So lets say that Hitler orders Sealion launched. What effects on the German military would there be and the rest of the war if Sealion had been launched and failed.
The effects of a failed Sealion
- Thread starter Hierophant
- Start date
Well the immediate effects could be serious[loss of troops,boats,aicraft etc],but certainly not fatal for Germany.Given Hitlers fury in Otl,when his troops failed,things could begin to get a lot worse for Britain.Its possible that the failure of Sealion would mean Germany concentrating all its efforts on destroying Britain in a revenge campaign.U-boats,strategic bombers become the order of the day as the Germans try to starve the british into surrender.No Barbarossa,although the Balkans campaign probably still goes ahead.Hitler may be more tempted to split the British empire by concentrating Wehrmacht efforts in N.Africa.
Yep, that's a very good and well-thought out TL (keeping the Allied victory but making it interesting) that goes against the results of most Sealion TLs. Still, I agree with dmz that Hitler is now much more likely to concentrate on knocking Britain out first. He may be more cautious too, though if the first thing he tries is a Stalin-esque purge to kill the generals responsible he might get couped.
Few comments :
Unlike what many like to believe, OKW wanted to invade the UK, at all costs. Why? because they knew the alternative Hitler was looking at was invasion of the USSR. Given the choice they would much rather have fought the Brits than the Russians. Makes sense from a strategic point of view. If you are already embroiled in a one front war that’s difficult, why complicate matters by opening a second front. Hitler believed that through superior race his armies could defeat the Russians easily and this would convince the Brits they were all alone and to leave the war and give him free hand in Europe.
As to the cost to the Germans, it would be severe loosing most of the warships/barges allocated to the mission. However since most of these were already captured or converted civilian vessels & guns etc, that could be replaced in a year. In the aftermath, the Germans would have to seize the French fleet to make good on there own warship losses. Historically the French planned to scuttle their fleet for over two years and when the time came only 10% fell into axis hands. The other end of the scale is the Italian fleet that was seize in the wake of their withdrawal from the axis side in 1943. In that case the Germans scooped 2/3 of the Italian fleet.
So if we choose a value somewhere in the middle, the Germans could scoop upwards of 1/3 of the entire French fleet of over 600 vessels. Most would be scuttled, but 1/4 could be captured intact ,while the rest might take 1-2 years to re float and repair. That’s about 60 out of 160 warships/vessels ready to be crewed. The break down should be 1/4 TB/DD 1/4 minesweepers and the rest patrol craft. Since the bulk of the modern German warships/capital ships were unavailable for Sealion, they should be unaffected. The main losses would be in the escort vessels. The air losses should be not that different from BoB losses .
Any increased losses could have the unintended effect of kick starting the acceleration of the total war conversion by 6 months to a year, since Hitler only authorized this after the failures in Russia.
If the invasion lasts for weeks before being reversed, the RN losses would mount so the 50 USN destroyers would only end up replacing losses. The Luftwaffe devoted 200 Stuka to bombing the Brits at Dunkirk , at the end of May beginning of June 1940. In 10 days the sank or crippled 65 ships [23 destroyers] at sea and damage a further 38 ships [22 Destroyers]. It was reported at the end of Operation Dynamo that the RN only had 13 Destroyer operational out of the starting 40 a week before. They could not sustain this loss rate ,since many of the losses in the last days were accidents due to crew exhaustion. In the weeks after, the damaged ships returned to service [1-2 weeks usually], but the crippled ones took months to return .
A couple of months later German wings were attacking British convoys crossing the Narrow Seas [channel] and over a period of a month the Germans sank or crippled 38 ships [5 warships] and damaged another 39 [6 warships] in about 18 separate attacks counting 25-50 planes each time. For example in one attack, 10 out of 21 Ju-88 dropped 27 bombs on the destroyer HMS Atherstone getting 3 hits , crippling the warship without any RAF response , on September 11th 1940. [Hold The Narrow Sea , Smith ,pp 112-113].That would be the same number of sortie 100 Stuka could generate in 7-9 days.
