Was Sea Lion possible?

[Secret Master]

That's the Smeaton to which I was referring.

I know.

But interestingly enough, a Google search returned the Smeaton I linked higher in the search order than your Smeaton. Which I find very odd, since your Smeaton is far better known and in the news.

I felt the irony was amusing.

 

[Midden]

My mum was a predictor on an anti aircraft gun somewhere in the South of England in 1940. Pretty sure she'd have stopped Rommel & co.

 

[Big Nev]

If germany drafts Jesus or Moses....
Otherwise yeah not happening 1940

This is piss funny.

Mostly because it's only marginally less likely than an Operation Sealion in 1940 for reasons of... umm... ethnic background that we're not really supposed to talk about.

Because they're what the Germans actually planned to use in the operation. The Germans never had any plans to create proper assault craft and if they had it would need to be started way before France fell.

Emued by @Director

They did, in fact, have two prototypes, yes.

What if they launched from Bordeaux?

This is a joke right?

The craft they had were barely capable of crossing the channel in ideal weather conditions. Extending the journey length by several hundred miles and length by tens of hours, crossing the Bay of Biscay would be certifiable lunacy

Thank you, the voice of reason.

Now that's interesting. Trying to think where'd be a suitable landing zone. Somewhere around the Tyne/Tees region maybe? Major port facilities and a chance to cut Scotland off from the rest of the country?

Now this I can get behind.

Anything that cuts Scotland off from England gets my full support.

When are we going to get our referendum? That's what I want to know.

Exactly

Operation Fortitude was possibly the greatest example of human deception of all time. A fake army with dummy encampments that had lights installed as to make them look inhabited, dummy landing craft, travel restrictions across southern England, double agents and fake radio messages, bombing raids launched to attack places of little military value (calais was flattened by the RAF). The effort the Allied forces put into pulling the wool over the eyes of the germans was staggering.

And the Germans got the weather prediction quite wrong. The Brit's were using a vast array of information for their meteorological data (which, quite amusingly, included mid-Atlantic weather reports from U-boats) that the Germans didn't have access to. The predicted storms didn't last for weeks, there was a critical gap for a week or so.

So... along with all the deliberate deception, Nature played a wildcard, that the Allies had managed to see.

And there was fog.


Note also that on the morning of D-Day, the waves in the middle of the English channel, were five feet high. That's 1½ meters, three times the maximum that the Sealion river barges could survive.

 

[ParadiseCity]

Probably not in 1940. But if they had managed to take down the Soviet Union they probably could have pulled it off

 

[PhroX]

Probably not in 1940. But if they had managed to take down the Soviet Union they probably could have pulled it off

Given that taking down the Soviet Union was only marginally less plausible than a 1940 Sea Lion, that's not much of a step up from brovahkiin's suggestion of getting Moses to help....

And even if they had defeated the Soviets, I don't really see what it would let them do differently. The UK and her allies (including a certain United States of America) still have overwhelming superiority in terms of both air an naval power and the Germans still have nothing in the way of proper landing craft. The longer the Germans wait to take advantage of the land they've taken from the SU, the stronger the Allies get thanks to the industrial power of America.

 

[Swinds]

Over a day? In what universe? And assaults like that usually take place in the night so good luck noticing something before it is too late anyway. I have seen some wild assumptions that it would take 24-28 hours to cross the channel. Yeah, no, you can swim over it faster than that. Someone, somewhere fucked up the math. Sorry.

'Wild assumption' 20 miles+ at 5kts speed (at best) with up to a 4kt tide. Secondly that is the physical shortest distance. port to beach is longer and the barges are all along the channel coast. Then you have mine fields.

12 hours I thought but that is for the shortest distance.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Given that taking down the Soviet Union was only marginally less plausible than a 1940 Sea Lion, that's not much of a step up from brovahkiin's suggestion of getting Moses to help....

