What if: Soviet Sealion? Is it possible?

The only way any country could invade Britian with success, post 1850, would be to land in two places at once. One below The Thames and another above The Humber. If you can't to this don't even try.
 
Turn this senario on its head.

The USSR needs to first push the Allies out of Europe. Check. The Red Army is far larger than the allies army and its still gearing up for war even as the war is ending. Futhermore with the 'will of the people' behind it the Red Army and Stalins leadership there may even be some legitermate support for continuing the war to all of Europe.

Britian cannot be invaded by land. So...

...You've got the Sea or Air routes. Given the sealanes are going to be closed to Stalin the only pragmatic action (other than nukes disreguard from this TL) is to mass produce glider and medium transport aircraft to try and swamp the British island with armed soviet troops.

Even if the soviets don't have tanks and heavy equipment, even if they don't have total air supiriority. They have the numbers and 'comunised industry' of all of fucking Europe.

Yes, the soviets could do it, but given Stalin being a coward he would never authorise it. Instead he'd go for 'peace' with the Allies althought this might in principle be 'not going any futher'.

1984 anybody?
 

Macragge1

Banned
Turn this senario on its head.

The USSR needs to first push the Allies out of Europe. Check. The Red Army is far larger than the allies army and its still gearing up for war even as the war is ending. Futhermore with the 'will of the people' behind it the Red Army and Stalins leadership there may even be some legitermate support for continuing the war to all of Europe.

Britian cannot be invaded by land. So...

...You've got the Sea or Air routes. Given the sealanes are going to be closed to Stalin the only pragmatic action (other than nukes disreguard from this TL) is to mass produce glider and medium transport aircraft to try and swamp the British island with armed soviet troops.

Even if the soviets don't have tanks and heavy equipment, even if they don't have total air supiriority. They have the numbers and 'comunised industry' of all of fucking Europe.

Yes, the soviets could do it, but given Stalin being a coward he would never authorise it. Instead he'd go for 'peace' with the Allies althought this might in principle be 'not going any futher'.

1984 anybody?

What are Russian light infantry going to do having landed on the largest armed encampment in the world without air support, armour or any sort of logistic support? And how long do you think they're going to be able to do it for?
 
What is the love of Soviet stuff on this board? I did a lot of research for The Soviet Invasion of Europe, 1945 and part of the reason I stopped writing was the whole "No! Soviets pwn Allies dont u no that!?" vibe I was getting.

Primarily among some a desire to remind people that the winners of a war invariably tend to be better at warfighting than the losers. I should note at least that *I* do not tend to think the Red Army would do all that well in such a war. It's one thing to beat the 95% pre-modern German Army of WWII when the USSR was the only power ready for a modern *war*. Winning a Cold War WWIII is a very different animal.
 
What are Russian light infantry going to do having landed on the largest armed encampment in the world without air support, armour or any sort of logistic support? And how long do you think they're going to be able to do it for?

How are the Allies going to cope with 650,000 armed Red Army soldiers landing in multiple locations around Britain with 1948 level technology overrunning weak home guard units and taking a defensive stance against hurried counter-attacks? :/

They only have to take London, Birmingham and possibly the Royal Family and the fight is going to go out of the Brits like a lamp since almost a decade of war will be taking its toll. Particularly given they've just been kicked out of Europe.

The Russians don't 'need to supply' their troops because if this is the largest armed encampment in the world...well encampments have food and weapons don't they...?

My point is, not that the Soviets would do it, but they probably could do it if they went for it. Just like many things it only takes the will for it to be seen through, to get something done. Stalin being a coward was always overly cautious, so he wouldn't have organised anything like this, so on that score. Possibly? Probably. Plausible? No. (PPPN)
 
Cant happen.

The massive build up for this would be hammered by air with atomics U.S. industry will be pumping thousands of planes to Britian and the piolets to use them same for tanks and soldiers It would be a bloodbath and considering that most red army divisions were at brigade strength in 1945 due to the manpower pool being fully drained a disaster on this scale would end the soviets as a threat.
 
Cant happen.

The massive build up for this would be hammered by air with atomics U.S. industry will be pumping thousands of planes to Britian and the piolets to use them same for tanks and soldiers It would be a bloodbath and considering that most red army divisions were at brigade strength in 1945 due to the manpower pool being fully drained a disaster on this scale would end the soviets as a threat.

