DBWI: What if Sealion had... failed?

Dean_the_Young · Jul 24, 2007

Now as any child could tell you, the German defeat of the UK was perhaps the Hitler's most amazing success, and marked yet another series of successes that cumulated in Hitler's decisive victory over the communists in Russia when Stalin surrendered in Moscow. The European War of the early 40's saw a new hegemony arise in Europe, similar to the US's soon-to-be place of prominence in Asia after Japan's disastrous Pacific War which started at Pearl Harbor and ended in the invasion and occupation of Japan.

Ever since then we've been having a new Great Game, but instead of Britain and Russia it is now the US and Germany making moves and counter moves for influence across much of the globe.

But what if we threw a monkey wrench in all that, and Sealion failed? What would the world be like? And would that even be possible?

(ooc: Big note: the US did not use atomics against Japan, and the German scientists as of '45 did not catch their critical error.)

Fellatio Nelson · Jul 24, 2007

(OOC: Pervert. You'd have me be a DBWI Fell's Not a German, would you? Poo to you, sah!

)

Keenir · Jul 24, 2007

Dean_the_Young said:
But what if we threw a monkey wrench in all that, and Sealion failed? What would the world be like? And would that even be possible?

okay, but if not Germany, who would fill those shoes? Russia? *chuckles*

...though it admittedly is an interesting image, seeing Osama Bin Laden chanting in Russian rather than German.

Archangel Michael · Jul 24, 2007

God, not another one of these threads. Britain was caught completley off guard by Sealion. The only way it could fail, IMHO, is if Britain got its own kamikaze.

Dean_the_Young · Jul 24, 2007

Archangel Michael said:
God, not another one of these threads. Britain was caught completley off guard by Sealion. The only way it could fail, IMHO, is if Britain got its own kamikaze.

The storm that hit the Japanese islands after the US forces landed, causing significant disruption to Japanese and American forces alike, or the planes?

It's not like the kimikaze saved Japan in the end, though. While the near-legendary wave of propeller aircraft wrecked havoc against the American invasion fleet, it was nowhere near enough. Even the first attempts earlier in the war were mixed at best, and by the time of the invasion pilots were warned to guard against them. While a number of planes got through the invasion fleet's screen, they chose their targets poorly. They generally went towards the fighting ships and aircraft carriers rather than the troop ships, and even then the worst they sunk was a handful of pocket carriers and a single fleet carrier.

Nowhere near enough. While Britain could have tried to aim at the individual troopships, by the time of the invasion the policy of fighting over France to go at German airstrips had pretty much lost them their planes and pilots.

Archangel Michael · Jul 24, 2007

Dean_the_Young said:
The storm that hit the Japanese islands after the US forces landed, causing significant disruption to Japanese and American forces alike, or the planes?

The kamizake that saved Japan from the Mongols in the 13th century. Though I doubt the Brits were that fanatical to go crashing their planes into Nazi landing craft.

Cherico · Jul 25, 2007

If you want Sea loin to fail you just need to redistrubute the royal
navy. The brits made a classical blunder they worried so much about
their empire expecially india that they wernt paying attention to
protecting england. And then they made the mistake of underestimating
their enemy and still not redistrubuting their naval forces.

If the brits had moved their naval forces to defend the home islands
then they could have easly protected their home Islands from germany.
After this The brits could have fought an air war with the germans
and supplyed the varous resistance groups in europe who by the way
had not been ruthlessly crushed yet. With the brits still in the game
the Germans would have been forced to keep some of their resources
in fighting the brits they also would not of had the ability to turn
british manufacting into their warmachine.
This could have ment the end for germany the war with russia was
a near fought thing even with full attention paid on defeating them,
a few factors and Germanys doomed.

As for what this means for the world. After the Fall of britian FDR
opened up Alaska to Jewish imagration. He did this dispite great protests
because he knew how screwed the jewish people would be if they didnt
do this. He also admitted the british Canadean provinces into the US
this was done mainly to keep hitlers greasy hands out of the americas
but it also made us alot wealthyer.
In all over 9 million jews would flee to Alaska after sea lion.
Millions more would flee as hitler kicked the jews out of palastine
and the middle east. So what would this mean for america? Well
ones things for certian Jews would not be 10% of americas population
they wouldent dominate Alaskan polatics, jewish scientists, doctors,
businessmen and others all helped make america a wealther place and
the jewish people in the milatary well Ive never known any other americans
to be so gung ho about killing fascists. With out sealion america would
be a smaller less rich and possibly less advanced country.

