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We're carrying this over from another thread, so a quick outline:

The supposition is that, for various reasons, Germany does not go to war with Russia, and instead focuses on England, effectively gaining air superiority over the channel and south of England.

Is Seelöwe actually possible at this point?

When Seelöwe was wargamed out by officers present at the Battle of Britain, the unanimous agreement was that Seelöwe was a failure, though an expensive one for both sides. They discovered that the defining issue was lack of sufficient air support both on land and over the channel.

I have issues though with their findings, as one random event was that Hitler goes crazier than usual and refuses to allow aircraft to be diverted from bombing London to support the invasion.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
We're carrying this over from another thread, so a quick outline:

The supposition is that, for various reasons, Germany does not go to war with Russia, and instead focuses on England, effectively gaining air superiority over the channel and south of England.

Is Seelöwe actually possible at this point?

When Seelöwe was wargamed out by officers present at the Battle of Britain, the unanimous agreement was that Seelöwe was a failure, though an expensive one for both sides. They discovered that the defining issue was lack of sufficient air support both on land and over the channel.

I have issues though with their findings, as one random event was that Hitler goes crazier than usual and refuses to allow aircraft to be diverted from bombing London to support the invasion.

Did chemical weapons factor into the equation? I know Britain had a large stockpile left over from ww1 still and that could be useful in the beginning before the germans started bringing over their own gas and gas masks

 Ustrello wrote:

Did chemical weapons factor into the equation? I know Britain had a large stockpile left over from ww1 still and that could be useful in the beginning before the germans started bringing over their own gas and gas masks

England actually did prepare to deploy chemical weapons in the event of a landing in the home island, IIRC. However, I believe they would have been reluctant to use them immediately, or in built up areas. The simple truth of chemical weapons is they're more likely to kill civilians than military personnel.

In the war game they were not used.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

Did chemical weapons factor into the equation? I know Britain had a large stockpile left over from ww1 still and that could be useful in the beginning before the germans started bringing over their own gas and gas masks

England actually did prepare to deploy chemical weapons in the event of a landing in the home island, IIRC. However, I believe they would have been reluctant to use them immediately, or in built up areas. The simple truth of chemical weapons is they're more likely to kill civilians than military personnel.

In the war game they were not used.

Yeah especially if it blows the wrong way.

Making Sea Lion possible requires a little more than just Hitler not declaring war on the Soviet Union. You'd have to rewind about a year earlier than that, to when the Battle of Britain actually occurred, and change the outcome of that particular battle. The problem with that though is you'd have to have a plausible reason for that to go down differently. An entirely aerial campaign was unprecedented and had never been done before, so it made sense that the Germans kept changing their targets and consequently gave the British time to recover as different areas were attacked by the Luftwaffe. I mean you could get around this particular complication in the hypothetical by saying 'assume the Germans get lucky and win aerial supremacy' but the Nazis already had so much in the way of luck going for them in those early years it seems almost criminal to use it again here.

Anyway even after all of that, I don't think the Germans had sufficient lift capacity to bring enough troops to bear to seriously threaten an invasion of the United Kingdom. I think I remember reading that somewhere but don't quote me on it.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Making Sea Lion possible requires a little more than just Hitler not declaring war on the Soviet Union.

Hitler started looking at invading Russia following the 1939-1940 Winter War, and started diverting resources shortly before the battle of Britain started. This constant draw on resources compounded the Luftwaffe's other issues. Which were many, don't get me wrong.

As far as transport capability, they had seized significant numbers of passenger steamers and merchant vessels in Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands to make use of. The real issue was a shortage of dedicated landing craft. Assuming that Folkstone, which was near by to some of the proposed landing zones, could be taken intact, it's less of an issue.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
We're carrying this over from another thread, so a quick outline:

The supposition is that, for various reasons, Germany does not go to war with Russia, and instead focuses on England, effectively gaining air superiority over the channel and south of England.

Is Seelöwe actually possible at this point?

When Seelöwe was wargamed out by officers present at the Battle of Britain, the unanimous agreement was that Seelöwe was a failure, though an expensive one for both sides. They discovered that the defining issue was lack of sufficient air support both on land and over the channel.

I have issues though with their findings, as one random event was that Hitler goes crazier than usual and refuses to allow aircraft to be diverted from bombing London to support the invasion.

I'm not sure it would have been practical to pull off an actual invasion of the UK for the Germans in 1941. Even had they adequately suppressed the RAF, logistical issues and the general insuitability of much of the UK to the tactics that won the day in France likely would have turned it into a disaster for all sides. I believe however that it would have been possible to devote far more resources to economically strangling the UK and invading later or forcing them to terms favorable to Germany. Without the invasion of the USSR and its eventual failure, I do not see the UK ending up winning the war, even with eventual US aid, I don't think either would have been able to execute a functional amphibious assault. I certainly don't think Operation Overlord would have succeeded had there been no Eastern Front, as both the sheer number of extra forces available, and their quality (since they wouldn't have several million dead or wounded from the battles with the Red Army), would have allowed the Germans decisive advantages that simply could not be broken through an amphibious assault, but at the same time, with the Royal Navy still functional and the Luftwaffe unable to provide fighter cover all the way over England & seas around it, a German invasion would not have been any easier methinks if the US still comes into the war, though if the US never enters the war (or if they only enter against Japan), then a later invasion would likely be possible, say in '44 or '46 if terms aren't reached before that.

