Operation Sea Lion (1974 Sandhurst Wargame)

DaveB

Glenn239 said:
Day battle or night battle? If it's a day battle, it looks like Kurita vs. Taffy 3, except that instead of sailing away at the last minute, the RN continues doggedly on the attack. Do you think that battle a walk in the park for Kurita? No? Then maybe its not a walk in the park for the RN either. For a night battle the LW does not play so the RN has a clear shot at the invasion.
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Hold on. You’re comparing the RN, with RAF (admittedly not dedicated FAA) air cover, being attacked by the 1940 LW that had trouble hitting stationary destroyers at Dunkerque, with Kurita, without air cover, potentially facing attack from veteran USN aircrew trained in a dedicated anti-shipping role and with experience of sinking IJN warships manoeuvring at sea.

Comparing apples with oranges lumps of coal
 

Zheng He

Cryhavoc101 said:
Thanks for the share - Now compare that to Op Neptune which landed 156,000 troops including airborne in one day (and was able to maintain logistics for a force that eventually numbered 39 Divisions) - and do please note the glaring disparity for a first wave force less than twice the 'First wave' size of this mythical landing force

The invasion fleet was drawn from eight different navies, comprising 6,939 vessels: 1,213 warships, 4,126 landing craft of various types, 736 ancillary craft, and 864 merchant vessels. The majority of the fleet was supplied by the UK, which provided 892 warships and 3,261 landing craft. There were 195,700 naval personnel involved. The invasion fleet was split into the Western Naval Task Force (under Admiral Alan G Kirk) supporting the US sectors and the Eastern Naval Task Force (under Admiral Sir Philip Vian) in the British and Canadian sectors. Available to the fleet were five battleships, 20 cruisers, 65 destroyers, and two monitors.

They had more dedicated landing vessels than the Germans had river barges!

In addition the allies were landing in France with the support of the locals and the allies had full air superiority / supremacy
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This and along with almost two years worth of lessons learned from operations such as TORCH and HUSKY and AVALANCHE not to mention the Dieppe raid and landings in the Pacific. Operations where the Allies made all manner of mistakes, the lessons of which were applied in June 1944.

I would say an equivalent operation to PINNIPED for the Allies would attempting the cross channel assault as early in 1942 as the weather permits.

Minor quibble on your comment about the air picture, I would say the situation was more akin to the US Air Force's current definition of air dominance.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Zheng He said:
...
I would say an equivalent operation to PINNIPED for the Allies would attempting the cross channel assault as early in 1942 as the weather permits.
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Not even close. The USN at least had two decades of effort at working out the ugly facts about amphib ops. Amphibious Forces Atlantic Fleet had been conducting division & corps size training exercises for near two years. There were AK class transports in use, Higgins Boats, doctrines and techniques worked out and tested for everything from how to make up boat loads to shore fire control. The Brits had revived their lessons learned from their operations in the Great War & developed further. Certainly none of that was perfect, but it worked in November for Op TORCH. Whatever the organizational skill of the Wehrmacht they were not remotely close to the capability of the Brits and US anytime in 1942.

To digress the German invasion defense strategy of 1942 did not include beach defense beyond a outpost line. Their doctrine of 1942 was to concentrate infantry and mechanized reserves inland and counter attack after the key landing sites were identified. Only ports like Cherbourg, Le Hrave or Dieppe were defended near the waters edge. In contrast the French actually posted something larger than platoon size OPs on the African beaches. For the beach assaults the Allies faced opposition on the beaches the Germans had no intent of posting in 1942 or 1943. More to the point; as outlined earlier in this discussion the Brits had infantry defending right to the waters edge, and backed by counter attack groups directly at hand.

There just no comparison between what Hitler ordered up in 1940 & anything else anyone did in WWII
 

eltf177

Carl Schwamberger said:
Correct, but there seem to be a short handful of exceptions. The point however is a single cannon of relatively light caliber, 10cm or less, does little to defend a vulnerable boat hull, like a sub or a cargo barge, from a attacker like a corvette, destroyer, frigate, ect... I'd think this even more so where the gun crew haas minimal training or experience at engaging targets like ships.
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Subs also did some shore-bombardment, the IJN on the US west coast in 1942 and US subs off Japan in 1945 but this wasn't very common. It's just the US subs had so few targets by this point.

Some subs did carry larger guns:

The US had two subs with two single 6-inch guns.
The Germans designed a WWI sub with four single 5.9-inch guns plus two single 3.46-inch guns (not built).
The Japanese fitted one sub with a second 5.5-inch gun for its trip to Europe.
The French SURCOUF had two 8-inch guns.
The UK M-1 class had a single 12-inch gun for shore-bombardment, it didn't work well and was replaced by a hanger and seaplane.
 

Carl Schwamberger

The Germans made one attempt to bombard a Venzualean oil loading facility with a submarine. On the first shot the gun suffered a in bore explosion, injuring several of the crew. There was a long account of this action in a late 1960s issue of the American Legion magazine.
 

misterwibble

4000 vessels of all types in the narrowest part of the channel? Isn't that what's known as a target rich environment?

