Remodeling Sealion

[Faradaux]

After reading The Rise of Germany by James Holland I've come to understand that Germany never, at any point in the war, stood a chance against the UK. Even if the Germans had managed to land a few divisions in Southern England, the British (even if they had lost the BEF at Dunkirk) still would have had an overwhelming advantage to throw back the Germans.

The greatest challenge in any German game is Barbarossa... but it shouldn't be. It should be Sealion.

In-game, the Royal Navy is a complete and utter joke. Even without CV, the Kriegsmarine can annihilate the Home Fleet easily. The player doesn't even need to invest heavily in his navy to achieve an automatic Sealion.

IRL the only way the Germans could have gotten a single division onto British shores would have been to draw the Home Fleet into a decisive battle in the Channel with massive air support from Stukas. Even then the chance for victory were very low.

The Royal Navy needs a huge buff. There should be no way for a German players to beat the AI Royal Navy without using massive land-based air support. And to do this the player needs to compromise his army buildup from 1936 in favor of air and naval assets.

==========================================================================================

Lastly, there needs to be a diplomatic option for the German player to end the war after the fall of France.

Historically, Lord Edward Halifax wanted to negotiate a peace deal with Germany through Italy as an intermediary. Only Churchill's interdiction and the survival of the BEF at Dunkirk convinced Halifax and the other doves in the UK to fight on.

In-game we should have an event fire if France capitulates and the AI UK is below a certain number of men in the field. This event will give Germany a chance to end the war with the UK in a white peace.

This would make for a far more historically plausible scenario rather than Germany casually swimming across the Channel over the sunken wrecks of the Royal Navy.

 

[auraxiannc]

While I do agree with you, it is an important part of the German history and especially alt-history like HOI4. Should Sealion be ludicrously difficult? Absolutely. Should it be impossible? No, because then you're limiting the player.

 

[Dalwin]

Putting limits on it also frees up the UK player. It allows him to dedicate fewer resources to home defense and more to the empire. None of this is good.

Tweaking the naval balance so that defeating the RN to allow the crossing is more difficult would be enough. Any sort of extensive naval build up by Germany would have to be started early and would consequently weaken him in a future war against Russia. Germany should have to choose in '36 or '37 to be building NIC at the expense of factories for a 1940 Seelowe to be a realistic option. Even if he does so, if the UK were to likewise increase their commitment to naval production it might all come to naught.

Such balance would still make SP Germany satisfactory and would also not break MP play.

 

[egslim]

While I do agree with you, it is an important part of the German history and especially alt-history like HOI4. Should Sealion be ludicrously difficult? Absolutely. Should it be impossible? No, because then you're limiting the player.

The player should be limited, to historically realistic options.

The historical German build-up did not allow any chance of a succesfull Sealion.

And an ahistorical, navy-heavy build-up should make the invasion of France a major difficulty.

 

[Faradaux]

Putting limits on it also frees up the UK player. It allows him to dedicate fewer resources to home defense and more to the empire. None of this is good.

Tweaking the naval balance so that defeating the RN to allow the crossing is more difficult would be enough. Any sort of extensive naval build up by Germany would have to be started early and would consequently weaken him in a future war against Russia. Germany should have to choose in '36 or '37 to be building NIC at the expense of factories for a 1940 Seelowe to be a realistic option. Even if he does so, if the UK were to likewise increase their commitment to naval production it might all come to naught.

Such balance would still make SP Germany satisfactory and would also not break MP play.

That's exactly what wrote...

 

[Dalwin]

That's exactly what wrote...

But it is NOT exactly what you wrote. It differs in some key areas.

For one, I made no concessions to the likes of Halifax.

Second, I did not go with the historically realistic assessment that even after landing the Germans could not have succeeded. I think it is important to the game both for historical flavor and for play balance that the threat against the UK be credible.

The argument against things being possible results more than anything in reducing options and making the situation less interesting. The German invasion of Britain is not nearly as far off into fantasy land as a Japanese invasion of the USA (which is far too easy if done early). The latter is something of which I do not approve. At the very least the USA should get an event for calling up the National Guard which instantly gives them several trained and equipped divisions, if they are invaded early.

 

[demon72]

+1

 

[Faradaux]

But it is NOT exactly what you wrote. It differs in some key areas.