It's quite telling to look at the resources and planning needed for Overlord, and compare that to the combination of improvisation and optimism that made up Sea Lion. And D-Day was a much closer thing than a lot of people realise. Even with air superiority and the greatest fleet ever assembled, and an opponent dedicating most of his forces to another war, it's still really hard to build a critical mass of troops to start making serious advances.

The British Army wasn't the German one, of course, but in all other regards Germany was vastly less prepared, and facing vastly reduced capacity. I think the only way it plays out differently is if the RAF is degraded massively, and Germany uses the thread of invasion to force Britain to withdraw from the war.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
England actually did prepare to deploy chemical weapons in the event of a landing in the home island, IIRC. However, I believe they would have been reluctant to use them immediately, or in built up areas. The simple truth of chemical weapons is they're more likely to kill civilians than military personnel.

In WWI the most effective use of chemical weapons was to spoil offensives, it didn't kill a lot but it made whole areas unusable, or only usable by troops in heavy awkward gear. I believe that a similar plan was talked about by the British - to cover the landing beaches to spoil the assault. But its possible I'm thinking of D-Day - either a German plan that never happened, or an Allied plan just in case.

I'm not sure Operation Sealion would have been successful. But the economic strangling of the UK might have been.

Best case scenario for the Nazis in any alternate history is for them to play the waiting game and not piss off too many people at once.

The political climate in the US was one of isolationism, though it was fading. And we were certainly willing to send the British supplies, but I don't think we would have had the momentum to outright declare war on the Germans if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened(with Germany piggybacking a declaration of war on the event).

At the same time, Britain alone doesn't have the ability to invade Europe on its own.

IMO, the smart move for Germany is to keep things with Britain and the US in a stalemate and focus on Russia, as the US is unwilling to declare war and the UK has no ability to do much to the Nazi grip on the continent. The UK might have even accepted a peace treaty.

Russia is the real threat on the continent, but Germany can't take them head on even without having to worry about the UK and US. Instead what needs to happen is fortify the eastern front against Russian invasion as best as possible, and fortify the Atlantic wall while you're at it. Then, once this is accomplished(which would likely take a few years) Germany needs to focus on resource acquisition, specifically oil. Expansion through the middle east and into Africa/Asia. Eventually, Germany develops nuclear weaponry and uses these to annihilate the Soviets. By the time this happens, the US and UK probably have nukes too, so its the Cold War all over again, just with Germany instead of the USSR. Japan's attack on the US is actually perfect for the Germans as it distracts them. The US shifts from Europe into the pacific, the war likely lasts far shorter than the real one did without the US being split between Europe and the Pacific. Eventually the US wins the war with Japan, and the world is divided between the Third Reich and the US.

i remember reading that after the war military bods at Sandhurst, basically if the germans didnt gain air superiority then the Navy would break german supply lines and UK land forces would succeed.

With regards to air forces, firstly, a german tactical mistake was the blitz, it meant the RAF survived as attention turned to hitting civilians.

Even if they hadnt done that the RAF could have gone north, out of range of german air bases and hit them over southern england

For those interested WWPD did an online campaign for this using FoW a few years ago

If we suppose the German air force beats the RAF in 1940, but the attempted invasion is delayed until 1941, then we must suppose the RAF would have been built up again, and the British Army, which was very weak and short of equipment after the Battle of Dunkirk.

If the Germans had decide to get a load of ferries and so on from Norway, these would still have had to brave the gauntlet of the Royal Navy to get to useful ports in France. If this was achieved, the Germans still need to capture one or more ports intact, so they still would have needed to use their Rhine barges for the first wave to go ashore, which limits the speed of the invasion fleet, making it vulnerable to RAF and RN attack.

For such what ifs you have to contend with the political and military structure that was in place for Nazi Germany.

You need a luftwaffe that actually has airframes suitable to long range strategic bombing and escorts which have the range and endurance to accompany such a force.

Even during the 40-41 time period the tactical utility of aircraft such as the JU-87 was eroded. The Ju-88 was probably in worse shape and the heavier bombers (Heinkels and Dorniers) were unsuited to their roles given that all aircraft production in the Reich was subject to the dogma of the administration and the whims of their designers.

If the RAF is not rendered useless there is also the effect of the Luftwaffe losing experienced air crew - something that was becoming a serious issue at the time. Again, dogma and military thinking (arguably the same thing from the 1930's to 1945) regarding training was leaving German airmen vastly unprepared.

