How much firepower did the British navy represent in 1940?
score:5
The land-based regiments would have a lot more firepower. Typically you might be talking several divisions having perhaps 2000+ guns combined. Note however these are relatively small caliber compared to naval guns. Most field artillery is 4-, 5- and 6-inch guns, whereas a battleship would have 8-10 15" guns.
The critical question in a fight like this is not so much firepower, as whether the invader can supply the beachhead. Soldiers need three basic things: water, food and ammunition. In mechanized warfare you also need lubricating oil and fuel. If a steady stream of these commodities does not reach the unit, they will surrender (or otherwise become ineffective). The importance of the navy would be to prevent supply ships, which are very vulnerable to any warship, from landing.
Upvote:-1
I have seen it stated that the British Navy would have been at the mercy of German bombers had the R.A.F. not contained them. Germany had a sufficient bomber force in September of 1940 to bomb day and night if required. However if the case of the Americans in the pacific, there was any amount of heavy bombers deployed against the navy of Japan. They proved notably ineffective due to the fact that bombes dropped from the combat operational height would only strike manoeuvring ship by pure accident.
Upvote:2
I was given several pieces of information in another answer that allowed me to construct my own.
First, I was reminded that the typical division of 10,000 to 12,000 men has about 2,000 artillerymen. At the rate of 20 men per gun, that is about 100 guns per division.
It was also helpful to learn that "most field artillery is 4-, 5- and 6-inch guns," because that's the caliber of destroyer or light cruiser guns.
If there were 66 cruisers (heavy and light), there might be eight guns per ship, or the total of about 500 six inch guns, or the equivalent. Each destroyer has about eight five inch guns, and 184 of them will have over 1400 guns. So far, we have enough guns for 19 divisions.
The 15 battlewagons would have about 8 guns apiece, or about 120 guns in total, but of much greater caliber than the field artillery. The radii of each of their shells would be about three times that of a destroyer, and their "throw weight" twenty-seven times that of the smaller shells, based on volume being 4/3 times pi times r cubed. (The first two terms, 4/3 and pi cancel out, so a battleship shell would be 27 times the size of a destroyer shell, based on 3r-cubed. Multiply this 27 factor by 120 guns, and you get the equivalent of over 3000 guns, or the firepower of about 30 divisions.
So Britain's naval artillery power was equivalent to that of 40-50 land divisions. And it would be probably be more valuable than an equivalent amount of land-based artillery because of the "crossfire" effect, and because it is easier to move this "artillery" by sea, than land artillery.
More post
- 📝 When was King Alfred first called 'Alfred the Great'?
- 📝 Plans to depose, disgrace, or assassinate Hitler
- 📝 How was Taiwan involved in the Thirty Years' War?
- 📝 What did sectionalism have to do with the American civil war?
- 📝 Did starvation or malnutrition occur in indigenous American societies?
- 📝 Why does the King of Spain still claim defunct titles like the King of Hungary?
- 📝 Why did sailing ships so often employ Chinese cooks?
- 📝 1959 Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) report (on Concorde)
- 📝 What was the combat effectiveness of German infantry in the western front of the Second World War?
- 📝 What percentage of people in 14th century England owned any armour?
- 📝 What impact did the Seven Years War have on the American Revolution?
- 📝 Possible history behind photograph related to 1962 Sino-Indian War
- 📝 When did the last formal and recorded duel take place?
- 📝 In what year was the conquest of the Incas completed?
- 📝 Is it true that slavery was banned from discussion on the Senate and/or House floor before the American Civil War?
- 📝 When did “Duck, Duck, Goose“ migrate from Sweden to America?
- 📝 Has an heir ever made the country believe the current ruler died in order to take over the throne?
- 📝 What was the price of going from England to New England as a passenger in the 1600s?
- 📝 Cannon Aiming: Spanish vs English and Chinese vs English?
- 📝 What is the history behind Library of Congress becoming/being the world's biggest library?
- 📝 Why are there distinct Orthodox and Catholic Christian communities in Bosnia and Hercegovina?
- 📝 Can you please help identify this military uniform (1700's)?
- 📝 Book about Glorious Revolution
- 📝 Did Germans and Soviets count casualties differently at the Battle of Kursk?
- 📝 Did anyone at the time blame the Great Plague on rats or fleas?
- 📝 How have estimates of the deaths in WWI and WWII changed over time?
- 📝 Have wartime conditions traditionally decreased or increased consensual sexual activity in the young?
- 📝 Why weren't Australian Aborigines enslaved?
- 📝 What percent of Sparta's population were citizens in various centuries?
- 📝 Did Stalin offer Hitler peace after Stalingrad?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How much firepower did the British navy represent in 1940?
- 📝 How did the British Navy pass orders to its fleet before radio?
- 📝 How much tax revenue did the British Empire receive from its colonies in a given year?
- 📝 How much did it cost to attend events at the ancient Roman colosseum?
- 📝 How much did J. Robert Oppenheimer get paid while overseeing the Manhattan Project?
- 📝 How much of an impact did the Roman emperors' civil wars have on their decision to debase the coinage?
- 📝 How much did it cost to buy a ticket on the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul in 1914?
- 📝 How did Napoleon evade the British fleet and return to France?
- 📝 How many British navy officers were from lower classes at the end of 18th century?
- 📝 How much did Pan Am tickets to the moon cost?
- 📝 How did the British keep Enigma 'snatches' secret?
- 📝 How much authority did a traveling lord have in England in the late 16th century?
- 📝 How did the elite maintain the status quo throughout the British Colonies of North America?
- 📝 How did Egypt become a protectorate of the British empire?
- 📝 How much contact did Sub-Saharan Africa actually have with the rest of the world since the beginning of civilization?
- 📝 How much did the culture of Anatolian Gallic settlers differ from their kin in Gaul?
- 📝 How strong a land force did Germany need for a conquest of the British Isles in the summer of 1940?
- 📝 How did the Dutch East India Company (VOC) have so much revenue when they only control small part of Indonesia?
- 📝 How did the British Army unit size and structure in WWI change from 1915 to 1918?
- 📝 How much time did people have to take shelter during the Blitz in 1940-41?
- 📝 How did American colonial rights and conditions compare to those within the British Isles?
- 📝 Why did Stephen II of Blois (father of King Stephen of England) abandon the First Crusade in 1098 knowing how much he would lose by doing so?
- 📝 How much did a telephone call cost in the USA around 1920?
- 📝 How much debt did Italy remit Germany in the London Debt Agreement?
- 📝 How much of a role did Sakamoto Ryoma play in overthrowing the Shogunate?
- 📝 Did the dramatic improvement in survival rates of scurvy in the Royal Navy significantly affect British port cities?
- 📝 How did Victorian British conservatives resolve the tension between valuing tradition and spreading empire?
- 📝 How much did the western world know about the Soviet Union pre-WWII?
- 📝 How much did helping the American Revolution cost France?
- 📝 How come the British did not notify the Poles about the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret protocol?