Glossary of Sealion Threads

[IchBinDieKaiser]

I'm not here to discuss anything about the Unspeakable seamammal. I decided to make this thread as a source for new members to go to for all of their sealion fantasies, flaming, etc so that we don't have to constantly see new Sealion threads. So post links to any thread about Sealion here and when ever someone asks about it you can direct them to this thread as a directory. Kill the seamammal.

[Mostlyharmless]

I used the search function to find threads with Sealion, Seelowe and Seelöwe in the title looking just in the After 1900 forum. Perhaps one or two threads with Seeloewe are trying to slip past the British in the dark and there will be probably be a swarm of "successful invasion in 1940" threads that have escaped. I kept the number of posts and views as 19.1.2011 to give some idea of the extent of the discussion. Some of the listed posts do not actually discuss Sealion. For example, one discusses Japanese invasion plans against Australia. However, this list does give some idea of the effort expended by present and former members since 2004.[/FONT]

British after DEFEATED Sealion ( 1 2 3 4 5 6) KillerT 108 4383
British after Sealion ( 1 2 3) Pichuscrat 48 1270
American Sealion ( 1 2 3) Arcvalons 40 1351
Realistic Reverse Sealion Puget Sound 8 575
So HOW disasterous would Sealion be? ( 1 2) henri 31 1705
Operation Sealion, A German Success Evilprodigy 13 601
Saving Private Sealion BlackWave 14 507
Sealion Interview Mostlyharmless 11 742
Sealion Realtime Coxed ( 1 2 3 4) patch_g 70 2897
Sealion '41 Dan 4 512
Hilter's Sealion Ming777 9 602
Operation Sealion ( 1 2) Polarity 23 1010
Sealion Posts ( 1 2 3) merlin 40 1752
An interesting take on Sealion ( 1 2 3 4) Grey Wolf 67 3353
Latest POD for a successful Sealion. Snowstalker 17 556
Perfidious Albion encourages Sealion cerebus 13 776
Billy Mitchell causes successful Operation Sealion! SunilTanna 10 712
Ultimate Challenge (besides Sealion): Mondale beats Reagan! Snowstalker 10 409
Political Consequences of a Failed Sealion usertron2020 7 539
Successful Sealion? ( 1 2 3 4 5) Snowstalker 96 3622
A question about Operation Sealion? EMPEPEROR OF SCANDANAVIA 12 731
Looking for Sealion debunks Alamo 1 292
Plans for the aftermath of a successful Sealion? TheNordicBrit 7 535
Ireland if sealion was sucessful ( 1 2) NIK PARMEN 30 1420
AH Challange-WW1 Sealion King Thomas 12 646
Sealion! ( 1 2 3) varyar 42 1476
DBWI: Sealion!, the musical Dilvish 5 350
Succesful Sealion ( 1 2) Abdul Alhazred 21 709
Asian Sealion Expat 1 304
WI no Sealion plan? BlackWave 5 290
Plausibility Check: Sealion in 1941 Onkel Willie 18 631
Reverse Sealion... Mr Stereo1 9 783
N00BWI: Sealion Lord Malikai 13 520
Effects of a German Debacle Sealion BigWillyG 19 712
WI Churchill tricked Hitler into launching S*****n? King Thomas 6 466
Sealion as a Dieppe-style raid ( 1 2) Onkel Willie 27 1102
Plausibility Check: A Soviet Sealion Fardell 7 341
Sealion With Less 'Sea' eltf177 2 517
To Sealion and Beyond... ( 1 2) Chris 35 1802
After A Failed Sealion rip89 15 725
As queer as a Clockwork Sealion ( 1 2) maverick 27 1532
Operation Sealion Bavarian Raven 12 460
effects of failed sealion kellineil 8 556
Looking for a good Sealion thread mowque 3 222
DBWI Germany had not tried Sealion yourworstnightmare 10 608
WI Sealion Attempted Tyr 17 880
Could Sealion have worked If? ( 1 2) Churchill 23 887
Operation Sealion succeeds... ( 1 2) dmz23 33 1618
Sealion successfull ( 1 2) MUC 26 940
A Dieppe-style Sealion ( 1 2 3) Jason 45 1868
Operation Sealion disaster Michel Van 10 907
BardWI: WI Operation Sealion Was Succesful ( 1 2 3 4) Hannibal.Caesar 60 1868
NoobWI: What if Operation Sealion suceeded? Sid the Bandit 16 661
A More Realistic Sealion Outcome ( 1 2) eltf177 37 1730
A different name for Operation Sealion ( 1 2) DMA 37 1232
N00BWI: how might Sealion succeed? ( 1 2) the_lyniezian 22 778
Plan a Successful Sealion! ( 1 2 3) Nekromans 49 1487
Operation Sealion ( 1 2) zeitenschmiede 27 1200
What if the Germans attempted Sealion... ( 1 2) demonkangaroo 21 1296
Challenge - Make Sealion Possible ! ( 1 2 3) Grey Wolf 45 2251
DBWI: What if Sealion had... failed? ( 1 2) Dean_the_Young 26 1208
Time for the Semiannual Sealion Smackdown! ( 1 2 3 4) Dean_the_Young 75 2774
Operation Sealion Fails Landshark 15 1000
sealion with a sporting chance ( 1 2) Paul Edwards 30 1048
My Attempt on a Successful Sealion Berra 18 725
Operation Sealion ( 1 2) dmz23 32 1048
The effects of a failed Sealion Justin Green 11 867
Poll: SeaLion - the poll ( 1 2 3) Magnum 55 1857
Could Operation Sealion have worked? ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) RCTFI 183 6955
Operatsiya Morskoi Lev - a Soviet Sealion Midgard 9 813
Sealion 67th Tigers 11 589
Operation Sealion by Air?? ( 1 2 3) trajen777 45 1273
Operation Sealion FAILS! Scarecrow 16 672
Wi: Operation Sealion is a plausible TL ( 1 2) Bismarck 22 941
Never mind Sealion here is the attack on the Radiostation Helgoland oberdada 19 655
Operation Sealion ( 1 2) Fenwick 22 903
Operation Sealion ( 1 2 3 4 5 6) Chingo360 116 3170
What if operation Sealion was a success? ( 1 2) Fenwick 39 1001
Yet another Sealion thread aktarian 2 431
Successful Sealion aktarian 7 584
New Sealion: Japanese invasion Down Under? ( 1 2) chrispi 23 1237
Sealion! ...kinda. Tetsu 4 484
WI: Sealion Attempted and Failed ( 1 2) TheLoneAmigo 31 1226
ATL - Successful OP Sealion campaign ( 1 2 3 4) Hail the Omnissiah! 74 2796