Not in 1947 when the USA had no functional bombs and less than 20 planes to deliver any such Bombs with. In that case conventionally the Red Army rolls over the USA and UK until it collapses from the weight of a *later* nuclear and conventional saturation bombing.
 

Macragge1

Banned
How are the Allies going to cope with 650,000 armed Red Army soldiers landing in multiple locations around Britain with 1948 level technology overrunning weak home guard units and taking a defensive stance against hurried counter-attacks? :/

They only have to take London, Birmingham and possibly the Royal Family and the fight is going to go out of the Brits like a lamp since almost a decade of war will be taking its toll. Particularly given they've just been kicked out of Europe.

The Russians don't 'need to supply' their troops because if this is the largest armed encampment in the world...well encampments have food and weapons don't they...?

My point is, not that the Soviets would do it, but they probably could do it if they went for it. Just like many things it only takes the will for it to be seen through, to get something done. Stalin being a coward was always overly cautious, so he wouldn't have organised anything like this, so on that score. Possibly? Probably. Plausible? No. (PPPN)

We're being silly here.

Apart from anything else, the logistics behind airdropping over half a million troops into a country is biblical. It would take years for the Soviets just to build the transport aircraft required, to say nothing of arming and equipping the men they put in them.

Would you not agree that the Allies, given that A) they have the best developed intelligence services on Earth and B) they're not braindead, might see what is one of the largest build ups in history and act against it? Even supposing they don't just attack and attack the build up (which of course they would), you'd expect they'd send fighter production and air defence into overdrive. Given that Stalin has apparently spent all of his time building transport aircraft, the RAF, the USAAF and whoever else fancies joining in are going to have a field day bringing down these large, unescorted targets as they cross the channel.

Even if we ignore this and suppose that the Russians hit the ground unmolested, their chances of victory are still close to nil. They have no tanks, no artillery or anti-armour weapons above pea-shooter size and only as much ammo as each man can carry. The scenario you're pointing out has the Allies on a war footing; look at footage of the allied build up to Overlord in 1944 and you'll get an idea of just how much armour, aircraft and manpower the good guys have to deploy against an enemy armed with little more than small arms and a rapidly deflating elan.

You suggest that our Russian paratroopers could resupply using captured weaponry and the like. Given your apparent reverence for the capabilities of the Red Army, it seems rather strange that you are unfamiliar with the concept of 'scorched earth'. The chances of capturing these supplies intact (one will find that it's remarkably simple to set fire to your fuel or your ammunition on the way out) are pretty slim. Sure, you can pick up bits and pieces here and there, but enough to keep an army of 650,000 capable of heavy combat? Not even a fraction.

The Russians aren't going to take London and they aren't going to take Birmingham (!); the majority of these formations (assuming they haven't been shot up by Meteors or whatever over the Channel, which will have happened) will have spent most if not all of their ammunition securing their landing zones; they will be in no fit state to be moving on somebody's capital city, or even on their second one.

The Royal Family would probably just move somewhere else if the Russians turned up. Even if they did get killed or captured, they're not some magical totems from whom every Briton derives their strength. A lot of us haven't even met them. People are going to be war-weary but it doesn't follow that they'll just then decide to lose.

Even assuming that all of this did happen, the Allies still maintain 100% control of the ocean; you'd basically be seeing every single man aged 18-50 from America, South Africa, Australia etcetera getting shipped over and landing in the UK. And supplies for them, which although you don't accept it is the biggest part.

So yes, if it came down to picking sides between your elite armies of Red Parachutists falling from the sky or a few dozen Home Guard, i'd choose the latter. It's all very well having '1948 technology' if you've got no bullets for it and you haven't eaten in a week. I'd back the old boys with the shotguns and the pitchforks on their home turf, frankly - they'll have packed sandwiches.

It's rather perplexing when someone who has no idea about a topic tries to argue as if they do; all your theories would be all well and good in a video game but in real life they're nonsensical. I would suggest that in future you don't post if you know nothing about the subject, for the sake of any further blushes.
 