And even if they had defeated the Soviets, I don't really see what it would let them do differently. The UK and her allies (including a certain United States of America) still have overwhelming superiority in terms of both air an naval power and the Germans still have nothing in the way of proper landing craft. The longer the Germans wait to take advantage of the land they've taken from the SU, the stronger the Allies get thanks to the industrial power of America.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine the UK / US taking down Germany in a world where the Soviet Union no longer exists, and the British homeland couldn't have sustained war indefinitely.

The other X-factor would be nukes, and how quickly it takes the Germans to make their own.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

'Wild assumption' 20 miles+ at 5kts speed (at best) with up to a 4kt tide. Secondly that is the physical shortest distance. port to beach is longer and the barges are all along the channel coast. Then you have mine fields.

12 hours I thought but that is for the shortest distance.

And then you struggle ashore only to get mustard gassed while the sea behind you erupts in burning oil slicks, as was the plan.

 

[Swinds]

And then you struggle ashore only to get mustard gassed while the sea behind you erupts in burning oil slicks, as was the plan.

and anyone left over would have Hawker Henley (target tugs) dropping poison gas on them as was also the plan.

 

[Swinds]

Not really no. The Japanese neither had the resources nor the desire to take Hawaii. Most of Japan's land forces were tied to the Chinese front or the invasion of SEA and Indonesia. Japan was literally operating on a shoe-string that was pulled nearly to the breaking point. And Japan considered SEA and Indonesia the important front for attaining resources such as oil in order to maintain their war in China. The war against the US was merely a means to that end in order to capture the Philippines and destroy the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Capturing Hawaii would be a move in order to slow down any advance by the US and would ignore their main reason why they attacked Pearl Harbor: To make a decisive, war winning defeat of the US Navy.

Any attempt to capture Hawaii would effectively be admittance that the war would be long and thus unwinnable. The Japanese wanted a short war with the West, not a long one.

Wrong....

quote wiki...note the last sentance ( Even though I quote wiki I don't believe everything but there was a plan to invade Hawaii)

The Battle of Midway was a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II.[6][7][8] Between 3 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after theBattle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under AdmiralsIsoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare."[9]

The operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific. Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.

 

[PhroX]

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine the UK / US taking down Germany in a world where the Soviet Union no longer exists, and the British homeland couldn't have sustained war indefinitely.

The other X-factor would be nukes, and how quickly it takes the Germans to make their own.

Britain, with US support, could probably sustain war longer than Germany could, even with the "lebensraum" they take from the Soviets. And when it comes to nukes, Germany doesn't have a hope. Their work was barking up completely the wrong tree. So, Britain holds out easily till mid-late '45, then Germany starts losing cities. And if they don't feel like nuking Germany, they just wait another year or two for the Germany economy to implode.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Britain, with US support, could probably sustain war longer than Germany could, even with the "lebensraum" they take from the Soviets. And when it comes to nukes, Germany doesn't have a hope. Their work was barking up completely the wrong tree. So, Britain holds out easily till mid-late '45, then Germany starts losing cities. And if they don't feel like nuking Germany, they just wait another year or two for the Germany economy to implode.

The Russians managed to cobble together a nuclear programme that bore fruit within about four years. Admittedly that was with significant, possibly critical leakage of US nuclear secrets, which Germany wouldn't have been able to draw on for reasons I shan't explore here. On the other hand the Germans were at least looking into it (however amateurishly), and losing a city every couple of months or so would tend to focus the regime's energies on getting a bomb of its own before continental Europe became Mad Max with added Nazis.

 

[Big Nev]

We are talking about Soviet landings, where they had the only naval assets in the area that were not used in the landing as per the orders of STAVKA. Black Sea fleet played no role in it. The last time in that part of the war that the fleet did anything was in Sevastopol where ships were used as artillery, but as soon as Germans got close, the fleet retreated and stayed in port except the subs that attacked chromium convoys from Turkey most of the time.

