Plan a Successful Sealion!

Because I haven't seen this before... (not a joke)

Most of the time, people kneejerk "Impossible" when they hear Sealion. Then they explain what was wrong with the OTL plan. That's all well and good, but what if the Nazis hadn't been so bloody stupid? People tend to start off, and then say, "But of course that wouldn't be OTL Sealion, so we should forget it entirely". Why?

Your challenge, then, should you choose to accept it, is to create a plausible invasion of Great Britain by the Third Reich, with a POD no earlier than 1933.

Superman is captured and brainwashed by Nazi operatives. He then kills the entire population of Britain, allowing the Nazis to cross the channel.

You would need a POD far in the past, and so there would be no Sealion anyway. Maybe it would be called Operation Walrus.
 
I think you would need Germany to trounce the Soviet Union, and to have the America First nimrods running the USA. Then you might get a situation where the UK is left out on its own, possibly facing German Nuclear Attack in 1948 or something.

The whole scenario requires that Germany actually has enough time to fight the UK on her own while doing ever more damage to the country. If Germany starts nuking the UK and the Kriegsmarine is massively enlarged, that would be plausible.

Of course, this means that the Soviets have to be either KOed or forced into the Urals and Germany has be left alone from the United States even as its nuking the UK.

This is perhaps not ASB but its close. The UK might be conquerable if Germany is throwing out this kind of damage against them.

My idea was stated in the other thread; its perhaps not ASB.
 
Rommel alone isn't going to surmount the insurmountable.

Rommel is not God.

He's quite close. Anyway, I have a successful Sealion in my Batavia TL, but the first PODs are way, way back in the 1830s. By 1933, it would have been too late. You need Germany with a completely different line of thinking and approach, as well as some details in the interwar years and WWI altered.
 

Harford

Banned
How plausible are asteroid strikes in this context? I really like the purity of "STONE FALLS - EVERYBODY DIES" approach.
 
Maybe I've been reading too much Cold War stuff, bit my initial reaction is:

Operation Downfall is to Little Boy and Fat Man

as

Operation Sealion is to _______

In short, wait until the learly 1950's until Germany gets nuclear weapons. Make England not get them, or get them too late.

In the opposite sort of vein to the person who suggested that Hitler finish off Great Britain before the Soviet Union, have the Soviet Union driven behind the Urals by 1945.

Germany proceeds to fight a war against Britain in which a nuke is dropped on London. When Hitler asks for unconditional surrender, and Britain refuses, another bomb is dropped on Liverpool. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, either:

Have German troops cross in slightly less crappy fashion with less poor logistics and slightly faster barges against irradiated and demoralized opposition to conquer Britain.

or

Have an unconditional surrender. Sealion in this case is the equivalent of the American occupation of Japan after WW2.

Ugly world, but there you have it.
 
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For all the often-repeated reasons, a cross-Channel invasion is out. However, could the following work?

Germany decides in 1939 that the Britain Has To Go. SO, the first step is to husband the fleet for the event, no wasting ships up in Norway. Instead, they pull the Norway operation on Southern Ireland, a neutral state independent of the UK. Do it the same way, ships loaded with troops gun their way into Irish ports and seize them, then follow up with merchant ships. Assuming Ireland collapses pretty quickly, that can then be used as a springboard for an attack on Britain's western coastline. Fighters based in Ireland can get to a whole load more than the southern 10 percent of the country, that makes the job of taking down the RAF easier.

Does that sound practical? Or even plausible?

1) Nope. How would the ships get to Ireland in the face or RN/RAF opposition?

2) How would they deal with the entire Irish armed forces plus, whatever the British had in NI? (There was still an RN base in southern Ireland at this time.)

3) How would they get to Ireland in sufficient numbers, then from Ireland in sufficient numbers to the UK?

Means making two very risky journeys, suffering losses in between, instead of just the one.
 
For a successful Sealion the Germans need to do many things. The first of which is to throw out the window their OTL plans.

Now, starting from scratch...

More U-Boats! Like 200 of them. Once WWII starts they deploy to blockade Britain, cutting her resources, supplies, & so forth as much as possible.

The Luftwaffe develops armour piercing bombs, air dropped torpedos, & several dedicated anti-ship squadrons.

