a new technology that's gonna give them a lot of problems. But this kind of idea of using land, sea, and air in coordination, it never actually works. The preparations that are put in place are simply insufficient, and there's no sort

07:43 - of joined up government in terms of the way in which these different, parts of the German state are gonna operate. So it's really a kind of big failure of planning to actually think about, we're gonna be hit by an invasion. How do we make sure that we work together to carry out the most effective response to that invasion? When it comes, it's simple. You just actually want to integrate, integrate these arms more effectively.

08:10 - So in other words, more intensive bombing and potential strikes by air and sea at the invasion craft, which you're preparing for D-Day, you try and disrupt it as much as you possibly can because as we, as we now know, and as the Germans suspected, the allies parameter parameters for when they can land and how they're going to land are actually quite narrow. you know, the allies are working

08:38 - to a fairly tight timetable. They're looking at weather conditions, they're looking at wind conditions, they're looking at Tide states. And if these things don't actually match up, the landings just don't happen. So the more that it can disrupt, the more they can potentially throw out the timetable for, D-Day in terms of what allied planners are thinking. And then there's a more effective use of, of mine warfare.

09:05 - The German plan to use mines got very, very seriously disrupted, partly because they, that that they had a kind of setting on the mines that they deployed, which meant that big parts of their mine warfare preparations, had effectively fallen apart by May. And as they're preparing to lay new fields, there's severe damage to one or more German mine layers. The new mines that they've kept back to sort of, you know, really, really wait for the invasion.

09:35 - Herman Goring is so worried as head of the Loft Vfa, and he controls the mine stocks that he actually has them shipped back to Germany at a critical moment because he's worried that the allies might land and cease control of the mines, and he never gets to actually use them. So they're actually too far in the rear to be effectively used. Then there's the sheer number of SBOs.

09:58 - The problem is the Germans have got too few of them to actually risk them and really push the offensive in a way where they know they're gonna lose substantial numbers of German motor torpedo boats. That's a kind of given, but they might just disrupt the invasion quite seriously. And if we think about what actually happens on Omaha Beach, where the early waves do meet significant resistance, they really are up against it.

10:25 - and at one point the Lambings really have stalled on Omaha Beach until initiatives are taken to actually get it restarted. Anything those motor torpedo boats can do to assist the fight of the German army on the land, maybe sinking troop ships, et cetera, targeting the invasion craft, it could have made a critical distance, a critical difference. And of course, the key thing is if the landings on Omaha

10:52 - Beach had been a failure, then you end up with four landing areas in operation and working, whereas it should have been five and one of them, Utah Beach is cut off by some distance from the British and Canadian landing zones at gold, Juno, and sword. And if one is cut off, then there's German mobile forces. As they're beginning to come up from the interior, they've got rather a different proposition, then actually meeting a united Bridgehead,

11:25 - the Germans can begin to move against, one or more of them separately. So it could have made, it could have made a significant dis a difference in terms of the way in which the invasion would've worked out. it's still, it's still likely the allies would've won, but the Germans could have given it more of a, more of a good shot if they'd have adopted more of a kind of uniformed, approach,

11:53 - A uniform approach where they're going to work all these different op operational arms together in to create a combined effect. One of the problems with D-Day is that we kind of draw our impression of that day from popular culture. You know, we've, we've seen the films, and those films and indeed many popular accounts almost suggest that the, the, the outcome of D-Day began at the water's edge. It's about those soldiers the first time they actually land. What I'm suggesting here is maybe we should actually be

12:31 - thinking more about Operation Neptune. That process of transporting across the channel, assembling them, transporting across the channel, getting them assure, and then maintaining that flow of logistics across the English Channel for weeks after the 6th of June. That's maybe something we should be giving more attention to in terms of the way in which we think about the outcome of something like D-Day.

12:58 - That's one thing. The other thing also is a, about coastal warfare. Coastal warfare, not just in historical terms, but actually in current naval professional circles, is something of a hot topic. it's reckoned that in the future, you know, a lot of the naval, a lot of the fighting at sea will actually be occurring in zones close to the coast. And I think what this demonstrates is the capacity even

13:25 - of a potentially weaker power to potentially affect the outcome of an operation which is being launched by a co, a larger coalition of powers, even though they possess, you know, overwhelming strength. you know, the ally planners as they're looking at D-Day, really are worried about a whole series of things and they take countermeasures, to a considerable degree where they possibly can do. And I think it's a kind of reminder

13:54 - that in a complex operation, like something like D-Day, it only takes one little element of that to begin to fall apart for the whole operation to be affected. So I think those are the two takeaways that I'd really sort of push people to consider.

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