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How Sealion could have been made workable?

Discussion in 'What If - European Theater - Western Front & Atlan' started by leopold, Jan 2, 2007.

  1. John Dudek

    John Dudek Member

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    No one doubts that the Germans could gave gotten ashore during the Sealion operations. The greatest hinderance for them remains in the much understated field of logistics and the Royal Navy's ability to insure that little to no German resupply gets to where it is most badly needed. That is where all of the Sandhurst wargames played over the years have always fallen apart for the Germans.
     
  2. leopold

    leopold Member

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    There is an additional possible strategy for Sealion - instead of trying immediately to conquer the whole island, the invasion troops could occupy a defendable perimeter in the immediate area of the channel and dug in.
    The advantage is treefold:
    a) The supplies needed for defence would be significantly smaller and would not have to be transported far inland.

    b) The RN would be forced to patrol the channel for a fear of the germans enhancing their bridgehead. It would be getting heavy punishment from the LW - rendering it eventualy powerless.

    c) A rude refuelling airfields could be set up on the occupied land allowing LW fighters longer flight time above britain.

    With such bridgehead on the island the war of attrition against the Britain would be a much more realistic option (together with u-boats in the atlantic)
     
  3. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Aquila non capit muscas

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    I see every single piece of artillery extant in Great Brtitain including every Napoleonic piece from the Imperial War Museum being used to pound such a bridgehead, every bomber in the RAF. I doubt the Germans would be able to match that firepower.:flag_uk:
     
  4. leopold

    leopold Member

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    Lets divide this in two :
    1) Attacks by artillery.
    Following Dunkirk evacuation the British were quite short on army equipment and that included modern (for that time) artillery.
    Old equipment from the War museum etc. would only have had a rallying effect at best.
    Not to mention that ammunitions for such old pieces would be scarce if at all available.
    There are however the battleships, but as I pointed out - bringing them to the channel would be actually part of the strategy. - there they would be accessable by the LW.

    2) Attacks by RAF bombers.
    During the BoB, all the Britain's aircraft industry was directed exclusively to fighter production. If the RAF bombers were to be used en masse, there would be an inescapable rise of bomber losses and the industry would have to redeem them.
    But mind you that producing a fighter is much cheeper than bomber!
    So that would immediately tilt the ballance of the BoB.

    There are additional benefits for the germans in such situation, which I didn't mention - for instance intelligence. - Gathering it would be easier when they have a foothold in the island (spy missions behind enemy lines etc.)
     
  5. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Aquila non capit muscas

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    Ah well, it appears my slightly sarcastic tone wasn't taken note of. No problem, life's like that.

    One thing that surprises me though is that if the outlook was so damned good for the Germans, then why didn't it work out that way in real life?
     
  6. leopold

    leopold Member

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    I did note it, but wasn't quite sure ... you never know in these forums.. :)

    I gather you're being sarcastic again, but there is bit of truth in every sarcasm so I'll answer anyway...
    My take on that is that the German high command wasn't feeling confident enough to commit fully to such operation. - Why? Because of lack of intelligence info.
    If they knew the british situation the same way we know it today they would have certainly be confident of success.
    In addition they very much underestimated the power of the Soviet Union up to the point that it was considered 'easy game' compared to Britain.
     
  7. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    FWIW I think that the 'sunken bomb' idea is a non-starter - detonating large amounts of early-WWII era explosives underwater and remotely...no, I just don't see it.

    Interesting thread, though, and it's amusing to see the various ideas. I still hold to my view that it just wasn't 'on'. A seaborne invasion is the most difficult military operation to execute successfully and requires the most meticulous planning and preparation.

    Hitler needed ( as he had achieved elsewhere in Europe ) a victory over Britain's will to fight ( ie a collapse of morale / political will ).

    Thank God for Churchill in 1940.
     