The Luftwaffe must also continue to concentrate their efforts against the RAF, & other important military targets, during the Battle of Britain whilst somewhat ignoring the temptation to blast pointlessly away at London & so forth.

The Kriegsmarine learns from its disasterous Norway campaign & drops any idea of simply sailing into Dover harbour. Instead they learn how to fight a real naval battle. Plus they make sure all their surface ships are ready for Sealion regardless.

The planners for Sealion realise that landing at the White Cliffs of Dover, & there abouts, are just going to get them slaughtered. So they look for a nice sized port, which has lovely beaches nearby, for an amphibious landing. That means Ramsgate.

So essentially the Germans pull a Normandy on the British, by landing at the beaches just to the south of Ramsgate, whilst spreading disinformation that the landings will be at Dover (ie their OTL plans). The landings, though, still consist of several hundred so-called "Rhine Barges", as well as four old large merchantmen, which are deliberately beached as ad hoc landing ships (note the infamous "Rhine Barges" are only used in the initial wave, not afterwards).

Along with this their two airborne divisions land some 5-10kms inland to act as the first line of defence, whilst a light mechanised/motorised force, of about a division in size, races to capture the port at Ramsgate, whilst the other divisions dig in to secure the beachhead & be ready to support the airborne divisions if need be. Meanwhile dozens of Luftwaffe fighter squadrons fly CAP to keep the RAF away.

Whilst all this is going on, the sizeable German E-Boat fleet keeps the RN destroyers & cruisers away from the second & subsequent waves of German reinforcements coming in on Baltic Sea passenger & vehicle ferries, not to mention other merchantmen.

The main Kriegsmarine battlefleet, considering of Bismarck, the two Scharnhorst class ships, the two Schlesien class ships, & the two surviving pocket battleships, supported by cruisers & destroyers, lay in wait in the English Channel for the inevitable clash with the RN Home Fleet. Whilst the southern approches to the English Channel are mined, closing them to any RN Fleet, the northern approach simply can't be due to the size. Here the Kriegsmarine station something like 25 U-Boats in the North Sea in anticipation of the Home Fleet's movements. Similarly those dedicated anti-ship Luftwaffe squadrons are also ready to pounce upon the Home Fleet once it enters the North Sea. In doing so, the combined efforts of the U-Boats & Luftwaffe should see at least a third of the Home Fleet put out of commission.

The forthcoming naval battle, in the northern approaches to the English Channel, should thus be a somewhat balanced affair. The RN, however, loses even though the Germans suffer high casualties as well. This naval battle outcome, though, is just enough for the Germans to keep their convoy routes open to reinforce & supply their invasion army which, within a few months, has defeated the British.

Hitler then dines at Buckingham Palace, not long after Britain's capitulation, which he promptly orders to be destroyed the next day.
 

bard32

Banned
Actually, as recently as the Napoleonic Wars the French landed a (risible) expeditionary force in Wales, old boy.

Really? I didn't know that. I know that Napoleon was planning on landing Wolfe
Tone, the Irish nationalist/ terrorist, in Ireland in the late 1700s.
 
Because I haven't seen this before... (not a joke)

Most of the time, people kneejerk "Impossible" when they hear Sealion. Then they explain what was wrong with the OTL plan. That's all well and good, but what if the Nazis hadn't been so bloody stupid? People tend to start off, and then say, "But of course that wouldn't be OTL Sealion, so we should forget it entirely". Why?

Your challenge, then, should you choose to accept it, is to create a plausible invasion of Great Britain by the Third Reich, with a POD no earlier than 1933.

You would need a POD much earlier then 1933 to pull it off, you may be able to do so with a POD in 1890 or something.
 
Planning a successful Operation Sealion: The invasion of Norway is renamed Operation Sealion, and goes according to OTL. There you have it: a successful Sealion.

*bows* *runs offstage before tomatoes hit*

Assuming you want a successful invasion of Britain, as a successful Operation Sealion, then the 1933 POD is economic, and the German economy can possibly be as good, by 1937, as it was by 1939. Then, Hitler has some foresight and begins preparations for what will become Sealion later on.

In other words, the Rhine river barges are replaced with oceangoing landing craft acting as river barges.

Add to this severe problems in Britain, making the British economy a joke and the military unable to perform defense as well as it could OTL.

