German shock troops would have landed at Dover, dressed in British uniforms

With all respect Sir, just look at the British commanders Alan Brooke, Harold Alexander and Bernard Montgomery at the time of the battle of France (they were divisional or corps commanders at that time); they all managed to adapt quickly to fluid nature of mobile warfare (and in particular to rapid deteriorating situation in northern France and Belgium) and lead their units successfully; later, after the fall of France, they played a vital role in rapidly rebuilding the British army and establishing a powerful defensive force in southern England (Monty and Alexander did this again in North Africa). Also the majority of British regular troops in 1940 were of a high quality and despite lack of heavy weapons (partly left on the beaches of Dunkirk) the units kept their cohesion and moral was high. Later on, some of these troops, like the 6th Armoured Division, performed far better than their American counterparts (1st Armoured Division) in both offensive and defensive roles during Operation Torch and the subsequent battles in Tunis (both units were fresh and untested in battles before).

well, Sir, if you look at naval part of battle of Crete, RN successfully cut off any german or italian attempt to reach the island by sea; later, during evacuation, it did suffer heavy loses in the hands of Luftwaffe, but only after the naval units run out of anti-aircraft ammunition; for Royal Navy, it wasn't necessary to commit battleships or battlecruisers to attack the sea supply routes of operation Seelowe - the RN had enough capital ships to bombard simultaneously every embarcation port in every night; it would have been enough to send a pletora of small ships to harass during the night the debarkation beaches or any slow moving river barge convoy (even the high seas caused by a destroyer at full speed was enough to sink such a barge, even empty, not loaded with tanks or heavy guns); the aggressiveness of British destroyers commanders (and you could check any naval engagement in which British destroyers were present) would have been wreaked havoc alone on this routes; also with little repair facilities for germans on debarkation beaches any damaged transport ship which would have been run aground would have been practically lost. Even if ports captured, and with facilities intact (as the tittle of this thread suggest), a blocking action was at the hand of RN (deliberately sinking ships at the port entrance i.e). If you remember, even during battle of Britain, the British convoys sailed in day light through the channel, so for the Luftwaffe, i have doubts about her abilities to protect 100 % the sea lines, the air transport routes, and to support the ground troops landed on British soil.

The only (small) window of opportunity for Germans to cross the channel was within a week or two of Op dynamo, but there were no fresh forces available for such a task (the 7 air division suffered heavy loses in Holland, the panzers were needed for the 2nd part of battle of France, the Kriegsmarine was left with 1 heavy cruiser, 3 light cruisers, 10 Destroyers after the Norway campaign).

I apologise for possible errors regarding grammar or spelling, however English is not my native language; best regards

 

I love Sealion threads....cracks knuckles....

In 1940 Dover had exactly THREE ways out of the town up the cliffs - two steep roads and one two-line railway tunnel. Drop the tunnel, block the roads at the top....and the ONLY thing the Germans can do is try to climb said cliffs from the town It's one of the THE easiest places in the UK to prevent an breakout from!

According to Playfair, there were 19 divisions in the UK in mid-August 1940; this went down to 15 after four departed for points East at the end of the month....facing 9 German divisions...

By the end of August the British Army was fully up to establishment on artillery again. Admittedly some divisional arty were "mixed" batteries of American 75mm QF guns and domestic - but the numbers were there...

Which was why the British first planned on Stop Lines - lines of natural obstacles interlinked by manmade defences - backed by artillery. They simply didn't plan a mobile defence...as they were still short on tanks.

German aircraft spent two months trying to sink the Allied Fleet off Norway - you'll note what success THAT had. On average it was taking over a hundred sorties to even score a hit of any sort, let alone do major damage.

It wasn't necessary to commit the Home Fleet.....for it would have been of marginal use in assisting stopping the invasion; some parts of the Channel are VERY shallow, the capital ships' freedom to manouver and avoid fall of ordnance would have been restricted. Also - Adm. Forbes actually refused to exercise ground-spotted indirect bombardment from sea with the Army - instead, Home Fleet was only to clear the North Sea and block the northern end of the Channel.

Instead, the British had three flotillas each of @a dozen destroyers along the south coast. Fast, well-trimmed and able to manouver fast to avoid falling ordnance, they were back by the RN's Coastal forces - which were able to operate in shallows AND in the RN's minefields. Behind THAT were the 600 armed trawlers and yatchs of the Auxiliary Patrol - certainly able to make a mess of overloaded barges that even THEY would be able to manouver two or three times faster than!

There wasn't ONE blocking action planned - there were many and various Each Port Officer Commanding was responsible for planning the defence and denial of his facilities; some planned demolition of dock facilities, some planned blockships - one even planned to dump 60,000 tons of coal in the port roads'!

Strangely enough - the British didn't know this! Hence the plan for Home Fleet to operate in the North Sea. They weren't aware of how much amage they'd done to the KM off Norway, and thought that the German fleet was simply hiding in the Baltic out of air recce range in preparation for the invasion....they simply didn't realise they were instead "hiding" in graving docks!

