Time for the Semiannual Sealion Smackdown!

Dean_the_Young

Britons, start your ire!

Yeah, it's sounding like its about time to break in the Sealion refutations. Time to remind all of us exactly why Hitler had no chance of successfully invading the British isles, why no single recent PoD could change that, and the works.

Or you could spoil it and just link to a past topic that deals with this, but what would be the fun of that? :rolleyes:
 
Kevin in Indy

Kevin in Indy

Not Enough Motorboats!

Germany really needed to start a serious R&D program about a decade before to produce a high-capacity motorboat. Sure, there were powerboats capable of dragging a skier at speed; the infantry required nothing more than a slightly more powerful, long-range boat capable of towing a squad or so of troops (with gear) across the narrow part of the English Channel.

The challenge, however, came in transporting armor and logistics. An engineering program to extend the capacities of the basic Rhine River powerboat to move a Panzer II or a couple of trucks using a streamlined, elongated flat platform with a fixed rudder for stability. The speed and range requirements, while over and above anything attempted to that time, were not impossible.

Imagine, if you will, some group of Home Guards watching the coastline for the German invasion fleet, muttering (please tell me somebody saw this coming) "Surf Nazis must die!" :D

Don't make me think too much about stopping the Royal Navy and/or the RAF..... :p
 

luakel

These:
image

vs.
These:
image

Nuff said.
 

DMA

Of course Sealion could have worked, but not with the OTL plans. They would need to be scraped, completely rewritten, & then the Germans do a D-Day of their own by landing at Ramsgate.

Then, after a few months, all of Britain would be doing the goose-step
 

HueyLong

Banned
Wait, wait, wait: The Fascists were into goosing? While dancing?! Thats just odd.

And I thought they were on the side of the Heterosexual Reconquista.
 

DMA

Nekromans said:
My point was that any plan that imagined a barge could cross the Channel when the RAF still had air superiority was obviously not a good one.
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Well you didn't need the RAF. Just any half decent wave would have done the trick.

Having said that the RAF didn't really have air superiority over the Channel at the time in question. Over the UK, now that's a different story, but over the Channel it was probably about equal.
 

Nekromans

DMA said:
Well you didn't need the RAF. Just any half decent wave would have done the trick.

Having said that the RAF didn't really have air superiority over the Channel at the time in question. Over the UK, now that's a different story, but over the Channel it was probably about equal.
Click to expand...

Any half decent- I thought Germans were supposed to be efficient planners!
 

TeaDaemon

Ok, leaving aside the question of how several German divisions get across the channel, I can see more than a few flaws in their plans for forcing the UK to surrender:

1) They planned to land in SE England and encircle London (to avoid trying to take it street-by-street), when all of the major roads and railways from their proposed landing sites go either along the coast or straight towards London.

2) The German plans involved stopping at a line roughly half way up England, which would leave a large proportion of the UK's heavy industry in British hands. Assuming the Royal Family and government weren't trapped in London (and I can't see a way to stop them leaving in plenty of time) then I doubt very much that they'd consider the battle for the UK to be lost at this point.

3) Even in June 1940, British forces were employing a near-optimum strategy for containing and defeating Blitzkreig attacks - defence in depth. By August 1940 Stop Lines are old tactics that're being replaced by the idea of 'fortified nodes', some of which are manned by regular troops as well as Home Guard. Once they get ashore the Germans will be faced with the prospect of having to fight their way past pretty much every crossroads, level crossing or bridge. It might only take then 20 minutes to neutralise each one, but those 20 minutes quickly add up, as do ammunition expenditure and casualties.
 

Jason

I suppose the successful Sealion is quickly followed up by the Nazi Invasion of the USA?:D A quick reuse of those Rhine Barges crossing the Atlantic perhaps?:D
 

Temujin

Jason said:
I suppose the successful Sealion is quickly followed up by the Nazi Invasion of the USA?:D A quick reuse of those Rhine Barges crossing the Atlantic perhaps?:D
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I thought that, was pretty obvious :D

The Rhine barges cross the Atlantic and overwhelm the US Navy and quickly dispatch their divisions to overrun America. Meanwhile Hitler marries a member of the royal family, they have children who become emperor of the Greater Anglo Deutsch Empire after Hitler dies and they live happily ever after :D
 

Jason

Temujin said:
The Rhine barges cross the Atlantic and overwhelm the US Navy and quickly dispatch their divisions to overrun America. Meanwhile Hitler marries a member of the royal family, they have children who become emperor of the Greater Anglo Deutsch Empire after Hitler dies and they live happily ever after :D
Click to expand...

with a landing on the moon by 1950 as the beginnings of the Greater Terran Space Empire?:D
 
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