Operation Sea Lion - thoughts

[ajax]

I've been thinking about Operation Sea Lion and why Hitler didn't see it through. I believe the Germans could have invaded regardless of air superiority. The navy could have caused a blockade whilst the troops landed and before long, Great Britain would have been occupied. But Hitler chose to stop and then turns his sights on a greater madness, which turned out to be his nemesis, Russia.

Apologies if this has been already discussed, but being new to the group, I'm eager to contribute.

[phylo_roadking]

Apologies if this has been already discussed

Many times, Ajax! But don't worry, if appropriate the Mods will append this to one of them or let it stand on its own.

The navy could have caused a blockade whilst the troops landed

This is the one thing it couldn't do. Norway left the KM with only EIGHT undamaged ships, four destroyers and four larger vessels. That campaign had seen the KM decimated. Halder records in his diaries IIRC the reservations over the KM's ability to defend the fleet at all - and it would have to defend it for WEEKS, the "sea bridge" being the only means of carrying the thousands of tons of materiel necessary across the Channel in 1940 (See Peter Fleming's Operation Sealion on this)

Instead, it was planned that the invasion fleet would ONLY be protected by smaller vessels - E-boats, S-boats etc - while the southern end of the Channel could be blocked against the RN by minefields and by U-boats. The few surviving surface vessels were to demonstrate in the North Sea against the RN Home Fleet if it sortied from Scapa Flow, and to escort a diversionary attack aboard a couple of transport ships aimed at the Scottish Coast or the North-East, can't remember offhand which.

On the other hand...the RN deployed 36 destroyers in three locations, each flotilla with a Cruiser flagship, and based IIRC at Portsmouth, Southampton and the Medway...thus puttng them INSIDE the German's planned blocks The Home Fleet was to come south but halt outside the Channel until the destroyers cleared away any German escorts, then the Home Fleet was almost certain to decimate the almost defenceless barges and converted ferryboats of the sea bridge.

When Sealion was gamed in the mid-1970s at Sandhurst - this is indeed what happened; and after destroying the invasion fleet, the Home Fleet was able to turn and shell the invasion bridgehead from the sea

[Simon K]

Phylo, the northern destroyer group was to sortie from Harwich, on the Naze. Chatham was way too hot for any surface units to be concentrated with confidence.Dover had become impossible for light surface units so the hinges of the Fleets' door were Portsmouth and Harwich. Galatea or Penelope was the flottila leader I think..source not at hand at mo. Will revise when I confirm.

[ajax]

Phylo thanks for the information, always happy to learn from others. It makes me wonder how if Sealion failed, why Hitler ever thought he could turn on Russia and hope to conquer a country many times the size of Britain. Maybe he called off Sealion too soon.

[phylo_roadking]

Ajax, get a copy of Fleming's book, you should pick it up on Ebay for a few pennies, either an original period edition, or one of the paperback reprints from a couple of years ago (might have been the Cassells series). It explains the issue from the british point of view vewey effectively - and Fleming being one of the leading travel writers of the prewar perod, it's a good entertaining read as well. Also, for the last few years, most of the "book" work doen on Sealion has been from the German perspective....

Fleming devotes a couple of chapters to the strange "phoney invasion" period of mid-June to the second half of July...when it's quite clear Hitler wanted anything BUT to invade. It details the various kack-handed diplomatic overtures he made - standing up in an amphitheatre in BERLIN and making a speech does NOT constitute a peace offer LMAO, but it's obvious Hitler thought so

Simon, Harwich makes more sense than the Medway...for IIRC Medway would restrict movements depending on the tides. Yes, Dover was far too hot - I've a really poor "official history" of the Southern Line in WWII that is quite useless EXCEPT for the chapter on events in Dover 1940-44.