Seelowe Succesful!! Mein gott Gustavus Adolphus 2 245
AH Challenge Have Seelowe inflict the Most damage on Britain Gustavus Adolphus 9 419
Seelowe ( 1 2 3 4 5) Graehame 81 3260
AH Challenge: Uber Seelowe, A German invasion of America. ( 1 2) The Red 24 1035


IS Seelöwe The Only Way To German Victory? ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... Last Page) Dave in St. Louis 213 6233
Seelöwe successful, so what? ( 1 2 3 4) Wyragen-TXRG4P 69 2935
Ultimate Challenge: Unternehmen Seelöwe ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) Ariosto 166 [FONT=Times New Roman]5430

[PhilKearny]

Der Manstein Kommt plus its prediscussion thread

[jayel]

So with a POD of 1933 shortly after Hitler become Chancellor he hears about the Italian underwater teams. He set up a Special Forces operation along the lines of the Decima Flottiglia Mezzi d'Assalto (10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla) training the indigenous Baltic sea mammals the Grey seal, Ringed seal, Harbor seal, and Harbor porpoises after war is declared he sends the Sea Lion unit to the English coastal waters. They eat all the local herring causing a severe shortage of kippers driving perfidious Avalon to its knees and forcing a surrender, possible?

[Mostlyharmless]

Perhaps we not only need a list of threads but also need the threads to be classified into groups.

Clearly one group of threads can be removed immediately, those that do not concern a German invasion of Britain during WW2 such as:Ultimate Challenge (besides Sealion): Mondale beats Reagan!, New Sealion: Japanese invasion Down Under?, AH Challenge: Uber Seelowe, A German invasion of America etc.

Some other threads explicitly focus on alternatives to Sealion such as IS Seelöwe The Only Way To German Victory?