  8. leopold

    leopold Member

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    You know from where that idea came to me? There actually was such a 'bomb' (still is) in the form of a Victory class merchant filled with 1500 tons of TNT that drifted into shallow water during low tide close to London and got stuck there.

    It is estimated that if it explodes it could damage a whole section of the city.

    So I though 'what if' it was done on purpose with 10 times more explosive in a narrowest section of Lamanshe....

    Unless I'm missing something, there isn't any technical problem with that - is there?
     
  9. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    At the risk of floating off topic :) , that's the 'Richard Montgomery' which lies in the Thames Estuary off Southend, about 30 miles downriver from London. It had 1,500 tons of munitions aboard - some has been removed, but the rest has been left to deteriorate.

    For ten times that amount you'd need a very big ship by 1939 standards when GRTs were much lower than today. Remotely-firing large charges was difficult in those days ( eg the Aprhrodite aircraft ) so I was wondering how it would be exploded at the right time to damage shipping in the area without being a 'suicide mission' itself : torpedo ? Timed limpet mine ?

    Agreed, the Campbeltown managed it at St Nazaire but that was above-water with hand-set charges.....
     
  10. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    The "large bomb ship" idea is definitely a non starter. The US in the 60's and 70's did several tests using large amounts of explosives to simulate nuclear bomb blasts for testing ship structures. These were done in the Pacific and I have photos of some of them somewhere.
    Anyway, the explosives had to be arranged in a very precise "igloo" shape and carefully detonated to ensure that everything went off at the same time. Doing this within a ship with no previous engineering or other design and testing is just not going to work.
    Aside from the practical, engineering aspect the Germans were short on munitions almost from the start of the war. Wasting 10,000 tons of high explosives would have cost them a month or more of their production of munitions just to procure. This was something they were hardly going to be willing to do.
    Then there is the usefullness of such a project at all. First, you need the British to cooperate and place a sizable fleet near enough to be effected. If we take tests Able and Baker as a baseline the return on such a project if it has any at all will be just a handful of ships; maybe 4 or 5 at the most optimistic, probably less. Other ships might be damaged but will certainly be repaired. So, even from a military standpoint it will not have much benefit.
     
  11. leopold

    leopold Member

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    Ok, so somebody did try it, allthough after the war... (If you have a link it would be appreciated)
    I see now that it's not as straightforward as I thought, but why do you think it would take the Germmans a full month to create that amount of explosives? During active war campain periods they were spending that amount every two -tree days...
    As to the number of ships sunk I agree with your estimate - it's more or less what the bikini island test showed. However many more ships would be damaged (or crews dazzled) and probably unable to fight effectively so the LW could get them immediately afterwards.
    Also there could be propaganda effect - imagine the Germans claiming that they created an atomic bomb - RN could withdraw from the channel at least until they figure it out...

    As to the question of activation - I think the simplest would have been a cable, unwinded from the french shore as the ships crosses the channel, but some failsafe radio activation is also not out of the question (Modified enigma machine comes to mind)

    Of course the British could have tried the same as an anti invasion fleet measure - creating a huge wave to sink the barges, etc...
     
  12. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    You would not have any choice. The Luftwaffe would HAVE to successfully perform those FIVE critical missions if Operation Sealion were to have any chance at all of succeeding. While VIII Fleigerkorps' planes were only a fraction of the number which would have been available to Operation Sealion, it's also true that the RN only had a fraction of the ships off Crete that would have been available to defend the British Isles.

    What happened at Crete? The Germans attacked with airborne troops and narrowly defeated the British ground forces on the island. The RN Eastern Med squadron, based at Alexandria, and numbering about 45 warships (4 battleships, 1 carrier, 10 cruisers, and about 30 destroyers), prevented the Germans from reinforcing their troops on Crete by sea. After the British ground forces were defeated, the RN evacuated about 15,000 British troops. It was during the evacuation phase that most of the RN losses occurred. Over a period of ten days, nine warships (3 cruisers, 6 destroyers) were sunk (20 % of the Med squadron) and 18 (40 %) were damaged. This was the price the RN paid to evacuate the equivalent of a single division, mostly without any of it's equipment.

