10 reasons why Op. Sealion could not succeed

[Catsmate]

Yep, the vast majority of the invading troops at D-Day were seasick.

Ah, Dramamine.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Firstly I want to address the statement “In naval clashes of the period - Nazi warships were twice as effective as Wallies”

Lets see – From beginning of war to Oct 1940 - 5 actual real surface clashes between warships of both nations

River Plate – A Decisive British Victory

1st and 2nd Narvik – a Decisive British Victory.

Action off Lofoten - Renown plus 9 Destroyers vs the Twins – British Win (Gneisenau suffered moderate damage and the Germans withdrew)

Twins vs Glorious – Turkey shoot – very unlikely to be repeated – but a German Win none the less even if Scharnhorst still managed to get herself torpedoed despite the disparity of forces.

I am not seeing anything that supports the assertion that Nazi Warships were twice as effective as British ones – if anything I am seeing the opposite.

And its utterly irrelvant anyway as the German Blue water navy available to support an invasion is something like 3 Crusiers and 4 Destroyers - everything else is damaged or a new Reef - this vs the larget Navy in the world.

I would imagine that in the case of launching the invasion the sick list on those 7 ships would be higher than normal!

Right 10 reasons etc etc blah blah blah

1. No planning what so ever for an invasion of the UK was undertaken prior to the battle of France. Remember what Eisenhower said “Plans are useless, Planning is essential”
   
   
2. The Germans had zero Amphibious legacy and were then expected to undertake the most complicated seaborne invasion in history to date. The British and USA had stacks of experience of such undertakings and still managed to make many mistakes even when landings were uncontested. While I am sure that the Germans would muddle through the first landing even if un-contested is likely to be a real train crash in terms of confusion accidents, navigation errors and heavy delays. Contested it would be a multi train pile up of a train crash.
   
   
3. The Germans had no dedicated Amphibious force and would have to rely upon a collection of ad-hoc and modified vessels – regarding the statement “First Sea Lord Pound concluded that the KM could deliver 100-200,000 troops overnight in a port to port invasion” – pure Fiction – Op Neptune by comparison delivered 156,000 troops on June 6th using over 6000 vessels (most of them specialised) and manned by nearly 200,000 Sailors in an op planned over 2+ years and supported by the largest 2 navy’s (as well as 6 others) and the might of the Wallied Industries.
   
   
4. No Naval Superiority. Even before the Norway campaign the KM could not cover a Cross channel invasion such was the disparity in available forces – post Norway with the losses sustained and damage incurred to much of the remaining surface fleet I believe that they were effectively down to 3 Cruisers and iirc 4 DDs. Granted the RN were stretched but they had the options of moving ships around etc and even had a BB on the south coast.
   
   
5. No Air Superiority. I am sure this does not need to be rehashed here – but the Luftwaffe famously failed to gain air superiority over the RAF during the Battle of Britain. And given how reliant the German Army would be on the Luftwaffe to provide everything from Recon to Air cover to close air support to air dropping supplies etc it would find itself hard pressed to effectively conduct any of those missions during any invasion. I often find that the answer to “How does the Germans overcome issue X” = “Oh the Luftwaffe will do it” – unfortunately for the Sealion planners it cannot be relied upon to do so.
   
   
6. Poor Logistics. The ability to deliver supplies across an open beach particularly the area of coastline from Brighton to Dover, which is almost completely aside from a few small ‘gaps’ shingle backed with cliffs. The “Cinque Ports” (other than Dover and to a lesser extent Folkestone both of which are heavily defended) while a big deal in medieval times are incapable of handling anything larger than the smallest coaster and have very little in the way of cranes and transport network etc so would be incapable of supporting a landing force.
   
   
7. Poorer Logistics. Once the logi has got ashore it then has to be moved up to the troops ‘whot needs it’ and moving logistics off of a beach requires a great deal of effort. Certainly initially this would have to be done largely by hand. I would imagine that first wave units would have to handle their own logi needs and most of the supplies would languish at the high water mark and this would seriously hinder a given units ability to move inland. I would expect the available supply situation to be far worse than those experienced by the US Marines on Guadalcanal for example.
   
