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The main attacks, according to this British version, would be four. One would be a landing on the vulnerable Yorkshire coast near the Humber estuary. This would hope to sweep inland to the Midlands. Another might strike at Weymouth in Dorset on the south coast, and cut across to the industrial area around Bristol and in Wales. The other two would call for landings in Suffolk and Sussex, northeast and south of London, and would converge in a giant pincer around the city. All four attacks would be accompanied by multiple landings such as Dienst Aus Deutschland threatened.
Whatever the specific tactics, the British did not expect to be able to stop all the Germans on the water and in the air. They expected some naval landings to be successful—but they also expected to pinch the Nazis' giant pincers. A practice parachute raid on a British factory, which the British themselves undertook both to test defenses and experiment with offense, demonstrated that parachutists cannot be picked off in the air like partridges, as the British used to think, but that, with vigilance, they can be rounded up.
This general guess from both sides—that the Nazis would unbolt everything —looked pretty convincing. The British last week rubbed the salt off their sea glasses and began to scan the waters for the tipoff: the submarine campaign.
This week Adolf Hitler served notice that the intensification would begin April 1. He said: "Our battles at sea can only begin now. The reason was that we wanted to school the new U-boat crews for the battle to come.
"Just a few hours ago, I received a notice from our High Command that in the last two days our U-boats and our air force have destroyed 215,000 tons of enemy shipping. One convoy alone with 125,000 tons was destroyed, and U-boats alone have destroyed 190,000 tons.
[The British] "must be prepared for still bigger events in March and April. Then they will find out whether we slept through the winter."