Could Operation Sealion really have succeeded?

Correct again, the closest comparable aircraft would be a C-141, it could carry 123 paratroopers, and having jumped that aircraft to load 123 you're packed in and have to sit with legs interlaced and the jumpmasters have to walk on your legs because there are no aisles. The Me-264 ain't no C-141, and is about 2/3d's the size of a B-29 and having been in a B-29, it would carry less paratroopers than a C-47, which I've jumped also, due to internal layout. Even if modified, the Me-264's fuselage is close in size to the C-47 so figure on 18-22 paratroopers per aircraft, max.
Then you have the problem that paratroopers can't jump heavy weapons, so they have to be airdropped or glider landed. Airdropped you're limited in size to the door opening, so don't be planning on big items like can be dropped from more modern wide bodied, rear ramp aircraft.
Then you have the re-supply issue. If there is resistance, unless fairly quickly relieved by ground forces, airborne forces don't have a lot of staying power. That's not what they're designed for.

Again, absolutely correct. As an adjunct to an amphibious operation, to seize key points and delay reinforcements they would be valuable. Germany had neither the doctrine, nor the purpose built craft to carry out a seaborne invasion. They'd have been better off buying some Japanese Daihatsu, than trying to use jury-rigged river barges.

 

Okay so would my theory have worked, if the Germans had waited a couple years later, if Barbarossa had suceeded, and Hitler didn't make any mistakes there?

I know that's another thread for discussion though...

 

No : a couple years later, Britain would be much stronger than in the summer of 1940.

 

No one knows. If Nazi-Germany would have captured the european part of Russia (Astrachan-Archangelsk-Line), maybe they would have solved their oil-supply problem but had no soldiers left to do anything more than defending the vast russian landscape.

 

Regarding the pros and cons of the Me 264...

A Ju52 could carry 28-30 airlanded troops of 22nd Luftlande....

But only 12 fully-equipped, 'chuted, padded FJ and all their arms, equipment, munitions medical supplies, food water etc...in 'chuted containers and wool-padded baskets - and required two FJ despatchers to get them all out the door in SOME approximate cluster/pattern! Who didn't even drop, they did the round trip in the Ju52 and manned its MGs.

A WWII period transport aircraft for airdropping as a prime or major function did indeed need to be specially designed; its airframe had to be strong enough around its opening side door...which had to in turn be big enough to allow anything required of it to enter/exit. Basically you're designing a gurt big box, maximising the floorspace AND the cubic volume together for maximum portage - but also designing it around the various large holes you need in its sides.

Bombers weren't actually great for the job; they were designed for set parameters of range vs weight carrying capacity - not volume carrying capacity...and the physical strength to carry it AND the weight of crew, defensive armament and its munitions - each defensive gun needing a gunner AND lots of brass! Not to mention the physical airframe strength to "fight" I.E. aerobat the aircraft!

Look at the A-W Whitley, used for the first several years of the war as a para dropper by the RAF, for covert ops, and early Airborne delivery, like the Bruneval Raid; it had one (1) hatch in the floor of the fuselage suitable for use - and even then, parachutists had to be careful not to either break their jaws on the way out....or crack their skulls at the back of their head of they leaned back to compensate for jaw clearance And the airframe of the Whitley didn't permit any larger or better-positioned hatch to be installed....

 

Hey lwd, I got one more question about my scenario.

Okay so I am aware that the Royal navy was just way too powerful for the Kreigsmarine to defeat and having a couple thousand jet fighters would not have been possible in the time frame I state, even if they had the metals. It would have taken several years of even full on attentive development to develop just several hundred jet fighters. Along with the fact that reichmarks were useless currency to trade to China.

But I just want ask to this one question about the trade of the metals.

Could Germany still have had an agreement to acquire the metals with China? I understand reichmarks wouldn't be any good, but what if the they had supplied the Chinese with their own weapons? Such as guns and artillery along with fighter planes? Wouldn't the Chinese be keen to agree on it? I would think they would since they were at war with Japan. Also, Chinese modernization was possible due to the Germans and they did enjoy good relations until it turned sour in 1940.

So basically, through trade, they would get the metals and just use it to test their jet fighters(no, there aren't going to be thousands of jets after a year or two, way too optimistic). Could the acquisition have been possible? Would the Chinese have traded the metals(Tungsten, Cobalt, Nickel, molybdenum, titanium) in exchange for the Germans arming them with some modern weapons of the day?

 

What's magical about China??? Germany was getting large amounts of alloying metals from the USSR right up until Barbarossa...

And AFTER even that, it was getting a lot of its nickel from Norway, and its tungsten/wolfram from Portugal via Spain until OVERLORD and the Normandy breakout cut the route to the south through France....from THAT point they had to rely in their stockpiles or do without.

 

Oh well China would have a greater amount of those metals, and the fact that were in a war against Japan in the 30s, Germany could probably get a couple tons for a couple artillery pieces. That's what I think.

Are you saying that Germany had enough of strategic materials, and they could have had enough had they be more serious on strategic materials and knew they were going to use them on jet fighters? Again, I'm out of the jet fighter theory, I just wanted to know if they could have been better supplied on strategic materials had they paid more attention to it.

