Operation Sea Lion (1974 Sandhurst Wargame)
- Thread starter Not James Stockdale
- Start date
Garrison
Donor
I really enjoyed this and its far more coherent than anything Glen has come up with, which I realize could be seen as damning with faint praise
For something like this to be initiated I imagine Hitler and co. would have to convince themselves that the Churchill government is on the brink of collapse and one more shock will see him ousted and replaced with someone more 'reasonable'. Of course your scenario is what would likely happen and Churchill will have a field day milking the victory for all its worth, news reel footage of German soldiers being marched into captivity will be in every cinema, home and abroad.Sea supply would have to be over the beach unless Bremerton pans out as usable, or Cowes is more viable than it appears from its location. Were the Germans unable to do over the beach logistics, even to the tune of a small amount like 500 tons per day?
In terms of attacks on the SLOC, the entire point is for the RN and RAF to come into the Channel and contest the SLOC against the LW, because a battle in the Channel is better for the LW than a battle over Southern England.
Do you think the LW can drive the RN out of Portsmouth with the RAF helping defend? Again Portsmouth is well a port meaning on land with a large number of antiaircraft guns and the RAF advantage of damaged planes better able to limp home and pilots that have to parachute out being far more likely to not being made into a POW. This seems like Battle of Britain just more localized that while also offers the LW some advantages also offers the RAF advantages.
Kick
Give me all the necessary information for an operational plan and I'll take a look. Let's start with you obtaining contemporary pictures of all available beaches on Isle of Wight and all tide and current information between July 10th-August 15th, 1940. I'll also need the locations of all prospective air landing fields and zones, plus a full report on the precise port conditions at Bembridge.
Garrison
Donor
Perhaps just once you could do your own homework Glenn? I mean if you don't know this sort of information why then do you insist that your IOW invasion is plausible? It's on you to provide a solid basis for your claim, not for everyone else to act as your researchers, especially since if you don't like the information provided you will simply ignore it or move the goalposts again.
your plan you do the work.............should take you about 5 minutes online to find the only beach usable......but it's 12 miles from portsmouth dockyard......
Why don’t you look it up, you are the one proposing this and you’re continuously ignoring the images of the island (from 1940) and other documents, so if you could bring forth the plan you would think is viable, with proof, we can then have a sensible discussion. Or you ignore the photos that were posted of the island, again.
And why don’t you, at the same time, look up the basic facts of the British position of the time, or at least what the Nazis thought it was, to make YOUR plan more realistic.
The idea being the RN could be driven from the southern ports only by sustained, heavy, air and mining attacks, as the primary pre-invasion objective. You're assuming day raids, but I mean much also at night against the port facilities. If the LW engaged instead in its more skittish historical pattern, the necessary weight would not be achieved and the pre-condition would fail. If Portsmouth was still a fully operational, fully stocked RN fleet base at the moment the invasion of IOW was due to occur, then the IOW operation would have to be postponed.
Deleted member 94680
Yet again, that is not what I am saying and I’d wager you know that.
Also, I’d love it if you actually paid attention to what others said, but we know this is not the case.
Your plan your work. By all means, post an Operational plan, and I'll gladly critique it, but right now you've got next to nothing.
Where did I say day raids? You are putting words in my mouth.
So Glenn let me ask you a question I apparently don't understand.
Can the LW drive the RN out of Portsmouth while not losing a crippling amount of planes? Remember every German pilot that does not make it back to Nazi territory is gone. Because "if this risky plan works then we can try a riskier plan and if that works then we can try an even riskier plan" isn't much of a plan.
Just to clarify the poll, I am talking about the initial assault itself. In the Hague option, German troops are unable to defeat the British garrison. In the Crete option, they defeat the garrison, regardless of whether the British attempt to retake the island. What British forces would have been present on the island in September 1940?
My experience tends to be that if such detail is provided and proves accurate and well thought out, the reaction is hostile. If the detail is not accurate, then the reaction is hostile. See the pattern?
The request for specific beach information is not appropriate to the level of discussion we are engaged in, and any time a poster zooms too far into the weeds looking for this type of detail isn't really interested in finding out what the actual candidates are, they're interested solely in whether or not you pick the wrong beach at the wrong time. The only thing that actually matters for the purpose of this discussion is that there were beaches on IOW accessible from the south that were viable for assault between about July 10 and July 30th. Since this was probably the case, why not just grant the premise and move on? .
how about a fourth option.....dien bien phu.......the only differences being no water and the surrounding army is already there.
If the Germans manage to take the island (Crete option) that would probably be the end result.
You said the RAF could contest the raids and engage the LW in aerial combat. The RAF was useless in night air combat in 1940. Ergo, you either did not know the RAF was useless at night combat in the summer of 1940, or you meant day raids. Now, you will notice one thing about my posting style that is different than a lot of posters around here - I made the list of the two things that I thought you could have meant, and I chose the more flattering option.
Yes, I think the LW could have knocked out the facilities at Portsmouth in repeated massed raids done mostly at night without losing significant numbers of aircraft, provided that driving the RN from the southern ports was the primary LW objective for over 4 weeks of heavy, sustained bombings. Daylight raids at Portsmouth would have been more costly, but not rising to the level of "crippling" numbers of planes.
When you read about the battle of Crete, did you ever notice the number of Axis troops on the island wasn't the same on Day 1 as opposed to Day 10?
In terms of shipping, where is the list of all Axis controlled warships and shipping on the north coast of Europe in the summer of 1940?
I was referring to land based radar for ship detection, not ship based.
Yes, its called contingency planning because future action depends on contingencies at that time.
The important question is, could the Luftwaffe defeat the RAF in Soutern England if the British started a gas war? I'm not up on LW gas or RAF anti-gas doctrine or how well 11 Group, aircraft factories, etc., would function under such conditions. If a gas war breaks out, whose in the better position to go on the attack? Is it likely Germany invades Russia? This sort of thing.
nbcman
Donor
What beaches were not covered by coastal artillery? I'll help you along with a couple of links.
Palmerston Forts on IOW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmerston_Forts,_Isle_of_Wight
Note that not all of these forts were active in WW2 but Culver Battery protected against landings in Sandown Bay and the Old and New Needles Batteries protected against landings in Freshwater Bay.
Here's a current listing of 'Best Beaches'. Note that the majority of them would be covered by one of the Batteries. There are 3 beaches along the south shore:
Mount Bay - small shingle beach with steep climb
