OK! In Halder's diary it is stated in September (or August): Luftwaffe (feldzugmeister) reports 1.000 transports available. 750 operational.
Fred, the Luftwaffe
Transportgruppen never EVER mustered 1,000 Ju52s; it COULD theoretically muster that number of "transport" aircraft....but that includes floatplanes, impressed civilian types, Ju90s, FW200A/Bs etc., etc., etc....
On the 31st of August 1939 - the
gruppen mustered only 552 aircraft, of which 547 were Ju52s.
On the eve of WESERUBUNG - 573 Ju52s (150 lost)
On the eve of Fall Gelb - 475 Ju52s in total, 430 given over to ops in Holland.
On the eve of MERKUR in May 1941 - 483 Ju52s
As a result of the losses on Crete...
On the eve of BARBAROSSA - only 238 serviceable Ju52s.
And the FJ were geared to using Ju52s, they hadn't as yet worked through any other types - apart from the DFS 230!
They went through a long period of experimentation in the Spring of '42 in various new types - but in 1940 they were stuck with the Iron Jenny.
They were to be run aground - and secured with poles and lines fore and aft. Drive-off could start right away.
Do we assume the Germans did anything approaching the same two years' worth of sand sampling and experimentation in water retention, sand plasticity etc. that the Allies did for OVERLORD? I take it for instance you know the legend of Malcolm Cambell and the pogo stick???...
What should the defenders fire at? The hundreds of vessels out at sea, the beached barges, the storm-troopers that had landed in stormboats before the barges beached, the enemy soldiers securing the barges to the shore or those streaming down the side-mounted gangways (not the drive-off ramps) or the aircraft overhead giving support to the landing forces...?
I'm not aware that infantry in beach defences would waste time shooting at aircraft overhead rather than the grey uniforms in front of them...
This really didn't matter as the barges of the first wave was actually dispensable. Again, all this was in the German planning.
IF they managed to take a port in useable condition, and one that allowed easy egress into the hinterland; Dover for instance with access limited (by cliffs!) to two railway tunnels and one road...
If there is anything there is concensus on regarding Sea Lion it is the fact that the RAF could do very little to hinder the invasion. If the RAF tried to attack the grounded barges it wouold be a nice diversion from important targets.
The RAF's bomber aircraft given over to Army GHQ control were NOT to attack barges, they were to attack choke points etc. for forces leaving the beaches; it was the
Fleet Air Arm's job to do that, and much research was actually done in two periods of testing into what damage to barges - on the same types of barge as the RAF could observe the Germans mustering - FFA gravity ordnance would actually
do.
If attacking low-level they would be slaughtered by AAA like they were in France
IIRC the defence of the Meuse and Albert crossings concentrated the AA assets of nearly two full divisions; there's a lot more for those divisions hitting the beaches to defend against rather than concentrate their AA assets in one or two places.