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The recent 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the various accompanying documentaries have set me to wondering about something.
All of them have made much of the fact that Hitler absolutely insisted upon completely eviscerating the RAF, or at least Fighter Command, before the ground invasion could begin. On the one hand, this isn't entirely unreasonable. The Stuka was easy prey for any contemporary fighter -I wouldn't rate its chances that highly against a Gloucester Gladiator for that matter- but still desperately needed to support their ground forces, as the Wehrmacht was short of motorised artillery at that stage.

On the other hand, we might have had an enviable point-defence interceptor force at that stage but the rest of the RAF was still playing catch-up; our nearest equivalent to the Stuka was the Fairey Battle, which was almost entirely useless except as a trainer, and the rest of our light bomber force wasn't a lot better. We eventually filled the CAS role with the ground-attack version of the Hurricane, but it wasn't until the Luftwaffe switched to night attacks that we could spare many from Fighter Command. We probably could have cobbled something together before it was too late, but any German invasion force would have been operating under no worse than neutral skies, especially if they succeeded in taking a couple of British airfields.
The Army wasn't in a much better state. We'd lost nearly all our armour in France, what we didn't lose in combat ending up abandoned on the beaches of Dunkirk while we concentrated on getting the men out. The Home Guard... well, they would have done their best.

In light of that, does anyone else think that failing to gamble on Operation Sealion in spite of Goering failing to deliver was a rare example of Hitler being too risk-averse for his own good?

Oh dear gods, not the Sealion-might-have-worked crap again. There's a lot of complete idiocy in the military related sphere but very little sinks to the level of this utter nonsense. Talk about people being utterly and completely unaware of the realities of trying to run military operations.

Sealion was a joke, a farce, an idiotic, utterly impossible plan that would have been a complete catastrophe for the Germans if they had been dumb enough to try it. If it had been tried, it's possible that the losses inflicted on the German Army and the hilarity that would have resulted from the humiliation of the Nazi high command might have shortened the war a bit. There was no way, no way at all, that the circumstances of 1940 would have permitted a successful or even moderately disastrous outcome for the Germans. If they had tried, the possible outcomes for them range from an 'unimaginably catastrophic defeat' to 'a hideous military disaster unparallelled in the course of human industry. A quiet, mature and informed analysis of the situation pushes one to the latter.

For a detailed, conclusive and definitive account of why Sealion was a farce, go to THIS SOURCE

Then hang your head in shame for ever bringing the subject up.

~link fixed by Shep

The TL; DR version: The Germans themselves did not seriously attempt to try Sealion and the bombing campaign against Britain was more the wish of Hitler than the wish of the General staff. It also failed.

Well, I was sort of right, then. A lack of air superiority wouldn't have made things much worse...

Thanks for the link; it's both highly informative and the funniest thing I've read all day.

Thanas wrote:The TL; DR version: The Germans themselves did not seriously attempt to try Sealion and the bombing campaign against Britain was more the wish of Hitler than the wish of the General staff. It also failed.

A military expert put this very nicely..

"Imagine yourself a German General in June 1940. You've just had a string of victories and have defeated what was supposed to be the strongest army in Europe. Then this jumped-up little squirt of a corporal sends you a message that says prepare to invade Great Britain. You know it is utterly impossible so what do you do? You turn to your aide and say 'Heinrich, generate some paperwork' then go back to dining in the finest restaurants and drinking champagne from French actresses's slippers."

The military expert was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (slightly paraphrased).

I don't think anybody in the know took Sealion seriously. I believe that Goering essentially wanted to chew up the RAF so he could then shift the bulk of the German Air Force east for the invasion of Russia. If that was his objective, he actually succeeded quite well - what the Battle of Britain actually did was deplete the RAF core of pre-war trained pilots. It took a long time to replace them (in qualitative rather than quantitative terms). People underestimate Goering; they always did even when he was a fighter pilot in WW1. If one looks at teh air campaign of the BoB as a spoiling attack rather than a real offensive, a lot of the things that happened falls into place.

Zaune wrote:Well, I was sort of right, then. A lack of air superiority wouldn't have made things much worse... Thanks for the link; it's both highly informative and the funniest thing I've read all day.

The onward link to Ian Montgomerie's article is very good as well. I think you see now why any mention of Sealion succeeding causes a reflexive wail of protest from historians and strategists. There's only one way to invade the UK in the context of the time and that is to pre-position significant German forces in the UK to secure airheads and seize at leats one port facility. That obviously implies a massive political change in the UK. To get some idea of the full scale of the horror, look at the planning, organization, expertise and force levels that went into Overlord in June 1944 and compare it with what was available for Sealion.

Don't worry though, other people have come up with far worse ideas. On HPCA we had one breathtaking insanity where somebody suggested that dropping two divisions of German paratroopers in SE England would win the war for Germany. You might not be surprised to know that idea eventually traced back to one Tom Kratman who eventually turned up to support it and was run off the board with his tail between his legs.

