Many of the people on this site have commented on how unlikely it is that Operation Sealion might ever have worked - I don't know about that, in fact, I can envision a TL in which Sealion might have been brought:
- First of all, the Wehrmacht sends the panzers in at Dunkirk, and destroys/captures the BEF.
- Secondly, rather than cut back on the production of combat aircraft after the fall of Paris, Hitler instead expands their production, especially in the area of heavy long range bombers.
- Lastly, Hitler doesn't shift the focus of the Battle of Britain from the RAF to the industrial centers and cities.
With all three of those changes, Hitler might have been able to pull of Sealion - take out the RAF to gain air supperiority, then attack the Royal Navy from the air, while conducting advanced invasions with glider-borne elite light infantry and fallschrimjaeger... without the BEF, they would have been opposed largely by raw conscripts or the Home Guard, and could have wrought quite a bit of havoc... while the main landing force was moved across the channel under the cover of the Luftwaffe.
Well? What do you think about the likelyhood of Operation Sealion succeding under these circumstances?
(Please note that we're also assuming that Hitler waits to attack Russia...)
- First of all, the Wehrmacht sends the panzers in at Dunkirk, and destroys/captures the BEF.
- Secondly, rather than cut back on the production of combat aircraft after the fall of Paris, Hitler instead expands their production, especially in the area of heavy long range bombers.
- Lastly, Hitler doesn't shift the focus of the Battle of Britain from the RAF to the industrial centers and cities.
With all three of those changes, Hitler might have been able to pull of Sealion - take out the RAF to gain air supperiority, then attack the Royal Navy from the air, while conducting advanced invasions with glider-borne elite light infantry and fallschrimjaeger... without the BEF, they would have been opposed largely by raw conscripts or the Home Guard, and could have wrought quite a bit of havoc... while the main landing force was moved across the channel under the cover of the Luftwaffe.
Well? What do you think about the likelyhood of Operation Sealion succeding under these circumstances?
(Please note that we're also assuming that Hitler waits to attack Russia...)