Operation Sealion - Seriously considered or just a feint?

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Napoleon XIV
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#16

Post by Napoleon XIV » 18 Dec 2003, 20:16

michael mills wrote:From that point on, all thought of an invasion of Britain in 1941 was abandoned. Any further preparations for Sealion were essentially a cover for the preparations to invade the Soviet Union, which did not become definitive until the Soviet Union formed an anti-German alliance with Yugoslavia in the first week of April 1941 (rendered nugatory by the immediate German invasion of that country).
This bit about the Anti-German Alliance is wrong. All that the Yugoslavs and Soviets had between them was a treaty of friendship providing for "Amicable relations" in the event of an invasion of either. There was *no* military character to it. Hitler knew this, but used it as a nifty piece of propaganda when writing to Mussolini about the Invasion of Yugoslavia...

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#17

Post by Heinrich George » 23 Dec 2003, 23:00

Although invasion plans were drawn up, it's hard to believe that Hitler or his generals, and especially his admirals, ever thought they would go forward. Even if RAF Fighter Command had been wiped out, the invasion would have been a major gamble, at best a 50-50 proposition.

1. Except for invading some islands in the Baltic in 1917, Germany had no amphibious warfare experience. Norway didn't count. That was a matter of sailing into neutral ports and pulling up to the piers, a far cry from hitting the beaches. Given the short window, there wasn't time to conduct adequate training.

2. Even if the landings were successful, it would have been very difficult to supply just the first wave divisons. One need only look at the efforts the Allies made in 1944 to supply the Normanday landings (artificial harbors, pipelines) and contrast that with the Germans' very limited preparations/capabilities.

3. The airborne aspect provides another contrast. The Allies dropped three divisions in Normandy, at night. The Germans had only one division, which had just suffered substantial losses in Holland. They would have been hard pressed to drop two regiments, not enough to offer much support to the landings.

4. It's pretty hard to pull off an invasion when you don't have a navy and the opposition has one of the largest in the world. Ten of Hitler's 20 or so destroyers had been lost in the Norwegian campaign. Many of his cruisers had been sunk or seriously damaged. British naval losses would have been high, but their light forces would have dominated the Channel.

5. The German army and navy did not cooperate very well and the navy and air force barely spoke. Coordination was so poor that the Luftwaffe sank two KM destroyers in the North Sea on February 22.


alf
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#18

Post by alf » 24 Dec 2003, 03:37

Coordination was so poor that the Luftwaffe sank two KM destroyers in the North Sea on February 22
A Heinkel 111 attacked what it thought was 6 British Destroyers in line astern. They were in fact 6 German Destroyers moving through a suspected minefiled.

The aircraft attacked the last ship in line the Destroyer Lebremacht Maass, dropping a single 50kg bomb, hitting her. The Lebremacht Maass broke from the line and veered to her right, and struck a mine. 270 men were lost from her.

The second last Destroyer in line (No 5) Max Schultz turned to rescue survivors, she also struck a mine and went down with all hands.

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redcoat
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#19

Post by redcoat » 24 Dec 2003, 22:53

alf wrote:A Heinkel 111 attacked what it thought was 6 British Destroyers in line astern. They were in fact 6 German Destroyers moving through a suspected minefiled.

The aircraft attacked the last ship in line the Destroyer Lebremacht Maass, dropping a single 50kg bomb, hitting her. The Lebremacht Maass broke from the line and veered to her right, and struck a mine. 270 men were lost from her.

The second last Destroyer in line (No 5) Max Schultz turned to rescue survivors, she also struck a mine and went down with all hands.
Its even worse than that :roll:
While the flotilla closed to pick up survivors from the Leberecht Maas The destroyer Theodor Riedel reported a submarine contact (false) on her hydrophones and tried to attack with depth charges, but she misjudged her run and damaged her steering, she had to be towed back to port
The whole affair is funny until you realize that these incidents cost the lives of 578 sailors

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#20

Post by Andreas » 01 Aug 2005, 10:08

Notwithstanding the five points that were made by Heinrich, and with which I fully agree, the planning for Sealion went down to the tactical level, with divisions being re-organised in the real world, not just on paper. On the sea, barges were assembled (and exposed to British air attack, reducing transport capacity in the Reich). The preparations were taken seriously by OKH and OKM, and I see no reason that OKL was not taking its role as serious in preparing for the invasion through gaining air superiority.