   
8. Ground Superiority. Again the Germans do not have the 3:1 plus ratio of attacker to defender necessary vs a peer opponent at the point of battle. Also they would lack Artillery and Armoured support particularly early on. The plan called for 9 Divisions to be landed - I find this laughable given the numbers that the Wallies managed to deliver on D-Day with far far greater capability, equipment, training, experience, legacy and planning.
   
   
9. Defences. The British have been amazingly paranoid about invasions for hundreds of years and many locations on the South Coast have Victorian era Defences improved with more modern Pill boxes, mine fields and wire. Many of the usable Beach areas (Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings) are backed by heavy regency style buildings forcing any attacker crossing that beach to face some very serious prepared positions and then heavy FIBUA/FISH type combat which is slow and incredibly costly for an attacking force both in terms of Casualties and supplies expended.
   
   
10. The British Army. Now the German Army was good, very good in fact. However the British army was also good perhaps not quite as good in certain areas like combined arms but that’s irrelevant as the Germans first wave is going to be Light infantry with very little in the way of supporting arms including Armour, Artillery, AAA and anti-tank weapons. Also the British can largely rely on the ability to use the road and rail network to move troops around and rapidly reinforce the troops defending the main landing areas far faster than the Germans can. While it’s true that the British army had lost a lot of equipment – it still had lots left in stocks, units not deployed etc and equipment built in the months since Dunkirk - certainly it would have had far more than the Germans could land in the first wave and regular British formations would be better equipped then a given German one in terms of equipment scales. I will try to find the citation later when I get home but the German Army HQ planning for Sealion had an assessment written up by the units that primarily faced British divisions (3rd or 6th Army???) during the fighting in France and Belgium with regards to their quality in order to prepare those units primarily tasked with conducting the invasion as to the abilities and ‘habits’ etc of the British troops. It concluded that ‘generally’ when fighting a Belgium or French unit Casualties suffered by the German and French/Belgium units were light and enemy POWs were high and often demoralised. When fighting British units Casualties were generally much higher on both sides – Far fewer POWs were taken and that their morale was much higher – with and I am paraphrasing here from memory - a belief that the defeat in France was a setback only and that ‘the British’ would win in the end.
    

If anything I believe that the British seriously overestimated the Ability of Germany to conduct Op Sealion and had the Germans been foolish enough to attempt it – it would have been a disaster – probably before a single shot had been fired.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

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.

So the plan was to land in an area harder to supply and coordinate logistics from? That's a bold strategy, I'll give you that.

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.

Err, do what? Have the RN disappeared in this conclusion? Tucked up tight in Scapa Flow drinking lead paint?

Churchill accepted this conclusion, which is probably why he didn't share your enthusiasm for the operation.

Err, what? Churchill had no enthusiasm for repelling a German invasion? Churchill? Fight them on the beaches Churchill? The man who was planning on using the slogan "remember, you can always take one with you" if the Germans made it ashore?

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

Oh my god, that's a classic. When did you attend the Goebells school of Information Dissemination, by the way?

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.

"After the Dunkirk disaster"? Good way to describe having 16 divisions (including 3 armoured) waiting on the British Isles.

In naval clashes of the period - Nazi warships were twice as effective as Wallies.

According to a sweating Kriegsmarine Korvettenkapitan in a meeting with GröFaZ, maybe. Factually, not so much.

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

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.

And if the weather isn't decent they aren't going anywhere anyway.

I have a mental image of Admiral Ramsey sitting in an armchair in his observation post under dover castle, looking through a pair of binoculars, with a telephone in one hand, and a glass of gin and tonic in the other.

Being able to personally observe your enemies preparations over a 2-day period, while having overwhelming quantity and quality advantages has to be one of the easiest wins of all time.
Conclusion: Sealion is a non-starter, and there isn't a way of gilding this particular t**d.

 

[Baron Bizarre]

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.

Interesting. They say that for New England, as well.

 

[Baron Bizarre]

the naval equivalent of trainspotters

Navalgazers?

 

[naraic]

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.

There was an Soviet German trade agreement in early 1940.

