Failure of Sealion

What about the effect in the occupied countries, particularly France and Belgium. There's going to be bodies washing ashore all along the channel in numbers too large to hide. Seeing that should have some affect. Then there's the near total destruction of the Kriegsmarine surface fleet with badly damaged survivors limping into any safe port they can find.
 
What about the effect in the occupied countries, particularly France and Belgium. There's going to be bodies washing ashore all along the channel in numbers too large to hide. Seeing that should have some affect. Then there's the near total destruction of the Kriegsmarine surface fleet with badly damaged survivors limping into any safe port they can find.

Building on this, no doubt some weapons would wash ashore too, coupled with the morale boost. So could the resistances of those countries be more successful?
 
Which divisions get wiped out is going to matter. Any battle where the specific units or their officers played an important, or pivotal, role could get butterflied in the other direction due to their absence. I don't think a failed Sea Lion would break the Wehrmacht's back; they're still riding high on the Fall of France in 1940-1941 and Sea Lion would probably have been seen as a risky gamble, not a serious setback.

As one somewhat chilling possibility losing at Sea Lion, especially if Hitler puts it in motion over the objections of his generals, could humble him somewhat and convince him to give the professionals on the OKW more leeway in running the war. In the USSR one of the key turning points in the early days on the Eastern Front was the utter failure of the operations Stalin ordered in the winter of '41-'42 which helped convince him to listen to the generals and stop micromanaging the war. An early, and disastrous, Sea Lion that could be laid at Hitler's feet might have the same effect in Berlin.
 
Which divisions get wiped out is going to matter. Any battle where the specific units or their officers played an important, or pivotal, role could get butterflied in the other direction due to their absence. I don't think a failed Sea Lion would break the Wehrmacht's back; they're still riding high on the Fall of France in 1940-1941 and Sea Lion would probably have been seen as a risky gamble, not a serious setback.

As one somewhat chilling possibility losing at Sea Lion, especially if Hitler puts it in motion over the objections of his generals, could humble him somewhat and convince him to give the professionals on the OKW more leeway in running the war. In the USSR one of the key turning points in the early days on the Eastern Front was the utter failure of the operations Stalin ordered in the winter of '41-'42 which helped convince him to listen to the generals and stop micromanaging the war. An early, and disastrous, Sea Lion that could be laid at Hitler's feet might have the same effect in Berlin.

Which in many ways is a disaster from the Axis POV as the Nazis and German military both ensured there was no strategic agency whatsoever, so this spearheads a much more rapid disintegration of the overall Nazi war machine.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Stalin in 1940 hasn't enough or good enough of an army to do anything yet, and to actually invade Germany he'd need to wait until either 1942 or 1943. 1942 for a super-backhand strategy, 1943 to launch his own full-scale invasion. The loss of prestige from a failed Sealion would be massive. The logistical losses would be crippling, but by the same token it may lead to a US misconception that all it would have to do in WWII is arm the UK for sure, perhaps the USSR, and it's not even needed in WWII. When it dawns on the USA what this means particularly terms of the postwar Soviet sphere, this'd change in a hurry, but whether that means anything in time is a different question.

Agreed on the USA likely to see material aid will be enough. So if Japan attacks the USA, and Britain looks ok on holding off Hitler, I could see a Japan first strategy developing, especially if Hitler does not attack the USA. With a massive loss of German troops and presumably ships, the USA might not even have the Atlantic patrols to help the UK.
 
Agreed on the USA likely to see material aid will be enough. So if Japan attacks the USA, and Britain looks ok on holding off Hitler, I could see a Japan first strategy developing, especially if Hitler does not attack the USA. With a massive loss of German troops and presumably ships, the USA might not even have the Atlantic patrols to help the UK.

While a Germany that starts experiencing the bureaucratic sclerosis that a non-Hitler led Nazi system would produce is hardly going to overwhelm the USSR sometime in the short and savage lifespan of Hitler's empire.
 
The plans for Sea Lion envisioned successive waves. In the first wave there would be no panzer or motorized divisions, only infantry and 2 mountain divisions plus the 7th Air Division. However these would not be the complete division either. The usual structure for the first wave was to be for each division 2 regiments (minus their heavy IG), plus a small amount of mountain guns and on some beachheads a tank detachment of 1 company of amphibious PzII and 1 company of submersible Pz IIIs. Also some vehicles armed with 47mm ATGs and about half the division's communication units. The 3rd infantry regiment, artillery regiment, pioneer battalion were held back until the second wave.

So the worst case scenario is that the entire first wave gets annihilated.
 
That assumes the first waves reach the shore complete, but since Germany will be using modified canal boats, any kind of waves will swamp them, so I doubt, even on a good day that you're going to get the whole lot through, even without the British.
 
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The plans for Sea Lion envisioned successive waves. In the first wave there would be no panzer or motorized divisions, only infantry and 2 mountain divisions plus the 7th Air Division. However these would not be the complete division either. The usual structure for the first wave was to be for each division 2 regiments (minus their heavy IG), plus a small amount of mountain guns and on some beachheads a tank detachment of 1 company of amphibious PzII and 1 company of submersible Pz IIIs. Also some vehicles armed with 47mm ATGs and about half the division's communication units. The 3rd infantry regiment, artillery regiment, pioneer battalion were held back until the second wave.

So the worst case scenario is that the entire first wave gets annihilated.

The question wasn't "How would Sealion play out?"

The premise was that eight divisions are lost. With the question being "How does this affect the war?"
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The plans for Sea Lion envisioned successive waves. In the first wave there would be no panzer or motorized divisions, only infantry and 2 mountain divisions plus the 7th Air Division. However these would not be the complete division either. The usual structure for the first wave was to be for each division 2 regiments (minus their heavy IG), plus a small amount of mountain guns and on some beachheads a tank detachment of 1 company of amphibious PzII and 1 company of submersible Pz IIIs. Also some vehicles armed with 47mm ATGs and about half the division's communication units. The 3rd infantry regiment, artillery regiment, pioneer battalion were held back until the second wave.

So the worst case scenario is that the entire first wave gets annihilated.

So yes, the original poster has intentionally/unintentionally created a scenario where the Germans achieve surprise, and they get multiple waves across that are eventually cutoff, and once the 8 divisions are across and have a solid beachhead, the Germans don't win. Short of nearly divine levels of luck, I am not sure how to make this happen. The best I can come up with is somehow weather is just barely good enough in the channel for the operation, perfect in France, and so bad over the rest of England that no planes could take off. And somehow, the British misread the intelligence and are sure it is not happening but is a fake operation, so they don't respond until well after the initial wave of men is on the beach. Then after a 2-7 day window, the weather returns to normal and the RN/RAF cuts off the beachhead.

The question wasn't "How would Sealion play out?"

The premise was that eight divisions are lost. With the question being "How does this affect the war?"

I disagree. When a poster gives the end result, but skips the POD, one has to back into a possible POD to discuss the operation. There are other POD here that could also be discussed such as Vichy is actively helping Germany or Germany started planning for Sea Lion in the late 1930's.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
While a Germany that starts experiencing the bureaucratic sclerosis that a non-Hitler led Nazi system would produce is hardly going to overwhelm the USSR sometime in the short and savage lifespan of Hitler's empire.

So are you assuming a that a failed SeaLion means Hitler losses power?
 
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