When assuming that Sealion was a feint, the question is how far down this was known. It appears from the evidence that I have seen that if it was a feint, this was not known further down than the very highest level, and everybody below proceeded to prepare for an operation they assumed was real enough.

Some references are Teske 'Bewegungskrieg', the history of 12.ID in France with a good treatment of the Seelöwe preparations of the division. Some pages in Meier-Welcker 'Aufzeichnungen eines Generalstabsoffiziers'. He was in 4. Armee GHQ at the time. I will check some other references tonight.

All the best

Andreas

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WalterS
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#21

Post by WalterS » 01 Aug 2005, 15:58

Admiral Raeder sure thought "Sea Lion" was for real. In his book "Grand Admiral" he discusses the detailed planning done by the Naval Staff and he expresses his frustration with the Luftwaffe's failure to achieve air superiority over the English Channel and the proposed invasion sites.

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Benny C.
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#22

Post by Benny C. » 01 Aug 2005, 20:55

As far as I know Goebbels wrote in his diary that the invasion was not planned but they proceeded with the preparations to confuse the enemy.

Lower levels probably did not know this to add to the realism of the preparations being made in order to put pressure on the British to negociate.

I could be wrong but this is my understanding of the situation.

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#23

Post by Andreas » 01 Aug 2005, 21:08

Benny C. wrote:As far as I know Goebbels wrote in his diary that the invasion was not planned but they proceeded with the preparations to confuse the enemy.

Lower levels probably did not know this to add to the realism of the preparations being made in order to put pressure on the British to negociate.

I could be wrong but this is my understanding of the situation.
While that is certainly a possibility, it appears that OKH and OKM, neither of which one would consider lower levels, were seriously involved in the preparations. See Walter's post for OKM, together with the documentary evidence about the amassing of transport capacity and trials, and e.g. Halder's diary for OKH where a quick glance shows nothing indicating it was a feint.

All the best

Andreas

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Michael Emrys
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#24

Post by Michael Emrys » 02 Aug 2005, 10:57

I think a consistent pattern in Hitler's wartime behavior is a desire to keep his options open. In line with that, his feeling—but one he might not have communicated except to his very closest associates—might have been that a combination of military show of force and diplomatic pressure might have caused Britain to come to terms. But on the other hand, he was enough of an opportunist that if he thought Britain could be sufficiently weakened so that military conquest was a serious possibility, he would have gone for that.

So, the preparations for Sea Lion could equally serve both purposes. They could be a convincing bluff. Or they could be a lead up to a genuine invasion. I don't think Hitler's mind set necessarily included taking the military, even in the highest levels, into his confidence on this matter. It would have been a need-to-know issue, and viewing it from Hitler's perspective it's hard to see how their knowing that all this might just be a bluff would have improved the performance of his military subordinates.

That is pretty much all speculative, but it is the most reasonable explanation that I can think of at present. As for Andreas' objection concerning the amassing of river barges in the Channel ports and the damage to the German economy that resulted, I think that if Hitler was playing a bluff, he would have regarded that as a small price to pay if it had succeeded in removing Britain from the war. It didn't. Hitler gambled and lost. It was the first of his serious failures.

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#25

Post by Andreas » 02 Aug 2005, 11:33

Hi Grease_Spot

I agree that this is a very likely possibility. But that would leave us with the conclusion that in fact the individual arms did their best to make Sealion a reality, and failed. I would argue that the Luftwaffe is to be included in this, unless someone can show anything indicating that they alone of the three arms of the Wehrmacht were let in on Adolf's little secret.

IOW - if we want to judge the military effort in preparing for Sealion, the question of whether it was a feint or not is irrelevant if your theory is indeed correct. I believe that to all intents and purposes it was taken serious by OKH, OKM, and OKL, and therefore their failure to prepare a workable operation is a real military failure, not just a result of it being a feint to start with.