    If the Luftwaffe managed to inflict similar losses on the British Home Fleet and the anti-invasion light forces (totaling altogether about 257 warships), the RN could expect to lose about 57 ships sunk and 102 damaged. This would be well within an acceptable price to pay to prevent an invasion of the British Isles and inflict a decisive defeat on Germany, especially since there would be no remaining operational German surface ships. But even those ratios are highly suspect because the RN would be operating with some air cover from RAF aircraft, and also would be operating literally in their own back yard where it would be possible to save even severely damaged warships.

    Furthermore, the Luftwaffe would have only about 24 hours (probably ten of them hours of darkness) in which to launch attacks on RN ships operating in the Channel. After 24 hours, the German invasion fleet would mostly be sitting on the bottom or washing up as wreckage on the beaches. Since the Luftwaffe would also simultaneously have to land large numbers of paratroops in England, engage and destroy any remaining RAF fighters, provide ground support for any German forces in England, and mount resupply and reinforcement missions, it's ability to destroy or even harass RN warships in the Channel is going to be seriously restricted.

    I do not see any realistic possibility of the Luftwaffe, determined or otherwise, being able to stop the RN from turning the German invasion fleet into so much matchwood.
     
  13. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    FalkeEins, Jaeger and Za Rodinu like this.
  14. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    It is worth noteing that many/most of the losses didn't occur until the British ships were severely depleted or out of AA ammo.

    As for artillery in the British isles they recieved hundreds of pieces along with ammo in June. Not to mention that there were untouched formations in Britain.
     
  15. Carl W Schwamberger

    Carl W Schwamberger Ace

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    A subject that is commonly ignored by Sea Lion afficiandos. The actual strength of the British army in June thru October is seldom refered to.
     
  16. Tomcat

    Tomcat The One From Down Under

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    Don't forget to bring up the large rail guns in England, what were their names, Winnie and Pooh?
     
  17. von Rundstedt

    von Rundstedt Dishonorably Discharged

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    Here is my two cents worth.

    The systemic failure of Germany to defeat Britain went farther back than many here fail to comprehend, if you take pasages out of Mein Kampf you would realize that Mein Fuhrer Adolf Hitler "hero worshiped" Britain even after Britain signed an alliance with Poland, Mein Fuhrer never contemplated war with Britain, he considered that Germany and Britain would make peace.

    An example of this was his dogged determination to invade Poland, France and to violate the neutral nations of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. Mein Fuhrer even had a dogged determination to invade and crush the Soviet Union, but when it came to Britain he never fully committed to an invasion, even after the defeat of France and the Low Countries he held onto the idea that Britain would make peace.

    And finally when it became absolutely certain that Britain would not make peace then and only then did Meine Fuhrer decide that an invasion of Britain was the only option but Mein Fuhrer has shot his bolt, it was too late the Luftwaffe was losing the Battle of Britain and that Britian had recovered well enough to pose a serious defence of home soil, by September it was too late.

    v.R
     
  18. mac_bolan00

    mac_bolan00 Member

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    well then you could stray a bit and decide which to do: invade britain or russia --successfully? i'll still go with russia.
     
  19. ozjohn39

    ozjohn39 Member

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    From my 'Magic Wand' cupboard!



    NIL soldiers saved at Dunkirk.

    1000 'Higgins' Boats'.

    1000 Torpedo bombers.

    100 Minelayers,

    100 Minesweepers.

    'Bismark' and 'Tirpitz' fully operational.

    10x Pocket battleships.

    50x Destroyers.

    1000+ Bf 109s.

    20 Divisions of fresh troops.



    EASY!!!



    John.


    PS,


    Perfect weather!
     
  20. mac_bolan00

    mac_bolan00 Member

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    ^ that's just the british or japanese navy in peacetime!
     

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