According to the Sealion plan, in the week(s) leading up to S-Day, the Luftwaffe was tasked with delivering at least 8 days of attacks on RN warships along the channel and in ports with about ¼ of the Stuka force mustered. If this was considered insufficient, the Germans could very well have extend the fleet bombardment to several weeks , since invasion fleet assembly schedule is unlikely to be meet under constant RAF bomber attack and could very well take twice as long.
On top of this the Germans would be attempting to set up massive mine barriers in select areas of the channel with Destroyer/Torpedoboot/Schnellboote escorts, so their would be battles between German and British flotillas. There could be up to two dozen sortie on each side, clashing each week.
If the naval battle record is anything to go by clashes between flotillas of RN/KM warships in the early war up to the end of 1943 , they report about a 1:1 exchange of losses with only about 25-30% chance per clash of sinking or crippled one enemy warship. Put another way ...
Out of the 167 RN attacking BB/CV/CA/CL/DD/DE/MS warships during this period ; they Sank/crippled 37 x KM vessels and damaged another 18
In reply ; out of 166 German attacking BB/CA/CL/DD/TB/DE/MB/RB warships ; the Germans sank/crippled 32 x RN vessels and damaged another 35. So it appears at first glance the Germans at least gave as good as the took, in losses.
With an extended bombing campaign up to 2-3 weeks they could sink /cripple or damage all of Destroyers and Armed Trawlers/Minesweepers in the channel region, prior to launching Sealion. Each week there after, the Luftwaffe could add another dozen sunk or crippled warships while the damage should remain about 20 , since repair times are likely to be about a week.
The mine losses could top out all others, since mines sank 1/2 of all vessels lost in WW-II. The planned German mine barriers were so dense they were an order of magnitude more intense than the mine fields the Americans set up around Japan that sank so many vessels in the last year of the war.
After WW-II , Japanese & USA minesweepers spent 3 years sweeping estimated 18,000 sq miles of known mine areas that consumed 16,050 ‘minesweeper days’ to remove estimated 10,000 mines. So each mine took roughly 1.6 minesweeper day to remove , in each square mile mined sea.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V1%20Sup/ch9.htm
During this campaign the Americans laded about 12,000 mines in ~ 50,000 sq km sea, or about 1 mine for every 4 sq km. In the channel the Germans planned to lay ~12,500 mines in barriers that stretched at most 4000 sq km, so they could achieve a density of 4 mines per sq km or about 12 times the density of the American mine fields . In actual fact they were 5-7 overlapping rows with mines spaced 30-40m apart. To clear these barriers the RN could count on having to conduct 1.6 sweeper days per mine or ~ 5 ‘sweeper days’ per sq km mined.
To de mine the entire area would take 20,000 ‘sweeper days’, however in the short term all they need to do is to cut a path through the mine barrier. To cut a path 1 km wide through the main mine barriers would require something like 5 such barriers to be crossed or ~ 350 ‘sweeper days’ to clear. Given that the Germans could mine at least 500 plus replacement mines each day, that effort would probably be repeated every day.
In the south coast the RN only had 60 minesweepers total but each armed trawler may have been fitted with mine clearing devices , since 700 mine clears are known to have been distributed to RN units that summer 1940 for mine clearing. At most 200 such mine clearing trawlers would be available in the south coast region at any time to cover the entire 1100km south coast conducting minesweeping/surveillance/ ASW missions .
If 1/3 of this force can be freed up for mine clearing that should take 36 hours 350/220 = 1.6 days. So if the Germans add no more mines it would still take them ~2 days to cut a good path through the mines, barring no minesweeper losses. But if the German replace the mines through the 20 auxiliary minelayers assigned or delivered by air, the battle over the mine-barrier could determine the out come of the entire campaign.
Off course the RN could always rush the mine barrier, but could end up losing the same amount the Japanese lost “sunk 484 ships (representing 649,736 tons), damaged 139 others so severely as to be lost to the war effort”. However the German mine barrier are not randomly spaced mines fields , they are in multiple rows, with mines spaced 30-50m apart crossing the entire channel linked up to existing British minefields.
