Not Sold on Sea Lion as ASB

I am not sold on the idea the Sea Lion in 1940 was ASB. While I understand that the Royal Navy would have strategic control of the North Sea and the Channel, there is little to stop the Germans from landing a force large enough to shock the British into accepting terms. Supply is not a major factor if the landing is force in July as the Germans are looking for a knock out blow early. They need food and ammunition for a week to ten days.

Yes I do mean July 1940. It would take few troops, possibly two divisions with air support and the Fallschirmjäger. Supply needs would be limited and would play on the British being disorganized.

Yes it is a gamble but one with more upsize than down. Thoughts?

When did France fully yield to the armistice and when did the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe fully reorganized and was brought back close to full TOE strength so that supplies and equipment could be depot'd for this operation.

In fact... Just how many ships did the kriegsmarine had available for this ops?

And were enough Ju-52 transports still available to lift a Division, let alone a regiment worthy of German paras for this op?

Even if the Germans get on the beaches they will be gassed, shot at, and have trouble getting their tanks off the beaches (silt beaches are terrible for tanks but the Germans don't know that, in fact nobody really knows that at this point.) They can't supply their troops and the RAF would be able to inflict heavy damage on the Luftwaffe.

And supply is a major factor. The amount of food, ammo, fuel, and other such materials that are used by a division per day is enormous. Without oil tanks are giant paperweights with guns.

...with what landing craft, and how will they get past then Royal Navy? Landing even two divisions under combat conditions is a nontrivial task.

Here we go again.......le sigh

Man are you courting serious trouble, good luck to you I'm out.

jony663 said:

Supply is not a major factor

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. . . said pretty much every commander who went on to lead a disastrous military operation.

wiking said:

Man are you courting serious trouble, good luck to you I'm out.

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Saying Sealion could work on this forum is like juggling lit sticks of dynamite.

Anaxagoras said:

. . . said pretty much every commander who went on to lead a disastrous military operation.

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Other things said by those commanders:

"I'm sure the enemy will just collapse at first sight."

"Guys, we've been going in the wrong direction this whole time."

"You mean troops can't walk across water?"

sounds like the Allied operations in Norway in 1940

jony663 said:

I am not sold on the idea the Sea Lion in 1940 was ASB. While I understand that the Royal Navy would have strategic control of the North Sea and the Channel, there is little to stop the Germans from landing a force large enough to shock the British into accepting terms. Supply is not a major factor if the landing is force in July as the Germans are looking for a knock out blow early. They need food and ammunition for a week to ten days.

Yes I do mean July 1940. It would take few troops, possibly two divisions with air support and the Fallschirmjäger. Supply needs would be limited and would play on the British being disorganized.

Yes it is a gamble but one with more upsize than down. Thoughts?

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Sounds like the Allied operations in Norway in 1940 and Greece in 1941 and the Dodecanese in 1943... Those worked out well.

How about Tanga and the Dardanelles, which is about the level of the German amphibious doctrine as it was in 1940...those weren't exactly rousing successes for the side on the offensive, were they?

The only operation of war more difficult than an amphibious assault is an amphibious withdrawal.

Best,

jony663 said:

I am not sold on the idea the Sea Lion in 1940 was ASB. While I understand that the Royal Navy would have strategic control of the North Sea and the Channel, there is little to stop the Germans from landing a force large enough to shock the British into accepting terms.

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The Norwegian campaign had cost the Kriegsmarine a total of ten destroyers and three heavy cruisers. For a potential invasion of Britain, Germany could only call upon one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers and four destroyers. To put this in perspective, the British Home Fleet could muster thirty destroyers, five battleships and eleven cruisers. This was but a fraction of the global might of the Royal Navy. Even with a German victory in the battle of Britain, an improbability in its own right, Germany’s paltry naval capabilities made an amphibious invasion of Britain all but impossible. Btw, my source for this is The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze pp 397-398.

jony663 said:

Supply is not a major factor if the landing is force in July as the Germans are looking for a knock out blow early. They need food and ammunition for a week to ten days.

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Discounting the fact that the Germans can't invade in the 1st place, Britain is not going to be conquered in 10 days. Aside from that, do you have any idea how much fuel a single panzer divison uses in a day? The Germans are supposed to bring all of this with them are they?

jony663 said:

Yes I do mean July 1940. It would take few troops, possibly two divisions with air support and the Fallschirmjäger. Supply needs would be limited and would play on the British being disorganized.

Yes it is a gamble but one with more upsize than down. Thoughts?

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Operation Dynamo saved 300k British troops from France. In addition, there were 4 fully equipped Canadian divisions in Britain. All these allied troops are ging to be defeated by 2 German divisons. Two? C'mon.

Emperor Palpatine said:

Discounting the fact that the Germans can't invade in the 1st place, Britain is not going to be conquered in 10 days. Aside from that, do you have any idea how much fuel a single panzer divison uses in a day? The Germans are supposed to bring all of this with them are they.

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Hey now, let's be fair. They were planning to use infantry divisions.