And landing were not across the Kerch straights. The main force came at Feodosia, 100km across the water.

So…
Correct me if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick with this.
The Soviet landing wasn’t really an amphibious landing was it?
And it certainly wasn’t opposed. At least, not by ground troops.

Over a day? In what universe? And assaults like that usually take place in the night so good luck noticing something before it is too late anyway. I have seen some wild assumptions that it would take 24-28 hours to cross the channel. Yeah, no, you can swim over it faster than that. Someone, somewhere fucked up the math. Sorry.

You know...

You really should go and read some of the links provided in this thread. Links to people who've done serious research and stop spouting rubbish.

Or go and look up what the actual issues are when you take a 3kt barge train into the English Channel.

For example. At it's narrowest point, the Straight of Dover, the English Channel is a mere 20½ miles wide.

The tugs pulling two barges could make 3kts. So… that’s six hours from Calais to Dover right?

Wrong.

There’s a four kt current running NE to SW so… if you try to cross as quickly as possible, and get lucky, you might land at Dungeness or, more probably, closer to Hastings after about 9 hours.

If you want to travel in a straight line, from Calais to Dover, across this 4kt current, when you can only make 3kts (firstly, you should be shot for gross stupidity) and you’ll find that a simple piece of geometry will show you that you need to set your prow almost exactly due North. And it’s going to take 11½ hours.

And that’s the narrowest point.

Now, from Dieppe to Eastbourne, it’s about 70 miles but the current here isn’t so strong so you don’t get pushed off course so badly and can cover 70 miles in about 20 hours and end up at… oops, you have drifted off course, because there IS a current and now are getting washed-up near Portsmouth, not after 20 hours, but after 34 hours.

A good sailor could, theoretically, leave Dieppe aiming for (coincidentally) Dover and, maintaining this bearing, in a 3 kt ship, would make land somewhere near Eastbourne. And it would only take 24 hours.

But Germany had a cronic shortage of people with any kind of seafaring experience so... they are really going to struggle.

Now those examples are for individual cases.

Put a few hundred tugs, with two barges each, that can travel at three kts in a cross-current of 4kts and you have a recipie for complete & utter confusion.

Add a sea state above "Mill Pond" that can easilly swamp the barges.

Now add a few dozen destroyers charging about amongst your couple of thousand barges who's wakes are a REAL problem (even before they open-up with their guns & depth charges) then add your own aircraaft dropping bombs all over the place trying to hinder the destroyers and you might, just, start to have an appreciation of how very very badly it would have gone wrong.

 

[keynes2.0]

The Russians managed to cobble together a nuclear programme that bore fruit within about four years. Admittedly that was with significant, possibly critical leakage of US nuclear secrets, which Germany wouldn't have been able to draw on for reasons I shan't explore here. On the other hand the Germans were at least looking into it (however amateurishly), and losing a city every couple of months or so would tend to focus the regime's energies on getting a bomb of its own before continental Europe became Mad Max with added Nazis.

A nuclear weapon is technically very simple. What isn't simple is refining large amounts of fissile materials. The Soviets got nukes so fast because of good old fashioned industrial espionage. They had scientists turn spy for them who not only knew how to make a bomb but knew the industrial processes that the US had painstakingly worked out through trial and error.

Germany wouldn't magically develop such spies if the allies start using atomic weapons. So they would need to work out the hard part for themselves by trial and error. But Germany doesn't have the resources to throw at the problem that the US does.

 

[Vukodav]

So…
Correct me if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick with this.
The Soviet landing wasn’t really an amphibious landing was it?
And it certainly wasn’t opposed. At least, not by ground troops.




You know...

You really should go and read some of the links provided in this thread. Links to people who've done serious research and stop spouting rubbish.

Or go and look up what the actual issues are when you take a 3kt barge train into the English Channel.

For example. At it's narrowest point, the Straight of Dover, the English Channel is a mere 20½ miles wide.