Yet again, adherence to dogma rears its head. Does the Luftwaffe pursue the Royal Navy? The kriegsmarine is effectively out of directly attacking the RN. It's U-boats more effective where they are, trying to starve the UK. Portsmouth and Plymouth are a very real threat. As are the northern bases.

The RAF is during this timeframe starting to engage in hide and seek of Germanys battleships.

The RN can act with relative freedom against an invasion fleet unless we what if an about change of long standing policy.

With the RAF still active you then have the invasion marshalling points, the invasion ports and supply storage up for grabs to RAF bombing raids AND RN intervention.

IMO the only way you get operation sea lion underway is you what if an Austrian corporal out of existence along with some other cronies and militarily useless planners, strategists and opportunists. Or you get rid of the wartime leadership of the UK. or swap them around.

In part depends how desperate.

If you pulled every remaining RAF , RN asset from convoys, East , med and such you could form a sizeable force of anything that can fly, shoot or float. It would be costly but the massed forces could raise a hall of alot of trouble.

Old battleship may sink, but get one in a troop convoy guns blazing or even ramming things with shear bulk of steel, it could sink alot before the defenders stop her. Sucidial and desperate but as invasion defence is.

The Home Fleet was pretty substantial. Here is a page showing their status and deployment in June 1940.

http://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2-4006-15RNHome1.htm

 jhe90 wrote:
In part depends how desperate.

If you pulled every remaining RAF , RN asset from convoys, East , med and such you could form a sizeable force of anything that can fly, shoot or float. It would be costly but the massed forces could raise a hall of alot of trouble.

Old battleship may sink, but get one in a troop convoy guns blazing or even ramming things with shear bulk of steel, it could sink alot before the defenders stop her. Sucidial and desperate but as invasion defence is.

The RN doesn't need to pull many assests away from other theatres. The RAF is in a fixed location and ideally placed. Ditto the Army (what remains after Dunkirk).

And Dunkirk is probably more interesting a what if scenario anyway, if slightly more predictable. Hitler (rational and strategic for a split second at least) commands that there is no halt or pause - which allows the BEF to evacuate.

No evacuation means no substantial Army presence. Loss of materiel. and men with experience. a third of a triad needed for defence and then to carry the war to the enemy. Does Churchill play with these odds when confronted by an experienced armed force 22 miles across the water? In spite of the Luftwaffe failing to destroy the RAF in the skies and on the ground?

Put another way, you can't spin a severe military defeat like you can a plucky retreat ala little ship evacuations.

The condition of the British and German armies is irrelevant to the problem faced by the Germans of getting over those 22 miles.

This is one of favourite what ifs from world war two, and the answer to a German invasion of Britain is always the same:

British victory.

The sheer size of the RN, even with a depleted RAF, made a German invasion unfeasible for the simple reason that the RN planned an all-out attack on the German landing sites, which would have resulted in heavy German casualties.

People forget that the German navy took a battering during the Norway campaign and its surface fleet paled into insignificance compared to the RN. The Germans had what, a dozen destroyers compared to the 70-80 that the Royal Navy had?

Given that the Germans had a ramshackle collection of barges and landing craft for the invasion, and given that the RN destroyers would have played havoc with them if they had caught them at sea...

Well, it's probably just as well for the Germans that they didn't invade.

As earlier posters have rightly pointed out, anybody who is familiar with D-Day and the Pacific campaigns will tell you how difficult amphibious landings are - and that's with complete air and naval superiority.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The condition of the British and German armies is irrelevant to the problem faced by the Germans of getting over those 22 miles.

And not forgetting the fact that fresh divisions were arriving from Canada to bolster the UK.

Canada's military prowess and the skill of its fighting troops in two world wars should not be underestimated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

At the same time, Britain alone doesn't have the ability to invade Europe on its own.

It may surprise people to know that Britain was planning an invasion of Italy, on its own, in 1942 or 1943.

The 14th Army, consisting of 10 divisions, was earmarked for North Africa. This would have given the British and Commonwealth troops a superiority that not even the Afrika Korps could have matched. bearing in mind that Germany was bogged down in the USSR.

Unfortunately for Britain, Japan entered the war.

Without Japan's involvement, the European theatre would have looked vastly different.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The condition of the British and German armies is irrelevant to the problem faced by the Germans of getting over those 22 miles.

But it isn't irrelevant to the political position. Especially on the allied side. Would Churchill and the cabinet have been so bold if they had had to announce massive defeat after dunkirk without the propaganda of a withdrawl of thousands?

Dunkirk without the little ships is the loss of the war - or very close. Propaganda can only spin so much.

Canadian reinforcement was coming but the political situation in that country mean that they were reluctantly sent. Again, no little ships would swiftly see Canadians stay at home, rather than waste the youth on a doomed effort of defiance.

Each German soldier could've been issued armbands to cross the channel. The public would have been resigned rather than resolved.

The luftwaffe can then bomb London. It would have more of an effect. 'What if' attacks on airfields and Naval stations and you get closer to a white flag being raised over parliament.