In that case we are speaking of 5-7 mine barriers each with a mine spaced every 30-50 meters. Removing a km wide barrier would be 1000/30 [50] x 5[7]= 100-233 mine hits. That suggest a cost of between 100-230 vessels cripple or sunk when the full barrier is initially breached . Successive days might only require ½ that expenditure in ‘little ships’.
At Dunkirk some reinforcements appeared during the battle but it was only a handful of destroyers, so in Sealion , up to a dozen DD/CL and 60-70 armed trawlers might show up each week, only to have most of them added to the sunk crippled or damaged lists by Stuka/mine attacks over the next week.
Obviously RAF would have to intervene to prevent this from happening, but if they are already stretched to max , escorting their own bombers to attack barge fleets and intercepting Luftwaffe level bombers attacking RAF airfields, radar stations and other military installations ,they may not be able to do much more than what was historically done. In the months of July and August when the channel attacks occurred, the RAF only shot down 59 Stuka, which is less than their monthly production rate of ~ 50 per month.
The main reason they were unable to extend the kills against the Stuka was because the strikes over the channel were at the limits of radar range, meaning only 15-20 minutes warning on a good day. By the time RAF could scramble fighters to intercept , the Stuka were usually long gone. As the situation changed and the Bombings moved inland the losses mounted. Apparently their was a song explaining this at the time that went something like this ...
To counter this the RAF would have to fly constant patrol missions over the fleets consuming 3 times as many sortie and further stretching an already stretch fighter force. Such a dilution of the RAF fighter force could shift the air to air kill ratios to the Germans favor...either that or the RN would have to withdraw from the Channel.
Even if Sealion does fail, the RN could very well loses 1/2 of its entire escort warships/minesweeper/armed trawlers, making 1941 really grim in face of the mounting success of the U-Boat war/mine war. Given Hitler’s obsessive personality he could not tolerate such costly failure and could very well order total war economy measures right away accelerating that entire process by up to a couple of years.
How long the UK could last is a matter of speculation, but the preparations for war with Russia probably would have been extreme to avoid another costly failure, so Barbarossa may not happen until 1942 and had a different outcome.
Unlike what many like to believe, OKW wanted to invade the UK, at all costs. Why? because they knew the alternative Hitler was looking at was invasion of the USSR. Given the choice they would much rather have fought the Brits than the Russians. Makes sense from a strategic point of view. If you are already embroiled in a one front war that’s difficult, why complicate matters by opening a second front. Hitler believed that through superior race his armies could defeat the Russians easily and this would convince the Brits they were all alone and to leave the war and give him free hand in Europe.
As to the cost to the Germans, it would be severe loosing most of the warships/barges allocated to the mission. However since most of these were already captured or converted civilian vessels & guns etc, that could be replaced in a year. In the aftermath, the Germans would have to seize the French fleet to make good on there own warship losses. Historically the French planned to scuttle their fleet for over two years and when the time came only 10% fell into axis hands. The other end of the scale is the Italian fleet that was seize in the wake of their withdrawal from the axis side in 1943. In that case the Germans scooped 2/3 of the Italian fleet.
So if we choose a value somewhere in the middle, the Germans could scoop upwards of 1/3 of the entire French fleet of over 600 vessels. Most would be scuttled, but 1/4 could be captured intact ,while the rest might take 1-2 years to re float and repair. That’s about 60 out of 160 warships/vessels ready to be crewed. The break down should be 1/4 TB/DD 1/4 minesweepers and the rest patrol craft. Since the bulk of the modern German warships/capital ships were unavailable for Sealion, they should be unaffected. The main losses would be in the escort vessels. The air losses should be not that different from BoB losses .
Any increased losses could have the unintended effect of kick starting the acceleration of the total war conversion by 6 months to a year, since Hitler only authorized this after the failures in Russia.
If the invasion lasts for weeks before being reversed, the RN losses would mount so the 50 USN destroyers would only end up replacing losses. The Luftwaffe devoted 200 Stuka to bombing the Brits at Dunkirk , at the end of May beginning of June 1940. In 10 days the sank or crippled 65 ships [23 destroyers] at sea and damage a further 38 ships [22 Destroyers]. It was reported at the end of Operation Dynamo that the RN only had 13 Destroyer operational out of the starting 40 a week before. They could not sustain this loss rate ,since many of the losses in the last days were accidents due to crew exhaustion. In the weeks after, the damaged ships returned to service [1-2 weeks usually], but the crippled ones took months to return .
