Operation Sea Lion: The Invasion Itself

you might look into the 1974 Sandhurst wargame, which presupposes a successful initial landing - 330,000 men. It gives the Royal Navy the Stupids just to get the troops across, then assumes everything goes normally from there

The Army has the whole situation in hand, with over 300,000 German men killed or captured, in 5 days

edit:

a report of the wargame:

http://mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/seelowe.txt

Why are posters still quoting a game from 40 years ago? This is 2014. We have the ability to do our own wargame.

Last year we did a game of a second IJN attack on Hawaii. Who would like to see a wargame on this site done in the same way for Sealion?
 
Why are posters still quoting a game from 40 years ago? This is 2014. We have the ability to do our own wargame.

Last year we did a game of a second IJN attack on Hawaii. Who would like to see a wargame on this site done in the same way for Sealion?

Because it's SANDHURST, not a bunch of fanbois?
 

sharlin

Banned
Because that war game was done by professionals and involved people who fought in the war and would have been involved in the Piniped.
 
Because that war game was done by professionals and involved people who fought in the war and would have been involved in the Piniped.

Wargames conducted in military environments are not what ifs, they are training tools to teach the official doctrine. Deviations are not welcome in the military environment, for reference see, Billy Mitchel court martial; for a recent example of wargame rigging, see the Millenium Challenge 2002.
 

Garrison

Donor
Wargames conducted in military environments are not what ifs, they are training tools to teach the official doctrine. Deviations are not welcome in the military environment, for reference see, Billy Mitchel court martial; for a recent example of wargame rigging, see the Millenium Challenge 2002.

And you think the Sealion fanboys wouldn't stack the deck in favour of the Germans to a degree that would have made Ovaron97(author of the Raid On Scapa Flow) blush?
 
And you think the Sealion fanboys wouldn't stack the deck in favour of the Germans to a degree that would have made Ovaron97(author of the Raid On Scapa Flow) blush?

But wasn't that a completely realistic and well supported TL?:confused::p:p:D
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
Wargames conducted in military environments are not what ifs, they are training tools to teach the official doctrine. Deviations are not welcome in the military environment, for reference see, Billy Mitchel court martial; for a recent example of wargame rigging, see the Millenium Challenge 2002.
Because the person who sank an aircraft carrier with cruise missiles mounted on row boats is the trustworthy one here...
 
Because it's SANDHURST, not a bunch of fanbois?

Soooooooooooo many jokes I can make here.

Wargames conducted in military environments are not what ifs, they are training tools to teach the official doctrine. Deviations are not welcome in the military environment, for reference see, Billy Mitchel court martial; for a recent example of wargame rigging, see the Millenium Challenge 2002.

IIRC said wargame was conducted with figures from the time as judges, and was done in order to reach a conclusion on the plausibility of a successful invasion.
 
IIRC said wargame was conducted with figures from the time as judges, and was done in order to reach a conclusion on the plausibility of a successful invasion.

A proper wargame sets the rules in advance and sticks to them, with all rolls and rulings public and independently verified. It is not scripting a result either way. The work comes in to establishing the rules set, and finding reliable players that will not be disruptive.
 

Garrison

Donor
A proper wargame sets the rules in advance and sticks to them, with all rolls and rulings public and independently verified. It is not scripting a result either way. The work comes in to establishing the rules set, and finding reliable players that will not be disruptive.

Please illuminate us as to any specific examples of how the Sandhurst war-game failed to meet these standards? If anything it was wildly generous to the Germans by supposing they got ashore.
 
A proper wargame sets the rules in advance and sticks to them, with all rolls and rulings public and independently verified. It is not scripting a result either way. The work comes in to establishing the rules set, and finding reliable players that will not be disruptive.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand?
 

sharlin

Banned
Please illuminate us as to any specific examples of how the Sandhurst war-game failed to meet these standards? If anything it was wildly generous to the Germans by supposing they got ashore.

Indeed they basically had the RN go 'Yeah we're gonna sit this one out for a few days, we're busy sunning ourselves in Scapa.' at the start and then play DUMB when the germans diversion fleet sailed.
 
Luftwaffe would not win BoB and the Wehrmacht would not manage Sealion as long as the Corporal from Braunau was in charge (just an example, apart from the very first day of BoB there were no attacks against the radar infrastructure).

What I am saying is that some sources are somewhat, well, biased. Do you expect people from Sandhurst (the british army academy) candidly state "had not been for the RAF lads we would all be speaking german"? And would you be surprised if a Royal Navy wargame showed that, even if the nazis had gotten Los Angeles class subs and Nimitz class carriers the Royal Navy would have managed to still rule the waves :D?