If you're going to perform a hypothetical 'What if' military scenario under any circumstances, you have to take into account two absolutely crucial factors when considering each aspect; namely Context and Logistics.

For the former, what that means is that everything needs to be placed in context. The minute you alter one historical fact or action, you have to account for how that action would impact upon every other relevant action. And then how those actions would ripple outwards. Technically, that can go on forever, but in the same way a historian chooses which facts are historically 'relevant', he can pick and choose to an extent the more relevant likely reactions to any given scenario. In this specific instance, our scenario is that Operation Sea Lion went ahead as planned. That's well and good, but it means we have to factor in how that decision would have affected other actors before the first boat is even launched. Context demands that we assess the likelihood of British intelligence knowing that an invasion is coming (in reality, Churchill did not regard it as likely to occur), how much notice the British would have, and how they would then deploy their naval, ground, and aerial assets accordingly. We also have to assess which of the British government's other actions would have been altered; for example, it is unlikely that tanks would have been dispatched to North Africa had there been a credible fear of invasion. If you wish to hypothesize a 'What if', context is King.

Logistics meanwhile, could be considered 'Queen'. The Germans had a large army, and a large airforce. But it is never as simple as saying, 'This side has x number of craft, this other side has x+3 therefore the latter side wins'. The German have a military concept called 'Schwerpunkt', or focal point. It's the idea that every battle has a specific point at which the decisive aspect of a battle is made, and the side that maximises their potential force at that point, is the one that triumphs. It is entirely dictated by logistics however, as you have to actually get your forces to that crucial point. To focus on an aspect of Sea Lion, namely the Luftwaffe, a simple recounting of available aircraft is not sufficient. You must consider, how good a condition are those planes in? Is their supply of ammunition sufficient for each specific task? How many air crews do you have, how many flights can they perform in a day, and how experienced are they? Are there sufficient air fields within range of the location? And how many of those are sufficiently close that aircraft can stay at the appropriate location without needing refueling? As you can see, even the simplest of comparisons between forces can be badly affected, and battles won or lost on these factors. It is of no good to possess a thousand planes if only two hundred of those planes can reach the battlefield, they don't have enough munitions to engage the opposition, and they can only stay on site for twenty minutes.

I've illustrated the above to demonstrate the sheer complexity and scope that one has to contend with when trying to answer an open-ended question like, 'Could the German forces have successfully invaded Britain'. That being said, let's plunge ahead and take a stab at the opening stages.

Opening Stages

The first thing to consider is, 'When was it likely to occur?'

Some people (namely, Guderian and his fans) have postulated that an invasion could have taken place in July 1940, but this is highly improbable (sic, impossible). France had only just surrendered towards the end of the previous month, and there quite simply wasn't the time to gather the necessary maritime craft (they couldn't have even transported one division), before even examining factors such as the preparation of the German Army to launch yet another invasion so soon after France and Norway. Hitler only called together his generals to consider the idea of invading Britain on the 31st July, and was planning it at the start of September. That means that any physical invasion has to be set for mid September at the absolute earliest.

The aerial war, meanwhile, commenced with the 'Kanalkampf' a third of the way through July, with German aircraft being transferred in appropriate facilities in France throughout that month. Despite all the aerial skirmishing, by the time we hit September, the fighter numbers between the two were relatively equivalent. British aircraft production was increasing as time progressed, and Britain actually possessed more aircraft by 1st September than it did at the start of July. Germany had already taken far heavier aircraft losses over the Netherlands than they'd expected, and attrition over Britain wore down their pilot corps quite considerably. After all, a shot down British pilot could return to the fray a day later, a German pilot was taken prisoner!

To summarise, at the point where Sea Lion became feasible, the strength of the Luftwaffe was about 750 bombers, and 600 fighters (mostly Me109 fighters). The British meanwhile, had about 670 planes, 570 of which were Spitfires/Hurricanes. In other words, fighter capabilities were roughly equivalent, and British fighters could refuel quicker, repair quicker, and had a greater immediate pool of pilots. Some people claim that rendering the Southern airfields untenable would have affected the outcome, but Air Chief Marshall Dowding had actually already laid plans to withdraw Group 11 back to airfields in the Midlands out of German fighter range (and thus bombers, because they wouldn't fly to bomb airfields unescorted) in the event of invasion.

So contingencies were in place, and attempting to give the Luftwaffe any kind of aerial dominance on the fighter level is impossible. At our hypothetical invasion of Britain, we're going to end up with a gruelling dogfight over the channel at best. The idea that focusing on Britain and ignoring Russia would give the Luftwaffe air superiority is something of a misdirection, considering the Luftwaffe move east to prepare for Barbarossa didn't occur until later on that year after Hitler had abandoned hope of Sea Lion being an option.

Sea Lion

That all established, assuming Sea Lion had gone ahead, we need to examine German plans.