All the best

Andreas

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Michael Emrys
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#26

Post by Michael Emrys » 02 Aug 2005, 17:09

Andreas wrote:I agree that this is a very likely possibility. But that would leave us with the conclusion that in fact the individual arms did their best to make Sealion a reality, and failed.
Agreed.
I would argue that the Luftwaffe is to be included in this, unless someone can show anything indicating that they alone of the three arms of the Wehrmacht were let in on Adolf's little secret.
Given Göring's evidenced frustration and embarrassment over the failure, I doubt that he was faking it.
IOW - if we want to judge the military effort in preparing for Sealion, the question of whether it was a feint or not is irrelevant if your theory is indeed correct.
That is so.
I believe that to all intents and purposes it was taken serious by OKH, OKM, and OKL...
I do not know of anything to contradict that.
...and therefore their failure to prepare a workable operation is a real military failure, not just a result of it being a feint to start with.
Hmmm. I don't think I am ready to commit to that proposition. It comes down to a matter of definitions, I guess. You can say that the Luftwaffe failed, because they manifestly came to grips with their enemy and were soundly defeated. The other two services never even got that far. Unless you can say that a feint was part of Hitler's plan all along, I can't say that the Heer or KM ever had an active role, because they never got beyond the preparation phase.

I would have to say that the failure, in this case was not in the services inability to prepare a workable operation, since that was not ever within their grasp. The failure was Hitler's in getting into a war with a power that he had no sufficient means to defeat.

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#27

Post by Andy H » 02 Aug 2005, 17:42

If it was just a feint (which I don't believe it was) what was its goal, given the extremely limited British abilities at the time?

Andy H

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Michael Emrys
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#28

Post by Michael Emrys » 02 Aug 2005, 17:48

Andy H wrote:If it was just a feint (which I don't believe it was) what was its goal, given the extremely limited British abilities at the time?
I'm not positive I understand the question. But I don't maintain that it was "just" a feint. As I said earlier, I think Hitler ordered preparations for an invasion in order to have two options. Either to bluff the British into making peace, or failing that, and providing that conditions were favorable, actually perform an invasion. In the event, neither option worked out. The Brits weren't bluffed and the invasion turned out not to be feasible.

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Reply.

#29

Post by john2 » 02 Aug 2005, 22:33

I am not decided yet on whether or not the invasion preparations were to be a bluff. However what are we to make of the plans to invade Russia at about the same time? On July 31 Hitler met with his generals and said, I am summarizing here:
“Britain's hope lies in Russia and the United States. If the hopes pinned on Russia are disappointed then America too will fall by the wayside, because elimination of Russia would tremendously increase Japan's power in the far east.” “...Germany will then be master of Europe and the Balkans.”...“If we start in May '41, we would have 5 months to finish the job. Tackling it this year would still have been the best, but unified action would have been impossible at this time.”
It is interesting that Hitler is implying that Britain will still be in the war the next year. Keep in mind that is before the air battle over Britain had actually begun. The plans for invading Russia were, at the conference, based on the assumption that Britain would still be fighting next year. In fact Hitler's justification was that Russia was "Britain's last hope". The claim was that defeating Russia would isolate the British and force them to give up. The conclusion of this train of thought is that Britain would not be defeated by Sea Lion. Since this is happening before the major air battles I would like to know what the significance of this is, if any. Was Hitler simply making contingency plans? Or had Hitler given up on Sea Lion already and now considered it to be a bluff?

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Re: Reply.

#30

Post by Michael Emrys » 03 Aug 2005, 04:40

john2 wrote:It is interesting that Hitler is implying that Britain will still be in the war the next year. Keep in mind that is before the air battle over Britain had actually begun. The plans for invading Russia were, at the conference, based on the assumption that Britain would still be fighting next year. In fact Hitler's justification was that Russia was "Britain's last hope". The claim was that defeating Russia would isolate the British and force them to give up. The conclusion of this train of thought is that Britain would not be defeated by Sea Lion. Since this is happening before the major air battles I would like to know what the significance of this is, if any. Was Hitler simply making contingency plans? Or had Hitler given up on Sea Lion already and now considered it to be a bluff?
Very interesting. I knew that Hitler had spoken those words, but the implications of the timing hadn't registered with me. Thanks for bringing that up. Of course, it is still possible that if an opening for a military solution with Britain had appeared, Hitler would want to be in a position to take it.

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