Game Development - What if operation Sealion had taken place?

If

If you allow "minor raids" to be performed directly by plane counters two raid markers for LF 2 & 3 and one for LF 5 are more than enough, even taking into account some raids may last more than two hours. Air raids counters are there to reduce counter clutter and allow some "fog of war", having too many of them will give the Germans too much flexibility with "dummy raids".

 

And let's face it - while they were good...they weren't THAT good! They'd get a raid to within a mile or two of a city-sized target...which isn't really enough if attempting to hit tactical targets - airfields, ports etc.

Ships under way leave a nice shiny wake behind them in moonlight, they're simple to see on a moonlit night Just think how obvious several thousand of t'buggers are going to be! No matter how large or small...

It's far, far worse than that! If you take a look at Fleming, local communities had lists of everything they intended to remove from the reach of the Germans that could be of use to them...and of course, rationing meant there wasn't much stored food around! Every drop of petrol, every piece of bread....every bullet, every shell, every pound of horse fodder even...maybe even every drop of potable water?...that the German forces consumed ashore would have to be brought across the Channel.


A good comparison is the demise of the Grman garrison on Crete in 1944; once Crete became useless as a Luftwaffe air transport nexus supplying Rommel in North Africa (!!!)...the Germans forgot about the garrison on Crete! Only three more supply ships ever reached the island...

They stretched out their supplies as long as possible - and then, while busily loosing the guerilla war on the island, they launched a series of very large "punitive expeditions" into the Cretan countryside that were basically only huge pillaging forays. Then, with as much food as they could gather up...from the mouths of the natives...they retired into an enclave around the town of Chania on the north coast of the island. There, the Cretans - the Andartes and the ELAS communist guerillas - both amorphous groups under SOE networking (rather than "control") surrounded the garrison and put them to seige! Finally, in 1944, the garrison surrendered, and were penned up in a small peninsula under guard until the end of the war IIRC...for their OWN protection!

And that garrison was a fraction of the size the Germans were hoping to get ashore in England...

 

Well that's a relief! I had set aside 10 for all 3 LF so I can cut that back a bit to gain a few badly needed counters (I want to limit it to 180 all in). using plane counters for small raids is also a good idea, although with radar I would assume that it would be difficult to avoid detection except perhaps on the French side on the channel. The dummy aspect would then be limited to the size of the raid, so in this case using single unit counters would give the game away immediately so I might need to allow a few extra to hide single counter raids? Perhaps 7 counters in all each double sided would give a little more flexibility (1 AF5/AF3, 1 AF5/AF2, 6 AF2/AF3) Is this still too many?

New question concerning the Ju87. I am having trouble identifying it's range. Everything I read seems to have a different value does 330 miles sound realistic? Was there an anti-shipping version in operation/available during the BoB? I have heard that there was one available at some point with a significantly enhanced range with drop tanks, but I'm not sure when or where it was available or weather the quantities were significant or what the range was. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

No.

Ranges for German aircraft are indeed a bit odd, and difficult to get hold off. Older figures, like period Janes' figures, aren't very exact, they were "vulnerable" to period propaganda! And of course - a lot of speed and range figures that are bandied about for aircraft are their initial performance testing figures - sans armour, armament, sometimes even radios! I.E. what test pilots could get out of them at the top end of their performance envelopes when they were trying to break them!

Then there's a very simple and basic mistake that a lot of aviation sites etc. make! They quote the "operational radius" as "range" - I.E. the distance OUT to a given target, usually a third of the all-up fuel load...holding a third of the fuel load in reserve for full war power on the throttle, then a third of the fuel load for the return to base That's why sometimes you can see such WILDLY varying figures! Very different from "straight line" range...

The best thing you can do is search the internet for a set of pilot's notes; these aren't too common for German aircraft, but they ARE there. Most period "pilots' notes" where the pilot...without a "flight engineer"...had to do his own figuring on throttle settings/ordnance load etc. vs. range! And didn't always get it right....OR get home...

Or you can do the next best thing, and ask on a specialist aviation forum, something like 12 o'clock high...

 

I assume you are thinking of the Ju 87R,this was basically a Ju87B with reduced bomb load and increased fuel capacity intended for the anti shipping role not the Ju87C tha was meant for Graf Zeppelin and featured carrier equipment.and of which only a hanful were produced before the war.
AFAIK the Ju 87R went into production in early 1940 so some would be available. I/St.G 1 was already equiped with the type in time for the invasion of Norway so for the BoB I can immagine at least that unit to have it. AFAIK it had additional wing tanks and the wing points were modified to carry drop tanks not bombas so the offensive load was limited to the centerline rack.

 

OK I think that long range Ju87's are off the agenda for the game. I get they impression that they were not in wide spread use and unfortunately there are not enough counters available for all of the options. It's a bit like the cannon armed Spitfires, the Defiant's and operation lucid - they were all there in the BoB but were not crucial or were ineffective at the time for whatever reason so have had to be left out for simplicities sake.

Whilst on the topic of counters I have limited myself to 180 as I believe smaller format games will have a greater chance of being published than monsters. I was thinking of Victory Point Games, although 180 half inch counters is probably already pushing their boundaries a little. Any ideas on other suitable publishers?

 

You seen this series of You tubes? Don't know if anything there will be of Interest to you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Isg7j9bzVI

 

I've had a copy of that in the loft for 30 years LOL Not one of SPI's finest, very...formulaic?...and clumsy, not that rewarding/fun to play.

 

I had a few of their games, but not this one...Wish I'd kept the ones I had.

 

Definetly not one of SPI's best effots :bleah:

 

No I haven't and thanks for the link. The basic scenario appears to be let's suppose x% of the German landing force arrived, how would they have managed against a large but less well organized and equipped opponent in a land campaign. Where as I am trying to model the sea and air battle only. Victory points are gained for units or supplies put ashore or airlanded / paradropped, but that's about it for land action.

That said I will watch all of these videos as there is bound to be some relevant information and I might discover a useful game mechanic to use especially since it is the same battle that I am looking at even if from a different perspective.

A game called "Their Finest Hour" was recommended to me on this post a while back. I suspect that it might be similar in that the emphasis will be on the land battle but we will see (it arrived yesterday but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet).

 

ps what have they done with the Isle of wight!

 

Moved it to Scapa Flow...

 

LOL it has no importance EXCEPT in the first draft "long front" Sealion operation, the one that was rejigged in mid-August to the more restricted "beach head" between Brighton and Dover (with occasional continuing mention of Deal)

Landing on a defended island - no matter how lightly - and THEN attempting to move on to the mainland is a no-go; it wastes time, wastes shipping, wastes lives and materiel...and you STILL have another amphibious operation to mount!

 

Agreed - it would not make sense to land there, however that is a matter for the player to decide not the game designer and there was a radar station in Ventnor. Aside from all that why exclude it? It makes it look like someone drew the coast free hand and forgot the island.

 

Well...not really After all, it's the game designer who's attempting to model the historical scenarios for the gamers

...which just needs a dozen Stukas - not an invasion!

It would only have been a couple of hexes big; no way to really "work" divisional-level combat in that game.