Sealion attempted and fails.

To change the subject a little:

Its always mentioned how poor the Luftwaffe's efforts against the UK's radar networks were. What if the Germans had taken radar every bit as seriously as the British? SO SERIOUS that from the very start the Germans go after the entire-reachable with Me-109 escorts-British radar network with a sustained effort using 100% of their resources? ASB I suppose, for many reasons, but if they had, how much damage could they do in X number of days before either:

a) Lasting significant damage was done to the British radar network?

OR

b) The Luftewaffe was forced to break off due to casualties?
There were 5 key CH locations on the south coast, from Ventnor on the Isle of Wight to Dover. On 12th August they were hit by small groups of Luftwaffe raiders, at Dover the CHL (used to detect aircraft from 500ft to 5000ft) was hit rather than the CH, at Pevensey and Rye the CH stations were put out of action for a few hours as was Dunkirk, although this was not one of the vital 5. Later in the day Ventnor was hit putting the station out of action for 3 days, although it was not restored to full working order for a couple of weeks. Due to good old British deception (at Ventnor they moved a mobile CHL unit in to create radio traffic), good forward planning (backup generators were on standby, as were repair crews) and a bit of luck (Poling was not hit which meant some cover was available) the Germans jumped to the conclusion that the vital radar staff were stationed underground. In fact the control rooms were highly vulnerable sited in wooden huts close to the masts. So on the basis that their bombs had little effect on the masts, that the British fighters were still able to intercept later that day and because of continued radio traffic from the radar stations the Germans thought, incorrectly, that they were not able to put the CH stations out of action.

In part the Germans were correct but if they had hit them on a daily basis the disruption, even with the rapid response of the repair crews, would have been enough to have some kind of effect. The British solution would have been to site the communications staff away from the sites reducing their vulnerability meaning the German tactics would only work for a week or two at the most. The Luftwaffe may have been lucky and taken down a mast or two reducing but not eliminating the radar coverage. The Germans would never have run out of bombers targetting the CH installations because they only ever needed to use small groups to attack them using low level flying.

If the Germans had recognised the vulnerability and continued to attack the radar stations putting them out of action for a few hours each time the effect on Fighter Command would not, in my opinion, have been incredibly significant. Early warning times would have been reduced but the British would have instituted new tactics using the limited radar cover that would still have been available from the CHL mobile units, any CH stations that were still functioning (its doubtful the whole network would be put out of action simultaneously) and by increasing standing patrols.
 
The British had mobile radars, which could be operational in a day to replace damaged CH radars
The British also had mobile emitters to fool the Germans into thinking that disabled radar stations were still operational.

The Germans would never know if they had been successful or not when they attacked. Since the masts themselves were invulnerable to bombs.
Also, the masts were far from invulnerable, they were quite flimsy in fact, but their latticework nature meant that actually hitting them was next to impossible.
 
If Germany launches amphibious assault against Britain in late 1940, Stalin would most likely utilize this chance to tighten his hold of Eastern Europe.

War with Finland might well be on the cards in this case as a countermove to German approaches to Romania. IMO Hitler could do little to stop this from happening, as late September is well past the campaign season in European Russia. With renewed forces and lessons from the past winter fresh in their minds, the Red Army would this time march to Helsinki in the south, and to Tornio river in the north. The annexation of Finland would both create a sizeable buffer zone to Leningrad, and place Swedish iron ore mines in Kiiruna and Jällivaara within the reach of Soviet bombers.
 
If Germany launches amphibious assault against Britain in late 1940, Stalin would most likely utilize this chance to tighten his hold of Eastern Europe.

War with Finland might well be on the cards in this case as a countermove to German approaches to Romania. IMO Hitler could do little to stop this from happening, as late September is well past the campaign season in European Russia. With renewed forces and lessons from the past winter fresh in their minds, the Red Army would this time march to Helsinki in the south, and to Tornio river in the north. The annexation of Finland would both create a sizeable buffer zone to Leningrad, and place Swedish iron ore mines in Kiiruna and Jällivaara within the reach of Soviet bombers.

Stalin was terrified of Hitler, and he wasn't THAT worried about Leningrad. Outright conquest of Finland wasn't what Stalin wanted, he wanted it broken to his will, and he considered this already accomplished. He was, as usual (like the cheap Mob thug he was), wrong.:rolleyes:

Sweden was recognized as a German sphere of influence, just as Turkey was for the USSR. Though prior to Barbarossa the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was violated numerous times and in numerous ways, in regards to Sweden and Turkey neither side had any interest in threatening the vital resource concerns of the other (until 6/22/1941, that is:rolleyes:).

