10 reasons why Op. Sealion could not succeed
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"Went the Day Well" doesn't seem to be available free on-line, although the British Film Institute are selling a DVD. They also have this: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-procedures-in-the-event-of-an-enemy-attack-1941-online but that can only be watched from within the UK. Of course, a film of a successful defence of England doesn't prove anything, as this clip shows:
Here's the full clip of the Siebel ferries etc; http://archiv-akh.de/video_files_mp4/M2395_WEB.mp4
Here's the full clip of the Siebel ferries etc; http://archiv-akh.de/video_files_mp4/M2395_WEB.mp4
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Of course even if they do successfully land they still have to deal with Britain's greatest deterrent to invasion ... the W.I!
And nobody crosses the Women's Institute, its like the Freemasons for girls, only they actually do control everything.
That comes from one of the Sealion books but I will have to look through them to find it. Anyway, there's no mention of gas bombs or sprayers, just being bombed up and ready to go. I know from reading an autobiography of a Spitfire pilot that it was difficult to navigate, it took a lot of training to get navigation right, and even experienced pilots got lost - I'm thinking that would probably happen to the banquet pilots, too, so that many would not arrive in the target area at all. OK I found the quote but not the source:
"On 7th September, the “Cromwell” code word was issued. Police rounded up trainee pilots, some barely able to fly, from pubs, dance halls and cinemas and as they reported back to their airfields, they were shocked to see bombs being loaded onto their flimsy training aircraft."
Gas would have been bad for the RN, too. Royal Navy ships often had open gun shields and open bridges so gas bombs dropped on them would not have needed to penetrate their armour. The Germans planned to include gas protection personnel and gas firing mortars (the original nebelwerfers – they fired smoke projectiles) in the first wave of their invasion landings.
Most of the following comes from previous posts on this or the Axis History forum:
By the summer of 1940, the army had 10 companies that were trained to handle chemical weapons. Their substantial stores were made up of 25,000 shells filled with mustard gas, 15,000 ground bombs, and 1,000 chemical mines, as well as 10 ‘Bulk Contamination Vehicles’ and 950 projectors that could fire chemical-filled drums. A huge part of the British stocks of gas bombs had been lost, abandoned unfilled, in France. After a crash programme in manufacturing more gas bombs (and the designing/testing of new types), Bomber Command had 16 squadrons that were designated for duty in either spraying gas or dropping chemical bombs on the enemy. By the autumn of 1940, Britain’s stock of chemical weapons amounted to 13,000 tonnes, though in September 1940 most of it would have had to be sprayed.
The beaches/locations that were suitable for landings were to be sprayed before the landings , as soon after the "STAND TO" order as appropriate, to deny use of them to the enemy. That assumes that enough warning could be given for the high command to authorise the use of chemical weapons and for the spraying to commence. The countryside just inland of them, and roadways etc. were in 1940 to be sprayed by the Chemical Warfare (CW) Companies (Royal Engineers) with their specifically-designed sprayer lorries and converted tar-sprayers; by 1941, the RAF was able to do the job rather than it having to be done on the ground.
The locations that were to be sprayed and/ or bombed with gas are shown in this 1941 list:
Location of beach | Area (square yards) | No. of 65 lb bombs to be used|
Broadstairs
80,000
52
Ramsgate
80,000
52
Richborough (part)
400,000
265
Sandwich Village
80,000
52
Sandwich
800,000
532
Sandown Castle
360,000
243
Deal Pier
160,000
108
Walmer
8kg. 600,000
403
Ringwold
120,000
80
St Margarets (exit)
80,000
52
Dover (quays and town)
560
364
Folkestone Leas
800,003
532
Seabrooke
400,003
265
Hythe
1,000,003
675
Dymchurch Redoubt
800,000
532
Dymchurch
400,000
265
St Mary’s Bay
700,003
467
Littlestone
1,200,000
803
Dungeness (part)
400,030
265
TOTALS
9,315,000
5,998
(Source: Contamination of Beaches by Gas Bombing as an Anti—Invasion Measure. From Ait Commodore, Air Staff, GHQ Home Forces, to Air Ministry, 1st November 1941. In PRO file AIR 2/5200).
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Poisoned, not all of the agents they were planning to use were gaseous.
High explosives. Shrapnel.
Gasmarks save your life, but mustard gas would be pretty difficult to deal with, even with that.
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I would hope, from a point of view of military competence, that if any side in a prospective 'Sea Lion' did plan to potentially disregard any applicable conventions and to use gas, that instructions for use included 'check wind directions first, and do not use if wind direction is erratic and friendly troops are in the vicinity'...
