Were the germans wrong?operation sealion

The first elements might well have got across., but seeing that only a maximum of 3 divisions was going to be landed on the first day, building up to 9 divisions over the next ten days, with no heavy artillery, and only 250 tanks (light-medium) in support, to face the 27 divisions and 1260 tanks of the British, they weren't going to get far.

 

And your alternative would be? The Germans initially tried a Kannal Kampft attacking Channel shipping and trying to lure the RAF out over the Channel. That proved a failure. Their attempts to take out British CH radar also proved largely a failure. So, what alternative do you propose?

Airpower, whether it be the Luftwaffe or RAF, is not going to be the decisive factor in the outcome of the campaign. Naval forces are. If the Germans cannot maintain a continious stream of troops and supplies to their beachhead they lose. Its as simple as that.

Smartest? I think you'd find some serious opposition to that. Certainly in strategy the OKW proved rather marginal overall. The German plan for the invasion of Russia was very poorly devised. The Germans had no plan for invading Britain until France fell. That was a major reason Seelöwe wouldn't have worked.
In logistics and engineering the Germans were terrible. Of the major combatants the Germans were undoubtedly the worst civil / military engineers of the war. The Russians and Japanese do better with what they have.
Dynamic? I'd use a different term: Improvisers. The German military was without a doubt the best at improvising solutions to problems. In fact, by mid-war I'd characterize their whole military and its operations as one giant improvised effort. From the use of captured material to operational planning and execution, to unit organization, and even strategy the Germans were making everything up on the fly. There was no long term plan; no overall strategy for the German war effort by the beginning of 1943.

The Russians withstood the initial German invasion more because of the inept performance of the German military in logistics and engineering than because of combat prowess. Germany defeated themselves in Russia. The British did reasonably well given what they had after the Fall of France in the Mediterrainian.
Much like in Russia, Rommel / the Germans in North Africa were in a self-defeating campaign there. Rommel would make some great operational and tactical move, defeat the British, then overstretch and find himself without sufficent anything to hold the ground. The British would reinforce and take everything back.
Hence, the see-saw nature of the conflict there. But, with each successive round, just as in Russia, the British got stronger and the Germans got weaker mainly due to the later's pathetically bad supply system and lack of appreciation of civil engineering.

Virtually every invasion plan as well as every strategic and large scale operational plan they made after the Fall of France.

This is likely. But, sending one regiment from 9 seperate divisions and landing three of these each on three widely seperated beachheads with little artillery support, few tanks, few antitank guns, and little engineering support isn't a winning plan.
There was literally no follow-up plan either. What came after the initial landings? The Germans didn't have a clue what they would do next. There was no plan other than a vauge idea that a second wave would follow the first about a week later.
The sum of the German plan is a negative compared to the parts. The higher in strategic planning you go the worse the plan gets.

What-if's on most military history boards are taken as material for serious debate by many of the regulars on those boards. That goes not just here either. If you pose a what-if scenario I suggest you think it through a bit before posting it up. Poorly thought out ones, ones that have little possibility of working, and ones that are outlandish usually do get raked over the coals. That is just the way it is.

 

Well put DA, the whole Operation Sea Lion was a house of cards with NO chance of success. Even Hitler came to realize this, and he wasn't the "sharpest tool in the shed" when it came to military operations and their pre-planning.

Without control of the air, no invasion. Which leads back to lack of ability to control the Channel by the Luftwaffe. The Stukas were notoriously poor at hitting moving ships, they never, EVER came close to the Japanese ablities. So comparing the Japanese successes (functional air-dropped torpedoes, and armor piercing bombs) to the Luftwaffe failures is a self-defeating position.

 

Properly escorted by the RAF any attempt to sink the fleet by the LW would have been a disaster for the LW, there could be no other outcome. This is why it was felt that the RAF had to be destroyed before any invasion. With the RAF still intact, any attempt by the LW to destroy the fleet would have been a complete disaster and so long as the fleet survived any invasion attempt would have been a disaster.

Do you understand now?

