Sealion: nazis ready to face the navy?

..Answer to the question right there ...Sealion was never a serious plan. The idea that an invasion might be on the cards was played up by both sides with no serious intent to carry it through on the German - it suited Churchill to build up the threat because it was a means of snuffing out the 'peace party' in the UK although having overseen the Dardenelles debacle in an earlier conflict he knew full well that there was no realistic chance of German landings suceeding. It suited Hitler to gather together a few (thousand) barges in Channel ports because it was an -ultimately vain- attempt to maintain political pressure on Churchill weaken his position and thereby induce the British to sue for peace leaving him free to turn East.. As to the RN - events off Singapore indicate what might have occurred had the Luftwaffe won air superiority..

 

:deadhorse:

 

Can I go through this thread tommorrow and bash it then? I'm too tired now.
EDIT-wait, I've already done that.

 

This was the original wide front map, later they went for something not so broad. My family was living in Ramsgate at the time.

 

Didnt the Kriegsmarine have around 150 U-Boats at that time? Thats no small force to go against the RN.

 

From one of the other many threads about "Sealion" .

"Most of the German navy was composed of U-boats. Great for commerce raiding, lousy for attacking well defended convoys, especially in 1940. Even lousier for attacking entire fleets of warships. Not to mention the fact that in the English Channel, in an area packed with destroyers and with very little room to manouver, using U-boats would be nothing short of suicide because they would have nowhere to hide. The German surface navy, at its height, never consisted of more than one battleship, a few battlecruisers and "pocket battleships", and ten to twenty lighter vessels. Thus, the Kreigsmarine at the height of its power was outnumbered between 5 to 1 and 10 to 1 by the Home Fleet. Not good odds if you have to not just fight a force of ships, but prevent them from so much as surviving for a day or two in the middle of the English Channel to sink your barges. At the time at which Sealion would have been likely to actually occur, the odds were even worse. The battleship Bismark was not yet finished, and the Germans had just successfully invaded Norway. This "success" left almost all of their fleet either destroyed, or having serious damage repaired. They had a few cruisers and destroyers to throw against the Royal Navy.

The German fleet may thus be entirely discounted from the question of how the Germans could prevent significant elements of the British fleet from sailing into the channel and sinking their invasion's supply line. The U-boats were useless in such a situation, and even if the surface fleet was not temporarily out of service due to Norway, it was not anywhere near large enough. Again we run into the old problem that if it is to be large enough, the building plan has to be started in advance (for capital ships, at least five years in advance!), and will take away substantial resources from the rest of the war effort. Battleships require a lot of steel to build. It doesn't work to postulate that the U-boats will starve Britain into surrender, either. First, it would be very hard to build more - they required precision manufacturing of many components, skilled workers to build them, and skilled officers to crew them. All of these were in quite short supply. Second, Britain is weakest in the later half of 1940, after that it becomes much stronger quite fast, and within a year is so well defended that there is no chance of a successful invasion. The problem is that this leaves only a year between the start of the war, and the time when Britain is supposed to be starved into being weak enough to allow an invasion. Not nearly enough time for a U-boat force of even twice the size and capability of the one the Germans had in 1940. The U-boat force was most effective later in the war, when it had more U-boats, better U-boats, and bases in France from which to easily reach the Atlantic. It must also be pointed out that building more U-boats detracts from the rest of the war effort, will likely lead to increased antisubmarine countermeasures by the British to compensate, and doesn't really help the problem of those battleships sitting in Scapa Flow deciding to sail down and sink the invasion's supply line."

 

No at most the U-Boat numbers around Sealion was no more than 45. I would suggest that you go to

u-boat.net

it gives individual histories on each u-boat served throughout that period of the war.

v.R

 

The Germans had 1 panzer shiffe available.. Theoretically they had a CA that would be available but it suffered an engineering failure while testing the work done. Then they had a few light cruisers and some DDs and that's it for major surface combatants available for Sea Lion.

 

From the axis history forum:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Seelöwe - let's discuss German naval escorts

and Axis History Forum • View topic - Seelöwe - let's discuss German naval escorts

 

'SeaLion' had NO possible hope of succeeding - EVER!

The Royal Navy 'Home Fleet' in mid 1940 had:-

1 Aircraft carrier.

5 Battleships

12 Cruisers.

60 destroyers

200 smaller ships such as Frigates and corvettes.


PLUS

what would have been available from Gibraltar, the Med and the Atlantic. EVERY available ship would have been returned to defend Britain. The convoys would have been left to fend for themselves.


The Germans had:-

10 Destroyers.

???? E.Boats.

and a few spare subs that would be in GRAVE danger in the shallow English channel.

The 'barges' had to be TOWED across the Channel at about 5 knots in a 8 knot tidal flow.

The barges had about 24" of clearance from the waves.

The Luftwaffe had NIL, I repeat NIL, torpedo attack aircraft.



The Home Fleet could have swamped the invasion fleet WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT! Simply by charging through the barges at 30 knots.


OJ

 

Well some of the barges (~1/3?) were powered. Don't see that the British would have bothered to bring in anything from elsewhere other than possibly Gibraltar. I'm not sure the initial plan was to even commit the capital ships. There were a tremendous number of armed trawlers on both sides. With the British having quite few more as I recall. Operating close to their bases and with out the multi tasking the British were in quite a bit better shape. And talk about mutli tasking the LW would have been overwhelmed even without opposition.