For one, I made no concessions to the likes of Halifax.

Second, I did not go with the historically realistic assessment that even after landing the Germans could not have succeeded. I think it is important to the game both for historical flavor and for play balance that the threat against the UK be credible.

The argument against things being possible results more than anything in reducing options and making the situation less interesting. The German invasion of Britain is not nearly as far off into fantasy land as a Japanese invasion of the USA (which is far too easy if done early). The latter is something of which I do not approve. At the very least the USA should get an event for calling up the National Guard which instantly gives them several trained and equipped divisions, if they are invaded early.

Then you're misreading what I wrote. I never said it should be impossible for the human German player to successfully complete Sealion, only that it should come at a huge cost to army development.

And you never mentioned you were against a diplomatic event to end the war as an alternative to Sealion in your original post. I can't read your mind.

 

[Dalwin]

But I did write it, no mind reading required. I said that making defeat of the RN more difficult would be enough. That means no other changes needed which includes diplomatic changes.

 

[REDDQ]

You know what had no chance of success whatsoever? Attacking USSR, but they did it anyway

I agree it is too easy though, UK should spawn several free divisions the first time Germans made a landing. White peace seems unlikely. Why exactly? Germans would have to take down Soviets for it to even be credible.

IRL the only way the Germans could have gotten a single division onto British shores would have been to draw the Home Fleet into a decisive battle in the Channel with massive air support from Stukas. Even then the chance for victory were very low.

Oh, and as it turned out the airforce was the biggest threat to ships. So if anything had a shot at Home Fleet it was Luftwaffe. Ofc they would have to win Battle of Britain (they had a fairly decent shot at this too) in order to succeed but lots of ship in the Channel vs planes with torpedoes and bombs?

 

[Dalwin]

One of the other components that is currently missing is that fleets cannot effectively cut sea supply. Yes they can attack and sink supply convoys but not in such a fashion as to really hurt supply or slow down equipment replacements in any meaningful way, even with complete and uncontested naval domination at the invasion ports.

If the German does manage a sizeable landing (whether by sea or air) keeping it supplied afterward should be very problematic. In the current game system, taking a port is the only tricky part. Funneling supply into said port can barely be interdicted at all.

Even sending reinforcement units to the part cannot be stopped regardless of overwhelming naval superiority. All the invader has to do is send one unit as a sacrificial lamb so that others can safely cross while the first is being sunk.

One solution to this latter problem would be to allow anti-convoy patrols to still spot enemies while they are engaged in n offensive battle. Additional convoys spotted would be pulled into the existing battle. This would also make uboats more dangerous to commerce.

 

[REDDQ]

One of the other components that is currently missing is that fleets cannot effectively cut sea supply. Yes they can attack and sink supply convoys but not in such a fashion as to really hurt supply or slow down equipment replacements in any meaningful way, even with complete and uncontested naval domination at the invasion ports.

If the German does manage a sizeable landing (whether by sea or air) keeping it supplied afterward should be very problematic.

Very true. Still, if air superiority could be achieved and Battle of Atlantic won. It could be very tough for UK as well. Obviously not historic outcome though

 

[Rudawitz]

I had a pretty fun game recently in which I captured English ports and airfields with paratroopers a few weeks after the fall of France. It worked out well enough, but the scale was perhaps a bit ludicrous as I dropped 24 divisions in a very short time span. Market garden x 4? I also shipped in a few extra divisions when the ports were secure. Getting the divisions to the isles was way too easy. The resistance from the British divisions felt adequate though. Short work still for 23 surviving airborne divisions and a handful of Larm in the second wave.

 

[cat013]

So, the bottomline:
1. Dock should be made regular factories (as they don't really care whether they are building tank engines or ship engines).
2. New factories should take years to build.
Right from the start you commit to either land or naval superiority, or end up like Japan.

 

[Dalwin]

So, the bottomline:
1. Dock should be made regular factories (as they don't really care whether they are building tank engines or ship engines).
2. New factories should take years to build.
Right from the start you commit to either land or naval superiority, or end up like Japan.

Definitely no.

Separating military factories from naval production is one of the important improvements in HOI4 compared to older versions. Furthermore the early commitment to expanding the German navy should be a major loss to expanding the army for the eventual war with Russia. It is not good enough to make this only a temporary delay by allowing Shipyards to be retooled as tank factories.