It doesn't matter what the Luftwaffe can do in daylight, this is late September so half the time the Royal Navy get to play to their haert's content.
 

Johnrankins

Not James Stockdale said:
What I heard was that more detailed plans were discovered in some German archive in the 1990s (or at least well after the Sandhurst wargame) that detailed an invasion force of 4,000 vessels in four fleets or groups. The wargame only used 1,500 or so vessels in the invasion fleet, so people have claimed that a larger fleet with more ships and more capacity would give the Germans a better chance.
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Or more likely more ships sunk and men killed.
 

DaveBC

Johnrankins said:
Or more likely more ships sunk and men killed.
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Now we're just into the worst sort of World War I style thinking, just piling more and more men into the same confined area in hopes of overwhelming enemy fire through sheer numbers.

In the Sandhurst wargame, it took a couple of days for the Royal Navy to intercept a large portion of the flotilla with a large force of its own, and when this happened, most of the barges were sunk in a single engagement. This does not strike me as unrealistic at all. At the very least a short-range engagement between lightly escorted slow transports and an enemy destroyer and cruiser fleet will certainly scatter the convoy. Even if losses were light, reorganizing it in those circumstances would take ages and might be utterly impossible. Even Glenn239 admits that this is the most likely outcome, but for some reason he clings to the notion that this is really just a D&D game at its core and that the Germans might still roll a 20.

In any event the idea that you could have large numbers of troop transports going about their duties in the midst of a huge naval battle beggars belief. Sea Lion is a farce. The only reason it still has flippers at all is because Dunkirk, which was equally farcical but for one important exception, has given people a false sense of how easy it is to ferry men around the English Channel.
 

DaveBC

fourthmaninaboat said:
We also have an example of the RN operating against landing forces in waters controlled by the Luftwaffe at Crete. Here, despite operating without any fighter cover, and operating far from bases where it could resupply with AA ammo, the RN managed to turn back the entire German landing force. It's not hard to conjecture that they would see similar results in the more favourable scenario of the Channel.
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Now that's unfair. They succeeded on their third try, once the RN had withdrawn.
 

Geordie

DaveBC said:
Even Glenn239 admits that this is the most likely outcome, but for some reason he clings to the notion that this is really just a D&D game at its core and that the Germans might still roll a 20.
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I get pTerry vibes. It's the one in a million chance, but we're fresh out of narrativium.
 

Astrodragon

DaveBC said:
Now we're just into the worst sort of World War I style thinking, just piling more and more men into the same confined area in hopes of overwhelming enemy fire through sheer numbers.

In the Sandhurst wargame, it took a couple of days for the Royal Navy to intercept a large portion of the flotilla with a large force of its own, and when this happened, most of the barges were sunk in a single engagement. This does not strike me as unrealistic at all. At the very least a short-range engagement between lightly escorted slow transports and an enemy destroyer and cruiser fleet will certainly scatter the convoy. Even if losses were light, reorganizing it in those circumstances would take ages and might be utterly impossible. Even Glenn239 admits that this is the most likely outcome, but for some reason he clings to the notion that this is really just a D&D game at its core and that the Germans might still roll a 20.

In any event the idea that you could have large numbers of troop transports going about their duties in the midst of a huge naval battle beggars belief. Sea Lion is a farce. The only reason it still has flippers at all is because Dunkirk, which was equally farcical but for one important exception, has given people a false sense of how easy it is to ferry men around the English Channel.
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Remember that in the Sandhurst games the RN light forces in the Channel, and any chance of spotting the initial invasion force, is deliberately handwaved away. Otherwise it makes for a very short and boring game.
 

Deleted member 94680

Astrodragon said:
Remember that in the Sandhurst games the RN light forces in the Channel, and any chance of spotting the initial invasion force, is deliberately handwaved away. Otherwise it makes for a very short and boring game.
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Ian Hathaway said:
Not true at all...
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Geordie said:
Which bits of the post aren't true? This isn't an attempt to split hairs: genuinely seeking information.
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As far as I can tell, the light forces weren’t “handwaved away”, rather they had to assemble in Scotland and make their way down to the Channel.

The Wiki page on the Operation Sea Lion (Wargame) says in the “Assumption” section:
The invasion fleet was largely unmolested in the crossing, as the Royal Navy ships had to steam south from their bases as far away as Scotland to reach the invasion beaches.

Whilst the “Invasion” section states:
Naval engagements were indecisive at this stage as the Royal Navy was still assembling its main destroyer fleet to attack. The larger ships of the Home Fleet (including battleships, heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers) were not to be committed due to their vulnerability to air attack and U-boats.
 

Astrodragon

I'm talking about the 300-odd light craft the RN operated in the Channel area every night.
Basically because they want at least a first landing to stop the Army players getting bored

At one point they waved away the RN, the RAF AND the regular Army. And the Germans still lost...
 
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