Now on to the world after hitler took over europe it ment that we became
the champion of every imperial country out there. I doubt we would
be so friendly with India, Vietnam, and Australia with out the need to
distroy european imperialism.

Dean_the_Young · Jul 25, 2007

But the British fears that spread out the fleets were well funded, after all. At the time FDR was increasingly sick, and as he slowed down to recuperate the mix of isolationists and anti-imperialist Congressmen pushed through the Native Support Act, promising diplomatic and material support for an newly independent nation out from under imperialist rule (later including the Philippines, but with different terminology). This screamed of support for Indian independence (especially for the non-violent independence movement), and when a naval group was sent to the Philippines by way of Africa and the Indian Ocean to show off US might, there was much screaming in British papers over the fear of a possible Anglo-American War breaking out, despite the frantic efforts of FDR and Churchill to the reassure to the contrary.

Also, I think you're slightly confused about the US-Canada relationship. The US and Canadian (defected British) navies were well equipped to keep Hitler out of the Western Hemisphere. The US did not annex Canada, we merely adopted a near-total integration of defense and cross-border movement, similar to the free movement between US states. All one has to do at the border is show a passport, and you can cross. Each nation still has its own domestic policies, however, and is free to kick out wrongdoers.

Dave Howery · Jul 25, 2007

to prevent Sealion from happening, you'd need to change a lot of things. First of all, you'd have to have Hitler take power a whole lot later than he did... say, in the late 1930's or so. Second, you'd have to give him a severe case of tunnel vision, and not prepare for an invasion of Britain from the beginning. He seemed to know even at the beginning of his tenure that he would have to invade Britain, and sought the now well known developments of jet aircraft, advanced landing craft, and the various tactics that led the Luftwaffe to utterly dominate the skies and drive the RN out of the channel. It took all of this to allow Sealion to happen, and it took a lot of time and money.

Peter Cowan · Jul 25, 2007

Maybe Hitler could have had such a case of tunnel vison that he built one....the London-Paris-Berlin express opened in 1945 has become the classic 5th column story even if tanks rolling down Whitehall from Waterloo is a bit of cliched theme.

Mr_ Bondoc · Jul 26, 2007

The Troubles....

My guess is that the British people wouldn't have had to suffer the constant threats of the English Liberation Army (ELA), especially after the formation of the English Civil Rights Association (ECRA) in 1987. The British certainly wouldn't have had to deal with the 1988 Manchester and Liverpool Riots caused by the English Liberation Army (ELA). The 1991 creation of camps at Bronzefield, Peterborough, and Ashford. Tony Blair's Hunger Strike in 2001 at Ashford wouldn't have emboldened the English Socialist cause...

Without the Sealion, the split between the Japanese and German Axis caused by the 1958 Kashmir Crisis would have never taken place in the former British colony. Furthermore, Japanese and German troops would have never fired upon each other in 1964 and 1972 over Assam/Kashmir Crisis. But then again the "Nuremberg Purity Protocols" of 1962, until their repeal in 1968, fueled a fanaticism which nearly forced the Reich into a civil war...

Dean_the_Young · Jul 26, 2007

Without the Sealion, the split between the Japanese and German Axis caused by the 1958 Kashmir Crisis would have never taken place in the former British colony. Furthermore, Japanese and German troops would have never fired upon each other in 1964 and 1972 over Assam/Kashmir Crisis. But then again the "Nuremberg Purity Protocols" of 1962, until their repeal in 1968, fueled a fanaticism which nearly forced the Reich into a civil war...

Er, have you been reading Man in the High Castle again, in which the German-Japanese alliance is able to somehow defeat in occupy America? Remember this...?

Dean_the_Young said:
Now as any child could tell you, the German defeat of the UK was perhaps the Hitler's most amazing success, and marked yet another series of successes that cumulated in Hitler's decisive victory over the communists in Russia when Stalin surrendered in Moscow. The European War of the early 40's saw a new hegemony arise in Europe, similar to the US's soon-to-be place of prominence in Asia after Japan's disastrous Pacific War which started at Pearl Harbor and ended in the invasion and occupation of Japan.