A couple of months later German wings were attacking British convoys crossing the Narrow Seas [channel] and over a period of a month the Germans sank or crippled 38 ships [5 warships] and damaged another 39 [6 warships] in about 18 separate attacks counting 25-50 planes each time. For example in one attack, 10 out of 21 Ju-88 dropped 27 bombs on the destroyer HMS Atherstone getting 3 hits , crippling the warship without any RAF response , on September 11th 1940. [Hold The Narrow Sea , Smith ,pp 112-113].That would be the same number of sortie 100 Stuka could generate in 7-9 days.
According to the Sealion plan, in the week(s) leading up to S-Day, the Luftwaffe was tasked with delivering at least 8 days of attacks on RN warships along the channel and in ports with about ¼ of the Stuka force mustered. If this was considered insufficient, the Germans could very well have extend the fleet bombardment to several weeks , since invasion fleet assembly schedule is unlikely to be meet under constant RAF bomber attack and could very well take twice as long.
On top of this the Germans would be attempting to set up massive mine barriers in select areas of the channel with Destroyer/Torpedoboot/Schnellboote escorts, so their would be battles between German and British flotillas. There could be up to two dozen sortie on each side, clashing each week.
If the naval battle record is anything to go by clashes between flotillas of RN/KM warships in the early war up to the end of 1943 , they report about a 1:1 exchange of losses with only about 25-30% chance per clash of sinking or crippled one enemy warship. Put another way ...
Out of the 167 RN attacking BB/CV/CA/CL/DD/DE/MS warships during this period ; they Sank/crippled 37 x KM vessels and damaged another 18
In reply ; out of 166 German attacking BB/CA/CL/DD/TB/DE/MB/RB warships ; the Germans sank/crippled 32 x RN vessels and damaged another 35. So it appears at first glance the Germans at least gave as good as the took, in losses.
With an extended bombing campaign up to 2-3 weeks they could sink /cripple or damage all of Destroyers and Armed Trawlers/Minesweepers in the channel region, prior to launching Sealion. Each week there after, the Luftwaffe could add another dozen sunk or crippled warships while the damage should remain about 20 , since repair times are likely to be about a week.
The mine losses could top out all others, since mines sank 1/2 of all vessels lost in WW-II. The planned German mine barriers were so dense they were an order of magnitude more intense than the mine fields the Americans set up around Japan that sank so many vessels in the last year of the war.
After WW-II , Japanese & USA minesweepers spent 3 years sweeping estimated 18,000 sq miles of known mine areas that consumed 16,050 ‘minesweeper days’ to remove estimated 10,000 mines. So each mine took roughly 1.6 minesweeper day to remove , in each square mile mined sea.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V1%20Sup/ch9.htm
During this campaign the Americans laded about 12,000 mines in ~ 50,000 sq km sea, or about 1 mine for every 4 sq km. In the channel the Germans planned to lay ~12,500 mines in barriers that stretched at most 4000 sq km, so they could achieve a density of 4 mines per sq km or about 12 times the density of the American mine fields . In actual fact they were 5-7 overlapping rows with mines spaced 30-40m apart. To clear these barriers the RN could count on having to conduct 1.6 sweeper days per mine or ~ 5 ‘sweeper days’ per sq km mined.
To de mine the entire area would take 20,000 ‘sweeper days’, however in the short term all they need to do is to cut a path through the mine barrier. To cut a path 1 km wide through the main mine barriers would require something like 5 such barriers to be crossed or ~ 350 ‘sweeper days’ to clear. Given that the Germans could mine at least 500 plus replacement mines each day, that effort would probably be repeated every day.