There is another group of threads and of postings within the threads which focus on being humorous. Examples include Sealion Realtime Coxed or http://alternatehistory.com/discussi...433#post589433. These offer useful warnings to a newbie poster but may not fill in all the details.

There are threads which look at the possible consequences of successful or unsuccessful Sealion operations without necessarily going into details about the invasion attempt itself. British after DEFEATED Sealion, British after Sealion and Seelöwe successful, so what? are fairly recent while After A Failed Sealion, The effects of a failed Sealion, What if operation Sealion was a success? and WI: Sealion Attempted and Failed are older.

A related group simply takes a successful Sealion as the back story. Going outside AH.com, Murray Davies' novel Collaborator won the 2003 Sidewise Award using that approach.

We are now down to a small fraction of the threads and posts but the ones that actually look at the plausibility of a successful Sealion. The overwhelming consensus is that Sealion would have failed. A good essay discussing why is Ian's at http://www.alternatehistory.com/gate...s/Sealion.html. Naturally not everyone is going to give up so easily. After all we already knew that the Germans lost. So they start asking what possible changes in history might have allowed Sealion to win. Challenge - Make Sealion Possible ! or Could Operation Sealion have worked? are examples of threads on this. Of course it gets easier, if you start the divergence earlier. Ultimate Challenge: Unternehmen Seelöwe suggested that January 1940 is too late for a successful Sealion POD. I tried with a POD of 3rd September 1939 in Sealion Interview and didn't quite convince myself although it was fun. The basic idea was to use magnetic mines as a surprise weapon. Berra suggested a POD of the British not developing radar in My Attempt on a Successful Sealion but again did not convince everyone.

Before leaving Sealion's plausibility, I would like to mention that much of history is ASB before it happens:

How can a group of Greek cities that have never agreed on anything resist the Persian empire?
How could anyone knowing the diameter of the Earth from Eratosthenes and the distance to China from Marco Polo be daft enough to try to sail directly from Spain to China and expect not to run out of drinking water?
But Cortes, how many to one do you expect that the Aztecs outnumber you?
Do you really believe that a gang of colonists can defeat the World's greatest power and then form a stable republic?
Do you expect that the famous French army will send its most mobile reserves to The Netherlands, fail to dig defences at Sedan over more than six months, not notice that 7/10s of the German armour is moving through the Ardennes for three days (helped by the Belgian troops withdrawing out of their way) and then not send all available reserves to attack the bridgeheads over the Meuse before they are reinforced?
Do you expect that Mussolini would leave a third of his merchant ships outside the Mediterranean when he declares war and would then attack Greece instead of concentrating on the British?
Do you believe that Stalin will be paranoid enough to kill most of his own officers and will then refuse to believe intelligence reports that the Germans may attack?
Stanley Hornbeck, the Head of the State Department's Asia Desk, was offering bets that the Japanese would do nothing in late November 1941.
Do you think the President Nixon will have his words taped and not have them wiped?

[Gridley]

Originally Posted by Mostlyharmless

Before leaving Sealion's plausibility, I would like to mention that much of history is ASB before it happens:

How can a group of Greek cities that have never agreed on anything resist the Persian empire?
How could anyone knowing the diameter of the Earth from Eratosthenes and the distance to China from Marco Polo be daft enough to try to sail directly from Spain to China and expect not to run out of drinking water?
But Cortes, how many to one do you expect that Aztecs outnumber you?
Do you really believe that a gang of colonists can defeat the World's greatest power and then form a stable republic?
Do you expect that the famous French army will send its most mobile reserves to The Netherlands, fail to dig defences at Sedan over more than six months, not notice that 7/10s of the German armour is moving through the Ardennes for three days (helped by the Belgian troops withdrawing out of their way) and then not send all available reserves to attack the bridgeheads over the Meuse before they are reinforced?
Do you expect that Mussolini would leave a third of his merchant ships outside the Mediterranean when he declares war and would then attack Greece instead of concentrating on the British?
Do you believe that Stalin will be paranoid enough to kill most of his own officers and will then refuse to believe intelligence reports that the Germans may attack?
Stanley Hornbeck, the Head of the State Department's Asia Desk, was offering bets that the Japanese would do nothing in late November 1941.
Do you think the President Nixon will have his words taped and not have then wiped?