As you can see, Hitler was initially planning on invading 200 odd miles of coastline, with far less resources than we had for Overlord, in the face of a superior Navy. After much arguing at German High Command, it subsequently was decided that only the 9th Army would land to establish the beachead, (about ten divisions of infantry). They were to land with no equipment beyond the guns in their hands and the grenades at the belts, and the chosen landing zone was Romney Marshes (just to the west of Folkestone on the map above). They were to be supported by a paratrooper drop. There's some dispute over whether that was to be north of Portsmouth, Brighton, or Dover (it was never laid in stone, and different parts of German command were told different things).

To get 9th Army there, the Germans assembled about 1270 barges, 450 tugs, and about 170 cargo ships. About 10% of these were sunk by the RAF before they were dispersed, and generally speaking....well, most were a bit crap. To put it generously. Some of the barges had such a low freeboard that simply driving a destroyer past them would have caused them to capsize and sink. God forbid there were any big waves! Not only that, there weren't enough sailors to operate them anyway (they had about 4,000 of the estimated 20,000 required). There were only enough life jackets to outfit 9th army (the idea was that they'd take them off once landed, and send them back for other troops to put on for the journey). Finally, the tugs which were expected to tow the barges had speed of 3 knots maximum (less in many cases) in a Channel which has a tidal speed of five knots. This means that it would take quite literally half a day to get there! This is of course, without going into how disastrous the one German disembarking trial exercise turned out, so training wasn't exactly top notch....




So yes, maritime lift capacity was absolutely atrocious, and the venture was doomed from the start on that alone.


Make-Believe Time


So, assuming everything goes perfectly, and 9th lands with no opposition. Immediately located in their vicinity is 3 Infantry divisions, 2 foreign brigades, 1 Armoured Division &1 Army Tank Brigade. They've got a hundred artillery pieces, they're dug in behind the Royal Military Canal, and there are Martello Towers fortified and scattered all over place. A joke against modern tanks and artillery, but remember, 9th and paratroops were carrying basic equipment. No panzers or field guns! But, since we've come this far, let's pretend the Luftwaffe have sufficient air superiority to help out and blast through the opposition.

Meanwhile, back at the channel, we have a (laughable) barrier to the Royal Navy. A handful of U-boats on the west side, and mines and a handful of torpedo boats on the east. German mines had had effective countermeasures worked out by the British since the start of the year, and a few pairs of destroyers, appropriately equipped for double L, ahead of the main battle fleet are capable of clearing out a pathway through them. The torpedo boats meanwhile, will be hammered from out of range quite quickly, and the submarines were trapped in reasonably shallow water and would be quite quickly identified. When the tugs are moving at a pathetic few knots, and your destroyers can exceed thirty knots, you could quite frankly sweep around, drive past them to overturn them, and then drive out the other end of the channel before they can get to shore. Let alone including actual guns or big battleships! Since in our imaginary scenario the bombers have free reign though, let's apply logistics, and figure out what those bombers can do to the Royal Navy!

It's often considered that WW2 was where the bomber was shown to have it's day over the battleship, but in reality, munitions were far from the precision guided items we have today. When we were evacuating Dunkirk a few months earlier, and the Luftwaffe had free reign, they only managed to sink a couple of destroyers and dent a few more to varying degrees. Somebody mentioned the American aircraft tests which managed to sink the USS Virgina previously, but the truth is that hitting a ship that's actually moving (as opposed to stationary), has actual fire/repair crews, and AA is a lot harder. Not impossible, but it's not an instant case of 'Bomber vs Battleship equals dead warship'.

With regards to German bombers attacking warships, even with aerial superiority, and assuming every RN warship stands still, you have to work out the logistics! The first German glide bomb wasn't developed until 1943, a long time after our hypothetical scenario. German aerial torpedo production and development was also far behind that of other nations at the outbreak of WW2, they were making about five a month. Not much to sink the whole British fleet with! That's why most maritime casualties caused by the Luftwaffe were modest when hitting warships, as any form of decent speed, armour or containment rendered more traditional explosives much less effective. Not to mention the fact that you had to hit them dead on with your bomber in the face of AA fire to actually drop your bomb, making your flight paths more predictable. Germany eventually purchased Italian aerial torpedoes, but they wouldn't have arrived by this stage.

So in other words, the Royal Navy could have more or less cruised in, sunk the barges, taken a certain degree of damage, and then cruised out again. And then that would stymie the invasion. Frankly, they wouldn't even need to send battleships, if the Luftwaffe have air superiority, why risk them? Send destroyers and cruisers. And submarines. They're faster. Britain fortunately had a surfeit of such things, with about 75 destroyers and ten odd cruisers in the immediate vicinity without even having to gather in more from the rest of the Empire (which they could assuredly have done had the homeland been in danger).

On the beaches

So. Assuming the Luftwaffe are amazing, and support the 9th to such an extent they can blast through all opposition with nothing more than the ammo at their hip, they'll be looking to seize a port. Assuming that all the British troops at Dover in their clifftop fortress somehow forget about all the additional equipment they salvaged from Dunkirk that's stored there (several pieces of artillery, mortars, bren guns, anti-tank rifles and so on), and the Germans seize the port, they can start trying to land their second wave, with all the panzers and heavier gear. Assuming the Royal Navy and the RAF don't bomb/attack the already damaged/sabotaged port with no defences to stop the German troops from repairing it......