 

China may have them and extract them TODAY....but did they know of their domestic sources/extract them in the 1930s??? One for the LoN Yearbooks....

Once the war started, Germany never had enough of anything that they wanted/needed...except Silesian 2nd rate iron ore and brown coal LOL

No, they couldn't have stockpiled enough to ensure their use in the Jumo jet engines...because for a lot of its design life it was intended that the BMW jet engine be used for the Me 262 Which is why its failure threw the emphasis of the Messerschmitt project on the "backup" engine option at the wrong time for Germany's war effort to ensure supplies of the alloying metals required for a decent mechanical life for the Jumo.

Supplies of Wolfram/tungsten were actually problematic throughout the war; the British Ministry of Economic Warfare bought up as much of the Portuguese wolfram as they could on the open market - not that they needed it, but to simply stop the GERMANS getting it! And once the Americans joined the war, there was bucketloads of American money to be used for the purpose A failure to negotiate a longterm settlement with the Portuguese meant that there was a six month period at the start of 1943 that virtually the entire six-month production of Portuguese wolfram/tungsten crossed the border covertly into Spain and on to Germany...but once agreement was reached with Salazar, this slowed again to a relative trickle in the second half of 1943. And of course the summer of 1944 saw even this trickle stopped entirely.

Germany wasn't just battling the sudden need of alloying metals for the Junkers Jumo...which only extended the engine's service life, it didn't remove all the accelerated wear issues ...it was battling war-long Allied attempts to restrict their access to them - for all these alloying metals were needed for OTHER war purposes too, so the Allies were trying to obstruct their access to them anyway.

As for nickel...and bauxite incidently...why do you think the British expended such efforts on developing Coastal Command's ability to actively hinder German inshore shipping traffic in the North Sea down the Norwegian coast?

Regarding chromium - why do you think the Allies poured aid and liaison into Tito's campaign in Yugoslavia??? Tito's forces sat astride the main rail route through Yugoslavia for Turkish chromium to reach Germany; only one (1) trainload ever reached Germany that way after they occupied Yugoslavia!!! The alternative route was long, slow and expensive in terms of travel coast....I.E. up by ship to the Iron Gates and on up the Danube.

 

Was there any way for the Germans to have acquired the strategic materials in general? Could they have been able to have at least a several thousand tons of each metal by having negotiated trade before the war even started?

 

Germany did not have money to do trade, the German bank was quite empty of foreign cash etc. At one point Hjalmar Schacht said they had foreign currency for one or two months only. taking Austria, Czech gave extra time but without the war Germany was not going to last long I think.

"Germany did have a national debt under Hitler. In 1938 it stood at 18 billion Reichsmark, quite a sizeable sum."

https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/hitlers-finances-schacht-in-his-own-words/

 

So how could Germany have acquired the metals? If not through trade, then what country would they have to invade? Switzerland? Turkey? Russia? What country had the metals and were within invading distance of Germany?

 

By the time all these raw materials have been sorted, r&d completed, transport acquired, aircraft secured, treaties confirmed, navies created, special equipment issued and political wills stiffened... One might almost think the Sealion would have died.

 

If memory serves, there were some rare-earth metal deposits found in the Balkans; but they were discovered after the war was well done and over, and developed behind the Iron curtain.

 

The Germans were buying strategic materials throughout the war from Sweden, who could trade with the entire world. When they didn't have cash, they traded looted art, gold and silver or just bought on credit. The Swedes put their rail system and maritime vessels at German disposal several times during the war to move troops and supplies to the Baltic front.

None of that would have made a difference in Sealion. Even if they had destroyed the RAF an invasion would have been a disaster. the Royal Navy controlled the sea and despite any losses due to German air superiority, they'd have crippled any invasion fleet.

 

I geuss Sea Lion just couldn't happen as it was historically conceived. A superior navy compared to the kriegsmarine and air forces being on equal par with the Luftwaffe. So for Sea Lion to happen...it wouldn't have under the current conditions of 1940.

 

Of sourse there´s the speculation if RAF had sent the planes Churchill insisted in May-June 1940 to France the so-called after that BoB would have been a cake and eat it for Luftwaffe. Fortunately for Britain someone said NO!

 

Navy was superior by far, but it was only the Channel, not the ideal playground for battleships, cruisers and aircraft carriers.
Air forces weren't on par, they were on par in the conditions of the BoB, with radar guided defence and enemy fighters with limited range. The german Luftwaffe had almost no torpedo-bombers, their biggest drawback against the RN.

But the situation for the landing forces would have been totally different to "Overlord". Once landed, there was no enemy with Tiger Tanks, 75 mm anti-tank-guns, MG 42 and Panzerfausts. Remember: The BEF was well equipped and turned out to be no real threat for the advancing german Panzergruppen. The Rest of the army in Britain was badly equipped and it is unlikely, that they improved their tactics significantly.

The ill prepared enemy was it, that made Sealion so tempting.

 

Ahh... So you are telling me there is a chance... Would you happen to know the number of ships and aircraft in the respective navies of the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine in the year of 1940? Pardon me for sounding lazy, but I would trust a source that you introduced to me.

 

Britain was not ill prepared : on 31 august 1940,it had 27 divisions,1255 tanks and 3784 carriers