Hmm... I remember a 3rd Fleet article in the General that had a 'Red Sealion' scenario for the game, set 'sometime in the 1980's'. They had to postulate a general break up of NATO and bad relations between the US and UK, so bad that when the commies come calling, only Canada is willing to send aid. The game was focused solely on the air/naval assets, of course.....
 
Too long a flank, super long supply line, mutual incomprehension leading to massive command and control problems and there is no way at all that Hitler would allow the red army passage through Germany .The end .

True. Just for laughs, though, I'm going to repost the Sealion part from that timeline-


August-November 1940: The Battle of Britain. German Luftwaffe make short work of the RAF, with the help of some Soviet aircraft, as the RAF now stretched thinly over the British Isles and Scandinavia. Soviet forces push their way into Northern Sweden and Lapland, and eventually capture Stockholm with the help of German bombers. British infrastructure is slowly smashed away, and U-boat 'wolf-packs' prevent supplies being shipped in from the rest of the Empire and America. Having to prepare for an invasion of Britain, rather than focusing toward Russia as in OTL, large troop transports are constructed in preparation for the invasion and some are borrowed the Soviets and taken from the Vichy French. Soviet aircraft are used in addition to German Luftwaffe, which produce additional range, and allow the Axis to bomb RAF bases as well as London, which damages the RAF severely. Eventually the surviving British fighter groups are forced to withdraw to North Britain.

December 2-6: Operation Sealion begins with the support of the Luftwaffe and the German navy. Infantry divisions are landed near Plymouth using Rhine river-boats and the new transports, a few of which overturn on the way despite good weather. Poison gas is used by the British, but German spies have already found out about this and the German infantry have gas masks. British reinforcements from Canada are prevented from reaching Britain by U-boats and fighters. The Germans also use poison gas, and strike concentrated areas of troop movements, pinpointed by spies. Paratroopers land across the southern British coast, although they are defeated, they damage the British defenses. British fighters sweep down from the North to blast invasion attempts, but these don't go as successfully as would be hoped.

December 7: Soviet troops occupy Narvik and begin planning an invasion of Scotland.

December 9: The Luftwaffe are now able to bomb RAF bases from Narvik, they have increased range which covers the whole of the British Isles. Spies are planted into the RAF more frequently as the British become desperate for pilots.

December 12: Scandinavian S.S.R. formed with the assistance of the Reichkommiserat of Denmark.

December 15: The Germans manage to capture Plymouth, with great losses. The RAF begins a last-chance attack on the occupying troops, but they are simply ground up by the Luftwaffe. The Royal Navy is mobilised, and manage to prevent any supplies coming from German. The occupying forces resort to looting.

December 19: Argentina annexes the Falkland Islands.

December 24: The Royal British Navy organises a mass attack on German ships in the English Channel. They take out a large number of German vessels, but in the end the British attack is thwarted by a bombing attack on the Royal Fleet.

December 26: In what later historians call "the worst Boxing Day ever", the Germans launch another attack, by sea, by air and by land, on London. The battle rages for hours, but the Germans are ultimately victorious, capturing London.

December 27: Winston Churchill commits suicide by driving a car filled with TNT into the side of a Panzer tank in Trafalger Square. The RAF flees to Ireland, following destruction of their last bases in North Britain by Soviet and German forces.

December 30: Canada, Bermuda, Greenland and all British and French territories in Central America become protectorates of the USA, following the disbandedment of the Britsh government. British and Dutch Guyana are combined with French Guyana in the U.S. Protectorate of Guyana.

January 2, 1941: The Empire crumbles. India declares independence. Australia and New Zealand form the "ANZAC Alliance". Malta is annexed by the Italians.

January 3: Most British territories in Africa, the Middle East ally with Italy for support. South Africa signs a truce with the Axis. Some countries, such as Iraq, decend into civil war.

January 5: Japan annexes Hong Kong and Singapore, under the observation of the Americans. All other British territory within the South-East Asian and Pacific regions come under the joint jurisdiction of India and the ANZAC Alliance.

January 9: India and the ANZAC alliance, with their respective territories, join the ECPS, as well as the Free French and British states under Italian jurisdiction.

January 12: Soviet forces land near Edinborough. The German occupation of Wales is complete.

January 17: Luftwaffe begin bombing of Northern Ireland.