 

Your in 'cloud cuckoo land' macker lad you want to listen to people on here who were there or studied it at Uni,

 

Dracius,


"Properly escorted by the RAF any attempt to sink the fleet by the LW would have been a disaster for the LW,"


I will go out on a limb and say that even without ANY Royal Air Force participation in 'Sea-Lion' whatsoever, the invasion would have still been a disaster.

With Stukas, Me110s and the various Junkers, Heinkels etc, the LW would have had a HELL of a time sinking much at all. Dive bombers do NOT usually manage to sink ships zig-zaging at 30 knots. And the bow waves were a horrible weapon against a Rhine River barge with 2 feet of free-board.

Remember, unlike the IJN, the LW had NIL torpedo attack capability in mid 1940.

Very few barges would have made it to the beach to face the 500,000 Lee-Enfields, Brens and Vickers.



John.

 

Again, we have to go back to one saliant fact. Sealion never happened.

If it could have been done, it would have been done.

It couldnt be done.

Germany was not that slow in coming forward in 40's...If they thought they could they would have tried.

Sealion like others was a big if...If, if if....If didnt happen not because of peacefeelers, liking of all things British or Russia on the other phone. If didnt happen because If would have failed. If not why not try.

 

Well said "urgh", Hitler and his henchmen were not too well known for "not doing" a thing because of a personal "like or dislike". If it could have been, it would have been done. It couldn't be, it wasn't.

 

I quite agree, I was trying to put the argument in as simple a way as possible. The Germans had nothing better than canal barges to transport their troops and the slightest sign of poor weather alone could have scuppered the entire enterprise quite apart from all the other considerations.

 

I simply must add this old file of mine, don't recall putting it in this thread. If I have, my apologies.

The proposed invasion called for 140,000 men (9 divisions) to be transported across the channel in river barges. Many of the Baltic sea barges sank in coastal waters while being transported to France. The river barges were even less seaworthy. The landing would require another 20,000 trained seamen to man all the vessels to transport the 9 divisions across the channel. You cannot just put anybody into a coastal assault boat and expect good results.

Witness the failure of the set of Sherman DDs at Omaha beach when the tank commanders kept their eyes trained on the church steeple as their aiming point, and the current moved them sideways until the sea washed in over the sides of their canvas skirts. A trained maritime yeoman would have gone "with the sea" as happened in the case of the British and Canadians whose DDs made it to Gold, Sword, and Juno from further out. Those DDs which made it onto Utah were delivered literally "on the beach".

The Sea Lion plan called for it being done at night, the column of barges going single file, going down the channel, then simultaneously turning to shore and heading to their beaches. The plan was to land along 275 miles of coastline. A tug pulling 2 of the barges could move 2-3 knots. The current might move at 5 knots and it was estimated that it would take 30 hours of travel to cross the channel. The barges had such a low seaboard that the wash of a fast traveling ship, or small rogue swell would sink them. The UK DD's could sink a lot of the barges without firing a shot.

A trial was run, during daylight, in France. One single main exercise was carried out, just off Boulogne. Fifty vessels were used, and to enable the observers to actually observe the performance, the exercise was carried out in broad daylight. (The real thing was due to take place at night/dawn, remember). The vessels marshaled about a mile out to sea, and cruised parallel to the coast. The armada turned towards the coast (one barge capsizing, and another losing its tow) and approached and attempted to land.

The barges opened, and some of the soldiers swarmed ashore. However, it was noted that the masters of the boats let the intervals between the vessels become wider and wider, because they were scared of collisions. Half the barges failed to get their troops ashore within an hour of the first troops, and over 10% failed to reach the shore at all. The troops in the barges managed to impede the sailors in a remarkable manner; in one case, a barge overturned because the troops rushed to one side when another barge "came too close". Several barges grounded broadside on, preventing the ramp from being lowered.

In this exercise, carried out in good visibility, with no enemy, in good weather, and limited current after traveling only a short distance, with no navigation hazards or beach defenses, less than half the troops were got ashore where they might have done what they were supposed to do.