The Soviets had 18 months to ship 600 million Reichmarks or raw materials to Germany. Nearly all of that was shipped before Barbarossa. The Germans had 27 months to ship 600 million Reichmarks of industrial supplies to the Soviet Union. Germany supplied a fraction of this by Barbarossa.

 

[Glenn239]

The Soviets had 18 months to ship 600 million Reichmarks or raw materials to Germany. Nearly all of that was shipped before Barbarossa. The Germans had 27 months to ship 600 million Reichmarks of industrial supplies to the Soviet Union. Germany supplied a fraction of this by Barbarossa.

After WW2 Stalin gave copious support to anti-American forces such as North Korea and Communist China, in each case accepting IOU's because of political interest. With Germany in 1940 Unca Joey thought the Germans had the upper hand so payment was an issue. Not that Stalin wanted cash. He wanted technology, tooling, and territory.

 

[Glenn239]

1. No planning what so ever for an invasion of the UK was undertaken prior to the battle of France. Remember what Eisenhower said “Plans are useless, Planning is essential”

Ah, Operation Overkill. Yes, planning is essential. Having a 25:1 advantage in the air also helped.

The Germans had zero Amphibious legacy and were then expected to undertake the most complicated seaborne invasion in history to date. The British and USA had stacks of experience of such undertakings and still managed to make many mistakes even when landings were uncontested. While I am sure that the Germans would muddle through the first landing even if un-contested is likely to be a real train crash in terms of confusion accidents, navigation errors and heavy delays. Contested it would be a multi train pile up of a train crash.

The threat of Sealion wasn't the operation it was the strategy. If at first you don't succeed, try try again sort of thing. You know how Haig ground away losing millions of men for years getting nowhere, but just kept on doing it and eventually, the 100 Days? That's a strategy, which means the repetition of an operation - even a failed one - over and over again with improvements, until it either works or one is defeated and the war ends.

The Germans had no dedicated Amphibious force and would have to rely upon a collection of ad-hoc and modified vessels – regarding the statement “First Sea Lord Pound concluded that the KM could deliver 100-200,000 troops overnight in a port to port invasion” – pure Fiction – Op Neptune by comparison delivered 156,000 troops on June 6th using over 6000 vessels (most of them specialised) and manned by nearly 200,000 Sailors in an op planned over 2+ years and supported by the largest 2 navy’s (as well as 6 others) and the might of the Wallied Industries.

That's one of the reasons why Sealion 1940 was probably not going to work. But, once it was over and the Germans were back in France, not like they couldn't pump out a couple thousand invasion transports and have another go, right?

No Naval Superiority. Even before the Norway campaign the KM could not cover a Cross channel invasion such was the disparity in available forces – post Norway with the losses sustained and damage incurred to much of the remaining surface fleet I believe that they were effectively down to 3 Cruisers and iirc 4 DDs. Granted the RN were stretched but they had the options of moving ships around etc and even had a BB on the south coast.

Navies were effective blue water instruments but in coastal waters at night against tiny boats it was harder to hit the target. The RN was a major part of the defense, but the British army could not count on it being entirely effective.

No Air Superiority. I am sure this does not need to be rehashed here – but the Luftwaffe famously failed to gain air superiority over the RAF during the Battle of Britain. And given how reliant the German Army would be on the Luftwaffe to provide everything from Recon to Air cover to close air support to air dropping supplies etc it would find itself hard pressed to effectively conduct any of those missions during any invasion. I often find that the answer to “How does the Germans overcome issue X” = “Oh the Luftwaffe will do it” – unfortunately for the Sealion planners it cannot be relied upon to do so.

You know how the Luftwaffe couldn't hit the broadside of a barn door against targets at sea? Neither could the RAF.

Poor Logistics. The ability to deliver supplies across an open beach particularly the area of coastline from Brighton to Dover, which is almost completely aside from a few small ‘gaps’ shingle backed with cliffs. The “Cinque Ports” (other than Dover and to a lesser extent Folkestone both of which are heavily defended) while a big deal in medieval times are incapable of handling anything larger than the smallest coaster and have very little in the way of cranes and transport network etc so would be incapable of supporting a landing force.

