1. Is doable in alturnative history. I'd like to read about that. This will leave German forces weaker if their is a fight to the finish. 2. Takes a lot of effort and amunition. It would take time. 3,4,and 5 Require gaining countoal of the air. With the number and quality of aircraft Germany had OTL they couldn't do it. 6. That would take a lot of resuorces away from Russia. Some how Germany and Russia have to decide to leve each other alone wile Germany takes out England.With all the negitive input towards Sealion becoming a possible AH fact, one seems to forget that AH is just that fiction not real.
All that Germany had to do to pull it off was:
1. Distroy the Army at Dunkirk before it could be lifted off the beach.
2. Sink or damage most of the ships attempting to rescue the army at Dunkirk.
3. Contine the pressure on the airbases, not bombing cities. Distroying the British airforce.
4. Sending fighter sweeps over and over until the British fighters were distroyed.
5. Using dive bombers on the ships.
6. Keep the pressure on until the area of possible landing was no longer being defended.
Could they have done these things?
We will never know we do know that they didn't. So Sealion became not possible, but what if. And that is the Alternate HIstory question.
I do wish at this time to expose a particular point that is being ignored by the forum regarding Sealion and it's aftereffects. Of course the Germans will lose.
Many people are describing the effects on the German Navy as representing "the wiping out of the blue-water Kriegsmarine!" Not really, not really at all. In fact, due to the casualties and damages suffered in Norway, the blue-water elements of the German invasion forces would be shockingly small, even by their standards. Therefore, the long term effects on Germany's surface naval war, while very damaging indeed, would not be as apocalyptic as some people on the thread seem to think.
What am I talking about? Well, assuming a September 1940 Sealion:
1) Both battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz are still under construction, so the most powerful German (to be) warships are not even in danger.
2) Both battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau damaged and in drydock
3) The German "pocket battleship" (super heavy cruiser, really) Lutzow damaged and in drydock
4) The German light cruiser Leipzig damaged and in drydock
That left as a potential Sealion bluewater naval force a strength of:
1 Pocket Battleship (Admiral Scheer*)
2 Heavy Cruisers (Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen)
2 Light Cruisers (Koln and Nurnberg)
10 Destroyers
1 pre-Dreadnought Battleship(Schleswig-Holstein, to be beached on the English coast and used as an unsinkable gun platform-ONLY A PROPOSAL!)
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*-Assuming in an activated Sealion that her convoy mission was cancelled.
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Gimme 2 Queen Elizabeths, the Norfolk and Suffolk, a couple of squadrons of destroyers, and I'll wipe out the whole stupid force in an afternoon.
But it also means the five strongest blue-water elements of the Kriegsmarine are, or will be, still out there. The Battle of the Atlantic has gotten slightly easier, but only slightly.
Opinions?
With all the negitive input towards Sealion becoming a possible AH fact, one seems to forget that AH is just that fiction not real.
All that Germany had to do to pull it off was:
1. Distroy the Army at Dunkirk before it could be lifted off the beach.
2. Sink or damage most of the ships attempting to rescue the army at Dunkirk.
3. Contine the pressure on the airbases, not bombing cities. Distroying the British airforce.
4. Sending fighter sweeps over and over until the British fighters were distroyed.
5. Using dive bombers on the ships.
6. Keep the pressure on until the area of possible landing was no longer being defended.
Could they have done these things?
We will never know we do know that they didn't. So Sealion became not possible, but what if. And that is the Alternate HIstory question.
Hitler smashes to BEF in France in 1940 and despite tremondeous casualites-invades England-which leads to a domino effect....
