As queer as a Clockwork Sealion

Thanks to the wonders of common sense and a legion of well-learned alt-history experts working 24/7 on the issue, Sealion has been reduced from a popular What if to what it really is: a dumb idea

But what other ideas are as plausible as Operation Sealion, yet people keep asking, What if, what if?

You know its really fucking annoying...I can live with WWII PODs, just not the dumb ones...

So, give your opinion on what constitutes an idea as dumb as a Sealion alt-hist...

My own personal ones are:

Argentina joins the Axis, invades Malvinas: WRONG
First of all, the pro-german factions in the military were only a minority, as were the pro-germans, pro-fascists in civilian life; both the majority of the armed forces staff and politicians were firmly pro-allied and firmly pro-British; secondly, the Argentinean economy was heavily dependant on the United Kingdom since the 1820s...so no way war is declared upon Britain ever...even 1982 was a weird fluke, the majority of the armed forces staff seeing it as dumb when it proposed

Republicans win Spanish civil war, turn communist: WRONG
The communists were only a minority in a popular front dominated by socialists, anarchists and other far left groups, and that's without countring the trotskysts and the democrats...secondly, Stalin never tried nor would he have tried to set up a puppet in the Mediterranean,since it would have come off as antagonizing to the western nations, and it would have needed massive resources the USSR did not have...thirdly, even when the Communists tried to take over near the end of the war, when the moderate republicans were nearly crushed, the communists still got kicked when the moderates and socialists kicked them out of Madrid...

Any other takers?...

Germany invades the USSR in 1942,wins or at least has more success:WRONG




In 42 Stalin would be much better prepared and less reluctant to fight Germany.Germany would get pwnd in the summer and face a major defeat in the winter.These are made by people who enjoy the theory of : the- -USSR-wasnt-actually-needed which for any realist is obvious bs

IMO....

This is what Alt-History is. Sure, they're implausible, but the thing is all of alternate history didn't happen, so I don't see why some ideas are so much more implausible than others, barring the ones that are literally impossible(defies physics, etc).

There are many crazy things that happened throughout history; who's to say a charismatic facist couldn't have captivated the Argentinian people, and changed the coarse of history. Maybe Stalin had a near-death expiernce which convinced him to aid Spain and fight facism.

I know what your thinking..."Oh, come on!" But I guess my point is that as long as we are creating alternate, ficitonal historys that only could have happened, I don't see why the proper POD can't be found to make some of these ideas propable. With that done,it's possible. Maybe Germany had a high ranking mole in the British, which gave them counter-intelligence that allowed the Germans to land virtually unopposed. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan said:

This is what Alt-History is. Sure, they're implausible, but the thing is all of alternate history didn't happen, so I don't see why some ideas are so much more implausible than others, barring the ones that are literally impossible(defies physics, etc).

There are many crazy things that happened throughout history; who's to say a charismatic facist couldn't have captivated the Argentinian people, and changed the coarse of history. Maybe Stalin had a near-death expiernce which convinced him to aid Spain and fight facism.

I know what your thinking..."Oh, come on!" But I guess my point is that as long as we are creating alternate, ficitonal historys that only could have happened, I don't see why the proper POD can't be found to make some of these ideas propable. With that done,it's possible. Maybe Germany had a high ranking mole in the British, which gave them counter-intelligence that allowed the Germans to land virtually unopposed. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.

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Alternate history is not about people becoming retarded. These PoDs rely on otherwise intelligent people doing or allowing too many stupid things.

maverick said:

Argentina joins the Axis, invades Malvinas: WRONG
First of all, the pro-german factions in the military were only a minority, as were the pro-germans, pro-fascists in civilian life; both the majority of the armed forces staff and politicians were firmly pro-allied and firmly pro-British; secondly, the Argentinean economy was heavily dependant on the United Kingdom since the 1820s...so no way war is declared upon Britain ever...even 1982 was a weird fluke, the majority of the armed forces staff seeing it as dumb when it proposed

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Not only that, if Argentina joins the Axis before 1941, the US will invoke the Monroe Doctrine should the Nazis attempt to assist their erstwhile allies. The Malvinas may end up under American control (possibly as part of the Lend-Lease deal with Britain) and the Argentinian fascists will almost certainly get their asses handed to them. Not to mention that even though the rest of Latin America has no love for the yanqui during that period, they have even less love for Argentina with or without Nazi sympathizers in its government. Argentina's not likely to have many friends after this one.

As for the non-interventionists in the US government: the Monroe Doctrine had been vigorously enforced for the past 120 years by that point and for the US to back down is to essentially negate its own longstanding foreign policy. FDR has a legitimate reason to enter the war and the Depression ends a few years earlier as the nation's excess industrial capacity goes to work supporting the war effort. This might butterfly away Pearl Harbor (although not the US-Japan conflict entirely) as US forces will be on a higher state of alert than they were on 12/7/1941 in OTL.

He does have some points...stranger things have happened through history...but a charismatic man would not have been able to make Argentina overcome all the other circumstances...and even if Stalin had expended the whole of Russia's GDP on Spain, the Spanish communists are still outnumbered by the rest of the far left...

And yes, nothing is impossible...

Ok, your right, my PODs are a bad example. It is all fictional; why is Napolean winning the Napoleonic wars more plausilbe than Operation Sealion? All you need to do is find the right POD that can eliminate the insurmounable factors, and once you do that, it becomes possible.

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan said:

Ok, your right, my PODs are a bad example. It is all fictional; why is Napolean winning the Napoleonic wars more plausilbe than Operation Sealion? All you need to do is find the right POD that can eliminate the insurmounable factors, and once you do that, it becomes possible.

