Operation Sea Lion (1974 Sandhurst Wargame)

I’d like to see (as in think it would be interesting) a TL where Germany tries Sealion and is massacred à la popular thought on this board.

What would the impact of the loses and casualties be? The loss of naval transports? The effect on the industrial base of the Reich?

Of course Halder, Oster and Goerdeler are waiting in the wings...

 

My reaction to seeing this thread rise from the depths.

 

Hipper, the round of choice for an R class in amongst the barges would surely be a case shot of around 2000lb each. Fired at zero elevation the destruction zone would extend from, at a guess a cable from the muzzle (APMEP blast would destroy any barges close that that)out to at least a couple of miles and if luck much further. The ship would just keep a rolling broad side going, one gun at a time as she steamed along. The six inch secondary's in local control would snipe down anything that survives. Just for good measure the pompoms would supress any light guns mounted on the barges. Literally the Channel would run red with German blood, by the way this takes place at night as the Germans struggle to cross the Channel tides in their ocean going scows, so no valiant Luftwaffe doing wonderwaffe things.

 

the last think a hungry Fallschirmjäger sees!

check out that war face

 

Judging by the row of ribbons on Corporal’s chest, I imagine he’s done that kind of thing before and with something more dangerous than a broom handle with a bayonet bodged onto it...

 

The Tank Museum has Percy Hobarts pike...

 

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/a-better-show-in-1940.103866/

 

Yeah, but it's 20mm of pure handwavium.

 

http://www.oocities.org/drammos/sealion1.html

 

A long time ago I remember reading a "what if" story about SEALION. The Germans manage to land, although in a disorganized fashion and last a few days and push inland but basically are attritted and run out of gas (literally) before the remnants surrender. The Kriegsmarine loses pretty much everything from destroyers on up that is committed to protect the invasion route in suicide runs. The losses of the invasion craft are huge, and the story does go in to how this affects the German economy pretty quickly. Can't recall the story title though was long time ago, but to me seemed to pretty accurately describe a best case scenario for the Germans. Also the Luftwaffe gets ripped as it is trying to perform several missions at once with inadequate resources...

 

People need to be safeguarded from believing that Sealion could have succeeded because ................. ?

 

At best only a few troops get ashore, and nowhere do enough get ashore in any one place to be able to do anything other than hold on - they don't have sufficient strength to even get off the beaches unless by some spectacular piece of luck there's no defenders available upon landing. If Sealion goes ahead and suffers the fate it's going to receive I wonder just how long before Germany is forced to sue for piece, and whether or not Hitler is still in power at that point...

 

Well 15 inch shrapnel actually existed and if you set it with minimum delay it is in effect case

though I suspect that Time fused HE with minimum delay would be the most common round fired

 

Even AP would be deadly, tearing its way through a dozen ships and barely slowing as is does so...

 

Slightly different take. It has been mentioned a few times that there is a more than reasonable chance that the RN or RAF could Sealion before it got out of harbour. This is sensible. Why take risks?

Could anyone on the UK side successfully put forward a plan to encourage an invasion? The first problem that I see is that the RAF can't risk losing air control because that will get your factories shot out and air control is a prerequisite for invasion.

 

As much of a cinch as it sounds, I can't imagine anyone actually advocating that Britain try to let Germany invade somehow so as to sucker them into defeat.

Both as a general principle and because in summer 1940 there's more than a bit of panic in the air. Germany has somehow cracked the secret of modern warfare (seemingly). Britain's first line of defence, France, was supposed to hold out forever, but here it's fallen in a matter of weeks. Are we really confident it won't happen to us next? The Germans are probably going to bomb us. Will the civilians hold up under that? And so on and so forth.

Of course, the more time you have to think about it, the more cold reality settles on you and the more you realize that the invasion just isn't bloody likely. In the real world, the Germans came to that conclusion just about the same time that the British did, more or less, so we'll never know what might have happened otherwise.

 

It can be promulgated that the 'invasion scare' of the summer in 1940 was fundamental in welding the British people behind the armed forces in the prosecution of the Government's war aims.

 

There's a two-book series about that: An Invitation to Hitler (2013) and The Battle for England (2017), by Bernard Neeson.

 

Ninja’d.

Yeah, the plan is to pretend there’s dissent in the British circles of power and encourage the Germans to invade. Then, once the Heer are ashore, deal a crippling blow.

 

I cannot imagine the British ever "enticing" the Germans to pull SEALION. Yes, absent space bats its not going to succeed in he sense of conquering England or ending the war on German terms, but we all know about what happens to plans when bullets fly. The cost to the UK could be out of proportion to the cost to the Germans if they roll all 6s - and remember the Japanese did pretty much that.