 

[hkrommel]

1. Dock should be made regular factories (as they don't really care whether they are building tank engines or ship engines).

Actually it really does matter what a factory is geared to build, as it needs specialized equipment and workers. Often it needs the building itself to be structured in certain ways (try moving a ship engine from a facility that wasn't specifically designed for that).

2. New factories should take years to build.

Unless you know what a "factory" represents in-game this is illogical. Since there is no baseline of what a "factory" is and historically that could range from the smaller workshops the Germans sometimes used to the truly massive tank factories the Soviets used, factories are already incredibly abstracted. Until you can quantify in real terms what a factory represents and then look at how long it took to build that capacity in reality, you can't really appeal to increased realism in the claims you're making.

 

[Faradaux]

One of the other components that is currently missing is that fleets cannot effectively cut sea supply. Yes they can attack and sink supply convoys but not in such a fashion as to really hurt supply or slow down equipment replacements in any meaningful way, even with complete and uncontested naval domination at the invasion ports.

Actually convoy interdiction is modeled pretty accurately in-game. Historically the entire U-boat and Condor force couldn't sink more than 3% of Allied shipping to British ports. True that Hitler allocated far too little to building up the U-boat force in the first place, but even had he tripled his investment, it would still be 9%, not nearly enough to force a surrender.

Historically speaking the only 2 even remotely viable options to end the war in 1940 were:

1. Miraculous Sealion
2. White peace with the UK

Hitler was actually really hoping for the latter, and it's the main reason why the Luftwaffe waited until August to really start aggressive operations against the RAF, a delay that made their inevitable defeat even more crippling.

Realistically speaking, Germany was never going to take the UK. Hitler's best and only strategy would have been to consolidate his gains, focus on the Mediterranean, and NOT invade the USSR (cause Stalin had no plans to challenge Germany in Eastern Europe). Given a decade or more the Germans might have been able to build a fleet and airforce strong enough to attempt Sealion sometime in the 1950s.

 

[Dalwin]

Actually convoy interdiction is modeled pretty accurately in-game. Historically the entire U-boat and Condor force couldn't sink more than 3% of Allied shipping to British ports. True that Hitler allocated far too little to building up the U-boat force in the first place, but even had he tripled his investment, it would still be 9%, not nearly enough to force a surrender.

Historically speaking the only 2 even remotely viable options to end the war in 1940 were:

1. Miraculous Sealion
2. White peace with the UK

Hitler was actually really hoping for the latter, and it's the main reason why the Luftwaffe waited until August to really start aggressive operations against the RAF, a delay that made their inevitable defeat even more crippling.

Realistically speaking, Germany was never going to take the UK. Hitler's best and only strategy would have been to consolidate his gains, focus on the Mediterranean, and NOT invade the USSR (cause Stalin had no plans to challenge Germany in Eastern Europe). Given a decade or more the Germans might have been able to build a fleet and airforce strong enough to attempt Sealion sometime in the 1950s.

Your logic is horribly flawed.

You are talking about 3% of ALL of their shipping. You are also talking about uboats.

The topic if the thread is Sea Lion. I am talking about the inability of a dominant fleet in a zone to blockade a single port and cut off incoming supply. This is an entirely different concept and your 3% or 9% figures are meaningless in this context.

Also even the uboat war and commerce interdiction in general is NOT modeled well in HOI4 (though still better than earlier versions of HOI). The uboats pose no real threat to any British player. They are a nuisance. They may even turn a profit for the Germans and sink a value that exceeds their own cost, but at no point will they threaten British production to any noticeable degree. This is totally the opposite of Strategic bombing which both has a significant impact on production and also requires a significant investment in countermeasures.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

The Royal Navy needs a huge buff. There should be no way for a German players to beat the AI Royal Navy without using massive land-based air support.

The Royal Navy AI needs a huge buff. Try pulling it off against a half decent UK player and you will see how hard it is to Sea Lion as Germany.

 

[Rudawitz]

@Dalwin But is it realistic to completely cut of port even during night time? Assuming you have naval superiority, maybe the enemy could still sneak in meaningful supplies and reinforcements?