10 reasons why Op. Sealion could not succeed

[Cockroach]

Citation needed.

Suspect it's a matter of using very selective statistics. Probably tonnage sunk divided by number of sorties without factoring in the large fraction of the RN covering convoys, on anti-raider duties, etc. etc...

Of cause, we've seen a suspiciously similar argument from one esl (TBH, a suspiciously similar user-name to the latest acolyte of the pinnaped) quite a few years back. Turned out that burnt down to "If you count Germans torpedoing neutral coast defense vessels, or German destroyers running from British minesweepers after inflicting minor damage to a single minesweeper as victories over the RN while not calling German Battlecruisers being beaten off by an inferior force and taking significant damage in the process, or, a German heavy cruiser fighting a long range duel with a British light cruiser and then withdrawing rather than attacking the convoy British victories..." combined with the "But Bismarck was scuttled thereby invalidating the entire battered to immobile hulk thing, thus not a British victory".

 

[oldironside]

Suspect it's a matter of using very selective statistics. Probably tonnage sunk divided by number of sorties without factoring in the large fraction of the RN covering convoys, on anti-raider duties, etc. etc...

Of cause, we've seen a suspiciously similar argument from one esl (TBH, a suspiciously similar user-name to the latest acolyte of the pinnaped) quite a few years back. Turned out that burnt down to "If you count Germans torpedoing neutral coast defense vessels, or German destroyers running from British minesweepers after inflicting minor damage to a single minesweeper as victories over the RN while not calling German Battlecruisers being beaten off by an inferior force and taking significant damage in the process, or, a German heavy cruiser fighting a long range duel with a British light cruiser and then withdrawing rather than attacking the convoy British victories..."

Surely nobody would be dishonest on a Sealion thread?

 

[Bernard Woolley]

Because the Marines didn't land on the beaches of Normandy.

The Royal Marines are not happy with you.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

The landing craft used in Normandy were a world away from the barges the Germans were contemplating using in Seelowe.

 

[eltf177]

There are two modern books that say the Germans could do it.

Neither author managed to convince me this is true...

 

[GrahamH]

The Royal Marines are not happy with you.

Bad place to be.

 

[GrahamH]

Ten reasons why Sealion could not succeed.

1 The English Channel
2 See 1
3 See 1
4 See 1
5 See 1
6 See 1
7 See 1
8 See 1
9 See 1
10 See 1

 

[oldironside]

I rather suspect that the film of Sealion would star Charlie Chaplin.

Nah, give it to these three.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

The Luftwaffe couldn't beat the RAF which means that
The Kriegsmarine couldn't beat the RN which means that
The Heer couldn't beat the Army

It's simple really

 

[Dan]

Germans never based large scale invasion plans on ports, they were all based on landing on beaches, using 1/2 the so called river barges to shuttle supplies ashore from the 150 transport merchant ships employed.

In 1940, the Germans had 131 merchant ships.

But First Sea Lord Pound concluded that the KM could deliver 100-200,000 troops over night in a port to port invasion and RN could not do anything to prevent this. Churchill accepted this conclusion, which is probably why he didn't share your enthusiasm for the operation.

I would be very interested to see the source of this claim. Even taking into account Belgian, Dutch and French merchant ships in port at the time of invasion and being captured, (very few), averaging 1000 men per ship means at least 100 ships. That's before you take into account the rest of the logistics train. If you include armour and artillery, you will need to double the number of ships, i.e. more ships than the Germans had available. I strongly suspect that there was simply not the port space to take so many ships and unload them in an effective timescale or manner. Potentially if they had landed those ships in many harbours then the KM would have delivered those 1-200,000 soldiers to Britain. As POWs in very short order.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, the German Navy would need to move masses of ships, materials and men to the French channel ports. This will take months. The thoughts of the invasion taking place before 1941 are simply not realistic. The British will not be sat on their thumbs waiting. Of course, this gives plenty of time for ports to be wired for demolition, the RAF to be rebuilt, the Army to be rearmed, equipped and trained and the Royal Navy to position a significant number of ships in convenient areas to intercept an invasion attempt. Not to mention provisions made for one or more of Churchill's rather nasty plans to be put into effect.

Britain was teetering on the edge of collapse and the shock of such an action would bring them to crises.

The British were only teetering on the brink of collapse in one place. Also in this one place were dreams of Aryan supremacy, an Empire carved out of the Central and Eastern portions of Europe and, allegedly, a number of incestuous desires for his young cousin.
Britain was not in a great position, but in no way as badly off as you seem to portray. Besides, in the event of an invasion, it is much more likely to pull the country together, having the opposite effect.

BTW the demand for supply of 300-600 tons per day per division was estimates based on fighting on the Eastern Front mid war. No way the Wallies are anywhere as tough as that in 1940 after the Dunkirk disaster.

The disaster that saw the equivalent of a full army - 338,000 soldiers evacuated. While hardly a "victory" as has been portrayed, it is in no way as disaster. That's 338,000 troops, ON TOP of the British soldiers that hadn't been deployed to France, and before Empire troops arrive to reinforce them. I suspect that this is a flawed conclusion. As for being "tough"? That is a similarly intangible measurement, when facing a motivated, defending professional army on home soil, the tonnage of supplies required would likely hit the top end of that 300-600 ton range if not exceed it. Expect closer to 1000 tons per day needed. The KM and Luftwaffe did not have the facilities to lift this much in the timescales needed under combat conditions.

