DBWI: Operation Sealion never attempted

Recently discovered that back in the '60s a proposal to make a sitcom based on the Home Guard was made to the BBC. Given the sacrifices made by the HG in WW2 it was knocked on the head pretty quickly.
With no Sea Lion I wonder if The Fighting Tigers (the proposed title for the series) would have been made? Interestingly one of the two men who had the idea for the series had been in the HG during the war.
 
Recently discovered that back in the '60s a proposal to make a sitcom based on the Home Guard was made to the BBC. Given the sacrifices made by the HG in WW2 it was knocked on the head pretty quickly.
With no Sea Lion I wonder if The Fighting Tigers (the proposed title for the series) would have been made? Interestingly one of the two men who had the idea for the series had been in the HG during the war.

That's actually a good point, the Germans certinally had the impression that the Home Guard would have been this almost comedic combination of doddering old men or boys still wet behind the ears. I suppose if they stuck with the steriotype it could have been quite funny, but it would have also been disrespectful considering that the Home Guard were (I think to many peoples surprise) some of the hardest fighting troops in Sealion where they died literally defending their front doors in some cases. And in the 60's most of them were still alive (those that surved and survived in Sealion that is).

I still get the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I hear Its a Long way to Tiparary which became the HG's official March after Sealion when they took part in the victory parade, seeing as they basically didn't have a march and it was chosen at the last moment. And post war you've got Disney introducing us to "Soldiers of the Old Home Guard" from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which is still very popular at parades and I'd say both work equally well. Amusingly its that movie which also helped reinforce the HG as being either very old or very young men armed with rifles and spades or spears.
 
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That's actually a good point, the Germans certinally had the impression that the Home Guard would have been this almost comedic combination of doddering old men or boys still wet behind the ears. I suppose if they stuck with the steriotype it could have been quite funny, but it would have also been disrespectful considering that the Home Guard were (I think to many peoples surprise) some of the hardest fighting troops in Sealion where they died literally defending their front doors in some cases. And in the 60's most of them were still alive (those that surved and survived in Sealion that is).

I still get the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I hear Its a Long way to Tiparary which became the HG's official March after Sealion when they took part in the victory parade, seeing as they basically didn't have a march and it was chosen at the last moment. And post war you've got Disney introducing us to "Soldiers of the Old Home Guard" from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which is still very popular at parades and I'd say both work equally well. Amusingly its that movie which also helped reinforce the HG as being either very old or very young men armed with rifles and spades or spears.


You have to remember most of those guys had been in the trenches in WWI, they knew how to fight, maybe not in the modern way the war was being waged, but they understood what it was like to be under fire and they had a lot more to lose in 1940 then they did in 1914-18.
 
In the Soviet's case, they really didn't leave too much of a choice for a workable treaty on Berlin. Malenkov was more confident than Stalin ever was with dealing with the west, and felt that he could win the fight with the experienced Red Army. I'm honestly glad that WWIII only lasted about a year, though the fallout from the use of several nukes is just monstrous. Still, definitely made sure a peace was won decisively.

Also, the United States has very strict in maintaining its monopoly on nuclear weapons.
 
Also, the United States has very strict in maintaining its monopoly on nuclear weapons.

So strict that London disappeared in nuclear fire when the Soviets were able to get their own bomb out. :rolleyes:

Frankly, the Third World War was a massive boondoggle for everyone. Yeah, sure, the Anglo-Americans were annoyed that the Soviets wouldn't let them have an occupation zone in west Germany. Yeah, sure, Malenkov was too overconfident that the Anglo-Americans wouldn't be able to field a force capable of reliably opposing the Red Army. Yeah, sure the Americans were too overconfident in their ability to get an A-bomb into the Soviet interior. But frankly, Churchill was downright retarded taking on 9 million battle-hardened Russians with their masses of armor and arty while the Soviets were too cavalier about American atomic developments and long-term air power capabilities after another few years of total mobilization production. And the ending was basically little different then OTL: yeah, the Russians are rather further east but the Elbe isn't that much of an improvement compared to the Rhine and the burning out of Western Europe probably strung out its reconstruction another ten years. They still don't know where all of Paris's art went during the siege.
 
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So strict that London disappeared in nuclear fire when the Soviets were able to get their own bomb out. :rolleyes:

Frankly, the Third World War was a massive boondoggle for everyone. Yeah, sure, the Anglo-Americans were annoyed that the Soviets wouldn't let them have an occupation zone in west Germany. Yeah, sure, Malenkov was too overconfident that the Anglo-Americans wouldn't be able to field a force capable of reliably opposing the Red Army. Yeah, sure the Americans were too overconfident in their ability to get an A-bomb into the Soviet interior. But frankly, Churchill was downright retarded taking on 9 million battle-hardened Russians with their masses of armor and arty while the Soviets were too cavalier about American atomic developments and long-term air power capabilities after another few years of total mobilization production. And the ending was basically little different then OTL: yeah, the Russians are rather further east but the Elbe isn't that much of an improvement compared to the Rhine and the burning out of Western Europe probably strung out its reconstruction another ten years. They still don't know where all of Paris's art went during the siege.

as bad as the atomic bombing of London was, look at it this way, consider how much worse it would have been if the Soviets had gotten the H-Bomb
 
as bad as the atomic bombing of London was, look at it this way, consider how much worse it would have been if the Soviets had gotten the H-Bomb

The Americans didn't get the H-Bomb until years after the war. The Soviets took nearly a half-decade after that (not counting the "layer cake" design they had as an intermediate that they tried to pass off as a true Teller-Ulam design). Nobody was in any position to get the H-Bomb during the war... that was always going to take another couple of years of development.
 
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