I doubt the first Sealion gets all the way to failure on beach logistics. But, by the time of the 2nd Sealion in 1941 the logistics would presumably be much better.

Ground Superiority. Again the Germans do not have the 3:1 plus ratio of attacker to defender necessary vs a peer opponent at the point of battle. Also they would lack Artillery and Armoured support particularly early on. The plan called for 9 Divisions to be landed - I find this laughable given the numbers that the Wallies managed to deliver on D-Day with far far greater capability, equipment, training, experience, legacy and planning.

Once the battle is over I can see how the enemy's pretensions are more laughable too. Something about the safety of Monday morning.

Defences. The British have been amazingly paranoid about invasions for hundreds of years and many locations on the South Coast have Victorian era Defences improved with more modern Pill boxes, mine fields and wire. Many of the usable Beach areas (Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings) are backed by heavy regency style buildings forcing any attacker crossing that beach to face some very serious prepared positions and then heavy FIBUA/FISH type combat which is slow and incredibly costly for an attacking force both in terms of Casualties and supplies expended.

Atlantic Wall was Swiss Cheese despite years of resources. Tough to fortify long stretches effectively.

The British Army. Now the German Army was good, very good in fact. However the British army was also good perhaps not quite as good in certain areas like combined arms but that’s irrelevant as the Germans first wave is going to be Light infantry with very little in the way of supporting arms including Armour, Artillery, AAA and anti-tank weapons.

The British had a fine army. But what the British needed most was allies, Russians, Americans. If they come then Sealion can't happen. If they don't come then it gets tougher to figure out how the British can win the war.

If anything I believe that the British seriously overestimated the Ability of Germany to conduct Op Sealion and had the Germans been foolish enough to attempt it – it would have been a disaster – probably before a single shot had been fired.

Yes, I'm sure of all the regrets the German army never had while lying shattered in the depths of Russia freezing to death in February 1942 while endless hoards of Soviet troops hit again and again, pressing men and machines past human endurance, that risking a toot in the English Channel in 1940 was first on the list.

 

[eltf177]

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.

One book I have on Sealion shows the aerial patrols being flown daily during the danger period (except in bad weather) which were FAR more substantial than I'd thought. Believe me, once the Germans started assembling the barges the RAF definitely WOULD spot the activity, not mentioning any partisans radioing that information as well...

 

[Gunnarnz]

have seen that term "river barges" used repeatedly, to ask a stupid question is that referring to MFP/AFPs or Siebel Ferries or some other actual Rhine barges?

Actual Rhine barges. This is one reason why everyone thinks it was a bad idea, even assembling the barges pre-invasion would make a massive dent in the German economy.

 

[PSL]

I didn't realise how ignorant posters were on this forum.

SOURCES YOU NEED TO STUDY.
Churchill 6 volume history of the war. Second volume covers Pounds estimates . Churchill did privately report to his back benchers that Dunkirk was the worse British military defeat in 4 centuries. Its clear how effective British propaganda is to this day, to say nothing of the BoB. My uncles / parents were there at the time and had no stupid illusions of how secure they were. From that time period they learned never to believe anything HMG reported, and the rosier the BBC war report - the worse the actual situation.

O'Hara , The German fleet at war 1939-1945 covers the effectiveness of KM over the first couple of war years through 21 naval clashes , with the WALLIES.

https://www.amazon.com/German-Fleet-War-1939-1945/dp/1591146437
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2252571.The_German_Fleet_at_War_1939_1945




Invasion of England 1940 - PETER SCHENK, this covers more realistic appraisal of German capabilities in this area, including so-called river barges.

https://www.amazon.ca/Invasion-England-1940-Planning-Operation/dp/0851775489


Here's a naval comparison ...