Excellent, this is what I was interested in. However it is from November 1941.
Again the source of my objection isn't so much that I think Churchill was morally above using chemical weapons. I am quite certain that Britain would do so if the government felt it necessary and I see that by the following year it was built into the plans.
Which was just my point about 1940. If Sea Lion happens in 1940, which it clearly won't in 1941, and if the British response is as many have predicted here, then by the time the remnants of the German force struggle ashore, after having been spotted forming up on the south side of the Channel and repeatedly struck by the RN there and on the way over, then it should be increasingly clear by the time they're ashore that the invasion has already failed. The British government will be more invested time-wise in managing what is already working than in desperately inventing alternatives to what isn't working.
That's the question I'm left with regarding gas, because if the gas wasn't already part of the specific plans to respond to an invasion in the way seemingly quoted in this memorandum, it's less likely someone will take the time to improvise how to get them into the battle when Britain's victory already seems assured. Now if the Germans are advancing on London or the British cannot seem to reduce the German beachhead over an extended period, that is quite another matter entirely.
Of course there is another alternative here, which is that depending on what preparations there are on the British side, the extra warning time when they see the convoys forming up also gives Churchill extra time to decide to try to contaminate the beaches in advance. I don't think the possibility can be dismissed out of hand.
My take exactly.
Yes, and that's what I said about Tiger Moths.
OK, a possibility I probably underestimated. And yes, they would have plenty of advance warning.
It is clear that Britain had seen how continental allies had fallen and were determined to throw whatever was available at any invasion. Gas was not just an option. It was an option to commanders with supplies forward loaded and with the methodology and targeting decided with the logistics and users identified. It was an option that could be delivered from a cold start in single hours. Losses were accepted as necessary under all circumstances. RN Battleships on the French coast, trainee Tiger Moth pilots and all.
Dug in positions pre planned were being put in right through England and can still be seen including Home Guard anti tank defences and the Auxilliary Units are evidence that a landing was going to be engaged by all and every means. Surrender was not going to be an option. This is a very different situation to the experiences on the continent. More Stalingrad than Sedan. A successful Sealion as planned would be meeting resistance every mile across the whole front all the way to the Thames and beyond. Even an unopposed invasion would be hard put to pump the resources into the field faster than the losses especially with any turn in the weather as is inevitable as autumn arrives while the fighting rages.
BTW if you are going to use area denial chemicals then the beaches are the best option. The enemy must use them and they are limited in size (albeit long). The second best is the barges forming up and loading. Using it against an army in the field is much more of a hit and miss job and are denial agents are less appropriate. It might have been better to use it after the landings have happened and intelligence has established where the supplies and barges are being offloaded, leaving ground forces to deal with the first wave or two on the ground; isolated from logistical support. If the other resources have contained the invasion anyway then gas would not need to be deployed, so I suspect (with no evidence) that the gas option was one to be exercised as the need required and not a pre-planned and inevitable response. To be fair the risk is that, by that time you may have lost much of the delivery capacity as light bombers are shot down.
Dug in positions pre planned were being put in right through England and can still be seen including Home Guard anti tank defences and the Auxilliary Units are evidence that a landing was going to be engaged by all and every means. Surrender was not going to be an option. This is a very different situation to the experiences on the continent. More Stalingrad than Sedan. A successful Sealion as planned would be meeting resistance every mile across the whole front all the way to the Thames and beyond. Even an unopposed invasion would be hard put to pump the resources into the field faster than the losses especially with any turn in the weather as is inevitable as autumn arrives while the fighting rages.
BTW if you are going to use area denial chemicals then the beaches are the best option. The enemy must use them and they are limited in size (albeit long). The second best is the barges forming up and loading. Using it against an army in the field is much more of a hit and miss job and are denial agents are less appropriate. It might have been better to use it after the landings have happened and intelligence has established where the supplies and barges are being offloaded, leaving ground forces to deal with the first wave or two on the ground; isolated from logistical support. If the other resources have contained the invasion anyway then gas would not need to be deployed, so I suspect (with no evidence) that the gas option was one to be exercised as the need required and not a pre-planned and inevitable response. To be fair the risk is that, by that time you may have lost much of the delivery capacity as light bombers are shot down.
Garrison
Donor
Basically pointing out that an operation that has an effectively 0% chance of success and a near zero chance of ever being mounted is not a 50/50 proposition
This summarises how Sealion would go in a single image. Credit to AlternateHistoryHub and his video on 'What if Germany invaded Britain?'
The manly men from the Isle of Wight conquer all of France and move ever eastward sweeping all before them! See simple!!
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