I once heard it suggested by a person I normally consider to be fairly intelligent that in the process of (very, very predictably) defeating an attempt at Sealion, the British might have suffered significant losses among their light warships (destroyers mainly) and Coastal Command aircraft. And that this might have caused some difficulty in the Battle of the Atlantic as it escalated in the following years.

I am not qualified to assess the truth or falsehood of this proposition. Could anyone more in the know comment?

And no, I am not even beginning to say "therefore, a win to the Germans."

Stuart wrote:I don't think anybody in the know took Sealion seriously. I believe that Goering essentially wanted to chew up the RAF so he could then shift the bulk of the German Air Force east for the invasion of Russia. If that was his objective, he actually succeeded quite well - what the Battle of Britain actually did was deplete the RAF core of pre-war trained pilots. It took a long time to replace them (in qualitative rather than quantitative terms). People underestimate Goering; they always did even when he was a fighter pilot in WW1. If one looks at teh air campaign of the BoB as a spoiling attack rather than a real offensive, a lot of the things that happened falls into place.

That's interesting. I never looked at that from this perspective, but I kinda wonder if it really holds up. Did the RAF even have a threatening enough strike capability? And I wonder why the bombing of London was kept up for so long if it was a spoiling attack.

What things specifically do you think are falling into place?

I do indeed see why, though like most other people with a British comprehensive education I was under the impression that Sealion bore slightly more resemblance to an actual plan and slightly less resemblance to the plot of a Tom Sharpe novel.

Then again, this is the same Germany that thought equipping Panzers with a long snorkel and driving them across from France was a viable beach-landing strategy, so I shouldn't really have been surprised.

Zaune wrote:Then again, this is the same Germany that thought equipping Panzers with a long snorkel and driving them across from France was a viable beach-landing strategy, so I shouldn't really have been surprised.

Who thought that? I am pretty sure that is an urban legend.

I heard it mentioned briefly in two separate books, one old tank recognition-guide whose title escapes me (though I think Ian V Hogg was one of the co-authors) and the Reader's Digest History of the Second World War.
Besides, it doesn't sound that crazy compared to the rest of the preparations (if that's really the word) that went into Sealion.

Zaune wrote:I heard it mentioned briefly in two separate books, one old tank recognition-guide whose title escapes me (though I think Ian V Hogg was one of the co-authors) and the Reader's Digest History of the Second World War.
Besides, it doesn't sound that crazy compared to the rest of the preparations (if that's really the word) that went into Sealion.

Do you know how deep the channel is? And how utterly nonsensical such a proposal would be? The channel is not some river.

They had some tanks with snorkels for crossing rivers, but if any tanks were to cross a channel, they would have been floating with attached pontoons.

I didn't say it was a good idea, I said it was only slightly worse than every other idea associated with Sealion. When I originally read about it I assumed it was one of those ideas the Fuhrer tossed out on the spur of the moment, and which everyone had to pretend to take seriously until he forgot about it.
Bit like Sealion itself, in fact.

Stuart explaining why the German's can't achieve air superiority over southern England (Yes 10 Group and 12 Group are flipped as noted here).

Thanas wrote:That's interesting. I never looked at that from this perspective, but I kinda wonder if it really holds up. Did the RAF even have a threatening enough strike capability? And I wonder why the bombing of London was kept up for so long if it was a spoiling attack.

Speculatively, the following occur to me:

-Because it was using assets that weren't critically needed elsewhere (at least, not until the Eastern Front opened up)?
-Because it was practically the only way anyone could think of to create even a chance that the British would give up without the impossibility of staging Sealion?
-Because casualties were relatively low during night operations, making them relatively more sustainable than a high-intensity daylight bombing campaign?

In that case, the Blitz on London would constitute, arguably, a separate operation from the "spoiling attack" against RAF forces. Both aimed at Britain, but with very different objectives in mind.

This could be entirely wrong of course.

I'd gotten the impression through previous discussions of the subject that the General Staff, knowing that Sealion was impossible but not wanting to tell Hitler that uncomfortable fact, insisted on complete air superiority, knowing that to be impossible as well, so as to shift the blame for Sealion's failure onto Goering's shoulders. I have no idea if that has any basis in fact, though.

That does fit with the feudal everybody against everybody else command structure the Nazis had. The army and kriegsmarine also had a nice little bluffing game going where the army would insist on an invasion frontage wider than they knew the navy would guarentee, and the navy would similarily only offer to cover a frontage they knew the army would reject.

The Luftwaffe only cared about it as it gave them an opportunity to mix it up with the RAF, and the other two services were probably praying nightly that they would fail and thus take the responsibility of ending this suicidal op for them.

That would be a hilarious alt history story if written right. The Luftwaffe manages to suppress the RAF enough that Hitler green lights Sealion, then the navy and army go into panic mode trying to get the op cancelled in such a way that the other service gets blamed for it.