US troops are still in Japan, and have been for decades. Japan has hardly been going out on foreign adventures since then.

Nationalist China, on the other hand...

AirshipArmada · Jul 26, 2007

Excuse me, but I’d like to look at demographics for a moment.

The demographic story on the American side is well publicized: USA loses 600,000 men invading Japan, this leads to major shortage in laborers post-war, which leads to improved rights for women and minorities, and very liberal immigration polices. USA becomes a shining light blah, blah, blah.

The German demographic story is not as commonly discussed. Germany loses large numbers of men invading the UK, this forces them to rely on slave labor from the "Dissenter’s Camps" post-war, this very cheap labor becomes the very foundation of German economic might.

If Sealion fails in a way that Germany still suffered a high casualty rate, then the nation would follow the same path, economically speaking, and still be a power house today.

. . . But if Sealion failed very early on, or was even aborted (say the UK ships were in better position, or the Luftwaffe failed somehow), then Germany would not have suffered such a great loss of manpower. Germany would have to pay labor reasonable wages post-war (because the laborers are German veterans and not Dissenters/slaves) and the German economy would have never been able to gain traction at all.

In short: without cheap labor from the Dissenter’s Camps, it would be simply impossible for Germany to recover from the war. And that’s if they win! If they lose, of course, their economy would be in even worse shape; they’d probably be a third-world-country.

Mr_ Bondoc · Jul 26, 2007

Dean_the_Young said:
Er, have you been reading Man in the High Castle again, in which the German-Japanese alliance is able to somehow defeat in occupy America? Remember this...?

Well, that and I have also been reading Motherland (1992) by Robert Harris, wherein Stalin's forces under General Zhukov are able to overcome Operation Barabossa with the Soviets imposing Communist puppet governments over Eastern Europe starting roughly in 1948. In the story, Germany is actually partitioned by the Soviets and the Americans with Berlin actually divided down the middle.

Another book for reference would be the underground classic SS-GB (1978) by English Liberation Army (ELA) leader Len Deighton which details the daily struggles of English common people during the "Great Struggle" between the United Staes and Germany....

Dean_the_Young · Jul 27, 2007

Mr_ Bondoc said:
Well, that and I have also been reading Motherland (1992) by Robert Harris, wherein Stalin's forces under General Zhukov are able to overcome Operation Barabossa with the Soviets imposing Communist puppet governments over Eastern Europe starting roughly in 1948. In the story, Germany is actually partitioned by the Soviets and the Americans with Berlin actually divided down the middle.

Like that would ever happen.

It makes good fiction, I agree, but can you really imagine a world where capitalist America and Bolshevik communist Russia ally? They're almost the ideological antithesis of each other, and can't even tolerate mutual existence. The Reich may have more governmental meddling in its economy than the US, but even it admits to a consumer culture.

Another book for reference would be the underground classic SS-GB (1978) by English Liberation Army (ELA) leader Len Deighton which details the daily struggles of English common people during the "Great Struggle" between the United Staes and Germany....

Of course, the extent to which the ELA is modeled after the Palestinian Liberation Army (composed of nationalists and secret jews alike) borders on near plagiarism. The German (or Italian, depending on whose troops are involved) problems with such groups are legendary.

Douglas · Jul 27, 2007

Dean_the_Young said:
Of course, the extent to which the ELA is modeled after the Palestinian Liberation Army (composed of nationalists and secret jews alike) borders on near plagiarism. The German (or Italian, depending on whose troops are involved) problems with such groups are legendary.

It's only in the last 30 years that these problems have come up: until Seyss-Inquart died in 1975 to bring the NSDAP Old Guard to an end, such terrorist groups were dealt with extremely harshly.

Mr_ Bondoc · Jul 27, 2007

Dean_the_Young said:
Like that would ever happen.

It makes good fiction, I agree, but can you really imagine a world where capitalist America and Bolshevik communist Russia ally? They're almost the ideological antithesis of each other, and can't even tolerate mutual existence. The Reich may have more governmental meddling in its economy than the US, but even it admits to a consumer culture.

The idea isn't as ASB-ish as people think it is. Just consider that President Franklin D. Roosevelt's V.P. Henry Wallace was considered an ardent supporter of the Soviet Union and its causes in 1941. Just remember Senator Eugene McCarthy's (D-MN) HUAC Hearings in 1963 wherein the Taft and Dewey administrations were accused of "losing Europe" to the fascists. This would have certainly have led to a more heated confrontation than OTL. This is frightening if one considers the Iceland Standoff in 1966...