January 19: Northern Ireland becomes part of Eire, which allys with Italy pending it's introduction into the ECPS. Hitler, not wanting to get into a fight with the Italians yet, orders the Luftwaffe attacks to stop.

Febuary 2: The German armies meet the Soviet armies between England and Scotland. Soviet forces capture Glasgow.

Febuary 5: Sri Lanka joins the E.C.P.S. as a Junior member. The senior members, Italy, Japan, India, ANZAC, and representatives for the Free French and British states, meet in Geneva to form a council to decide whether to admit any new members into the Sphere.

Febuary 6: Free British Radio begins broadcasting from Belfast, in syncronisation of other free radio broadcasts, such as the Free France broadcasts from Dublin.

Febuary 7: Despite continued problems in the highlands, the Soviets form the Scottish S.S.R.

Febuary 12: The Reichkommiserat of England and Wales is formed.

Febuary 15: The IRA begins to supply a newly formed British Refusal Army (BRA). Neither the acronym nor the irony is lost on anyone.
 
Apart from anything else, the logistics behind airdropping over half a million troops into a country is biblical. It would take years for the Soviets just to build the transport aircraft required, to say nothing of arming and equipping the men they put in them.
Agreed. Assume that it takes one ton of cryolite and ten tons of bauxite and one megawatt of electricity and half a ton of alloying metals to make one ton of aluminium alloy.
Further assume that one ton can make make one C47 equivelent [and i'm being kind here] and that each C47 can carry 50 fully equiped paratroopers you have I think 13,000 aircraft
Each aircraft will take say 30,000 man hours to build thats 390,000 man hours. my calculator has just had a nervious breakdown but you can see where this is going the infrastructure build up is huge and thats before you start building the aircraft, training ,or retraining your pilots ,navigators ,engineers, troops,etc etc
So no way too long a lead time way too visible.
Strategos' Risk
Very entertaing ,but I could not hear myself think over the noise of all those bats:D
 
I don't have any special 'reverence' or 'wank' for the Soviets, in principle I believe it would be too big an undertaking for the leadership of the soviets to ever organise.

However the principle for if it is possible to undertake, I believe is in the favour of the soviets. We cannot, anybody on the forums that is, really comment on how the battle would go because the shear amount of planning and research manhours that would go into both the Allies and Soviets at working out what is capable and what isn't, would always be far greater than what an individual or this community could put together**. Therefore we shall never know what is in specific achievable here. Although there are some estimates we can make...

In terms of GDP if we assume that the soviets can 'communise' 60% of the available industry in the major powers of Europe, then they can put out ~$720bn of wartime production. The remaining Allies can put out about ~$1770bn.

In terms of manpower, the Allies have about 18 million personale, the Soviets (excluding 'volunteer nations') might have between 15 to 30 million personale, including 'volunteer nations' the figure might be anywhere from 15 to 45 million, but we don't know.

Such figures themselves are only illustrative of potential capacity, indeed the Soviets would have more manhours of industrial output compared to the Allies, although it is up to the efficency techniques of the US at being able to build and ship war material that thus raises the big question mark in economic comparisons. What can be certainly be said is that the Soviets have shorter supply lines.

Density of industry becomes a factor here as well, if England is that target, all Allied material has to fit into the area of England. The Soviets on the other hand can spread it across the whole world island if they want to. In terms of economical and logistical vulnerability, the Allies are far worse off since the soviets can target key logistic infrastructure in the UK much easier than the other way around.

Home terrain & Morale. The British will be fighting at home, for almost a decade and have everything to loose compared to the Soviets who might see Europe bombed a lot more and more partisan activity, but are going to be able in the grand scheme of things not worry about 'the regime' having popular support. Thus the Soviets are the more milliteristically robust society.

The clincher however in my opinion is that Britain is sitting at the end of a long lifeline to the US.


Any Soviet planner is going to quickly come to the conclusion in a non-nuclear scenario*** that just like Germany an isolated Britain is a conquered Britain. Without the soviets being able to compete on the sea, for reasons of military focus, they are going to the the sensible option of ploughing all the funds they can into air power.

If British ports can be put out of action no more American equipment can land in the island, Britain is cut off from her colonies* at such a level of total war it is the overall strategy that will claim the victory or defeat.