[bf109 emil]

phylo_roadking
...in the numerous threads you seem to be quite knowledgeable, yes i think Hitler wasn't about to gamble a huge loss after such a relatively easy and swift victories...but with the knowledge that had an invasion plan been drawn up and studied, even without air supremacy, in your honest opinion if Hitler had carried straight on with an invasion to Great Britain at the end of June, with what u-boats he had patrolling the openings of the Channel, laying numerous mines to secure not a broad or wide approach, but a narrow beach-head, and the hundreds of fighters now facing what Dowding tried to avoid in allowing the RAF to be destroyed or in a sense keep reserves so as to prevent this, it would be interesting if he would have committed all his planes to a narrow corridor, thus perhaps allowing what Goering wanted a chance to destroy the RAF on mass and free up his hundreds of bombers and stuka's to thwart a response from any RN ships or capital ships sent into the narrow confines of the channel in what must be and couldn't be an avoided confrontation...this of course never happened, but to commit ones capital ships to continuous air attacks might have had a dampening effect had they come to be sunk on later events even if the landings or sealion where unsuccessful...Damn it is easy to be an arm chair General, just maybe i would last but a few moments before being ousted though

[LWD]

... in your honest opinion if Hitler had carried straight on with an invasion to Great Britain at the end of June, with what u-boats he had patrolling the openings of the Channel, laying numerous mines to secure not a broad or wide approach, ...

The question is how does he do it and with what. Where does the transport come from? How about the mines (the Germans apparently didn't have nearly enough mines or mine layers even in September to do what the plans called for)? How does he force the channel in the face of the RN? As for the RAF an invasion forces the LW to perform pretty much continuous CAP as well as ground support and antishipping strikes. In essence this hands over the initiative to the RAF. They can decide which German moves to counter and since the Germans need for most if not all to be successful the British only need to break the chain at one point for the invasion to fail. The loss of U-boats due to the hazards of operating in the channel might actually improve the British position substantially as well as giving more impetus to the US to help them.

[phylo_roadking]

The interesting thing was that the Luftwaffe WERE attacking British targets - ports, shipping in harbours, industry etc. - ASAP in June 1940!

So while they weren't attacking air superiority targets, they WERE actually carrying out a Douhet-style air bombardment campaign as early as they could! The historical problem was that there wasn't any direction from the top until the midle of JULY, when Goering called a planning meeting at Karinhall, which turned out only to be a high-level strategic planning meeting IIRC. So not only did the gathering of invasion forces, and the gathering of shipping get delayed - the actual specifiying of targets affecting Fighter Command's ability to fight was delayed by at least a month!

So in effect EVERYTHING was delayed by Hitler and his commanders except exactly the sort of strategic bombardment air war Fighter Command had planned for the last seven years to fight!!!

[gaptech]

There is a documentary currently airing on Channel 4 called The Real Dad's Army. Episode 2 dealt briefly with the anti invasion plans and mentions the famous Sandhurst war game. You can catch Episode 3 that includes some interesting stuff on Fleming's "say behind" guerilla force---if you have "catch up on demand TV". It was aired on 24 Jan 2009.
The Sandhurst war game is famous as it included many of the original top brass, including Adolf Galland as Goering. A TV programme was made about the war game at the time but I doubt that it is still available.
There have been plenty of other wargames of Sealion and the bottom line is that the German best case is to actually land a relatively small force protected by minefield screens and e -boats, that would, in any case,fail to get past the many 'stop-lines' of defences between the coast and major inland routes to London and other towns. Resupply being cut off after two days, the time it would have taken for the Home Fleet to steam down from Scapa Flow, any surviving German troops would be wiped out within a day or so.
Despite all the fun alternate histories, Sealion was a non-starter against a defended island. The show mentioned above shows some interesting information about airfield defence against paratroops and glider landings. Things like pop-up pill-boxes and underground command centres on every airfield in Southern England. If the job would have been hard in 1940, it would have been harder still in 1941 and 1942 as the defences were continually expanded.

Re: Ajax's question on why invade Russia in 1941 before Britain was defeated-- just think, Britain had been slung out of France, slung out of Norway, slung out of Greece, squashed in Crete, pushed back in Egypt (by very modest German participation with the Italians). The Merchant marine was r e a l l y struggling in the North Atlantic in the U-boat's 'happy time' and the navy couldn't even be sure of resupplying Malta and of controlling the Med. RAF bombing was, at this stage, a minor irritant. America was not yet in the war.
Put yourself in Hitler and his high command's position for a moment-- you control or have as vassals the entire economic production of Europe with the exception of Sweden and Switzerland . No one has come anywhere near putting up a decent fight and all the signs show that Russia can be knocked out within three months. Plus the occupation of Western Russia will ensure that a WW1 style blockade could not be repeated and it would fulfill ideological goals. After the defeat of Russia, the British would overthrow Churchill and come to sensible terms (remember Hitler didn't really want to inflict a humiliating defeat on Britain in the early stages of the war as he still believed a long-term partnership was possible. On the other hand, a delay in invading Russia would only strengthen Stalin's hand ( re: the new Russian bases in the Baltic States and Finland) and allow blackmail on the supply of raw materials that the Wehrmacht could just take.