The tugs pulling two barges could make 3kts. So… that’s six hours from Calais to Dover right?

Wrong.

There’s a four kt current running NE to SW so… if you try to cross as quickly as possible, and get lucky, you might land at Dungeness or, more probably, closer to Hastings after about 9 hours.

If you want to travel in a straight line, from Calais to Dover, across this 4kt current, when you can only make 3kts (firstly, you should be shot for gross stupidity) and you’ll find that a simple piece of geometry will show you that you need to set your prow almost exactly due North. And it’s going to take 11½ hours.

And that’s the narrowest point.

Now, from Dieppe to Eastbourne, it’s about 70 miles but the current here isn’t so strong so you don’t get pushed off course so badly and can cover 70 miles in about 20 hours and end up at… oops, you have drifted off course, because there IS a current and now are getting washed-up near Portsmouth, not after 20 hours, but after 34 hours.

A good sailor could, theoretically, leave Dieppe aiming for (coincidentally) Dover and, maintaining this bearing, in a 3 kt ship, would make land somewhere near Eastbourne. And it would only take 24 hours.

But Germany had a cronic shortage of people with any kind of seafaring experience so... they are really going to struggle.

Now those examples are for individual cases.

Put a few hundred tugs, with two barges each, that can travel at three kts in a cross-current of 4kts and you have a recipie for complete & utter confusion.

Add a sea state above "Mill Pond" that can easilly swamp the barges.

Now add a few dozen destroyers charging about amongst your couple of thousand barges who's wakes are a REAL problem (even before they open-up with their guns & depth charges) then add your own aircraaft dropping bombs all over the place trying to hinder the destroyers and you might, just, start to have an appreciation of how very very badly it would have gone wrong.

And again, if someone want a history lesson, he would take a look at what did happen. The OP never asked about that and it was not the point. The question is, would it be possible.

And then you go on a worse scenario with towed river barges? Yea, sure, if that was possible, Germany would have done it so I see no point in discussing that. And all the links provided take the same approach. No one even thought of asking - hey, how about Germany, instead of building almost 2000 tanks in the preparation of Barbarossa, divers some of its industry to the construction of landing crafts. Or all - a thing they would have done had they really wanted to invade. Nope, let's talk about towed barges that flip with a wave.

On top of that, no one even cared to mention German E boats - you know, the same strategy that GB would have used in the case of an invasion? Destroyers less so and larger ships not at all, but fast boats yes. But no, we shall not talk about those on the German side, not even if German boats sank 350.000t of shipping, 12 destroyers and many other smaller ships (like minesweepers).

If someone asks you to discuss an alternate history scenario, then you should investigate every possible option and not give them a history lesson why the original invasion failed. They can do that themselves.

But as I sad, every reasonable arguments is lost in a bias crowd that even when discussing something like that starts with the worst possible scenario for Germany and the best one for GB, and to that extent idiotic, like throwing RN battleships against an invasion fleet and a desperate fight on an island. While the fact is, only fast boats and destroyers would take part and any German significant gain on the island would result in the evacuation to Canada, bringing USA into the war and waiting a favorable time to return, not a front line fight from London to Scapa Flow.

God forbid we try to talk about Dunkirk and the prevention of the Allied retreat as an option in the alternate history scenario.

I am done discussing history (especially alternate one) with highly bias people.

 

[Vukodav]

A nuclear weapon is technically very simple. What isn't simple is refining large amounts of fissile materials. The Soviets got nukes so fast because of good old fashioned industrial espionage. They had scientists turn spy for them who not only knew how to make a bomb but knew the industrial processes that the US had painstakingly worked out through trial and error.

Germany wouldn't magically develop such spies if the allies start using atomic weapons. So they would need to work out the hard part for themselves by trial and error. But Germany doesn't have the resources to throw at the problem that the US does.