 

[Baron Bizarre]

Nah, give it to these three.

Or these three...

 

[Driftless]

Were the Rhine barges back then single bottom hulls or double? Until recently, most American river barges were single bottom hulls - it's much cheaper - at least until you crack the hull on something. .

 

[Clandango]

6. Eventually Hitler is going to have to go for the Soviets. Either Hitler's anti communism/Slavs or Stalin starts demanding payment for resources he was providing Hitler. Germany doesn't have forever to wear the British down.

I don't think the Soviets gave credit. Well, exept retroactively when they literally stole Spain's gold reserve, then gave incredibly marked up prices for the few weapons they had sent the Republicans. Anyways, they demanded war material form the Germans, and they apparently had to prioritize the Soviets over their own army.

 

[Driftless]

The Heer was very dependent on horse transport throughout the war for towing supply wagons and artillery.

Horse-drawn transportation was most important for Germany, as it was relatively lacking in natural oil resources. Infantry and horse-drawn artillery formed the bulk of the German Army throughout the war; only one-fifth of the Army belonged to mobile panzer and mechanized divisions. Each German infantry division employed thousands of horses and thousands of men taking care of them. Despite losses of horses to enemy action, exposure and disease, Germany maintained a steady supply of work and saddle horses until 1945. Cavalry in the Army and the SS gradually increased in size, peaking at six cavalry divisions in February 1945.

Horse digestive systems are notoriously susceptible to dangerous colic for any variety of issues. That's not just seasickness - as unpleasant as that is. Equine colic is life-threatening. Getting a sufficient supply of horses loaded, crossing the choppy Channel, and unloaded across a shingle beach (if the ports are wrecked) will be a high mortality operation on it's own.

 

[Dan]

So the short version, which every way you cut it, is that Sealion is an utter non-starter.

 

[oldironside]

Fascinating though this is, we've already been through this in detail. Here are 45 pages of the usual stuff, enlivened with personal feuds and bitchiness that would be more at home at the BAFTAs (and I am as guilty as anyone).

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/operation-sea-lion-the-invasion-itself.318201/

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

Were the Rhine barges back then single bottom hulls or double? Until recently, most American river barges were single bottom hulls - it's much cheaper - at least until you crack the hull on something. .

Immaterial. They were so unseaworthy that anything doing more than 20 knots within about 5 miles would create enough of a wake to swamp the lot.
So the RN could run a single destroyer down the centre of the channel at high speed, and finish sealion without firing a single shot.
Any german escort that tried to stop them would also need to manoeuvre, with similar results for the unfortunates in the barges.
And that's on a flat calm day. There isn't many of them in the channel.

I've been across the channel a few times on ferries, and on the hovercraft when it ran.
One of the reasons the hovercraft was stopped was that it bounced when the waves were over 4 foot high.
Which was 9 times out of ten.
Quite fun, but not for everybody.
I've also been across by ferry when the going was fairly good in the morning, Dover to Calais.
And blowing half a gale, with seas coming in green over the bows 4 decks up, in the afternoon on the way back.
As the saying goes in the U.K., if you don't like the weather, wait half an hour and you will get something different.

Predicting wind and wave conditions in the channel 24 hours ahead was more of an art form than a science for U.K. meteorologists with 20 years experience, weather stations and weather ships to gather information.
For German meteorologists in 1940? Might as well check your horoscope, or throw a dice.
Guess wrong, and the initial landing never gets across.
Guess again 2 days later, get that wrong and whatever supplies are going across don't get their either.
And that's with the entire Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coastguard and Girl Guides not bothering to do anything about it.

 

[DaveBC]

With respect to the naval equivalent of trainspotters who want to relitigate the question of how easily one can sink a river barge in open water, I think it's not necessary to drill down to that level of detail to write the operation off.

Once the convoy is intercepted, it does not matter whether the barges are seaworthy if the tugs are sunk or the towing lines are cut by destroyers.

Even with minimal harassment by the Brits, this is a very complicated series of formation maneuvers that will need to be executed by a hastily cobbled together force with no experience doing so. If they're scattered by the time they land, the invasion will fail.

Plus, what landed with a bit of a thud in that exhaustive thread helpfully given by Oldironside already, probably around page 25-30 if I remember rightly because it was midway through, was that German plans required up to two days for the convoys to form up on the German-held side of the channel, parts of which would have been in sight from England with the naked eye if the weather was decent.

At the time, one poster wanted to argue that a British destroyer would be no match for a barge with some anti-aircraft guns bolted onto the top of it. I assume we don't need to revisit that question.

 

[oldironside]

Plus, what landed with a bit of a thud in that exhaustive thread helpfully given by Oldironside already, probably around page 25-30 if I remember rightly because it was midway through, was that German plans required up to two days for the convoys to form up on the German-held side of the channel, parts of which would have been in sight from England with the naked eye if the weather was decent.

Indeed. Can anyone name a major military operation that was successful with neither a decoy plan nor the element of surprise?

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Indeed. Can anyone name a major military operation that was successful with neither a decoy plan nor the element of surprise?

Battle of Cannae, maybe? (Edit: Granted they were still literally writing some of the 'basic' military tactics and strategy books at that time...)