Agreed but in my opinion and from what I've read they would wait for optimal conditions, ie low cloud, rain or such so they minimises the risk of air attack before committing in force. After all this is late September so they won't have to wait long.
Operation Sea Lion (1974 Sandhurst Wargame)
- Thread starter Not James Stockdale
- Start date
Agreed, if they could afford to wait. If not they will go in anyway, losses be damned.
Wow, 100 pages...
RodentRevolution
Banned
I am going to call bullshit here and most specifically on the underlined. A fighter force of less than 300 is still 10x strong enough to keep open a base such as Valletta in Malta and the Royal Navy have more robust works at Portsmouth for example. Further but the radar network was compromised in the early BoB but together with the Observer Corps employing hard to detect visual observation and the controller network on the ground, the fighter system still functioned. Radar was nice but, heresy though it is to say, not vital.
Yet I think it proves the point, how massively you need to over endow the oft tested capacity of the Luftwaffe in such operations to even think you have an argument. I mean Immingham? Not Harwich? Besides a measured approach still means some fifty destroyers and roughly a dozen cruisers, a force immensely more powerful than the Kriegsmarine covering force and history has shown, from the Battle of Lissa onwards at least, that a smaller force can severely disrupt if not smash an invasion by sea.
I think the reason people are suspicious of your motives is because even when seeming to agree you try and reset the debate to accept as normal conditions that the Germans never showed a capacity to achieve even given more favourable force correlations.
The minefields off Cape Jumida give a good indication of how successful such fields can be when defended against sweeping and with air superiority.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_evacuation_of_Tallinn
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_evacuation_of_Tallinn
RodentRevolution
Banned
The conspiracy theory rule is a very nuclear option. Ignorance is not a crime and a lot of people come to things like Sealion without much more than a bit of hearsay knowledge.
This board plays host to posters from a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities. We have to be very careful to avoid trying to winnow to a supposed minimum standard unless we inadvertently lose useful input. Glenn is frustrating because his passion far exceeds his understanding but yeah having to dig into the details helps us better develop our own understanding of the subject.
Dude, the Brits want them to surrender. Wafting over the smell of British cuisine is just going to make them fight harder.
Dude, the Brits want them to surrender. Wafting over the smell of British cuisine is just going to make them fight harder.
Nah, they'll have enough captured german rations from all the stuff washing up to the beaches.
100 page marked reached & the thread is still open.
A question not directly addressed is, at what point do the German leaders call the operation & cut their losses? Is it on D2 when 25% of the barges and other vessels are missing or confirmed destroyed, and those returned are chaotically redistributed to what ever port they fetched up to on return? On D2 what level of losses with the German air force will cause the senior commanders to rethink their options? If two of the landing sites have clearly failed and the others are sending pessimistic messages is that enough to call the thing off.
Knowing what we do about the senior German leaders how bad does it need to be, and how long can it drag on before they admit failure?
The question affects how serious the defeat might be judged. There is a big difference between calling it off after a catastrophic first day, and piling on more of the same for several more days. 100,000 men lost has been tossed out as the butchers bill for this defeat. But I'm wondering if the German commanders allow it to go that far. Is 30,000 or 20,000 a more realistic number? Or would it be 50,000?
A question not directly addressed is, at what point do the German leaders call the operation & cut their losses? Is it on D2 when 25% of the barges and other vessels are missing or confirmed destroyed, and those returned are chaotically redistributed to what ever port they fetched up to on return? On D2 what level of losses with the German air force will cause the senior commanders to rethink their options? If two of the landing sites have clearly failed and the others are sending pessimistic messages is that enough to call the thing off.
Knowing what we do about the senior German leaders how bad does it need to be, and how long can it drag on before they admit failure?
The question affects how serious the defeat might be judged. There is a big difference between calling it off after a catastrophic first day, and piling on more of the same for several more days. 100,000 men lost has been tossed out as the butchers bill for this defeat. But I'm wondering if the German commanders allow it to go that far. Is 30,000 or 20,000 a more realistic number? Or would it be 50,000?
Personally I believe the game write up in the Telegraph, linked many, many pages ago, would give you those answers. It's when they realise they can't get past the RN (day 3 in the game?) And losses are then dependent on how many troops they can rescue, everyone else is either dead or in captivity.
Sounds reasonable. I'd think the very earliest would be the afternoon of D2, but we cant be certain the reports at that point would be coherent enough to show the true trend. Looking at the follow up plan it not clear how many men were to have been embarked & set off by midnight of D2. Does a loss of 30,000 men seem reasonable. Or do folks see it as being less? In terms of formations it looks like five infantry divisions crippled by manpower losses, including some HQ staff, plus the airborne battalions involved are lost. Some Corps group support would be lost, tho possibly not crippling. All that does not look beyond rebuilding by June 22 the next year. The serious losses in combat terms would be the German AF. How many aircrew and airframe are going away in this battle. The air battle is going to be longer than the ground for reasons of preparation and residual ops.
