WI Battle of Britain is lost?

Just a reminder: The OP isn't "What is needed for a successful Sea Lion" but "How far would an attempted Sea Lion get if the Nazis had managed gain air supremacy?"
 

CalBear

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A lot in between there; could they reach London, for example?


By parachute perhaps.

Sealion ALWAYS fails on the logistics. The Germans may be able to put troops ashore, albeit at horrific cost. What they can not do, not without so many T/L alterations that it becomes ASB, is maintain them once ashore.

That is actually the much more difficult part of the invasion. You will need to have 600-1000 cargo bottoms to keep three divisions supplied. Germany didn't HAVE that many bottoms to begin with, much less once they started losing shiping in a hare brained invasion attempt.

The end result may be a light shortening OR lengthing of the war, depending on what happens with Barbarossa and if the Furher is still as eager to strap in the U.S. after leaving the flower of his airborne forces dead in British farm fields and a couple divisions of fine infantry on the bottom of the Channel or in Canadian PoW cages.
 
OK, so London, given the PoD, is ASB.

Canterbury looks plausible, since it's roughly 10 miles from shore; that would certainly be interesting in it's own right...
 
Many things could happen once the Germans are ashore but strangely enough the more Germans that land the better it is for Britain's prospects in the war.

Everyone agrees logisitics are the problem. A landing on the Kent coast is the best and worst choice.

It is closer to French and Belgian ports and the journey time for the vulnerable ships is shorter. You get more comprehensive air cover too and the land is mostly flat. Good for panzers etc.

But once ashore the Britsh know where they are and once they are satisfied that it's not a feint then they can throw EVERYTHING at them.

The RN would do its job in night attacks by cruisers, destroyers and submarines. Why risk Battleships? There are no enemy capital ships worth engaging are there?

Eventually the invasion force runs short of fuel and ammo. Scorched Earth deprives them of readily available food except what they can steal from peoples houses.

Tunis style surrender within 5 weeks. I would say sooner but the Germans would be sending their best troops and they would fight well.

Barbarossa cannot happen because their losses the previous Autumn would be too high. The USSR gets stronger and war comes in 1942.

The soviets will win within a year. Possible less.
 
The USA joins the war.

They might, but it's going to take some time before their weight is felt, particularly if bases in England cannot be used by US ships, men, and planes. With no assets or supply bases east of Iceland or the Azores, what's left of the Allies would be in a fix.

The Soviets attack Germany as they were planning.

Operation Icebreaker? Could very well be. How successful it would be is an interesting question, the Red Army has tactical surprise but is far from being the finely-tuned war machine it turned into in later WW2 years.

Also, if Stalin attacks first, I'm not sure the US moves against Germany. I remember a US poll from 1939-1940 showing that in case of a war between the SU and Germany, US sympathies would go to Germany.
 
Yeah - why not? They started, ISTR, with more planes.

I do have some caveats:

o A win in the BoB can't be done anything like that fast. Bombing was alot less effective back then.

o They would've needed somebody more strategic patience than Goring.

o Then they would've had to've sunk the RN or otherwise put it out of work - something probably needing longer-ranged A/C as well, and another time-consuming task.

o Sealion would've had to've been delayed a year.
 
Evem with all these changes how do you prevent an enraged contingent of AHers from warming up their various time machines and going back to save England?:D


...with the RAF crushed and the RN driven from the south it was truly England's darkest hour. Many prayed for a miracle to save the nation. And one came! In a burst of bizarre sound and light effects a crowd of strangely dressed men, many of them strangely pale from lack of exposure to the sun, suddenly appeared in the heart of London, carrying designs, blueprints, prototypes and slim briefcase devices called 'computers'. After conferring briefly they all marched on Number 10 Downing...
 
Evem with all these changes how do you prevent an enraged contingent of AHers from warming up their various time machines and going back to save England?:D


...with the RAF crushed and the RN driven from the south it was truly England's darkest hour. Many prayed for a miracle to save the nation. And one came! In a burst of bizarre sound and light effects a crowd of strangely dressed men, many of them strangely pale from lack of exposure to the sun, suddenly appeared in the heart of London, carrying designs, blueprints, prototypes and slim briefcase devices called 'computers'. After conferring briefly they all marched on Number 10 Downing...


Now that was actually one of the most clever post I´ve read on these forums. :D
 
Evem with all these changes how do you prevent an enraged contingent of AHers from warming up their various time machines and going back to save England?:D



...with the RAF crushed and the RN driven from the south it was truly England's darkest hour. Many prayed for a miracle to save the nation. And one came! In a burst of bizarre sound and light effects a crowd of strangely dressed men, many of them strangely pale from lack of exposure to the sun, suddenly appeared in the heart of London, carrying designs, blueprints, prototypes and slim briefcase devices called 'computers'. After conferring briefly they all marched on Number 10 Downing...


NoNo, don't stop here, Grim!!!
I want to see what happens next...:D:D:D
 
So winning the Battle of Britain could plausibly be what screws the Nazis over? I like that :cool:



That, I'd say, is for another TL; sorry.

I'm with the crowd that Sea Lion would not succeed unless other things like huge losses at Dunkirk and more air assets being lost in an unsuccessful defense of the Dunkirk beach head has happened, which makes a more feasible loss in the Battle of Britain.
 
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