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Because Operation Sealion is a very specific OTL plan set for a certain time with limited resources between precise opposing forces. Nappy conquering everywhere is much more a broad sweep of history kinda thing, and therefore there's much more one can do to alter the circumstances in his favour than in the Sealion situation. For example, in Sealion one can't really employ any more transport capacity than the Germans actually planned to use, and that would have messed up their internal economy, and been a risky gamble. There's no time to get a large force of dedicated transports ready. Nappy, contrarily, was doing pretty well up until that whole Russian fiasco. Even then, we can alter his handling of the Spanish ulcer (don't oust the king) or his navy (give it the necessary resources and time to challenge the British) or any of a hundred other mistakes he made. In Napoleon's case we have literally decades in which to ameliorate circumstances. In Sealion's we've got a few months, tops.

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan said:

But I guess my point is that as long as we are creating alternate, ficitonal historys that only could have happened, I don't see why the proper POD can't be found to make some of these ideas propable.

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I think maybe what makes people hate these scenarios is that a n00b asks WI Operation Sealion Succeeds?, without any particular idea on how to make it happen. Gets reptitious. I think if someone came up with a good PoD, most people will be more willing to discuss it. Apart, that is, from the odd person that reads the title and chimes in with the standard reasons against without reading any of the rest of the thread...

I don't think the idea of a Soviet-alligned Republican Spain is implausible. Yes, the idea of a one-party state unquestionably loyal to Stalin is unlikely, but there were more than enough left-leaning groups to form a governing coalition that would both represent the Republican Left and follow a tight alliance with the USSR.

Here's another one, in keeping with this thread:

Switzerland enters the war: not really likely; although the Nazis did use Switzerland to launder money and did sell arms to the Swiss government early in the war, the local Nazi party was a joke and its proposal to join the Anschluss met with very little support. Sentiment to enter on either side was not strong amongst the people and the government knew it did not have the resources for much more than defending its own borders. Even then, incursions by both allied and German aircraft were frequent (with the Swiss air force--flying German-built planes--shooting down several Luftwaffe planes and participating in a virtual undeclared air war with the United States by early 1945).

ninebucks said:

I don't think the idea of a Soviet-alligned Republican Spain is implausible. Yes, the idea of a one-party state unquestionably loyal to Stalin is unlikely, but there were more than enough left-leaning groups to form a governing coalition that would both represent the Republican Left and follow a tight alliance with the USSR.

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OTOH, the Loyalists were a very fractious bunch. They lost the Civil War in large part because they were fighting each other as much as they were fighting the Nationalists. Even with Franco laying siege to Madrid in late 1936 the Loyalists still only barely managed to get their act together enough to repel the siege (and that only because they managed to capture Franco's plans, in a TL-191-like scenario). Under peacetime conditions I'd expect the infighting amongst the various Republican factions to get even worse.

Back on the subject:

Successful British invasion=British South America? WRONG

Even if we forget the fact that they had no plan to take the whole southern cone and turn it into Canada 2.0, that their actual goal was to use Buenos Aires and Valparaiso as they'd late use Hong Kong to extend their economical influence in the region; that they didn't have the resources, will or even the slightest desire to remove the population and replace them with white settlers, especially after the locals cooperated with them in 1806...


Mexico joining the Central Powers? WTF?

Whether the Zimmerman telegram was a forgery or most likely, another hit in the "101 stupid mistakes the Germans made in 1917 alone", this whole idea stinks of Sealion...you'd need a POD in the 1840s to make Mexico a viable threat to the United States in the 1910s, and that's without mentioning that the country is in the middle of a revolution, the army is an embarrasement and there's no political leadership suicidal enough to invade New Mexico...the best they could do is sacrifice themselves to buy the Germans more time...probably a year more at best

Italy capturing the Suez and pushing on to Basra.

And there was one a while back in which both the Soviet Union AND the United States join the Axis...... need I say more?

Germany wining the battle of the bulge.

meh its impossable face it unless the plan is totally changed.

England winning the Hundred Years War and within 50 years everybody in France speaks english (anglowank of massive proportions ensues), when in fact an english victory at the HYW would have meant an epic frenchwank.

metalstar316 said:

Italy capturing the Suez and pushing on to Basra.

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Let's not forget Rommel capturing Alexandria and then pushing on to Iraq and/or Syria

Germany taking over the German-speaking portions of Austria in a Central Powers Victory world

Bomber Harris being allowed to continue his campaign and forcing Germany to capitulate.

MrP said:

Because Operation Sealion is a very specific OTL plan set for a certain time with limited resources between precise opposing forces. Nappy conquering everywhere is much more a broad sweep of history kinda thing, and therefore there's much more one can do to alter the circumstances in his favour than in the Sealion situation. For example, in Sealion one can't really employ any more transport capacity than the Germans actually planned to use, and that would have messed up their internal economy, and been a risky gamble. There's no time to get a large force of dedicated transports ready. Nappy, contrarily, was doing pretty well up until that whole Russian fiasco. Even then, we can alter his handling of the Spanish ulcer (don't oust the king) or his navy (give it the necessary resources and time to challenge the British) or any of a hundred other mistakes he made. In Napoleon's case we have literally decades in which to ameliorate circumstances. In Sealion's we've got a few months, tops.

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Hmm... makes sense. Although in the Napoleon example, I would argue there was no need for the "Spanish ulcer" to exist at all... AFAIK, Franco-Spanish relations were pretty friendly at the time, and certainly the Spanish would not have accepted British troops on their soil without the French already being there.

Not that I'm an expert...