Actually, you know? I think I'll leave it there. It's getting a little too silly!

I'll finish with mention of the fact that having asked around the JSCSC, it's been wargamed at Sandhurst several times with every possible handicap applied (including no RAF and RN). And every single time apparently, you end up with the Germans confined to a tiny pocket of South-East England, surrounded by escalating artillery numbers as British land forces bring more troops and weaponry to bear at the schwerpunkt. So to conclude? Operation Sea Lion was doomed from the start. Logistically and tactically.

Ketara, thanks for that.

Ketara, could not agree with you more.

I dont think it was ever realistic. Germany would have needed to have maintained its air ops at battle of britain levels with the focus being on defeating the RAF rather than bombing civilian targets, on top of that the German Navy would have needed tobe able to challeneg the British fleet, which I dont think it would be capable of, in order to secure and maintain supply lines.

Realistically, if they tried, I think they would have been able to establish an airhead (after sustaining heavy losses in the air and on the ground) which they likely would have had to maintain via an airbridge since I dont see them successfully capturing an airfield, and maybe establish a weak beachhead which they wouldnt be able to support nor protect, end result being tens of thousands of captured German soldiers, many aircraft and lilots lost, and a bunch of German ships sent to the bottom of the English channel.

An interesting offshoot from this would be, how would history have been different if the Germans invaded the UK in Sep 1940, and got their arses waxed badly by the RN, resulting in many thousands of drowned soldiers and the medium term crippling of the Dutch and Rhineland economies due to all their barges having been sunk.

How would that have affected Hitler's prestige, and his ability to carry out his plan of war on the Soviet Union?

English Channel is narrow at Calias. So if Germany had a crap load of 88mm covering a two mile approach
Along with other similar cannons same and higher. that's one Hell of a dangerous two mile stretch for the RN to even try to nail the barges at Calais

So two miles of kill zone over open water for water craft and aircraft's

Now let's say UK throws Battleships and their 16-18 guns. Using Royal Oak as an example with its main gun range at (max) 6 miles. Would one be willing to gamble a UK Task Force to get within range of Calais. Not only do they have to sweat German Air power but also U-Boats.

Lets go with Midway as an example. US Aircraft losses were 145 aircraft's of assorted classes for a net gain of 4 carriers (sunk), 1 cruiser (sunk), 1 cruiser (heavy damage), 2 destroyers (medium damage), 1 Oiler (slight damage), 1 Battleship (slight damage), and 1 destroyer (light damage)
That was a carrier force battle between the US and Japan

Now the German Stuka = 311 mile range
German ME109 = 373 mile range
German ME110 = 500 miles (at least)

Land base aircraft's the German would throw at the Task Force
U-Boats the Germans would throw at the Task Force

UK goes in with Destroyers......we know how accurate the German 88mm Flak (ship can be added now)...


I highly doubt Germany would be able to pull off a Normandy style of invasion being logistics involved keeping the operation tempo that high.
Though I can see Germany pulling a stunt off like drawing in UK assets just to get a crack at them....

 Jihadin wrote:
English Channel is narrow at Calias. So if Germany had a crap load of 88mm covering a two mile approach
Along with other similar cannons same and higher. that's one Hell of a dangerous two mile stretch for the RN to even try to nail the barges at Calais

I don't think you realise how light an 88mm gun is in a naval context. In a land war, they did a fair chunk of damage to tanks, and of course, were excellent at shredding aircraft. But at sea? 88mm is practically a pea shooter. A WW1 4 inch gun that Britain was mounting on sloops forty years beforehand was technically a 102mm gun.

If we're shooting to WW2, your average British 16 inch naval cannon is a 406mm cannon. That's the level of ordnance that battleships are meant to deal out and absorb. Compared to that, an 88mm isn't even secondary armament level.The shell wouldn't do much more than dent the paintwork on a battleship or a cruiser. It would do a bit more against a destroyer, but then you run into the targeting issue, namely, how do you hit them? If you're deploying out of visual range, you're effectively relying on radio co-ordinates to try and hit them, but a destroyer moving at 30 knots is going to be much harder to hit that way. You're not doing much better than blind-firing.

Not to mention counter-fire if the main battle-fleet gets involved. The RN battleship fire on Overlord was devastating. To quote Roskill (famous Naval historian), 'The Rodney astonished the Germans by planting her 16-inch shells squarely on tanks which were massing for a counter-attack 17 miles inland from the “Gold” beaches.

Battleship fire is the biggest, nastiest sort of artillery bombardment you can imagine. The image above shows some of the impact craters left behind from Overlord.