[janner]

Put yourself in Hitler and his high command's position for a moment-- you control or have as vassals the entire economic production of Europe with the exception of Sweden and Switzerland .

Interesting stuff, I would only add to your quoted statement that Swedish production was effectively under German control once Denmark and Norway had been occupied but much of Europe remained outside German control: Finland (initially) and the European republics of the USSR - Byelorussia, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic States etc.

Regards,

[bf109 emil]

gaptech wrote'
After the defeat of Russia, the British would overthrow Churchill and come to sensible terms (remember Hitler didn't really want to inflict a humiliating defeat on Britain in the early stages of the war as he still believed a long-term partnership was possible. On the other hand, a delay in invading Russia would only strengthen Stalin's hand ( re: the new Russian bases in the Baltic States and Finland) and allow blackmail on the supply of raw materials that the Wehrmacht could just take

-if Hitler had left Russia, captured North Africa, Egypt, Suez Canal, Iranian oilfields and humiliated the BEF/8th army in Africa and sought control of the med. as Raeder in a sense proposed the British Cabinet would most likely in all sense removed Churchill.
-But here's a twist, what if Hitler hadn't attacked the Soviet Union and thought after such a poor showing in the Winter War by the USSR they would crumble like a house of cards...
What if Hitler held off on the Soviet Union, would Stalin have eventually attacked? If so all the nightmares and in the end the distance, logistics, extreme cold, Partisans, Fuel quantities, poor infrastructure (roads/mud/rain/rail) wouldn't have taken a toll on thousands of vehicles, hundreds of thousands of tested and tried troops, and thus a Soviet attack could have done what Paulus and others said was key to defeating Russia, the capture and destruction of large numbers of troops and armies. The whole logistic, travel,mobility would have now been turned to hamper a Russian invasion rather then doom what inevitable defeated both the Japanese in China and the Wehrmacht in Russia, vast expanses of land and the ability of Quartermasters to keep an army supplied and fighting? just my off thought, and sorry for wandering off topic, but have not really debated whether an attack by the Soviet Union would have triumphed or doomed the soviet forces and thus led to not being able to defend a German advance here after.

[LWD]

...-if Hitler had left Russia, captured North Africa, Egypt, Suez Canal, Iranian oilfields and humiliated the BEF/8th army in Africa ....

It's not at all clear that Germany would have been able to do this. Indeed it's pretty clear that the German logistics to support such an effort were far from adequate.

[phylo_roadking]

I would only add to your quoted statement that Swedish production was effectively under German control once Denmark and Norway had been occupied

I'd say "near-monopolized" rather than controlled - after all we DID get ballbearings etc, and anything we could actually get transported from Sweden to the UK! And we had many Swedish-"owned" war-vital products licenesed for production here, like the Oerlikon

[Alanmccoubrey]

Ajax, Have you ever read Peter Schenk's marvellous book, "Invasion of England : the planning of Operation Sealion" ? Included in it are the proposed "turn around" times for the German landing fleets, they are in tens of days ! The Germans were also planning to transport horses across the Channel for their first line infantry divisions' transport needs. Compare that to Overlord and do you really still think the Germans could have occupied Britain ? Alan

[ajax]

Ajax, Have you ever read Peter Schenk's marvellous book, "Invasion of England : the planning of Operation Sealion" ? Included in it are the proposed "turn around" times for the German landing fleets, they are in tens of days ! The Germans were also planning to transport horses across the Channel for their first line infantry divisions' transport needs. Compare that to Overlord and do you really still think the Germans could have occupied Britain ? Alan

I haven't read that book, but will seek it out, whether I'm right or wrong, near or far with my opinion, I'm fascinated in reading the posts that have came after my initial post.