In the south coast the RN only had 60 minesweepers total but each armed trawler may have been fitted with mine clearing devices , since 700 mine clears are known to have been distributed to RN units that summer 1940 for mine clearing. At most 200 such mine clearing trawlers would be available in the south coast region at any time to cover the entire 1100km south coast conducting minesweeping/surveillance/ ASW missions .
If 1/3 of this force can be freed up for mine clearing that should take 36 hours 350/220 = 1.6 days. So if the Germans add no more mines it would still take them ~2 days to cut a good path through the mines, barring no minesweeper losses. But if the German replace the mines through the 20 auxiliary minelayers assigned or delivered by air, the battle over the mine-barrier could determine the out come of the entire campaign.
Off course the RN could always rush the mine barrier, but could end up losing the same amount the Japanese lost “sunk 484 ships (representing 649,736 tons), damaged 139 others so severely as to be lost to the war effort”. However the German mine barrier are not randomly spaced mines fields , they are in multiple rows, with mines spaced 30-50m apart crossing the entire channel linked up to existing British minefields.
In that case we are speaking of 5-7 mine barriers each with a mine spaced every 30-50 meters. Removing a km wide barrier would be 1000/30 [50] x 5[7]= 100-233 mine hits. That suggest a cost of between 100-230 vessels cripple or sunk when the full barrier is initially breached . Successive days might only require ½ that expenditure in ‘little ships’.
At Dunkirk some reinforcements appeared during the battle but it was only a handful of destroyers, so in Sealion , up to a dozen DD/CL and 60-70 armed trawlers might show up each week, only to have most of them added to the sunk crippled or damaged lists by Stuka/mine attacks over the next week.
Obviously RAF would have to intervene to prevent this from happening, but if they are already stretched to max , escorting their own bombers to attack barge fleets and intercepting Luftwaffe level bombers attacking RAF airfields, radar stations and other military installations ,they may not be able to do much more than what was historically done. In the months of July and August when the channel attacks occurred, the RAF only shot down 59 Stuka, which is less than their monthly production rate of ~ 50 per month.
The main reason they were unable to extend the kills against the Stuka was because the strikes over the channel were at the limits of radar range, meaning only 15-20 minutes warning on a good day. By the time RAF could scramble fighters to intercept , the Stuka were usually long gone. As the situation changed and the Bombings moved inland the losses mounted. Apparently their was a song explaining this at the time that went something like this ...
To counter this the RAF would have to fly constant patrol missions over the fleets consuming 3 times as many sortie and further stretching an already stretch fighter force. Such a dilution of the RAF fighter force could shift the air to air kill ratios to the Germans favor...either that or the RN would have to withdraw from the Channel.
Even if Sealion does fail, the RN could very well loses 1/2 of its entire escort warships/minesweeper/armed trawlers, making 1941 really grim in face of the mounting success of the U-Boat war/mine war. Given Hitler’s obsessive personality he could not tolerate such costly failure and could very well order total war economy measures right away accelerating that entire process by up to a couple of years.
How long the UK could last is a matter of speculation, but the preparations for war with Russia probably would have been extreme to avoid another costly failure, so Barbarossa may not happen until 1942 and had a different outcome.
Could there be a point in time when the German military aristocracy gets fed up with Hitler and has him removed?
Hitler must have been very popular after defeating France, but this popularity would be tarnished after a big failure such as a failed Seelöwe. The Kriegsmarine would be nearly extinct, the Luftwaffe would have suffered hard and a lot of soldiers would have been killed.
Hitler must have been very popular after defeating France, but this popularity would be tarnished after a big failure such as a failed Seelöwe. The Kriegsmarine would be nearly extinct, the Luftwaffe would have suffered hard and a lot of soldiers would have been killed.
OKW was not especially eager to invade and the Kriegsmarine was understandably horrified by the idea. As for 'scooping' the fleets, what was the point of suggesting it? The French fleet is not going to fall into Hitler's hands and the Italian fleet is completely irrelevant, nor can it do anything in the Channel.
The French fleet could not be scooped up. Beyond all of the ships held in British territory, virtually all of the remainder are in North Africa and may turn to the British when Hitler starts scooping, or in southern France and completely unable to get out of the Med and all the way to Germany.