The potential economic losses have been looked at several times here. A D3 cancelation suggests 25% to 35% losses of barges and other commercial craft, half the remainder would need some degree of service or repair before return to commercial service. But, there dis the problem of getting them back. if the Brits have any ability at all they'd be well advised to continue attacking the transport boats as they filter back to the the Rhine & the Franco/Belgian canals. Knocking off another 5-10% might be a good idea.
The potential economic losses have been looked at several times here. A D3 cancelation suggests 25% to 35% losses of barges and other commercial craft, half the remainder would need some degree of service or repair before return to commercial service. But, there dis the problem of getting them back. if the Brits have any ability at all they'd be well advised to continue attacking the transport boats as they filter back to the the Rhine & the Franco/Belgian canals. Knocking off another 5-10% might be a good idea.
RodentRevolution
Banned
The Germans added some 60 infantry divisions by Barbarossa so the loss of elements of 9 do not seem that much of a blow. The Panzer divisions slated for the second wave would have been more of a loss as the Germans doubled their armoured formations for Barbarossa by parcelling out the tanks in smaller chunks, actually creating more wieldy divisions in the process. The loss of paratroopers might be more disturbing to that arm though.
It is the loss to transports that would likely have most long term impact. British efforts to interdict coastal and barge traffic through 1941 look to me to have been fairly costly, especially in planes and aircrews, here far more hurt could be effected in a much smaller space of time with much and away bigger impact.
Page 100! Page 100! Page 100!
Wouldn't the currents push the rations away from the landing sites?
I would proffer the real loss would be to the LW. If both the LW and RAF go for broke the LW will lose a substantial portion of its capabilities. A weakened LW going into Barbarossa could have substantially magnified effects.
RodentRevolution
Banned
**looks shifty**
The paratroopers are Luftwaffe....but yeah I probably should put them somewhere in the middle OTL the main Luftwaffe luftflotten used for Barbarossa seem to have been roughly the same strength in planes as when used against Southern England. Maybe heavier losses might mean fewer diversions to the Med rather than a weaker strength against the main objective?
Re: the maps posted earlier. The currents generally run paralle to the coast. But, there are miriad local variations, and the wind.
IMHO the economic effects of barge/tug losses somewhere between 25% and 50%. Would be the big problem. You have an economy with very little slack in it, and now you have to devote resources to building barges/tugs at the same time the "system" (goods/material transportation) that enables production has taken a huge hit. This ripples everywhere, the need to build more aircraft due to higher LW losses, the need to build some sort of naval forces (even Schnellboots) to keep from giving the UK a totally free ride on the waters, etc. The army losses in men and materiel are unfortunate, especially in that you lose experienced soldiers to become cadre for expanded forces, but basically not so much. With a failed SEALION I expect one reaction of Hitler's would be to restrict paratroop ops like after Crete as you'll have heavy transport aircraft losses as well as 100% loss of all troops (killed/captured). To the extent that the LW has higher losses than the same period OTL, that is more pilots/aircrew to train in a system with limited capability.
One cost of failure that has not been discussed much is the huge morale and propaganda effect. The invincible Nazi war machine has been curb stomped by little Britain, who was recovering from Dunkirk. While the outcome of the BoB was a boost for the UK and a downer for Germany, this would be so much more. To some extent the Finns and Hungarians, among others, saw a chance to redress past issues with the USSR or crush communism because when BARBAROSSA kicked off the German war machine still seemed like a world beater. In the aftermath of a SEALION disaster, will they listen to the siren call of the Wehrmacht? Will Mussolini regret jumping in, and perhaps decide not to invade Egypt or Greece, but to sit quietly? Everybody loves a winner, but a loser??
One cost of failure that has not been discussed much is the huge morale and propaganda effect. The invincible Nazi war machine has been curb stomped by little Britain, who was recovering from Dunkirk. While the outcome of the BoB was a boost for the UK and a downer for Germany, this would be so much more. To some extent the Finns and Hungarians, among others, saw a chance to redress past issues with the USSR or crush communism because when BARBAROSSA kicked off the German war machine still seemed like a world beater. In the aftermath of a SEALION disaster, will they listen to the siren call of the Wehrmacht? Will Mussolini regret jumping in, and perhaps decide not to invade Egypt or Greece, but to sit quietly? Everybody loves a winner, but a loser??
hipper
Banned
if you want to post counterfactuals Ian just have Dowding have a heart attack in may 1940, and have Park crash his hurricane, to be replaced by other commanders. thats the easiest way to a more successful air battle for germany.
actually the standing orders for all the naval vessels of the Nore, and western approaches command was to sail to the location of the invasion. so it prettr much would be a pile on. The Home fleet was of course reserved from the initial response.
You are entirely correct about the measured approach though, sending a Naval force larger than the German invasion fleet to invade Dakar at the height of the invasion Scare indicates some on the British side had evaluated the chances of an invasion Correctly.
Or simply that they realized they had ships to spare, which is essentially the same thing, really.