To put it bluntly Operation Sealion was doomed to fail as long as the Royal Navy existed. As long as the RAF could field fighters against any direct air attack against the Navy the Nazis really had no way of actually getting much of anything across the channel. They need to destroy the RN in the harbor or at least put the ports out of action. Even submarines would not have been enough to fight off the bulk of the Royal Navy's battleships and battle fleet before any invasion would be doomed in the channel.

aieeegrunt wrote:That does fit with the feudal everybody against everybody else command structure the Nazis had. The army and kriegsmarine also had a nice little bluffing game going where the army would insist on an invasion frontage wider than they knew the navy would guarentee, and the navy would similarily only offer to cover a frontage they knew the army would reject.

The Luftwaffe only cared about it as it gave them an opportunity to mix it up with the RAF, and the other two services were probably praying nightly that they would fail and thus take the responsibility of ending this suicidal op for them.

These people conquered most of Europe how?
Seriously, all it would have taken was some joined-up thinking by the General Staff and Hitler having the sense to finish what he'd started before getting bored and going off to do something else. He had at least until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact expired to secure his western flank, and more than enough manpower and equipment to put us out of the war if he could just get it across the Channel. That should have been eminently achievable if the heads of the three armed services had tried working with each other instead of empire-building and trying to make their screw-ups look like someone else's fault.

Zaune wrote:These people conquered most of Europe how?

Better doctrine and training.
Also note that they are not alone in big blunders.

Zaune wrote:Seriously, all it would have taken was some joined-up thinking by the General Staff and Hitler having the sense to finish what he'd started before getting bored and going off to do something else. He had at least until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact expired to secure his western flank, and more than enough manpower and equipment to put us out of the war if he could just get it across the Channel. That should have been eminently achievable if the heads of the three armed services had tried working with each other instead of empire-building and trying to make their screw-ups look like someone else's fault.

Seriously???? Did you learn anything from the links provided?

Zaune wrote: These people conquered most of Europe how?
Seriously, all it would have taken was some joined-up thinking by the General Staff and Hitler having the sense to finish what he'd started before getting bored and going off to do something else. He had at least until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact expired to secure his western flank, and more than enough manpower and equipment to put us out of the war if he could just get it across the Channel. That should have been eminently achievable if the heads of the three armed services had tried working with each other instead of empire-building and trying to make their screw-ups look like someone else's fault.

Yeah I could win any war like that, you know. If only <massive obstacles> were removed via Quantum! If only! We were so close! SO CLOSE I tell you!

The funniest thing about the whole idea is that every idiot keeps concentrating on making the invasion work. I posit the following question: Fine, you made it work. You took England.

Now what? You can't just leave and be done with it. You need to occupy the place, which means maintaing and supplying troops there. And let me tell you, England is awesome for fighting a guerilla war: lots of hills, mountains, tight winding roads in the countryside, tenacious people.

So, even if you surmount the insurmountable, you get another massive problem on your hands

Have fun, Heinrich!

EDIT: That link is excellent

Block the east end of the Channel with mines and 14 torpedo boats (with 20 enemy destroyers immediately to face).

Brilliant plan! No flaws at all!

Not to mention the logistics of supplying shit to their occupation forces over the channel, which'll probably waste more time than sending crap over land on roads or trains across their European conquests.

Then again, if hippothetically Britain was taken out of the war (maybe it sinks like Atlantis, maybe it doesn't join the war at all, maybe the Germans took it - hah - whatever), how would the Americans have opened up a Western front without the UK as a launching point for Overlord? Do it through the Italian campaign?

Also:

God what is it with germanowanking shits who keep on positing the victory of Germany over the whole DC universe in stupid randome altarnate realty altarnate histry hippotheticel scenareos anyway?

Zaune wrote:These people conquered most of Europe how?

This may be hard to believe, but different services have rarely worked together without trying to screw each other for the most resources and money. Really, I do not know why you are so astonished about that - just look at the infighting that occurs even today about the limited resources a country has.

Seriously, all it would have taken was some joined-up thinking by the General Staff and Hitler having the sense to finish what he'd started before getting bored and going off to do something else. He had at least until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact expired to secure his western flank, and more than enough manpower and equipment to put us out of the war if he could just get it across the Channel. That should have been eminently achievable if the heads of the three armed services had tried working with each other instead of empire-building and trying to make their screw-ups look like someone else's fault.

Are you retarded? There was no way, not even if they had merged through magic into one single person, that the Nazis could have taken england. Sure, one can go stupid Nazis, haha, but that completely misses the point here, that any other nation in the same situation had the same success of taking England - nil.



In any case, locked. We have been over this before.

If Stuart wants to answer my question about sealion, I shall reopen the thread (just PM me, Stuart). But other than that this is just regurgitating stuff we already discussed several times.