Therefore the whole idea revolves around the Battle of Britain MKII, which given the Soviets will be entering the jet age with almost the same technical level of expertise as the Allies is too close to call, but what we can say with confidence is that while the Allies have to spread themselves across the world with their air machinery, the Soviets only have to focus at one target.

With the logistical vulnerability that Britian has, I don't believe this boads well for the Allies. Which is why I believe it is possible that the Soviets could take Britain, but the possibility is slim given it needs directed focus from the leadership to want to prosecute such a battleplan. Stalin being who he was would not want to do this.

*Indeed the Soviets would be busy conquering the entire World Island at the same time killing off British colonies at the same time. While the Allies try to protect them. Again the Soviets have the shorter and easier supply lines and logistics here, taking out Suez or invading Spain would spell huge problems for the Allies.

** I was being facetious before in making the semi-serious point of only considering the started proposition...

*** And no chemical/biological weapons, indeed if the Soviets were to use one of their biological agents on the UK, then they are far more screwed than the Allies striking back simmilarly. Again reasons of distributed workforce...Plus the Soviets can be confident that any attack they make is less likely to spread to the mainland, and the Allies would have a hard time keeping their people happy if they started using biological warfare against the people of Europe (it would certainly turn the European populations against the Allies, playing into the Soviets hands.

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You only need to build that many transports if you are assuming a single trip needed. If instead we do 5 paradropping trips, with a 50% loss rate per trip, then we only need ~6500 aircraft (I took the # of paras per aircraft down to 40 as well), costing 195million manhours to build; thus;

195million Mhrs / (2% of 20Million soviets) = 487hrs to build the aircraft... ¬.¬

Of course that's just using manhour calculations, if only say 350 aircraft can be in all the production lines at once, and it takes 4months to build an aircraft, then we get more like 6yrs to build.

Given we only have '3 years' to build the aircraft, let's make it a year of preparations instead, the Soviet need to put about ~2000 aircraft into production simultaneously. Using up about 22,000 workers and engineers.

Which leaves you wondering what on Earth are the rest of them doing since that's 0.1% of the Soviet millitary workforce...?

Your right, the numbers are large, but it will be the materials that dictate what can be done in mass production. Arguably, Europe and Russia have more of those, although America will give them a run for their money from more modern extraction techniques and infrastructure.

However the clincher will again being transporting the humongous volumes of material over the Atlantic, and then the port capacity in the UK to actually get it off the ships and into service. Can the UK cope with all those volumes of material? Even if American can build it.

Sources:
http://www.onwar.com/articles/0302.htm
The afformented transport plane construction costs

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PS: Macragge1 I don't make ad hominem attacks because I'd rather my posts stand on whatever merit they have and let people decide for themselves if they add knowledge or information to a thread.
 
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Genmotty
Goodness that was detailed ..thank you
The man hours are facinating . I see that we have massive bomber fleets presumably with fighter escorts in a sustained bombing campaign as a prerequisate to invasion.
This means more man hours to build more aircraft of course.
It also means more geologists to find more ore fields more miners to dig it out more trucks and equipment to help you dig it out ,better roads and more roads to transport the ore to the smelters.
Oh yes the smelters, you havn't got enough of them so better build them.
Damm not enough electricity! More power stations and dams to be built, better get some more concrete for that etc ,etc ,etc
The point I am making and as you have pointed out, is that man hours alone doth not an aircraft make.It takes more than the wish to invade to invade And as has been rightly pointed out by you and others Stalin was not a gambler.
Maybe, just maybe if the USSR had a massively succesful industrialisation plan/s instead of a patchy one then there might be the industrial muscle.
As a side note I once helped rebulid a wartime Yak... the alumium came from the USA!
 
Too long a flank, super long supply line, mutual incomprehension leading to massive command and control problems and there is no way at all that Hitler would allow the red army passage through Germany .The end .

The problem is more in political field. If we create political conditions in which Soviet Air Forces and the Baltic Fleet, together with Soviet Baltic commercial shipping can operate with Nazi forces, I think a Sealion would be possible by 1941. No Soviet Army forces would be needed at all. And well before Nazi forces would actually invade the British government would sue for peace.
 
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