Well, here, I have to jump in. A nuclear weapon is technically not a very simple thing. Even a bullet type uranium bomb is hard to create. Physics behind it is not simple at all, ant the tech to achieve it it less simple than that. Technology for refining fissile materials is, on the other hand, simple. It takes time, but it is a simple technology. Plutonium bomb is even more complex as you need a perfect sphere (the level of precision is so great that very few countries go that route - they stick to the uranium one) and a perfect spherical blast in order to create a critical mass needed to start a reaction. Like squeezing a balloon, but on a micro scale. That takes some high tech, not as simple as you might think.

That part you can take to the bank. I am a nuclear physicist.

About that German nuke, well, a few things. German team made a mistake in their calculations, so with their working model they were never gonna create a bomb. It was not a question of resources, they had enough of those... had the theory work gone right. But we can argue than by given enough time and money they would figure out that they made a mistake and correct it.

Now, did Germany had resources to do such a project?

Time? They did, because the idea and Uranverein projects started long before the US one.

People? They did, even if many scientists ran away, the physics needed for it was known and many people left in Europe were highly skilled physicist. Many ran away BEFORE any mention of the splitting of the atom that was in 1938, a year before the war. So, as far as men go, Germany had enough of those. Add to that skilled mathematicians Germany had access to via Hungary and several skilled scientist Yugoslavia had (that Germany could make work for them) that after the war started Yugoslav nuclear program. But their German colleagues saved them from German imprisonment. There, again Germans working against the Germans.

Resources? Yes, Germany had enough uranium for several bombs + Czech mines. And heavy water was not needed, as the Allies did the same thing with graphite as a moderator.

Money? Yes. German missile program cost as much as USA Manhattan project.

So Germany, had they put their mind to it, could have had a nuke before the USA as they were the pioneers in the field, they had all the scientists that made the discovery in the first place and they had the resources. But High Command wanted conventional weapons to win a war (and those did, right up until the end so there was no initiative to star a nuclear bomb project) and Hitler liked missiles. So in the end, the world was a better place without them having a nuke.

But it is very likely that they could make it, had they started in 1938 (three years ahead of USA) and instead of building missiles divert the resources to nuclear program. It is not out of the question. So it would be fun to have in game an option - nuke or missile.

 

[LTPugh]

Snip

Read the OP again then. It says nothing about alternate history and specifically says in real life. It's not an alternate history discussion and claiming the OP started it as one is incorrect.

 

[Swinds]

I did say real life, there has been talk of alternative but my original question was in real life.

As with all what if's Had Germany built up her navy to give Sea Lion a change this would have taken material from tank production for one. I wonder if German could have invaded France if they had not put the Luftwaffe first, the Army second and finally the navy??? that is the problem with what if's we don't know.

Director, Big Nev and may of the people posting in this tread believe that crossing the channel would have ended in disaster for one reason or another, there are several ways it could fail. I can't see anyone has argued this is not the case.

As far as the game is concerned it should be hard for Germany to do a successful Sea Lion (i'm not pulling of a successful lion) but possible.

Most Human players would sacrifice the RN to stop the invasion, ships can be built much quicker than real life so this gives GB a massive advantage.

 

[hkrommel]

closer to Hastings

The only valid amphibious invasion spot in the whole UK

But it is very likely that they could make it, had they started in 1938 (three years ahead of USA) and instead of building missiles divert the resources to nuclear program. It is not out of the question. So it would be fun to have in game an option - nuke or missile.

They would have to come up with a delivery system as well and correct me if I'm wrong (air forces aren't my strong suit) but didn't they not have a bomber that could deliver a nuke properly even if they managed to build one?

 

[Swinds]

The only valid amphibious invasion spot in the whole UK



They would have to come up with a delivery system as well and correct me if I'm wrong (air forces aren't my strong suit) but didn't they not have a bomber that could deliver a nuke properly even if they managed to build one?

I have seen an He177 picture that said it was modified for the German Bomb... How true that is is another story.