 

Had the Luftwaffe had gain control then those naval assets would make nice target practice for the Luftwaffe, plus i don't remember where but i always thought that the Aircraft Carriers, Battlehips and Heavy Cruisers would be quarunteened from anti-invasion interdiction, they were needed to evacuate the Government and the Royal Family.

This leaves just the smaller cruisers and destroyers to act as anti-invasion interdiction. Plus another factor in all of this is that of the substantial war materiel loss of the British during the Norwegian and French campaigns this includes

67,000 vehicles
thousands of artillery pieces
440+ tanks
1 million tonnes of supplies
several hundred aircraft
several hundred vessels
45,000+ pow's

At the time it was estimated that it would take at least 6 to 12 months for the Army to recover enough to repell any attempt at invasion, some estimates i have read suggest that as little as 6 German divisions could have taken Britain (now even to me this is silly).

 

On what do you base that? Historically the LW was not particularly good especially at this time at attacking naval vessels under way and with plenty of AA ammo. Then there's the optempo that Sea Lion would have forced on them.

There is a persistant rumor on the net but it has not been substantiated and has been attacked. I think it's the inappropriate combination of a couple of plans. One was not to commit the capital units immediately. The other was to evacuate if necessary.

In a sense it doesn't matter how much they lost what matters is that they have more in Britain than the Germans can land or support which they did.

I'm curious about this where do you come up with "several hundred vessels"?

Right after Dunkirk if they could land intact and be supported perhaps. The estimate may have been one made right after the disaster of Dunkirk as well. The artillery for instance had pretty much been replenished for the troops in Britain by the end of July.

 

von Rundstedt,




"Had the Luftwaffe had gain control then those naval assets would make nice target practice for the Luftwaffe,"

How many ships, charging around at 30 knots, did the LW manage to sink in WW2?



"plus i don't remember where but i always thought that the Aircraft Carriers, Battlehips and Heavy Cruisers would be quarunteened from anti-invasion interdiction,"

The very reason the RN 'Home Fleet' EXISTED was to DEFEND the HOME Island!!!!! If the invasion was on, then EVERY ship would have been used no matter what.


" they were needed to evacuate the Government and the Royal Family."


NEVER! (anyway how many ships would you need???) In the darkest days, the Queen was advised to arrange evacuation of the Royal children to Canada. Her reply was,

"the children would never leave without me, I would never leave without the King, and he would NEVER leave"




This leaves just the smaller cruisers and destroyers to act as anti-invasion interdiction. Plus another factor in all of this is that of the substantial war materiel loss of the British during the Norwegian and French campaigns this includes



67,000 vehicles
thousands of artillery pieces
440+ tanks
1 million tonnes of supplies
several hundred aircraft
several hundred vessels
45,000+ pow's


You obviously know little of the situation in mid 1940. Britain had the RAF still UNdefeated and getting stronger, the RN Home Fleet was waiting and the Britsih Army had a MILLION men with rifles and Brens etc.

'SeaLion' would have FAILED dismally, and germany would have suffered 100% losses.




"At the time it was estimated that it would take at least 6 to 12 months for the Army to recover enough to repell any attempt at invasion, some estimates i have read suggest that as little as 6 German divisions could have taken Britain (now even to me this is silly)."


ALL of it is silly!


OJ

 

Missed this earlier amongst so much else. The ideal vessels for countering the invasion fleet would probably have been DD, light cruisers, and AA cruisers. I guess you could call the latter two small cruisers although some of the British light cruisers were not particularity small.

 

Not to mention the MTBs,MGBs,Armed Trawlers, Minesweepers and other smaller armed vessels. If you havent noticed John. Vonnie tends to try his best at some way making the Germans the victors in these "What If?" type of situations. Regardless of the facts LOL.

 

Troll (Internet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

:feedtrolls-sign:

 

JCF,

;-)


I sometimes try to visualise just what 'I' would have done knowing the peace-lovers were on their way from the sunny beaches of France.

As I have pointed out, EVERY available warship, plane and rifle would have been waiting for them. Even the cranky old vets from WW1 in the Home Guard would have been in the welcoming committee.

I can even imagine sending every available tramp steamer to mingle with the barges fleet to cut tow lines and swamp barges.

And another interesting thing is all these towed barges getting with 150 yards of the gentle English surf on a typical English summers day. Six foot breakers and LOTS of rocks!!!

Can you imagine a tug with 2 or 3 barges in tow, unhooking and trying to PUSH the barges through the surf to the sand? Maybe they could stay out a mile or so in calmer waters and get Fritz, Heinz, and Adolph to swim the last bit.

Like I said,

100% losses.


OJ



PS,

I have a mate in Bend OR, and spent 4 days there in 2004, lovely place, but too B****y COLD!

 

The Nazi's had U-boats, but the RN had some to.
There's a reason they stayed clear of the "Channel". (Channel dash ? Hugging the French coast ?)
Guess what that was ?
Their plan of having three (mined on each side) corridors ... snail/slug speed barges ... with no left/right escape from torpedoes/bombs/shellfire, unfriendly mines, would've been quite a show ... pyrotechnic show that is.
No time to go "All-In" with a hand like that.

What were they thinking ? Scare tactics ? They didn't know who they were dealing with.
Don't pull the Lion's tail.