The Stuka, besides being extremely vulnerable to the RAF, was available in numbers between 300-350 for the Battle of Britian so they won't be around for long. In fact, in most actual and serious attempts to gaming the invasion the Stukas are either withdrawn after 2-3 days or all but exterminated within a week. Neither will this small number be held back endlessly in hopes of seeing the Royal Navy when the Luftwaffe has many missions for every plane.
A quarter of the Stukas is a pathetic 70-75 planes, facing the RN, British anti-aircraft artillery in the strongest locations AND the RAF fighters. And if the invasion has to be delayed for several weeks then it is all over. Another month of new equipment and American/Canadian supplies is going to enhance the British Army infinitely more than any benefit the Germans have received.
By October(a month's delay) the British have produced new equipment for another tank division and several infantry divisions. Have the Germans added anything significant to the invasion?
Meanwhile the destruction of a large portion of the invasion fleet means German industry is crippled for several months, as it was those barges and tugs which supply most of German industry with coal, iron and other vital materials. Until they are replaced there can be no expansion of production or even maintaining of existing production levels. Not to mention the iron and coal needed to produce the replacement craft. Where replacements for the trained and experienced crews will come from is another question.
The statistics given for RN versus KM battle losses are also meaningless. The only relevant stats would be German light forces competing gainst their British counterparts. Given the vastly superior numbers available to the Brits in September 1940, there is little reason to be hopeful. And beyond this wild assumption of the Luftwaffe being able to achieve far more against the RN than in OTL, not for lack of trying, two or three weeks of BRITISH bombing means the German invasion fleet has not only lost all reserve ships but can not even launch the planned first waves of roughly one brigade from each of the nine divisions in the first wave. In effect, the invasion is collapsing before the first wave can even set sail.
The mine fields are not remotely comparable to US operations against Japan's merchant marine and appear dense because they involve a very small area dependent on Otto Ruge with 30 minelaying craft, which were also tasked to help with supplying the invasion. Ruge himself was quite clear that the mine fields had not the slightest hope of stopping the RN. As to why RN warships, with so many minesweepers on the spot, would suffer losses remotely as severe as the Japanese merchant marine against a much larger and more extended operation when the Japanese air force was no longer viable...not to mention comparing careful operations to clear mines wholesale after the war with clearing a few small lanes in time of war. Also RN warships and armed auxiliaries INSIDE the proposed minefields might may have something to say about Germany's small number of minelayers
The French fleet could not be scooped up. Beyond all of the ships held in British territory, virtually all of the remainder are in North Africa and may turn to the British when Hitler starts scooping, or in southern France and completely unable to get out of the Med and all the way to Germany.
The Stuka, besides being extremely vulnerable to the RAF, was available in numbers between 300-350 for the Battle of Britian so they won't be around for long. In fact, in most actual and serious attempts to gaming the invasion the Stukas are either withdrawn after 2-3 days or all but exterminated within a week. Neither will this small number be held back endlessly in hopes of seeing the Royal Navy when the Luftwaffe has many missions for every plane.
A quarter of the Stukas is a pathetic 70-75 planes, facing the RN, British anti-aircraft artillery in the strongest locations AND the RAF fighters. And if the invasion has to be delayed for several weeks then it is all over. Another month of new equipment and American/Canadian supplies is going to enhance the British Army infinitely more than any benefit the Germans have received.
By October(a month's delay) the British have produced new equipment for another tank division and several infantry divisions. Have the Germans added anything significant to the invasion?
Meanwhile the destruction of a large portion of the invasion fleet means German industry is crippled for several months, as it was those barges and tugs which supply most of German industry with coal, iron and other vital materials. Until they are replaced there can be no expansion of production or even maintaining of existing production levels. Not to mention the iron and coal needed to produce the replacement craft. Where replacements for the trained and experienced crews will come from is another question.