The RAF wasn’t oblivious to the idea of using river barges as transport units, and had begun to bomb them where ever they found the barges being collected or consolidated:

Bombing the barges Air Commodore Wilf Burnett DSO OBE DFC AFC;

'The Station Commander gathered all officers together one morning in August or September 1940 and told us that it appeared invasion was imminent and that we should be prepared for it. I remember the silence that followed. We left the room and I don't think anyone spoke, but we were all the more determined to make certain that we did everything possible to deter the Germans from launching their invasion.

At the time we were bombing the invasion barges in the Channel ports, undertaking operations almost every other night. I remember one operation in particular against the invasion barges. We had part moonlight, which was very helpful because navigation in those days depended entirely on visual identification. We flew to the north of our target so that we could get a better outline of the coast. We followed the coast down towards our target, getting down to about 4,000 feet so that we could get a better view of what was below, and to increase the accuracy of the bombing. At that height light anti-aircraft fire was pretty heavy and fairly accurate so we didn't hang around after dropping our bombs. This was done repeatedly over a period of time until the invasion was called off.'

Air Commodore,
Wilf Burnett DSO OBE DFC AFC

From:

RAF BOMBER COMMAND

Not only was "Sealion" a non-starter, its implementation just might have brought Hitler and his Nazis to their knees and forced a surrender years earlier than historically. I personally wish he would have tried it.

Just think of all the lives which wouldn’t have been lost if he had "given it a shot"!

 

Clint, I agree that it would have changed history and probably shortened the war if he had had a go.


Many people seem to misunderstand that the RN Home Fleet existed for ONE reason only, that was to defend the British island!

The 5 BBs, 12CAs, 1CV and about 60 DDs would have done what had to be done no matter how many Stukas etc were in the sky dropping bombs on fast turning RN ships.

Can anyone imagine what it would have been like? Eighty RN ships, maybe 20 or so german ships and a zillion barges all bobbing about on a balmy English summers day with 100 german soldiers all heaving over the side.

And if I was running the show I would have had EVERY available tramp steamer out there simply doing flat out at 10 to 12 knots swamping the barges and cutting towlines.

John.

 

One thing to note here is that the first wave wasn't a full 9 divisions. Instead, it was a regimental sized Kampfgruppe from each representing about a third of the full division. In terms of full division equivalents the Germans were putting about 3 1/2 divisions ashore on three seperate and widely spaced beachheads or, a bit more than a division on each.

 

Very true, but ya still gotta get 'em there! Therein lies the rub.

 

Why when they had several hundred light craft capable of taking out the barges? and why cut tow lines? Sink one barge in a string and the Germans will start cutting the lines them selves pretty quickly. Sink the tug or powered barge and the rest are at the mercy of tide, wind, and wave.

 

Sealion had no chance. The conditions were1Air superiority above South-east England 2)Ships to transport the troops 3)Cargos to transport the tanks,ammunition,artillery .....4)Intact ports to discharge the tanks......5)A strong navy to protect the ships and the cargos 6)Several weeks of good weather to assure the supply(in september? Why do you think D-Day was in june and not in april or september)ALL these conditions had to be accomplished, NONE was.

 

lwd,


"Why when they had several hundred light craft capable of taking out the barges? and why cut tow lines? Sink one barge in a string and the Germans will start cutting the lines them selves pretty quickly. Sink the tug or powered barge and the rest are at the mercy of tide, wind, and wave.'


Agree, but my point here was that ANYTHING that added to the confusion within the invasion fleet, anything that added to the problems of towing and being towed, anything that disrupted the flow of vessels across the Channel would have been an advantage to the defenders and an impediment to the invaders.

Certainly sinking a tug would have done that, I was only suggesting an additional action to add to the woes of the sea-sick peace-lovers.


John.

 

But the RN would have had things well enough in hand that there would have been little reason to risk valuable cargo ships. Although the losses that Sea Lion would have inflicted on the U-boats trying to support it might have made them somewhat less valuable than in they were historically.