Of course, the extent to which the ELA is modeled after the Palestinian Liberation Army (composed of nationalists and secret jews alike) borders on near plagiarism. The German (or Italian, depending on whose troops are involved) problems with such groups are legendary.

Many people credit the Brownshirts, established in 1970 by Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, Ulrike Meinhof, Irmgard Möller who served in the frontlines of Algeria, Greece, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Russia, and France for restoring order to the region prior to the death of Seyss-Inquart in 1975. Then again this certainly didn't prevent the ELA from the 1984, 1995 and 2004 London bombings....

David bar Elias · Jul 28, 2007

Dean_the_Young said:
Also, I think you're slightly confused about the US-Canada relationship. The US and Canadian (defected British) navies were well equipped to keep Hitler out of the Western Hemisphere. The US did not annex Canada, we merely adopted a near-total integration of defense and cross-border movement, similar to the free movement between US states. All one has to do at the border is show a passport, and you can cross. Each nation still has its own domestic policies, however, and is free to kick out wrongdoers.

We have the same agreements with Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Newfoundland, if I recall correctly. There was a brief movement after Sealion to form some kind of super-state, but in the end we settled for what you mentioned...though we have become completely linked economically as well.

We did absorb all of the British, French, and Dutch colonies in the New World though.

Dean_the_Young · Jul 28, 2007

Mr_ Bondoc said:
The idea isn't as ASB-ish as people think it is. Just consider that President Franklin D. Roosevelt's V.P. Henry Wallace was considered an ardent supporter of the Soviet Union and its causes in 1941. Just remember Senator Eugene McCarthy's (D-MN) HUAC Hearings in 1963 wherein the Taft and Dewey administrations were accused of "losing Europe" to the fascists. This would have certainly have led to a more heated confrontation than OTL. This is frightening if one considers the Iceland Standoff in 1966...

But can you imagine a Republican congress shipping aid to the Soviets, even if a US-German war started? Soviet remnants declared war on Japan after Pearl in just such a ploy, even going so far as to send a division into Manchuria, but they didn't get one pair of boots. Any isolationist Dem-Rep majority would leave the two to kill each other, not insure that one or the other won entirely. The President may lean in one direction, but Congress is the one who has to buy the boots and tanks to send.

Many people credit the Brownshirts, established in 1970 by Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, Ulrike Meinhof, Irmgard Möller who served in the frontlines of Algeria, Greece, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Russia, and France for restoring order to the region prior to the death of Seyss-Inquart in 1975. Then again this certainly didn't prevent the ELA from the 1984, 1995 and 2004 London bombings....

There's always the German complaint that much of those events were done with clandestine US/Canadian support. After the monarchy fled with much of Britain's own top secret research (such as early jet engines) and scientists, they carved out substantial British communities in North America. Even the ELA has unofficial speakers who tour the nation, asking for donations. And since Germany can't exactly force the US to do anything about them except by making huge concessions of their own...

Dean_the_Young · Jul 28, 2007

David bar Elias said:
We have the same agreements with Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Newfoundland, if I recall correctly. There was a brief movement after Sealion to form some kind of super-state, but in the end we settled for what you mentioned...though we have become completely linked economically as well.

We did absorb all of the British, French, and Dutch colonies in the New World though.

Similar is kind of stretching it. For one, the free trade agreements in the Pacific are relatively recent, coming decades after the Canadian experiment proved successful. And the military treaties are quite as integrated as the US-Canadian defense grid; they also came about some times in the 1950s, when it was realized that China was going to become its own major power in Asia, one that was independent of the US and Germany but often worked with Germany.

Remember, though, that what spurred the US-Canadian defense and economic integration was the panicked "Fortress America" mentality that fell in after the fall of Britain and then the USSR in short order. Until the initial limitations of the German navy was realized much later, there was a very real fear on both sides of the border that the Germans would be able to land on the US or in Canada and take out the industrialized coast. With the rush of military integration and the contractors to integrate the two, the borders had to be eased for both military AND business. Afterwards, when the panic subsided, it just kind of ended up sticking. If it hadn't Football may not have gone north of the border, and hockey may not have come south except as fringe sports.