The statistics given for RN versus KM battle losses are also meaningless. The only relevant stats would be German light forces competing gainst their British counterparts. Given the vastly superior numbers available to the Brits in September 1940, there is little reason to be hopeful. And beyond this wild assumption of the Luftwaffe being able to achieve far more against the RN than in OTL, not for lack of trying, two or three weeks of BRITISH bombing means the German invasion fleet has not only lost all reserve ships but can not even launch the planned first waves of roughly one brigade from each of the nine divisions in the first wave. In effect, the invasion is collapsing before the first wave can even set sail.
The mine fields are not remotely comparable to US operations against Japan's merchant marine and appear dense because they involve a very small area dependent on Otto Ruge with 30 minelaying craft, which were also tasked to help with supplying the invasion. Ruge himself was quite clear that the mine fields had not the slightest hope of stopping the RN. As to why RN warships, with so many minesweepers on the spot, would suffer losses remotely as severe as the Japanese merchant marine against a much larger and more extended operation when the Japanese air force was no longer viable...not to mention comparing careful operations to clear mines wholesale after the war with clearing a few small lanes in time of war. Also RN warships and armed auxiliaries INSIDE the proposed minefields might may have something to say about Germany's small number of minelayers
OKW was far more horrified of two front war in the east, so they were supremely motivated.Raeder was horrified because the very thing he feared from the start was happening , so his angle was to turn east since that would cost the KM nothing.Why should he be made a scapegot for Hitlers utter neglect of the KM. Politics
I think I stated the captured warships would be brought into replace losses after the fact... The Italian example was brought up as a point of historical comparison...I thought that would have been obvious
Since 60% of the French fleet was in southern France and Atlantic France, the bulk of this would fall into German hands. In Norway the Germans scooped most of the warships and 25% of the merchant fleet, so the predicted French figures are probably good enough. In every ones plans nothing goes wrong , but in the real world things are always gray not black and white. So again go to the histories to see compariable events. The French were still burning over the RN sinking of their battleships, that they just might look the other way or only make half hearted attempts to follow scuttling orders.
Don't use gaming to prove anything, its not a reliable source. Most wargames grossly exagerate the peronnel bias of its authors. As long as the Stuka remain operating in the channel they are out of reach of RAF interceptors , due to the limitations of British radar, until RAF fighters patrol over their fleets in the channel. In order for the RAF to do that, they must strip off fighters from other fronts diluting their forces when they are themselves against the ropes under attack. At this time losses were 1:1 over all, so RAF will be hard pressed to cover all bases with out suffering a reversal in their air to air kill ratios. When the Stuka struck in the channel over July and August, the RAF was no were to be seen and the RN were very bitter about the whole experience.
BTW The Stuka were withdrawn from the BoB because they were needed for the army cooperation mission once the troops were ashore.
The forces that were unleshed in July/Aug were only about 70-80 Stuka,so they will do considerable damage and suffered only a few dozen lost . However in the context of Sealion they would not do enough damage in 8 days. That is why after the first week the Germans will probably commit the bulk of the 300+ and then the RN in the channel would be in big trouble.
Having the tanks for an armored division doesn't = having an armored division. It can = replenishing an existing division thats suffered losses ,but cannot create a 'new division'. That takes 1/2 a year or more of training to achieve. As General Brooks pointed out 1/2 of his divisions were in no condition for combat and he was doubtfull about his chances since he had to defend a frontier as long as the french front with 1/4 of the forces. All more armaments will mean is they can last longer in battle before the break.
What have the Germans achieved in the mean time, well another 150 barges are motorised to start with and the British coastal fortifications are reduced to rubble through other slant bombings. Meanwhile each front line infantry divisions completes their reinforcment to semi motorised infantry levels along with tanks and nebelwaffers and extra engineering battalions and heavy artillery battalions for the armies.
Since the invasion barges were mostly captured their losses would not cripple German industry.The entire barge argument was a device Raeder brought up to stall the operation as where his figures for operational warships. All done to put the brakes on the invasion. Again Politics
The entire 10 day count down to Sealion was supposed to be kick started instead of bombing London, the 2-3 week delays would be through the first couple of weeks in September 1940, not October.Once the Germans are ashore it will only take them a month to over run the country.