The US keeps completely out of the war.

Most of the rest occurs roughly as OTL.

This, and quite a few more lucky breaks, and it's possible, though still not plausible, to allow the Nazis an invasion of Britain by 1941.
 
I smell timeline
Yeah, Rommel's Parents Move to The US Shortly before his Birth, Because of which he becomes a Protogé of George S. Patton, During The Great War ...

As for The OP, I Have TWO Words for ya': Carrier Aviation ...

If The Nazis had Really Wanted to Hurt The British, Then they would have Converted at Least a Few of their Pocket Battleships over to Light Carriers, And used them to Attack Scapa Flow in a Sneak Attack, Timed to Coincide with Any Hostilities on The Continent!

:eek:
 
For a successful Sealion the Germans need to do many things. The first of which is to throw out the window their OTL plans.

Now, starting from scratch...

More U-Boats! Like 200 of them. Once WWII starts they deploy to blockade Britain, cutting her resources, supplies, & so forth as much as possible.

The Luftwaffe develops armour piercing bombs, air dropped torpedos, & several dedicated anti-ship squadrons.

The Luftwaffe must also continue to concentrate their efforts against the RAF, & other important military targets, during the Battle of Britain whilst somewhat ignoring the temptation to blast pointlessly away at London & so forth.

The Kriegsmarine learns from its disasterous Norway campaign & drops any idea of simply sailing into Dover harbour. Instead they learn how to fight a real naval battle. Plus they make sure all their surface ships are ready for Sealion regardless.

The planners for Sealion realise that landing at the White Cliffs of Dover, & there abouts, are just going to get them slaughtered. So they look for a nice sized port, which has lovely beaches nearby, for an amphibious landing. That means Ramsgate.

So essentially the Germans pull a Normandy on the British, by landing at the beaches just to the south of Ramsgate, whilst spreading disinformation that the landings will be at Dover (ie their OTL plans). The landings, though, still consist of several hundred so-called "Rhine Barges", as well as four old large merchantmen, which are deliberately beached as ad hoc landing ships (note the infamous "Rhine Barges" are only used in the initial wave, not afterwards).

Along with this their two airborne divisions land some 5-10kms inland to act as the first line of defence, whilst a light mechanised/motorised force, of about a division in size, races to capture the port at Ramsgate, whilst the other divisions dig in to secure the beachhead & be ready to support the airborne divisions if need be. Meanwhile dozens of Luftwaffe fighter squadrons fly CAP to keep the RAF away.

Whilst all this is going on, the sizeable German E-Boat fleet keeps the RN destroyers & cruisers away from the second & subsequent waves of German reinforcements coming in on Baltic Sea passenger & vehicle ferries, not to mention other merchantmen.

The main Kriegsmarine battlefleet, considering of Bismarck, the two Scharnhorst class ships, the two Schlesien class ships, & the two surviving pocket battleships, supported by cruisers & destroyers, lay in wait in the English Channel for the inevitable clash with the RN Home Fleet. Whilst the southern approches to the English Channel are mined, closing them to any RN Fleet, the northern approach simply can't be due to the size. Here the Kriegsmarine station something like 25 U-Boats in the North Sea in anticipation of the Home Fleet's movements. Similarly those dedicated anti-ship Luftwaffe squadrons are also ready to pounce upon the Home Fleet once it enters the North Sea. In doing so, the combined efforts of the U-Boats & Luftwaffe should see at least a third of the Home Fleet put out of commission.

The forthcoming naval battle, in the northern approaches to the English Channel, should thus be a somewhat balanced affair. The RN, however, loses even though the Germans suffer high casualties as well. This naval battle outcome, though, is just enough for the Germans to keep their convoy routes open to reinforce & supply their invasion army which, within a few months, has defeated the British.

Hitler then dines at Buckingham Palace, not long after Britain's capitulation, which he promptly orders to be destroyed the next day.

Congratulations, you are the only poster who actual did what the thread originator wanted to be done.
 
Congratulations, you are the only poster who actual did what the thread originator wanted to be done.


Thank you :) Yes, usually when someone mentions Sealion here, the red mist descends, people froth at the mouth, then go charging off armed with harpoons & anything else which can kill a sealion ;)
 
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