GERMANY 01 January 1940

IN SERVICE: 2 battleships-predreadnoughts, 2 battlecruisers, 5 seaplane tenders, 3 catapult vessels, 4 heavy cruisers, 6 light cruisers, 3

auxiliary cruisers, 22 destroyers, 21 torpedo boats, 55 submarines, 7 corvettes, 4 patrol ships, 140 auxiliary patrol vessels, 30 auxiliary

submarine chasers, 12 auxiliary decoy vessels, 2 gunnery training ships, 1 dispatch vessel, 2 river monitors, 22 motor torpedo boats, 3 motor

anti-submarine boats, 1 river patrol launch, 3 minelayers, 7 auxiliary minelayers, 4 mine transports, 2 river minelaying boats, 31

minesweepers, 67 auxiliary minesweepers, 63 minesweeping boats, 15 auxiliary mine destruction vessels

http://navypedia.org/retro_view/The Naval Balance 1940.pdf

UNITED KINGDOM 01 January 1940
IN SERVICE: 11 battleships, 3 battlecruisers, 3 monitors, 4 fleet aircraft carriers, 2 light aircraft carriers, 2 seaplane tenders, 13 heavy cruisers, 43 light cruisers, 1
cruiser-minelayer, 41 auxiliary cruisers, 18 destroyer leaders, 160 destroyers, 60 submarines, 34 sloops, 10 patrol ships (corvettes), 12 armed boarding vessels, 38
auxiliary patrol vessels, 7 auxiliary decoy vessels, 1 auxiliary seagoing AA vessel, 1 auxiliary coastal AA vessel, 67 armed yachts, 20 river gunboats, 24 motor torpedo
boats, 21 motor anti-submarine boats, 17 small landing ships, 2 small landing barges, 10 landing crafts, 8 minelayers, 8 auxiliary minelayers, 2 netlayers, 45
minesweepers, 49 auxiliary minesweepers, 1 auxiliary mine destruction vessel, 79 minesweeping trawlers, 576 auxiliary armed trawlers, 6 minesweeping drifters, 58
auxiliary armed drifters, 6 armed whalers, 7 auxiliary armed whalers, 1 minesweeping boat
CAPITAL SHIPS AND MONITORS

 

[Look More Closely Later]

..."After the Dunkirk disaster"? Good way to describe having 16 divisions (including 3 armoured) waiting on the British Isles...

Doesn't matter how many divisions there are in the UK if they're short of modern weapons to fight with, and a lot of stuff got left behind on the beaches at Dunkirk.
By the look of the charts I have in volume 2 Churchill's own WW2 memoir (Chapter XIII, 'At Bay'), the equipment levels of rifles across divisions was generally good on the 13th July, 1940, but hopeless for 'field artillery', 'A.T. guns', 'Light M/G', 'M/G carriers', 'A.T. rifles' and 'mortars' for almost all infantry divisions listed except 3rd (although they were short on field artillery), 43rd and the 1st Canadian (although the latter were short on rifles on 13th July). By 7th September, 1940, the equipment situation had improved (most obviously on the field artillery front), although some divisions were still under the 50% mark of what they 'should' have been equipped with and the 3rd, 43rd and 1st Canadian (the latter now no longer short on rifles) were still the only ones close to 'fully equipped' in all the listed items.

Target (100%) figures given for equipment for a division for 7th September, 1940: Personnel 15,000; Rifles 13,000; Field Artillery 72; A.T. Guns 48; Light M/G 698; M/G Carriers 96; A.T. Rifles 306; Mortars 126.

Edit:
That said, if the Germans arrive only equipped with their fists, their guns having got lost along the way, or don't arrive at all, due to boats being swamped or acquiring other problems that result in a status of marked buoyancy deficiency, British divisions being under-equipped ceases to be a potential issue.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Doesn't matter how many divisions there are in the UK if they're short of modern weapons to fight with, and a lot of stuff got left behind on the beaches at Dunkirk.
By the look of the charts I have in volume 2 Churchill's own WW2 memoir (Chapter XIII, 'At Bay'), the equipment levels of rifles across divisions was generally good on the 13th July, 1940, but hopeless for 'field artillery', 'A.T. guns', 'Light M/G', 'M/G carriers', 'A.T. rifles' and 'mortars' for almost all infantry divisions listed except 3rd (although they were short on field artillery), 43rd and the 1st Canadian (although the latter were short on rifles on 13th July). By 7th September, 1940, the equipment situation had improved (most obviously on the field artillery front), although some divisions were still under the 50% mark of what they 'should' have been equipped with and the 3rd, 43rd and 1st Canadian (the latter now no longer short on rifles) were still the only ones close to 'fully equipped' in all the listed items.