Soviet bombers were a shit. The Luftwaffe could eat them for lunch in daylight, and they couldn't hit a blacked out iron ore facility at night.

A Soviet invasion for the purposes of the complete conquest of Finland (and by extension threatening Sweden) would be every bit a declaration of war by the USSR against Germany as would a German attack against Turkey. It is difficult to see how even Stalin would see an attack on Turkey as anything but an attack on the Soviet Union.

In fact, it was Stalin's forcing the annexation of Romanian territory putting him just 100 miles from Ploesti that helped convince Hitler that Stalin was going to go to war at the end of the Second Five Year Plan in 1942, thereby putting even more pressure on to cancel Sealion.
 
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So I presented you with the Memoranda of one of the most well-known conferences of World War Two, where Halder has noted down Hitler’s statements. So in fact we know from the 31st july 1940 conference that Hitler considered invading the Soviet Union to be a matter of the utmost urgency.

Sharlin stated that because of increasing Soviet strength, attacking the USSR was 1941 or never. AFAIK, there is no basis for that statement, and your quote about the USSR as a sword in the hands of Britain and the USA hardly establishes anything to the effect that Hitler viewed the USSR as other than weak, or that in terms of Soviet strength there was any timeline to eastern expansion other than Hitler's own life span.

Therefore, the argument that Sealion was impossible because Hitler had other plans will not be correct; Hitler cancelled Sealion because he didn't like its chances relative to an indirect approach to defeating Britain.
 

Cook

Banned
Its always mentioned how poor the Luftwaffe's efforts against the UK's radar networks were. What if the Germans had taken radar every bit as seriously as the British?

The Germans did take rader seriously, they after all had it as well (and a more effective version at the time). What they fundamentally lacked was an understanding of the vast system of ground controlled intercepts that radar allowed. There were trials of a similar system in Germany prior to the outbreak of the war, but it got nowhere because the most experienced pilots, the aces from the Spanish Civil War, simply ignored it. ‘dolf Galland complained that the ‘constant chatter’ in his ears was annoying.

If you are looking for a good book on the Battle of Britain; James Holland’s is outstanding, probably the most detailed and comprehensive written. It covers all aspects of the battle, not just the air campaign.
 
So I presented you with the Memoranda of one of the most well-known conferences of World War Two, where Halder has noted down Hitler’s statements. So in fact we know from the 31st july 1940 conference that Hitler considered invading the Soviet Union to be a matter of the utmost urgency.

Your argument is that Hitler wanted to defeat Britain by hitting Russia, which hardly substantiates the Sharlin's theory that Hitler wanted to invade Russia in 1941 for living space before it was "too late", and hardly makes Sealion impossible for political reasons, as it was a direct means to that end had Hitler deemed its chances to be higher.

We know from Hitler's vacillations and various initiatives that in this period - July 1940 to December 1940 - Hitler was uncertain as to what to do next. Not until December 1940, by cutting the directive for Barbarossa, do the archives show his uncertainty as finally settled. Hitler appears to have been considering an extention of the non-aggression pact for at least several years, right up until Molotov open his mouth in Berlin. (ie, the option to attack the USSR after the defeat of Britain, not before).


We know from Mein Kampf and sundry other statements by Hitler that from his earliest days in politics he intended to invade the Soviet Union if given the chance, and it is clear from his statements in later years that this never wavered.


The program in MK was written with the assumption Germany was allied to Britain. Since this never occurred, MK is useless to the question of whether or not Hitler invaded Russia to defeat Britain or did so for living space.

However it is also clear, because Hitler actually said it, that he considered and planned for Germany to be ready for war against the Soviet Union in the 1943-45 time period; he revised his thinking due to British intransigence and the opportunity that the Red Army’s weakness at the time seemed to present.

The bolded part is the bit that I think has no substance. There is no evidence that I know of that Hitler considered the Red Army would be a factor "in the future", that required an invasion of Russia "in the present". AFAIK, Hitler never viewed the SU as other than an artificle edifice that would collapse with one blow, whether that was in 1941 or 1951.
 
The bolded part is the bit that I think has no substance. There is no evidence that I know of that Hitler considered the Red Army would be a factor "in the future", that required an invasion of Russia "in the present". AFAIK, Hitler never viewed the SU as other than an artificle edifice that would collapse with one blow, whether that was in 1941 or 1951.

An interesting point, although the reality of a 1941 Barbarossa suggests that if Hitler was thinking like this, he decided that sooner was better than later - but maybe, as you argue, not because of the strength of the USSR, but because of the UK and USA.