The only ways to make Sealion work are:

  1. kill/catch anybody at Dunquerke (there must be nobody with experience with modern fighting in England);
  2. wreck the Home Chain, station by station;
  3. wreck the Fighter Command, base by base (and, more important, pilot by pilot);
  4. send anything floating with a royal navy ensign into Davy Jones locker;
  5. build a serious invasions flottilla while keeping England wrecked;
  6. conduct Sealion in spring 1941 while...
  7. ...creating a real alliance with Soviet Union (trace a line from North Cape to Suez and tell Stalin: anything west is mine, anything east is yours; send me Indian tea, I'll send you elephant tusks :D).
I presume not to need to remark that the above list is ASP (Alien Space Pteranodon).
 
It wasn't Sandhurst doing the judging. From what I remember at least, the judges were picked from WW2 commanders of both sides.
 
I like the Alexcoppo remarks.

It just shows the parameters in a very clear light.

The only thing possible would be the Dunkirk evacuation.

If that had never happened and the generals we hear about later are all POW's, it does impact on the British war effort.

Trying to disable the Home Chain is a good example in terms of attacking a system:

The masts can be replaced within hours, and are hard to hit and disable (lattice masts are not fun to hit).

The controller huts and the central points underground are hard to find, but can also be replaced.

The telephone lines will also need to be hit and that is a hard task with 1940 technology.

The staff is of course critical.

... and all of this before we even get to feeding pilots in from Group 12 and 13.

Machines were not in short supply as far as I know (after Beaverbrook took over production).

Sinking RN in the channel: That will mean split the LW objectives which is a great way of achieving nothing.

Comparing Overlord to this is .. like ... <priceless>.

Monty, Brooke, Ike.... at least had a feel for the task, whereas this 1940 excersise had all the hallmarks of amateurs.

Napoleon also had a vision of this and claimed (something to this extent): Make me the master of the Channel for six hours and I will be the master of the universe. ... But that didn't happen either!

Ivan
 
Machines were not in short supply as far as I know (after Beaverbrook took over production).
Beaverbrook allegedly took too much of the credit for that. I've read a biography of Air Marshal Wilfrid Freeman, who was in charge of handling such matters from the RAF end until Beaverbrook took over (and who was restored to the position, in place of Beaverbrook, a couple of years later on as well), which makes credible arguments that
(a) Freeman had already established the systems for whose effectiveness Beaverbrook claimed rssponsibility;
(b) Beaverbrook benefited from a surge in productivity because the BoB gave the workforce extra motivation; and
(c) Beaverbrook's insistence on construction maximising the number of new planes deprived the RAF of spare parts for repairing damaged ones that could actually have resulted in even higher numbers of airworthy craft being available.
 
Indeed they basically had the RN go 'Yeah we're gonna sit this one out for a few days, we're busy sunning ourselves in Scapa.' at the start and then play DUMB when the germans diversion fleet sailed.

The Home fleet wasn't coming south at all, this had been discussed prior to the invasion twice in cabinet and agreed to by Churchill et al. Both Pound and Forbes agreed there was no need, there were 50 destroyers and cruisers in the Portsmouth and Nore command plus 1 battleship and hundreds of smaller vessels. The Home fleet was on the lookout for the sortie by the German big ships, which they didn't know were incapacitated. They also expected an attack on the east coast of England as this was thought the best place for an armoured attack. The Kriegsmarine would have sent out both the Hipper and the Scheer just prior to the invasion as well as the "Autumn Journey" feint - all of which was doing what was expected of them. The Hipper did raid the Atlantic convoys not long afterwards and managed to return (after causing more alarm and confusion than anything else due to the Edinburgh Castle's sacrifice) . It took the entire home fleet plus Force H to sink the Bismark.

Also the Luftwaffe was told it could not stop bombing London and must play DUMB, even when the German players said they wanted to bomb shipping instead. They did not have even local air superiority so this wasn't Sealion, it was something else.

The Australian Ninth Division somehow shows up near Canterbury in preference to other, closer units when its components were based in Somerset, and anyway it didn't exist in September 1940 - it was formed as a two brigade division in October 1940.

The kriegsmarine also had to play DUMB and weren't able to try out the combination of channel guns, mines, U-boats, aircraft, and hundreds of escorts of sizes ranging from destroyer to patrol boat.
 
The kriegsmarine also had to play DUMB and weren't able to try out the combination of channel guns, mines, U-boats, aircraft, and hundreds of escorts of sizes ranging from destroyer to patrol boat.
But the RN can do this too, and can trade in some of their (admittedly worse) submarines on big-gun warships. It's all very well laying mines, but if the enemy doesn't have to cross the mines to get at you... Also, the British were probably as good at laying mines as the Germans, and much better at clearing them.
 
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