Target (100%) figures given for equipment for a division for 7th September, 1940: Personnel 15,000; Rifles 13,000; Field Artillery 72; A.T. Guns 48; Light M/G 698; M/G Carriers 96; A.T. Rifles 306; Mortars 126.

What were they by 1941? Isn't that when it seems to be suggested that the Germans can actually attempt anything.

 

[King Augeas]

UNITED KINGDOM 01 January 1940
IN SERVICE: 11 battleships, 3 battlecruisers, 3 monitors, 4 fleet aircraft carriers, 2 light aircraft carriers, 2 seaplane tenders, 13 heavy cruisers, 43 light cruisers, 1
cruiser-minelayer, 41 auxiliary cruisers, 18 destroyer leaders, 160 destroyers, 60 submarines, 34 sloops, 10 patrol ships (corvettes), 12 armed boarding vessels, 38
auxiliary patrol vessels, 7 auxiliary decoy vessels, 1 auxiliary seagoing AA vessel, 1 auxiliary coastal AA vessel, 67 armed yachts, 20 river gunboats, 24 motor torpedo
boats, 21 motor anti-submarine boats, 17 small landing ships, 2 small landing barges, 10 landing crafts, 8 minelayers, 8 auxiliary minelayers, 2 netlayers, 45
minesweepers, 49 auxiliary minesweepers, 1 auxiliary mine destruction vessel, 79 minesweeping trawlers, 576 auxiliary armed trawlers, 6 minesweeping drifters, 58
auxiliary armed drifters, 6 armed whalers, 7 auxiliary armed whalers, 1 minesweeping boat

Oh dearie me.

Well, I consider myself better informed now. Wait, that's what you wanted us to take from those stats, isn't it? It seems to be the most pertinent point...

 

[King Augeas]

Doesn't matter how many divisions there are in the UK if they're short of modern weapons to fight with, and a lot of stuff got left behind on the beaches at Dunkirk.

Churchill was confident enough to send half the tanks in Britain to Egypt in August 1940...

 

[SsgtC]

Oh dearie me.

Well, I consider myself better informed now. Wait, that's what you wanted us to take from those stats, isn't it? It seems to be the most pertinent point...

Yeah, I don't get it either. First, he calls everyone on the board ignorant, then proceeds to post a list showing exactly why the Royal Navy would eat the Germans for lunch if they had attempted Sealion.

 

[oldironside]

I didn't realise how ignorant posters were on this forum.

That's really uncalled for and is unlikely to win people over. Also, you're posting a lot of shit that's worthy of Ovaron himself.

 

[TimTurner]

Top 10 reasons why Sealion could succeed?
1. This is Ah.com
2. This is Ah.com
3. This is Ah.com
4. This is Ah.com
5. This is Ah.com
6. This is Ah.com
7. This is Ah.com
8, This is Ah.com
9. This is Ah.com, we can make anything happen
10. Alternate History Hitler loves murdering butterflies

 

[Look More Closely Later]

What were they by 1941? Isn't that when it seems to be suggested that the Germans can actually attempt anything.

I think some posters are suggesting a 'Sea Lion' tried in 1940; however I checked volume 3 (which covers 1941) and couldn't find an equivalent table of division readiness included for 1941; there is a paper partially about home security by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (Chapter XXIII, 'My Meeting With Roosevelt'), dated 6th May, 1941, with the comment:

....6. The infantry formations guarding our long and vulnerable coast-line are disposed over long frontages - a division covering 45 miles can have little depth. Our beach obstacles are good, but divisions have less then half their full scale of anti-tank guns and are short of anti-tank mines. German armoured forces, carried in special craft, will certainly be able to land...

So apparently there were still deficiencies in at least some areas (anti-tank guns) in May 1941. (I'm not sure if German 'special craft' to carry tanks referenced actually existed, or were something that the Imperial General Staff imagined that the Germans must have prepared by then, if they were serious about an invasion.)