While I agree in theory, I think most of your examples need some work.
The Greeks could, as the phrase goes, hang together or hang separately. Even so, some of them fought on the Persian side. The naval side of the wars was quite important, and an early example of the decisive effects of seapower on land warfare.
Columbus didn't believe the measurements. Several of (Isabella's?) advisers did, and urged her not to fund the expedition on that basis. She, like Columbus, didn't understand the math (politicians being notably bad at that in just about all time periods), and didn't care about things she didn't understand (also a common trait of politicians).
If you're referring to the (1st) American Revolution, then the colonists didn't defeat the British, except locally. The French drove off the British fleet at a key point in the war, and diverted large numbers of British troops earmarked for America.
This would be the famous French army that mutinied in WWI? That lost the Franco-Prussian War? Who's only recent victories had been against the equivalent of third-world countries? The French army was indeed LOOKED UPON AT THE TIME as powerful, but any realistic examination after the fact reveals that they had a reputation they couldn't match.
Mussolini was a moron. Such people rising to power is hardly unheard of. The results tend to rather bad for their countries.

[Don Lardo]

Originally Posted by Mostlyharmless

Before leaving Sealion's plausibility, I would like to mention that much of history is ASB before it happens...

Human stupidity, which accounts almost all of your "examples", is not ASB. What's left can be explained as faults in perception at the time or latter day myths and they aren't ASB either.

Sealion, as planned by Nazi Germany in 1940, is a physical impossibility. Having it occur, let alone succeed, is ASB.

A Germany can invade a Britain as part of a war during the period in question. Decades of Darkness showed this very neatly. A Nazi Germany mounting such an invasion requires a POD or PODs both "deep" enough and "wrenching" enough as to make the WW2 in question very different if not unrecognizable.

The fact that the mob of Sea Puppy Fetishists continually refuse to understand is not that a Sealion is impossible but that the Sealion is impossible. There is a difference.

[mailinutile2]

Originally Posted by IchBinDieKaiser

Kill the seamammal.

How you dare wishing an ill fate to our beloved sea-going leonine friend?

Also you forgot the The Forbidden Mammal Photographic Evidence Album
http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=162752

[maverick]

I'm sticking this one for a week as an experiment to see if it stops more Sealion threads from appearing.

[Don Lardo]

Originally Posted by maverick

I'm sticking this one for a week as an experiment to see if it stops more Sealion threads from appearing.

It won't stop them from appearing, nothing will do that absent a change to the human psyche. Just today we had a member see a new topic in the Post 1900 forum and decide post the same topic in the Pre 1900 forum all of one hour and 15 minutes later.

it will make it easier to direct Sealion posters to previous discussions and thus nipping Sealion threads in the bud. As soon as one is spotted, a moderator can post "See the sticky..." then lock the thread and prevent a lot of grief.

[Whanztastic]

One just did...

[Don Lardo]

Originally Posted by Whanztastic

One just did...

As I previously explained, monkey see monkey do...

Hopefully, the mods will now direct the OP here and lock the thread.

[Mostlyharmless]

Originally Posted by maverick

I'm sticking this one for a week as an experiment to see if it stops more Sealion threads from appearing.

Successful Sealions are similar to using FTL in science fiction. They are both implausible but can help to produce the desired story. Thus one justification would be good fiction. Unfortunately, people who read the story will then ask ...

[PhilKearny]

One of the best Sealion timelines, imho, is A Better Show. This provides a rationale look at how Sealion would fail even with a more competent Luftwaffe. Well researched and well written.

[PhilKearny]

Also, there are these two classic examinations of Sealion that explains its implausibility in great detail: this one by A. Brooks and this one by this site's administrator.

[eliphas8]

http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=234336

We got another one.

[Michele]

http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=259851

Just don't come by sea, only by air. Yeah right.

[Archibald]

Or use a tunnel, or non-existing nuclear weapons. Or an ice age. Or shoot tanks and soldiers ballistically through a super canon (hochdrunkpumpe).

[Mostlyharmless]

Those of you interested in an invasion by tunnel might like to look at the British studies and preparations in “After Sealion: A German Channel Tunnel?” by John Farquharson, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Oct., 1990), pp. 409-430

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/260755 .

[Ian Hathaway]

Maybe you could add this one to your list

http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=262133