Even if they parked the largest guns they had off the coast, say, the 35.5cm Haubitze's, those only translate into 355mm guns. The fact is, naval artillery is bigger than anything you get on land, there's more of it, and unlike a land based weapon, can move whilst firing and absorb hits without being destroyed, because it's armoured to boot.

And frankly, when it comes to ordnance on that level, the Germans only had a handful of guns like that in 1940. Purely based on logistics, the RN fleet would never be in serious danger from land based artillery fire. It's too small by naval standards, and too vulnerable to counter-fire if the RAF or RN had any kind of counter-spotting measures in place.

Now let's say UK throws Battleships and their 16-18 guns. Using Royal Oak as an example with its main gun range at (max) 6 miles. Would one be willing to gamble a UK Task Force to get within range of Calais. Not only do they have to sweat German Air power but also U-Boats.

The Channel is reasonably shallow in a lot of places. Makes it a lot easier to detect craft hiding underwater. Not to mention that submarine detection countermeasures had come reasonably far since WW1. Any sort of fleet action is also screened by numerous smaller craft for this very reason to boot. A U-boat fires once, and it's revealed it's position. But if it doesn't fire, there's a big screen of destroyers heading towards it before it even gets in range of a battleship.

Don't get me wrong, submarines can be a horrid threat to battleships, but using them as a defensive measure in a shallow confined space is about as bad and an ineffective a way to use them as exists. They work best in deep water and wide spaces where they can line up shots underwater, fire, and then escape before anyone knows that they're there.

With regards to range, I just gave an example above of accurate battleship fire at more than double the range you're allowing there.

A battleship is something like a entire division of artillery power. Able to hit out at 30-40km in a circle of total denial of enemy movement.

88mm would not even dent a BB main armour belt.
Only a battleship gun can hurt one properly. There proof vs a 12-16 inch round. 88 is smaller than there own secondary guns, they could be 5-8 inches, light at sea, on land its heavy seige weaponry.

Also vs a land based gun a battleship can lay down 2 ish Mai battery shells per minute, on a average BB its 18 shells per minute. Mobile too unlike a railway gun. BB gunfire is unmatched in its artillery firepower.

Okay, let's consider that Germany would have dedicated the resources set aside for Operation Barbarossa to the Battle of Britain instead. That would roughly double the amount of aircraft the Luftwaffe would have thrown at Britain.
Considering that the RAF was already strained to its limits in the Battle of Britain, having to face double the amount of enemies would likely have totally destroyed the RAF.

With German air superiority, the Royal Navy would be seriously threatened by the Luftwaffe. Powerful though they might be, large ships were extremely vulnerable to air attack as shown by the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales.
Having to face both the German Navy (which while smaller than the British, was far from powerless, especially without having to worry about air attacks) and the Luftwaffe, I honestly doubt that the British Navy would have been able to effectively interfere with an eventual German invasion.

That said, even in this alternate history, I still don't think Operation Seelöwe would have been succesful. Amphibious invasions are one of the hardest military operations, and I doubt that the German Navy had the capacity to pull it off.
I think it would have ended with the British surrendering and withdrawing from the war rather than facing a possible invasion. If Britain wouldn't withdraw however, I am pretty sure that the Nazis with their amazing industrial power (which now is not devastated by Allied bombardments) would have been able to build an effective invasion force given a few years.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Okay, let's consider that Germany would have dedicated the resources set aside for Operation Barbarossa to the Battle of Britain instead. That would roughly double the amount of aircraft the Luftwaffe would have thrown at Britain.
Considering that the RAF was already strained to its limits in the Battle of Britain, having to face double the amount of enemies would likely have totally destroyed the RAF.

With German air superiority, the Royal Navy would be seriously threatened by the Luftwaffe. Powerful though they might be, large ships were extremely vulnerable to air attack as shown by the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales.
Having to face both the German Navy (which while smaller than the British, was far from powerless, especially without having to worry about air attacks) and the Luftwaffe, I honestly doubt that the British Navy would have been able to effectively interfere with an eventual German invasion.

This is a completely new scenario though, not Operation Sea Lion. If we're talking about swapping material over from Barbarossa, we're moving the timeline almost a year forward. That's a completely different fleet strength, set of aircraft numbers, weapons developments, probably a different form of German maritime transportation and so on. Certainly, German military priorities would be more geared towards aircraft and ships than tanks!

And in that scenario, you end up with a completely different set of British priorities. As mentioned in my first post, you can't remove things out of context. If the British saw Barbarossa level resources being amassed over the channel, their construction/spending priorities would have been vastly different. Southern Britain would have become a fortress, there'd have been mass torpedo boat flotillas stocked in every Southern Harbour, and so on.

Heck, I wouldn't have put it past them to rig every single British Harbour facing the Channel to be completely blown the minute the Germans set out. Then you have the Germans trying to run an amphibious assault on the east or west face of Britain and dodge the fleet (unsuccessfully, I should imagine).

Quite frankly, this new imaginary scenario would be completely and utterly different to Operation Sea Lion in most regards with a year's preparations on both sides. I suspect the outcome would be far bloodier, but the result not much different.

