Why fifty-boat attacks were exceptional

Did actions involving about fifty German small craft represent a normal concentration of the available force?

No. That scale represents a major-operation concentration, with perhaps eighteen to twenty-four craft actually reaching the target area rather than fifty or sixty fighting as one routine attack.

The total vessels assigned to a broad operation must be separated from the number that actually reached and engaged a target. Gathering fifty craft would consume most or all of the deployable force for that evening, so histories that present fifty- or sixty-boat attacks as routine are doubtful. An estimate of roughly eighteen to twenty-four craft reaching the target shows why operational availability and dispersed movements cannot be collapsed into a single tactical engagement. Headline force totals otherwise exaggerate the scale of a normal attack.