Operation Sealion - Possible? Outcome?

Martin

I did my higher ed' at Hull, near many of the surviving East coast defences: you can still see the pillboxes and dragon's teeth as you drive along the coast road from Hull to Bridlington. The speed of construction was staggering, and I thought the last part of BBC2's Invasion series was brilliant at this defensive architecture.

Jumbo

 

It could have worked.

Let's assume that two stupid pilots didn't lost their way and also didn't bomb London. So Hitler don't order massive attacks on London.

In the weeks that follows the RAF is defeated and a lot of their factories also.

In late september the Ju52 and gliders land near Dover and capture airfields. The remaining RAF planes are being destroyed during this assault.

Also the Navy is being attacked by bombers of the Luftwaffe.

This is not a guarantee of success, but there is a great change that it will succeed.

 

Let's assume you didn't say that stupidity.

It is too bloody dark. The radio fails and you lost contact with the bomber group, you have only your partners in other aeroplane you can see for the window. You try and try to contact the rest or the group or the base, you try over an over to head the right way again, but the sky is too damned cloudy and with fog, then you cannot see any reference spots in the ground. You do this like for an hour or two, then you realise that there is not enough fuel to go back with full weight. You discuss it with your men: they obviously don't want to die. You decide to weight the plane down and go home. Your lost and there's cloudy and foggy. Where did I drop the bombs? I don't know and I don't care. I survived. That's only a small flaw. The consequences are not the responsability of these crews.

 

Okay, here is another one.

What if the pilots dropped the bombs earlier, so that they didn't bombed (by accident) London?

 

This 'blaming it all on Hitler and a couple of dumb pilots' hypothesis is a myth - the Luftwaffe commanders ( particularly Goering ) had wanted for some time to attack London to draw the RAF fighters up in greater numbers.
Their attacks on the RAF airfields were not achieving the necessary success quickly enough. As we've seen from the WWII Today thread, both sides were slugging each other into the ground.

The Luftwaffe needed a quick result - as they'd had with Poland and France. This time, it just wasn't working.

 

OK. This is very weird and I hope this doesn't happen very often... I totally agree with you, Martin!

 

I guess Ill join this bandwagon. Im in complete agreement.

 

Friedrich.. I'm speechless !
I'm going to have to lie down quietly in a darkened room......

 

But could the luftwaffe, as it was at the beginning of the BoB, defeat the British at all? That really seems to be the key in neitralizing the UK. If so, then where was the turning point, if it wasnt the switch to city bombing?

 

dasreich

You cannot win a war just with airpower! I think that it would have been impossible that the Luftwaffe, with its emphasis on tactical co-operation with ground forces, could have hoped to achieve a strategic objective totally out of the scope of it's existing doctrine.

This is not because they were somehow stupid or incompetent, rather that the whole concept of operations was geared to Blitzkrieg, not Strategic Bombing Offensives. Once the British withdraw north of the Thames it's a whole new game.

Jumbo

 

There were two decisive points: One, destroying the RAF and two, crossing the Channel. I can't say which of them is more difficult or the one which would have taken more time. But if it could have been achieved, the British had not a chance... Fighting the Wehrmacht of 1940 with the bad equipped British troops of 1940? Yeah...

 

Friedrich

How will this superior Wehrmacht be kept supplied? Sea control of the Channel is vital, and there is no way on god's earth that Germany could have wrested it from Britain and retained it long enough to support a cross-channel campaign: think of the fuel requirements alone. Secondly, were were not as badly equipped as you imply: by mid-September the situation had considerably improved.

Jumbo

 

Don't come at us with the "excellent supply" situation of the British army, we've been through all that before (twice or thrice actually ), but I do agree with you now.

The Wehrmacht had a very slim chance of actually winning. But this chance was so slim as to be negligable. The Heer would have won easily once across and supplied, but could it be supplied? I guess not. Miracles would have been needed, and miracles continuously happen in war, but they can't be counted on for a what-if.

 

Who mentioned excellent? All I said was that it had considerably improved on the situation immediatley after Dunkirk. More than enough to deal with the German units the Kriegsmarine would have been capable of putting ashore and sustaining.

To successfully invade would have needed the whole of the German war machine being turned around, with greater emphasis on Naval building, strategic air capability (a nice 4-engined bomber) and a tighter blockade on Britain. Germany could have successfully invaded Britain in Spring 1942 if it had decided to leave Russia alone. It was really one choice or the other: in the end Hitler got neither.

Jumbo

 

Well, I can see your points. Maybe you're right.

What about mid-1942 or spring 1943 with a smashed USSR and without the US in the war? OK. Friedrich might seem drunk again, but he's not.

 

Jumbo; sorry about responding so late; i was out of town. I totally agree about the impossibility of winning a war with air power alone. I meant defeating the RAF was key to defeating Britain, because without the RAF, bombing and naval campaigns could be persued with much greater ease.

Friedrich; Assuming Germany beats the USSR, then there is no need to invade Britain, as she would pose zero threat. Not even the USA would be able to successfuly invade Europe. Of course, if Hitler felt like attacking England for kicks, then the combined industrial might of all of Europe would surely be enough to conquer Britain by a few years after the USSR surrenders. (By the way, is that whiskey on your breath?!? )

[ 16 September 2002, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: dasreich ]

 

Friedrich

I don't think that Germany could have chosen both. Defeating Britain would mean creating some sort of expeditionary strategy and the forces to support it: resources which would be unavailable if the Germans got sucked into a campaign against Russia.
DasReich is correct in saying that if Russia collapsed invading Britain would be an irrelevance, just strangle her with U-Boats. After all AH was convinced that Britain would throw in the towel if the USSR fell.

Jumbo

 

I liked this bit....

The Engineer Battalion 47 of VII Army Corps was designated as having responsibility for the "construction of seaworthy ferries out of auxiliary equipment, local supply and bridging equipment". What was unusual in this was that this task, requiring a good knowledge of matters maritime, was tasked to this particular battalion, which had its home base in Bavaria.

Jumbo

 

Well, after all this posts on the battle of Britain I am starting to find it very unprobable that we could have defeated England by invading it. If invaded, then it meant defeat. But as you all guys say, an invasion was far beyond the German capabilities at the moment.

I think that Hitler wrongly bet all his money on Göring, when the thing to do if he wanted to defeat Great Britain was beting all his money on Dönitz.

 

Here comes the Luftwaffe's last '109 with Friedrich at the controls.....

'Get my Spitfire ready !!'