It wasn't even carried out. If anything its hilariously ambitious. It was simply a plan and yet it brings up so many emotions on this site. Why is that?
It's something of a dead horse, but I believe a successful Sealion used to be a very popular subject for timelines, despite it being such success being utterly implausible with a PoD close to the outbreak of WWII.
Add the waves of members who may have grown up under the spell of Hollywood's overinflation of Axis strength to paint WW2 as a "the plucky and brave Good against the powerful yet blundering Evil," and you see a result where many may think Sealion was far more possible than reality proved.
This isn't a recent trend, either. Back when France had fallen to the Nazis, Britain, America and the Soviet Union were all so stunned by the miracle the Germams pulled out of their collective asses by taking out one of the biggest armies on the planet in a few weeks, that an invasion of the only major Ally still standing seemed not only sensible, but imminent. The British said 'Germany's so powerful, we need to pull out all the stops, this is life or death!', the Americans went either 'Dear god, we need to help Britain now!' or 'Germany's too big to beat, let's cut our losses while we can', and the Soviets presumably cackled at the English plight in the depths of the Kremlin, but then remembered that Germany was next door, and so got back to rustling up the best army it could to defend itself.
You don't curbstomp the biggest player in Western Europe since Charlemagne without getting a little 'street cred'.
This isn't a recent trend, either. Back when France had fallen to the Nazis, Britain, America and the Soviet Union were all so stunned by the miracle the Germams pulled out of their collective asses by taking out one of the biggest armies on the planet in a few weeks, that an invasion of the only major Ally still standing seemed not only sensible, but imminent. The British said 'Germany's so powerful, we need to pull out all the stops, this is life or death!', the Americans went either 'Dear god, we need to help Britain now!' or 'Germany's too big to beat, let's cut our losses while we can', and the Soviets presumably cackled at the English plight in the depths of the Kremlin, but then remembered that Germany was next door, and so got back to rustling up the best army it could to defend itself.
You don't curbstomp the biggest player in Western Europe since Charlemagne without getting a little 'street cred'.
It wasn't even carried out. If anything its hilariously ambitious. It was simply a plan and yet it brings up so many emotions on this site. Why is that?
A lot of people have many misconceptions about the war, and the one that Britain was one quick swim from being annihilated but was saved thanks to the timely intervention of the USA is the most irritating.
I think a lot of the problems people have with any realistic non ASB scenario come down to the fact that it totally ignores Britain's ability to resist it
I often see scenarios where some how both the RAF and RN are defeated or degraded or fooled to the point that allows such an invasion to happen - when History shows us that this was so improbable as to be virtually Impossible.
Then assuming this highly improbable pair of situations have been achieved the relatively tiny German Navy and Merchant marine is going to deliver more troops than were landed on D-Day and win despite no operational or 'tribal' experience of amphibious ops and being grossly out numbered by the British Army (who despite shortages and losses due to Dunkirk would still have out gunned the relatively lightly equipped German assaulting units and have all the advantages of mobility and Supplies) when they did land.
What really gets my goat is that the British Army is often portrayed as a bunch of poorly armed Hobbits with little or no fighting ability despite evidence to the contrary.
Norway was probably the most embarrassing, it should have been right up Britain's alley.
Weather, basically - and luck. It's notable that despite all that luck, about half the Kriegsmarine was sunk or rendered combat ineffective for months.How Germans managed that with the RN still intAct still bugles my mind.
It wasn't even carried out. If anything its hilariously ambitious. It was simply a plan and yet it brings up so many emotions on this site. Why is that?
How Germans managed that with the RN still intAct still bugles my mind.
Because it was an unrealistic plan that would have been carried out by unprepared units commanded by unprepared commanders who didn't have a clue about naval or amphibious warfare, and yet people still think that it just might have succeeded. And yes, there have been timelines that have started "After a successful Sealion..." before being roundly howled down with cries of 'How?????"