Amphibious Operations

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:31 pm

Since Crete wasn't connected to Germany or any other land mass, the definition of it being non-contiguous seems to apply

LOL No, contiguous as in touching along a boundary or at a point : touching or connected throughout in an unbroken sequence. As in two non-compatible environments sea-land, land-sea (starting to sound like Tommy Cooper!) Water and land are contiguous ONLY via port/harbour facilities - otherwise stone and soil have a habit of sinking, and men and vehicles too going in the other direction....

Unless specific preparations are made to transit from one incompatible environment to another across the non-contiguous boundary from one to the other without the benefit of those interface facilities. Vessels designed to carry land-only vehicles and men to landfall, vehicles modified to operate in water as well as on land, etc..

St. Nazaire/Operation Chariot wasn't am amphibious operation, its always referred to as a "seaborne operation" as it involved only landing at those facilities and no other form of transit from sea to land. The vessels used by the rading force couldn't make a landfall at anything other than harbour/port facilities, nor could the force be withdrawn by them from anywhere other than these.

Jason Pipes · Post by **Jason Pipes** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:57 pm

Interesting interpretations Phylo.

Carl Schwamberger · Post by **Carl Schwamberger** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:50 pm

I'd have thought something more substantial in the Baltic or Black Sea. But, I'm probablly thinking like an American, or I'm not understaning the resources available. Were there not enough transport ships in the Baltic to support a corps size landing on the Estonian coast in late June or early July 1941? Where there other problems such as the inability to remove mines?

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:12 pm

Carl - I think it was just plain resources. And how they were allocated by "demand". The numbers of "dedicated" landing craft - or what WE would recognise as landing craft - available to the Germans was always VERY small, reckoned in the dozens per theatre rather than the hundreds we are used to seeing. Take a look here

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ ... index.html

The Germans - with their abortive experience courtesy of Sealion - went straight to landing boats that were capable of distance journeys and coastal work themselves, unlike the Allied approach of these as the middle tier between the big landings ships and LSTs and the "parasite" LCAs and LCIs. Therefore they would actually have taken up a decent percentage of the KM's resources....and with no Sealion-scale operation ever to be mounted, or even envisaged, there was no need to build the quantities we'd expect. They ended up filling more valuable shallow-draft transport roles with only very occasional offensive landing use.

The majority ended up being used as inshore/coastal transports and suffering RAF depredation accordingly, and the larger Type Ds very often got moored up permanently as flak barges.

dragos03 · Post by **dragos03** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:50 am

Does Manstein's attack across the Severnaya Bay during the siege of Sevastopol count as an amphibious landing?

Manstein also planned other similar operations, like the plan for a Romanian mountain regiment to land behind the Soviet positions in the Salkovo isthmus, during the battle of Perekop.

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:07 am

Yes it does...

At 0100 on 29 Jun 1942, German troops of the 132nd Infantry Division achieved total surprise by crossing 600-m of water of Severnaya Bay, assisted by the German 902nd and 905th Assault Boat Commands and their 130 boats

...though depending where you read it it's described as both a victory - cutting off Russian troops at Sapun Ridge and Severnaya Bay from supporting the garrison at Sevastopol - AND as a failure for the assault force took very heavy casualties and didn't extend their bridgehead very far - but still held Russian troops "in place". It depends on the "flavour" of the book or site you read LMAO

Paul Lakowski · Post by **Paul Lakowski** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:37 pm

Cultural and military bias is being impossed here. The only point of such an operation is to put troops ashore, how that is done is completely tactical in nature and thus a secondary consideration.

If you can do this by direct port to port invasion, then mores the power to you. The simpliest solution is always the most direct and the best, if you can do it. If on the other hand you feel you need to avoid enemy ports and land ashore, then you need to develope technology to over come that obstical.

Had the Germans not defended ports so heavily, there would not have been a need for the allies to land ashore in the first place. I guess this is where Dieppe comes in. So the technology adopted is just the solution to a tactical part of the equation and thus can't really be used to define the operation.... just one sides technical solution to the problem.

On the other hand I suppose you can fill up your own forum band width ,with what ever you like

Carl Schwamberger · Post by **Carl Schwamberger** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:01 pm

Just so I understand whats been offered here, let me toss out a hypothetical operation. It can be used as a strawman for clarifying the abilities of the German miltary for this sort of thing.

The operation would be a corps sized attack on he Estonian coast with the object of securing either Tallanin, Pyrnau, or a suitable anchorage. There a supply base would be prepared in anticipation of the mechanized corps advancing from the south. the intent is for this forward supply to enable the mechanized force to move on towrds Lenningrad independant of the railroad connection to German territory. The secondary object would be for further transportation of other combat forces by sea to avoid the railroad. Specifically formations apporiate to attacking the environs of Lenningrad.