 

- Someone who agrees with me! (sort of). I think Sealion was a ruse. Probably known only to Hitler and maybe a couple of others. The Germans were NEVER going to be able to invade successfully...Some say that the Royal Navy wouldn't even have to fire a shot, just steam up to flank or emergency speed, and the bow wave alone would be enough to topple the flimsy landing craft. An exaggeration perhaps, but it does show how the Germans would have been sitting ducks. The Germans wanted England to join them, or at least stay out of the fight. They wouldn't take pretty please, or bribes, so threats are the next option...to make that a decent threat it HAS to look like its going to happen. Needless to say Churchill called Hitler's bluff. Hitler then did an about turn and hit his real target, Russia.
Would the commando raid have worked? If it was planned and executed properly with all relevent intelligence gathered and considered, then yes, it would have worked. But, what then?

 

Initially Hitler seem to have been serious about it although he was apparently never comfortable with it. After September 1940 it was pretty much relegated to a ruse/propaganda effort.

 

Wow! Thanks mate...Was expecting the kitchen bloody sink to be thrown at me...I shall amend my hypothothis (SP??) accordingly.

 

One way of reading some if not most of the KM and Heer planning documents is that they are designed to put the blame on the Luftwaffe for not meeting the conditions necessary for a successful invasion. Perhaps a bit cynical but it looks to me like there wasn't a lot of confindence in a successful Sea Lion in the German high command but no one wanted to take the fall for it. Of course Goering made it easy for the other services as he was sure the LW could do its part.

 

And the Luftwaffe DID do its job....Engalnd was on its bloody knees and two weeks from surrender! Blame Hitler for switching to citiy bombing. Actually, i have always thought that the weird switch had to do with Churchill continuing to thumb his nose at Hitler, even when they (RAF) were on their knees. Maybe he switched to nudge or urge Churchill to change his mind....Didn't happen of course, Churchill wouldn't be bested by anyone (arrogant so-and-so...)

 

No it didn't. The LW was closer to destruction than the RAF was. The only thing that made the two sides think it was close is the British overestimated the LW replacement rates and the Germans understimated the RAF ones. Even then the RAF wasn't close to destruction they would simply have pulled back out of range of most of the LW so that they would be availabe when and if needed to defeat Sea Lion. I.e. the RAF had a strategic plan that they were ready to implement it that even if the LW had done better would have prevented them from acomplishing their mission. Then there's the fact that destroying the RAF was only part of what they needed to do. For instance I've seen translations of KM documents from September indicating that they are already weeks behind in the requist mine sweeping due to lack of support from the LW.

 

To some extent, this is hogwash. Germany had a set amount of aircraft and squadrons to do the job, they could've have been replaced BIG TIME if they were serious about winning the duel. Enough was given or planned for and more could have been put in. The RAF WAS close to destruction, just talk to some of its pilots. They were just keeping up with the required aircraft...Just. But it was the available pilots that was the problem, and the ones that were availiable were been driven to exhaustion by constant attacks - A Luftwaffe tactic to exhaust the pilots so they make mistakes in the air, they were exhasuted and DID make mistakes (like not checking ones 6 often enough). Britain had barely enough aircraft, bugger all pilots and even less actually trained to any standard. This as you say, was just the first stage. Germany had to actually nullify the Royal Navy before any invasion could take place, the Stukas who were going to smash the navy needed the RAF out of the way first. The Luftwaffe was given a time and squadrons... its very political as to why enough squadrons were not planned for and not many more moved in to replace. Partly to do with Goering not properly illuminating the problem. Other than "those damn Spitfires!"
Everything i've seen or read points to England being very close to end...weather they would have surrendred, sued for peace or blown themselves up is another arguement. Moving to the other side of England would have done....JACK.

 

The problem is you are looking at only part of the equation. Let's look at what you aren't considering:
1) It's only 11 group that's really getting chewed up.
2) What this is doing to the LW. If you look at operational fighters (including pilots and planes) the LW had a significant edge when the BOB started. Fairly early in the battle they lost that edge and never got it back. Note also that the Germans had to spend more time in the air and deal with flak as well as British aircraft so they were tiring even quicker than the British.

Was it? At this point in the war the LW wasn't all that good vs warships maneuvering at speed with sufficient AA ammo. PLS also note that the Stuka's were pulled out of attacks in the channel because of their high losses there. Furthermore most of the RN was beyond the range of the Stukas.
[quote[Everything i've seen or read points to England being very close to end...weather they would have surrendred, sued for peace or blown themselves up is another arguement. Moving to the other side of England would have done....JACK.[/QUOTE]
This suggest that you need to read a bit more. A good place to start is this thread over on the axis history forum. This link is to page 30 in said thread as is the quote from Hop:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Battle of Britain

He also posted a rather nice graph of the effective fighter strenght but those don't appear to be working for me anymore.