I am going to take a different what-if, and consider what-if Singapore was never historically attacked by Japan.

Then with the comfort of our armchairs I will ask if the massive Singapore garrison could fall to Japan, the logical answer is that it couldnt. The port was being reinforced by advanced fighters, a battleship group was stationed in its defence, and had a massive garrison and was on an island.

However Arthur Percival was in command, and he was an idiot prince of idiots, and he blew it badly.

Stage 1.
Let me explain how Germany could win See Lowe. First they need to reduce the invasion range to a few miles, this requires local air supremacy followed by a Fallshirmjager assault on the Isle of Wight. If they behaves like they did when attacking Crete and enough assets were thrown in an invasion of the island was possible. At that point regular infantry and AA units could be airlifted to raise a sizable bridgehead. Moving at the speed and efficiency that the Germans were noted for in the early war I can see them defending the northern coast of the Isle of Wight before a serious counterattack could be launched.

With contest if not control of the Solent the British will be in deep trouble. the Isle of Wight will be heavily bombed, but this will result in catastrophic losses of the RAF light bomber command due to local air supremacy from the Luftwaffe operating from Normandy. This is at maximum range of the ME 109, but not for the ME 110 which is rather useless at hitting fighters but would cause problems for the Fairey Battle and Hampden light bombers.

Stage 2.
Now the Germans need to build a series of grass airfields for short range fighters. This can only rally occur after the RAF has exhausted its light bomber arm. Fighter storage should be develolved down to company level, with a small garrison guarding a small gras area with a single flight of ME109;s each. The Luftwaffe will need to integrate with the Heer at a strionger level than was custom for the Germans during the war, but if the entire operation is given over to the Fallshirmjager commanders and the regular Heer were under Fallshirmjager command for the duration it would be possible.

At this time major supply for the forward garrison would occur via Germans medium bomber fleet flying act low level over dunes and not stopping.

The aim at this stage is to a) install enough artillery along the northern coast to cover the Solent from counterattack, and b) establish enough air presence that a larger fighter base can be built on the souther end of the isle of wight that can provinde round the clock air cover in strength.

Stage 3.
Now with local air support the bulk of the invading force is shipped across the channel to the Isle of Wight. This will include some light panzers. Germany had very few invasion barges that were channel worthy, and this fact should be respected. A direct invasion would likely flounder even if unopposed due to the lack of seaworthy vessels capable of mounting an amphibious invasion. Mostly what the Germans had were converted river barges, which are unsuited to rough waters.

Air cover over the channel when completed will allow a siable build up. This will be accompanied by a continual massive of assets at the Pas De Calais, which remains throughout and offers a second beachhead, more dangerous duie to the current situation on the Isle of Wight.

Stage 4.
Openly call for peace talks. Hitler stopped at Dunkirk because he wanted to negotiate with the UK. We must assume it is the still the Feurer's will that peace with England occurs, the sticking point here is Churchill who wanted a war as much as Hitler did. Given the channel between the Reich and the UK Chuchill can sit and smoke his fat cigars and say never. With Germans in artillery range of the British mainland, and civilians seeing gunflashes from the shore, and the British Army having to shell English towns to rid them of Germans (which will cause civilian casualties and total destruction of local infrastructure but is unlikely to rid the northern coast of the Isle of Wight of German infantry.
At this point the message when Churchill still refuses is to say, 'remove Churchill and we will talk, with guarantees for the Empire etc etc.'

Stage 5.
The plan is not to go this far, but if necessary Germany is in a far better position to launch an actual invasion of mainland England. invasion across the Solent will not be possible, but that was never the point. An actual invasion will still have to cross the channel but can land supported by locally based aviation, and where possible long ranged artillery bombardment of transport nexus in range. The delay this longer campaign causes will also give time for Germany to plan and build proper seaworthy landing craft. The plan would be to land around Dover as normal, but also near the Isle of Wight within fighter cover range but around the heavy garrison which will be entranched around the north side of the Solent (and draining the bulk of the British army into a static position).

I think it could definitely work, but is more extensive. Operation Barbarossa would have to be on definite hold. Timeline for invasion. Isle of Wight airdrop assault in late summer-autumn of 1940 followed by persistent supply and build up, invasion (if needed) in spring of 1941. This sill assumes the Battle of Britain is fought to the historical conclusion.

Two points worth remembering:

1) The Luftwaffe still hadn't recovered from the Battle of Britain by the time Barbarossa came round. Replacing planes is easy. Replacing veteran pilots is not so easy.

2) As Ketara correctly points out, the sheer firepower that a battleship can dish out is fething AWESOME!

During the D-Day invasions, Tiger tanks were pulverised by 14 inch shells hitting them. In most cases, the shock and impact was strong enough to flip a TIGER tank on its TURRET.

Surviving German soldiers were so traumitised, there is eyewitness accounts of them committing suicide just to escape the devastation...

Apologies for the capitals, but one should never underestimate how destructive a battleship broadside is.