Operation Sea Lion (1974 Sandhurst Wargame)

hipper

Banned
When anyone mentions attacking the Isle of Wight as an alternative oe even as part of the sea-mamal I fall over with mirth, I speak with Knowledge of the IOW (being a Corkhead) and know the coast and seas around it better than the back of my hand. As a site for a realistic assault on the UK it is an absolute no n started. It has been tried before and the French finally gave up in 1545 . Please not that a greatly outnumbered English force just pinned the French on the island, Job Done. I could write several thousand erudite words on the implausibility of the Germans even landing on the IOW. It makes the Friesian Island's invasion plans seem reasonable.
as soon a the Luftwaffe start to bomb the 9.2 coastal guns at Bembridge and the Needles the whole world will know where the landing is goin to be and you just cannot send barges out into the channel tides if those guns are not yet out of action. Needles New Battery used to engage E-boats doing 30Knts or more, just think how they would rub their hands with joy at multiple targets moving at 5knots max!!

and the batteries had Radar ! (in 1940 even)
 
[Wehraboo] British radar. Thus grossly inferior to der Ubermensch's systems. Why? Because! Validate my points of view damn it!

And as the barges are made of wood and therefore stealthy so are less likely to be spotted - as you know that wood is not as reflective as metal

Also they will be moving so slowly that any lazy feckless British radar operator that has spotted them will assume that they are flotsome and ignore them

Aha! An entire regiment of highly trained paras waiting behind the enemy’s lines, ready to strike! Victory is assured!

Perfideous Germans :eek:
 
The anti-Sealion crowd argues out of both sides of its mouth on IOW. One post, they'll insist that Sealion is too costly. In another, when it's IOW where the cost of failure is so much less, (Crete levels), then without skipping a beat the "too costly" argument is dropped and some other argument is adapted, usually, "strategically pointless" or something like that.

Today, I went to work by bus.
Normally I go by bike, but today it was raining cats and dogs, and I had an important appointment, I had to be presentable.
I could have taken the car, but parking downtown costs much much more than the bus fare, and there's no guarantee it takes less time.

Now, most people here would understand that both going by bike and going by car would have been bad ideas - although for different reasons. Different reasons, same badness.

The fact that Absurd Proposal A is bad because of Obvious Reason X does not rule out that Outlandish Suggestion B may be bad because of Evident Cause Y.
 

Deleted member 94680

Today, I went to work by bus.
Normally I go by bike, but today it was raining cats and dogs, and I had an important appointment, I had to be presentable.
I could have taken the car, but parking downtown costs much much more than the bus fare, and there's no guarantee it takes less time.

Now, most people here would understand that both going by bike and going by car would have been bad ideas - although for different reasons. Different reasons, same badness.

The fact that Absurd Proposal A is bad because of Obvious Reason X does not rule out that Outlandish Suggestion B may be bad because of Evident Cause Y.

Honestly; your reasoned, well laid out, logical argument is wasted here.
 
Honestly; your reasoned, well laid out, logical argument is wasted here.
logic-we-dont-need-no-stinkin-logic.jpg
 
Now that I think about it, instead of a movie, we need ...

Operation Sea Lion: The Musical

(to the tune of the Monkees theme song)

Here we come
Chugging’ across the Strait
Trying to get to the beach head
Before it’s way too late!

Hey, hey, we're the Wehrmacht
And people think we are invincible
But we're too busy drowning
To say anything sensible

We're just tryin' to stay afloat
Come and watch us sink and drown
We're the Aryan Juggernaut
And we've got nothing to say

Hey, hey, we're the Wehrmacht
You never know when we’ll go down
So you better get ready
We’re washing up at your town!
 
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IOW is 15 miles across, and the LW had nighttime navigation aids. How big is your living room? Night was better than day because of the RAF, which could extract large casualties in daylight, but was fairly useless at night. If you think the navigational hazard at night was worse than the Spitfire hazard in daylight, guess again.

Tell you what Glenn

(a) List the night time drops by German airborne forces in WW2.

(b) List the times German airborne forces were used in WW2 without almost total strategic surprise while facing an enemy with radar and fighters (even Blenheim night fighters will cause havoc to unescorted Ju-52s) on standby.

(c) Tell us how Allied night time drops later in the war fared with almost total air superiority along with a potential escort force of hundreds of radar equipped night fighters and how would being dropped 15 miles from the DZ (the highest figure I've read for 82nd Airborne on D-Day) affect an airborne operation against an island that's 13 miles wide from north to south?

Then we'll talk about how the survivors might fare once they've actually made it to the ground
 
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IIRC the forces got scattered everywhere and the commander had a broken leg. By the time enough men were finally assembled it was too late for them to do much of anything...
To be fair it was an improvised force with a number of troops with zero jump training let alone night jumps and the majority of pilots had not flown combat sorties before. It was bound to be a cluster....
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
Isn't that the council run subsidised bus service?

Has Glenn239 considered the possibilities of invasion via omnibus? Obviously a Sunday would be out given reduced timetables, and best to avoid rush hour, but we could cram two or three divisions onto a couple of buses (reasonable as we all know when one doesn't turn up without a second). Bolt them onto four pedaloes and sneak them off at Sandown to infiltrate the day-trippers. Simples!
 
Isn't that the council run subsidised bus service?

Has Glenn239 considered the possibilities of invasion via omnibus? Obviously a Sunday would be out given reduced timetables, and best to avoid rush hour, but we could cram two or three divisions onto a couple of buses (reasonable as we all know when one doesn't turn up without a second). Bolt them onto four pedaloes and sneak them off at Sandown to infiltrate the day-trippers. Simples!

Indeed Der Ubermensch now have a pre-deployed and easy to exploit transport service for them to spread across the Isle before anyone can react!
 

Garrison

Donor
To debunk Wehraboos and their flat-pack fantasies, perchance?

Essentially this and of course the occasional educational/amusing sidetrack. The Wehraboos seem to think they can win by attrition, that some day those pointing out the idiocy of their ideas will be so tired of the argument that they simply give up, ain't goin to happen.
 
Tell you what Glenn

(a) List the night time drops by German airborne forces in WW2.

(b) List the times German airborne forces were used in WW2 without almost total strategic surprise while facing an enemy with radar and fighters (even Blenheim night fighters will cause havoc to unescorted Ju-52s) on standby.

(c) Tell us how Allied night time drops later in the war fared with almost total air superiority along with a potential escort force of hundreds of radar equipped night fighters and how would being dropped 15 miles from the DZ (the highest figure I've read for 82nd Airborne on D-Day) affect an airborne operation against an island that's 13 miles wide from north to south?

Then we'll talk about how the survivors might fare once they've actually made it to the ground

Come now, these are not serious objections.

A - even if this is their first and only, they would obviously do some training first.

B - ditto.

C - Simple. Just tell the pilots to adjust their navigation by calibrating up to 15 miles in the corresponding direction, or alternatively, teach the paratroopers to swim.
 
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