 

"At this point in the war the LW wasn't all that good vs warships maneuvering at speed with sufficient AA ammo. PLS also note that the Stuka's were pulled out of attacks in the channel because of their high losses there. Furthermore most of the RN was beyond the range of the Stukas." - lwd
Stukas were the most accurate dive/precision bombers at the start of the war, and finished the war the best dive bomber in the world. The Stukas were pulled out, but shouldn't have been used until the RAF had been deminished anyway. Though i agree with the use of them against radar stations. Destroyers and below would probably have been a headache, but cruisers and above i don't think would have proven too difficult for the Stukas, remember they were also meant to be flown off the aircraft carrier (not finished). The carrier could have put them in range...and it was only the channel they needed to clear and keep clear.
other than that, i will take your comments on board and....thankyou for them!

 

Perhaps. I've never seen CEP numbers for the Japanese dive bombers and am not sure if I've seen them for US ones. However they weren't trained in naval attack and didn't do all that well at either Crete, Norway, or Dunkirk.

For some defintions of best. Certainly it could be disputed.

They were pulled out because they were getting shot to pieces. If they had been left in much longer there wouldn't have been any left to pull out.

That's rather counter to the historical early war case.

Since it wasn't ready in time that's rather irrelevant. With it's small strike package and limited CAP the Hindenburg wouldn't have wanted to come near land based air or allied carriers in any case.

Only the channel! That's no small job especially when RN light forces can make a run in at the invasion force at night and be out of range again by dawn if they have to.

 

The only aspect that hasn't been picked up on yet is that German aircraft production was significantly slower than British during 1940. During the BoB period, the British were building three monoplane fighters for every two the Germans did. The Germans ALSO had to replace bombers, of course....and IIRC Daimler Benz engine production wasn't the fastest yet either. It had been VERY slow in 1939, and was only starting to pick up. By the end of the battle the British had Satellite Landing Grounds full of new, unused aircraft in comparison - and the Luftwaffe had nothing yet ressembling Beaverbrook's Civilian Repair Organisation that was repairing a large number of severely damaged Fighter Command aircraft to battle nightly. The nearest they came to it ever was the Junkers' "rebuild" lines set up to cannibalise/cobble together wrecks of Ju52s after Norway/Holland, and again after Crete.

 

Ithink tomcat the problem of taking britain once on it has been repeated so often folk think it was a foregone conclusion...it most certainly was not..i only have to research my own local worcester defence line and tank island plans that i realise just what a hot reception awaited them on land..there have been far too many if onlys that ignore the defensive works in Britain that would have held and ignored the fight that was sitting here at the time..authors were hoodwinked by politicos for moral reasons..todays researches are not of same mind. I walk most days thru impressive defence points that I would challenge a modern invader to sight and take on.

 

I could see potential Fallschirmjager elements dropping into southern England to secure RAF bases so that aircraft may not be used against the invasion fleets. Possibly led by the brilliant Otto Skorzeny himself. Commandos could be landed via U-boat on English shores. There are many possible ways "special forces" could have made their way into GB. The only problem would be is "Could they survive?"

The problem with the airdrop is that AA or RAF fighters could shoot down the transports carrying the men. I would see a more catastrophic Crete in the making. (Even with fighter escorts) Another problem would be if the men actually landed safe and sound and captured the airfirelds, "what would stop British armor from just rolling through the airfields?"

If I were a German commander I would place my best bet with the U-Boat operation. Less likely chances of being detected. The only problem is "what objectives could be captured that are close to the shore?" Coastal defenses could be cleared and docks captured, but Germany did not have as sophisticated amphibious capabilities as their allied counterparts did. It would take Germany a lot longer to get the men on the beaches to relieve the commandos. Essentially a German "Dieppe" in the making.

 

And what would the 35 or so r.n subs be doing?,cheers.

 

The more I think of this scenario,the more I am convinced that the Germans could never have invaded Britain successfully.The Royal Navy was simply too powerful.Can you imagine the havoc that would be unleashed,just by the destroyers alone.The attacking German barges would simply'tip over',cheers.

 

According to the former S-2 of Canadian 4th Mechanized Brigade Battle Group (Gulda Gap, NATO), counter-invasion against the Wehrmacht was a command exercise for staff officers trained in Sandhurst. To make it even, the Germans were presumed to possess air superiority. To his certain knowledge, the attackers lost every time. He said the Germans conceived leaping the canal as a big river crossing operation which would have proved woefully inadequate.

The British, IIRC, had another air force group stationed in Wells safely out of Luftwaffe striking range but still capable of intervention against a German landing, and the Kriegsmarine was in the shape for neither a major surface action nor transporting German troops over the sea.

 

From what I gather Britain at the time of SeaLion had 4 fighter groups: 10, 11, 12, and 13. The BOB fell mostly on 11 group and if it got to badly attrited it was planned to pull it back so that it could be used to oppose Sealion. Thus the LW really didn't have much hope of gaining air supremacy or even preventing the British from achieving air superiority at times over the invasion fleet or beaches.