My impression is that by late 1940 Hitler had decided that the UK could not be defeated in the short term, and that he had a window of 2-3 years before the UK and US (if they joined) could pose a significant air threat. Occupying European Russia therefore would give the strategic depth to build industry out of bomber range, while negating some of the British blockade. Logically, therefore, the sooner this is attempted the better, particularly if you really do think that the USSR will collapse like a rotten door.
 
Stalin was terrified of Hitler, and he wasn't THAT worried about Leningrad. Outright conquest of Finland wasn't what Stalin wanted, he wanted it broken to his will, and he considered this already accomplished. He was, as usual (like the cheap Mob thug he was), wrong.:rolleyes:

[snip]

A Soviet invasion for the purposes of the complete conquest of Finland (and by extension threatening Sweden) would be every bit a declaration of war by the USSR against Germany as would a German attack against Turkey. It is difficult to see how even Stalin would see an attack on Turkey as anything but an attack on the Soviet Union.

In late 1940 Stalin still thought that his deal with Hitler regarding the spheres of influence was in effect, and throughout mid-1940 the ground was being prepared for a renewed invasion of Finland. It was not until November 1940 when Molotov's visit to Berlin, partly also to demand Germany to (continue) to allow the USSR free hands in Finland, made the Soviet government see that Germany is no longer willing to follow the MR pact's specifics.

During these discussions Ribbentrop suggested that the time had come for Germany, the USSR, Japan and Italy to define their "spheres of interest", including a German and Soviet expansion due south. When Molotov communicated with Stalin about the discussions by telegram, Stalin became annoyed, "stating that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was "exhausted" with the exception of the Finnish issue, with Stalin stating that any future agreements would merely be added to it because it served as a fundamental basis for Soviet-German relations." It seems, then, that Stalin was thinking that finalising the conquest of Finland would "complete" the political reorganisation of Eastern Europe as laid out in the secret protocol of the MR pact and that he still was pursuing that very goal.

So while both sides even pay lip service to the pact, neither Germany nor the USSR could consider a Soviet attack on Finland as a declaration of war - Finland was not yet in a "German camp" (even if the Finns had granted the Germans the right to take troops and materiel to Norway through the Finnish transport network) and neither could it be.

If the USSR attacks Finland and Stalin tells Hitler that he is only keeping his side of the mutually beneficial bargain from earlier, Hitler would either have to bite the bullet or then make a stand for the Finns and actually declare war, for which I believe he was not ready in late 1940 - like Karelian wrote with the winter coming and before the Barbarossa plans were even finalised - especially if Germany is in the middle of an amphibious attack against Britain. Quite frankly Hitler would not have a leg to stand on, so to speak, to oppose Stalin's move in Finland. By declaring war he would lay his cards on the table, spoil the element of surprise for Barbarossa, and force the nation to a two-front war in winter.
 
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An interesting point, although the reality of a 1941 Barbarossa suggests that if Hitler was thinking like this, he decided that sooner was better than later - but maybe, as you argue, not because of the strength of the USSR, but because of the UK and USA.

My impression is that by late 1940 Hitler had decided that the UK could not be defeated in the short term, and that he had a window of 2-3 years before the UK and US (if they joined) could pose a significant air threat. Occupying European Russia therefore would give the strategic depth to build industry out of bomber range, while negating some of the British blockade. Logically, therefore, the sooner this is attempted the better, particularly if you really do think that the USSR will collapse like a rotten door.

That's my general impression as well. Sealion wasn't politically impossible because Hitler had an agenda to invade Russia in 1941, Sealion was considered and rejected because Hitler had concluded an indirect strategy was more likely to defeat Britain. None of this debate impacted the eastern expansion outlined in MK, because Hitler never considered there to be a time limit after which the SU would be too strong to be destroyed.
 
I think the point of the thread is not how could Sealion happen, but rather that it did - but failed.

So posting to say it can't is pointless IMHO., surely the 'debate' should what are the variables for 'failure' and what could the consequences be?

What could the German loss rate be, if say some landings occur with the first wave, but the % with the second wave is much less. Either way, its losses from lost at sea, KIA, or POWs, as can't see in a 'failed' Sealion many getting away.

Are Goering & Raeder both fired!?? With both the KM & the LW suffering significant losses. What German General do there lose - POW!?? Who can't therefore do great things later .....
Apart from Crete, what other German operations are compromised.

As for Britain, it's all good, the Germans aren't going to try again, so that worry is out of the way. Moreover I see more US support (not less).
There will have been casualties yes, but abandoned German equipment to study, so British tanks may get better earlier (one can but hope).
 
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