To the OP: anytime your argument about why something could work includes the phrase "supply is not a major factor" please delete everything and try again. Supply isn't just A major factor it is THE BIGGEST factor. But putting aside all that, a division can't carry that much supply, nor can it be shipped in. The 10 divisions Sealion was actually planned to use would require nearly ten times the capacity of the area's ports ASSUMING they are captured intact. As Overlord showed quite clearly this is very nearly impossible.

jony663 said:

I am not sold on the idea the Sea Lion in 1940 was ASB. While I understand that the Royal Navy would have strategic control of the North Sea and the Channel, there is little to stop the Germans from landing a force large enough to shock the British into accepting terms. Supply is not a major factor if the landing is force in July as the Germans are looking for a knock out blow early. They need food and ammunition for a week to ten days.

Yes I do mean July 1940. It would take few troops, possibly two divisions with air support and the Fallschirmjäger. Supply needs would be limited and would play on the British being disorganized.

Yes it is a gamble but one with more upsize than down. Thoughts?

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It will take the Germans more time than the Brits and Mother Nature will allow them. It will take the Germans quite a bit of time to round up their "landing craft", repair the Ju-52s and train their troops. It took the Western Allies a few years to plan D-Day, this is not something the Germans could do on the fly.

NoOneFamous said:

It will take the Germans more time than the Brits and Mother Nature will allow them. It will take the Germans quite a bit of time to round up their "landing craft", repair the Ju-52s and train their troops. It took the Western Allies a few years to plan D-Day, this is not something the Germans could do on the fly.

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What good are landing craft without a naval escort?

jony663 said:

I am not sold on the idea the Sea Lion in 1940 was ASB. While I understand that the Royal Navy would have strategic control of the North Sea and the Channel, there is little to stop the Germans from landing a force large enough to shock the British into accepting terms. Supply is not a major factor if the landing is force in July as the Germans are looking for a knock out blow early. They need food and ammunition for a week to ten days.

Yes I do mean July 1940. It would take few troops, possibly two divisions with air support and the Fallschirmjäger. Supply needs would be limited and would play on the British being disorganized.

Yes it is a gamble but one with more upsize than down. Thoughts?

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while I understand your unwillingness to accept the word of members of this forum I would encourage you to do further research

this book is particularly good... it discusses how while the Germans would get ashore most likely, the British did have sufficient trained, equipped and experienced troops in organized units available in August and September to destroy such a beachhead, while the RN has more than sufficient power to prevent follow up as it would control the Channel at night even if forced to accept high losses in daylight

http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Sea-Lion-Leo-McKinstry/dp/1468301497

this one too is excellent on why such an effort was doomed

https://books.google.com/books?id=N...v=onepage&q=book on operation sealion&f=false

Hitler was right to have cold feet on this

the only way Sealion succeeds is if it is carried out after at least a year or more of prolonged determined effort by the Luftwaffe to gain air supremacy (which they can't really do without the FW190, which shows up in late 1941), the Germans have to have knocked the Soviets out of the war (good luck with that although not impossible just really really difficult), have built a sufficiently large enough destroyer and MTB force supported by mine warfare ships in sufficient numbers to deal with the RN minefields and the continue the German efforts.

and the Uboats have inflicted sufficient tanker losses to cripple the British in terms of fuel.

None of these things happened in World War II, although they potentially could have. But even then the Germans have to develop an amphibious capability sufficient to put ashore a force similar in size to Overlord in the face of an equally determined and capable British Army, while holding off a RN that showed its willingness to accept desperate casualties in the Crete campaign in real life in 1941.

so again, a desperate effort and best hope for this would be the spring or summer of 1942, and you can be sure the US would have something to add into this as well (at the very least significant air power and some ships)

After that, even a Europe fully united under German control would find the Anglo-Americans fully capable of stopping even the best German effort

TFSmith121 said:

Sounds like the Allied operations in Norway in 1940 and Greece in 1941 and the Dodecanese in 1943... Those worked out well.

How about Tanga and the Dardanelles, which is about the level of the German amphibious doctrine as it was in 1940...those weren't exactly rousing successes for the side on the offensive, were they?

The only operation of war more difficult than an amphibious assault is an amphibious withdrawal.

Best,

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The Allies, at least, were able to withdraw part of the force in the three operations you mentioned above thanks to their seapower. The Axis? Good luck to them.

The Spanish fleet, even after the Civil War, was

Emperor Palpatine said:

The Norwegian campaign had cost the Kriegsmarine a total of ten destroyers and three heavy cruisers. For a potential invasion of Britain, Germany could only call upon one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers and four destroyers. To put this in perspective, the Spanish could muster 18 destroyers, five light cruisers, and one heavy cruiser....

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The Spanish fleet, even after the Civil War, was more numerous than the KM...

Best,

Yep...

Barry Bull said:

The Allies, at least, were able to withdraw part of the force in the three operations you mentioned above thanks to their seapower. The Axis? Good luck to them.

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Yep... the only way home from Kent or wherever for the landser is swimming.

This makes Dieppe look like a success.

Best,

Emperor Palpatine said:

What good are landing craft without a naval escort?

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An excellent question

By saying supply is no an issue is easy if you are not bringing Panzer Division. Or at least easier.

I see this not as an invasion but as a raid. The British were not sure what was to happen next in July.

Also such a threat pulls the Royal Navy out and into a position were air power will be able to damage significant parts of the Royal Navy.

Germany has few ways of beating the British. There best bet seems to be in July of 1940.


As for reading and research I have read everything I can on the subject. The Germans could never conduct a landing like Overlord, which is why I looked for a scale down version.