Germans had 18 CL/DD/TB and another dozen WW-I /captured TB models plus ~ 300 hundred Mineboot/VBoot/Rboot/Sperrbrecher/Fboot. While the south coast RN fleet has 56 DD/CL & 500 armed trawlers/ Minesweepers. However while the RN , DD/CL could be held back on alert, the RN trawlers/minesweepers would have to rotate to keep constant patrols . That means at most 1/3 would be at sea or about 175 , so the German fleet in the channel could actually out number the RN in the south coast region, before the Stuka have their way with them....and then those exchange ratios all of a sudden become critical.
RAF coastal command was useless at bombing anything. After a week bombing of the barges , they only destroyed 65 barges and lightly damaged another 100. The damaged would be repaired and returned in a matter of weeks , while the 65 destroyed would not. But thats 2-3 x 65 out of a fleet of 2175 , plus maybe a couple of hundred being repaired. Since the Germans had 300 extra barges in reserve,they still would be left with ~ 1800+ barges plus ~ 100 returning the next week. The first wave required 1500 barges , while follow on waves required only 400 , however another 400 barges were to be left on each side of the channel to facilitate rapid loading and unloading of the merchant transport ships.
Vessels inside the invasion corridor would not last long as they would be first targeted by air and given the sector they would be out numbered by German auxiliary warships. Thats what happened at Dover and the RN had to vacate the port or lose all of its warships. As I already mentioned these mineclearing ops were to be escorted and would trigger RN/KM clashes...which is why I reported the kill ratios
But you would already know all about that I would guess one of the prime targets of such Stuka attacks would be minesweepers attempting to clear the mine barriers.Its likely aircraft could deliver alot of the mines once the operation begins.Ruge is right that mine field by itself would not stop anything , but part of an overall system it would have done its part.
Heres another site , with a mere 327 German mines the resulted in 40 port days closed and 11 ships sunk or crippled.
http://www.pioneer.navy.mil/mine_warfare.htm
Hard to know who I'm speaking with,so I will try to explain it again. If the Minesweepers do nothing , the RN can expect to lose at rate of destruction similar to Japanese experience, just on chance ship/mine contacts. If the minesweep is done its going to take time. Every one will chime in with how much time to clear based on whos flag they are waving. The only objective realistic option is to go to the histories and see what happened and what didn't happen in such operations.
These mines would be covered by coastal gun batteries that if nothing else will be able to help direct air and Schnellboot attacks into any concentration of ships at the mine barriers, slowing mineclearing ops. It could end up taking forever to clear path or really costly to clear. The other end of the scale would be to assume they have to rush the barrier to force a clearing. If so the other end of the example was an indicator of the damage that can be done. The truth would lay some where in the middle
Did the mines stop enemy ships? No, but they slowed ops and made passage costly and had psychological impacts out of proportion to their relative merit. The Americans reported having to sweep Cherbourg harbor 85 times after they occupied it. Either way obstical to be overcome and the sources are clear that it takes 200 times longer to clear a mine than it does to plant one. When combined with mounting fatigue and fog of war and dodging airbombarments and coastal artillery bombardments, the minefield could take a considerable toll of enemy vessels especially since 1/2 of all ships lost during the war were due to mines. Like relying on the weather to magically make the channel crossing impossible, its down right silly to dismiss mines in any density.... Its just one more of those unknowns.
Individually none of the elements mentioned above could have stopped the RN/RAF, but incombination with the invasion and the country being overrun, they could very well have. RN can't function with out ports and the RAF can't function without operational airfields. The more of those that fall into German hands the more the battle swings their way. The combined arms aspect of this would probably have overwhelmed the british, just as it did in Norway.
As has been said, the idea is that Sealion is attempted and fails. If this is good for the Axis or for the Allies depends of a serie of things:
-Looses for the RAF and RN are crucial or not. (Can them defend against U-Boats and keep the Empire together?)
-Hitler changes his strategy and goes for UK before USSR.
-Hitler declares total war economy sooner than OTL.
-Looses for the RAF and RN are crucial or not. (Can them defend against U-Boats and keep the Empire together?)
-Hitler changes his strategy and goes for UK before USSR.
-Hitler declares total war economy sooner than OTL.