Luftwaffe anti-shipping training

[FMAlanbrooke]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

80kph is rather fast for a ship. Indeeed, 60kph is rather fast.

I suspect this "no training" story may be a distortion based on definitions of the Kustenfleigergruppe as being in some way outside the "core" Luftwaffe, which indeed may have done no dedicated anti-shipping training because that was the job of the KfG.

Well that's the maxium speed of a destroyer and of a torpedo boat. It's also the speed of a fast moving car, truck or train. I guess the difference is that the reflection from the water and the lack of other reference points makes it difficult to judge height and distance to target. So how many aircraft were in the Kustenfleigergruppe and were they equipped with Ju 88s or He III in 1940? Were they concentrated in certain areas or based all along the coast ot the North Sea and Atlantic? Looks like I will have to buy those books.

I had not heard of the Seilbomben, it sounds like a rather primitive device that would have been more dangerous to the bombers than to the British. I expected to read about some bomb specifically to take out electricity networks but instead I find a cable that can take out one cable at a time - rather a slow process given redundancy of the network. Surely bombing the power stations would have a much more damaging and longer lasting effect. Looks like I will have to buy that book since it may or may not put to rest another BoB myth that the Germans didn't use fighter-bombers in the BoB