Churchill is killed while resisitng the Nazis....the English Royal family is forced to flee to Canada...Edward Windsor is enstalled as a figurehead King with Oswald Mosely as the Prime Minister ...Irish Free State proclaims its neutrality..but is invaded as well...all Jews in the United Kingdom and Ireland are killed...everyone else deemed a threat is shipped off to Europe for life as slave laborers to rebuild Berlin as Germanica....FDR is defeated in the November 1940 elections as the GOP starts a whispering campaign that shipping supplies to regimes about to fall is a bad idea....Wendell Wilke is elected president...any Lend Lease Proposel to the remants of the British Empire to resist the Nazis dies because of isolationist freenzy....with a weakened British Empire to resisit him.. Hitler captures Egypt and the Suez canal-plus the Oild fields of Iraq/Iran and saudi Arabia helped by anti British/pro Arabist nationalist uprisings...India revolts against the British..while the Japanese begin their own march to empire...they occupy Korea and Manchuria and send their fleet down past the Phillippines to the oil rich islands of Indonesia. After trapping Chaing Kai Sheck and Mao with the interior China -so those two will begin a Civil War to how will oust the Japanese-{the winner will be killed by the Japanese regardless of who wins}, Japanese then begin a attack from Manchuria to occupy mineral rich Sibera....while Stalin puts his faith in a non aggression pact with Hitler and rushes the red Army to fight the Japanese, Hitler double crosses Stalin and "liberates" European Russia-Great Russia; Little Russia and White Russia and doesn't stop until he reaches the Volga Stalin's Russia is reduced to a Western border behind the Ural montains and a no-mans-land of Siberia of a Eastern Border.
In order to crush any potential threat the Japanese launch a suprise attack against the Australia and the Phillippines....Northern Australia is occuppied and MacArthur is killed....The GOP begins a loud campaign of praise for America;s Greatest soldier and scream that FDR didn't save him -when GOP Wilke-not FDR -was President ! {This is part of a Smear campaign so that FDR can't Run for President against Wilke} Wilke can't wage war with the piteful resources and concludes a de facto peace with Hitler who occupies Europe, Norht africa and the middle east and Japan who occupies Korea, Manchura, Siberia and Indonesia, Australia and the Phiilippines....
Hitler smashes to BEF in France in 1940 and despite tremondeous casualites-invades England-which leads to a domino effect....
Churchill is killed while resisitng the Nazis....the English Royal family is forced to flee to Canada...Edward Windsor is enstalled as a figurehead King with Oswald Mosely as the Prime Minister ...Irish Free State proclaims its neutrality..but is invaded as well...all Jews in the United Kingdom and Ireland are killed...everyone else deemed a threat is shipped off to Europe for life as slave laborers to rebuild Berlin as Germanica....FDR is defeated in the November 1940 elections as the GOP starts a whispering campaign that shipping supplies to regimes about to fall is a bad idea....Wendell Wilke is elected president...any Lend Lease Proposel to the remants of the British Empire to resist the Nazis dies because of isolationist freenzy....with a weakened British Empire to resisit him.. Hitler captures Egypt and the Suez canal-plus the Oild fields of Iraq/Iran and saudi Arabia helped by anti British/pro Arabist nationalist uprisings...India revolts against the British..while the Japanese begin their own march to empire...they occupy Korea and Manchuria and send their fleet down past the Phillippines to the oil rich islands of Indonesia. After trapping Chaing Kai Sheck and Mao with the interior China -so those two will begin a Civil War to how will oust the Japanese-{the winner will be killed by the Japanese regardless of who wins}, Japanese then begin a attack from Manchuria to occupy mineral rich Sibera....while Stalin puts his faith in a non aggression pact with Hitler and rushes the red Army to fight the Japanese, Hitler double crosses Stalin and "liberates" European Russia-Great Russia; Little Russia and White Russia and doesn't stop until he reaches the Volga Stalin's Russia is reduced to a Western border behind the Ural montains and a no-mans-land of Siberia of a Eastern Border.
In order to crush any potential threat the Japanese launch a suprise attack against the Australia and the Phillippines....Northern Australia is occuppied and MacArthur is killed....The GOP begins a loud campaign of praise for America;s Greatest soldier and scream that FDR didn't save him -when GOP Wilke-not FDR -was President ! {This is part of a Smear campaign so that FDR can't Run for President against Wilke} Wilke can't wage war with the piteful resources and concludes a de facto peace with Hitler who occupies Europe, Norht africa and the middle east and Japan who occupies Korea, Manchura, Siberia and Indonesia, Australia and the Phiilippines....
1. Possible.All that Germany had to do to pull it off was:
1. Distroy the Army at Dunkirk before it could be lifted off the beach.
2. Sink or damage most of the ships attempting to rescue the army at Dunkirk.
3. Contine the pressure on the airbases, not bombing cities. Distroying the British airforce.
4. Sending fighter sweeps over and over until the British fighters were distroyed.
5. Using dive bombers on the ships.
6. Keep the pressure on until the area of possible landing was no longer being defended.