Quote:
Originally Posted by PactOfSteel
with all due respect to the moderator I think all my arguments on the subject were valid.
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Really?
I dont.
Germany was in no position to conduct Sea-Lion.
They had no history of amphibious warfare (unlike the British who had been conducting amphibious/coastal landings for well over a century), they had no specialist landing craft, nor the ability or skills needed to even design them. They also had poor recce of the British coast and a lack of suitable maps or any intel. They also had no available Fallschirmjager having worn both them and the transport fleet out during Weserbung and Fall Gelb.
The Luftwaffe was in no position to dominate the RAF, and would never be. The Kriegsmarine could not challenge the RN in the English Channel and any attempt to cross in converted barges would have been at grave danger from the weather, let alone the RN.
Then, if they did land, you have a force, unable to be re-supplied, fighting a force far larger on it home territory.
I would suggest you look at the Sandhurst wargame in the 1970's that played out Operation Sea-Lion with such notables as Galland and Student as umpires. It ended in a complete defeat for the Germans. Indeed any serious effort at wargaming the operation has ended in the Germans losing badly.
Simply put, the reason Hitler aborted the operation is that he knew it would never succeed given the lack of skills, equipment and doctrine in the German forces with regards to amphibious warfare and faced with a strong RAF & RN.