Was Sea Lion possible?

[Axe99]

As far as any RN goes, the crafts (that went 20km/h) would not be noticed until it is too late for any RN units to respond for the first wave, especially if there was a night landing. Also, the RN would use only destroyers and patrol boats against the invasion force as pointed out by the war game. Big ships would stay away from the battle in the fear of Luftwaffe. Admirals did not want to risk a lucky hit on a huge and expensive capital ships that had little to no use in the channel against the small and fast ships anyway. And those ships could be countered by E boats that did fare pretty well against those kind of ships. They sunk 12 destroyers (and around 120 other ships) with little to no loss - they were simply too fast to catch by gun fire and heavy enough that the smaller guns would not harm them.

I can't give you the numbers yet, but it's likely that in 1940 the British would have had more comparable craft to S-Boats - which were very much vulnerable to smaller gun fire (the Brits tended to use their 2pdr (1.6inch/40mm) guns as anti S-Boat weapons). I agree that MTBs and MGBs on both sides would have made quite a fight of it, but the greater number of British boats, even if they had no destroyer support and were just relying on coastal artillery, would have made an invasion hard-going, even if it was using Higgins-boat equivalents (and those final Higgins boats were the third major take the US made at platoon-level landing craft, based on experience gained in the war up to the LCVP (the 'final' wartime Higgins boat produced en-masse).

I do agree that the Germans wouldn't likely need 40,000 of those smaller craft, but even 2000 is a big ask - they only produced 250 S-boats after all.

 

[Vukodav]

I can't give you the numbers yet, but it's likely that in 1940 the British would have had more comparable craft to S-Boats - which were very much vulnerable to smaller gun fire (the Brits tended to use their 2pdr (1.6inch/40mm) guns as anti S-Boat weapons). I agree that MTBs and MGBs on both sides would have made quite a fight of it, but the greater number of British boats, even if they had no destroyer support and were just relying on coastal artillery, would have made an invasion hard-going, even if it was using Higgins-boat equivalents (and those final Higgins boats were the third major take the US made at platoon-level landing craft, based on experience gained in the war up to the LCVP (the 'final' wartime Higgins boat produced en-masse).

I do agree that the Germans wouldn't likely need 40,000 of those smaller craft, but even 2000 is a big ask - they only produced 250 S-boats after all.

Sure, no one said it would be a walk in a park. But all the small German navy had to do is to put up a good fight against the destroyers. For a naval battle, the straights were too narrow for the RN to bring in its full might, even if destroyers are to take part. With mines, S-boats, German destroyers, torpedo boats, bombers and coastal guns it might be possible to provide enough of the cover for an invasion.

And invading an island that just lost most of its heavy weapons does not require the same things as invading a whole continent guarded by a well dug in veteran enemy. So comparing a D-Day with Sea Lion is simply not gonna go. Those two things are not comparable. That would be like comparing the Case Blue and the Market Garden.

Yes, 2000 is a big ask, but I am talking about the Germany that has every intent on invading the UK, so every available factory that could make them, should. It is hard to build them in 4 months, true. But with that amount, Germany would not need any more shipping. Three waves were intended, that number could transport it and sustain the damage projected (20-30%) and later provide the supply. With a single round, those ships could supply between 30 and 40.000 tones of supply, and the calculated supply for the first wave is around 4.000. So after the initial landings the remaining ships could start a supply runs. A few of them in a single day.

What bother me greatly is that, in the War Game of 1974, Germans were not allowed to use the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine saw limited use, no shore batteries were used and barges were. I have yet to see someone explain how do they think that Germans would use a tow barge actually. As you cannot tow it to the shore (it is behind a tow ship), you must push it - good luck with that using ships. But the explanation was very simple - they never intended to. And the testimonies of the high ranking German officers prove that - it was just a ruse, a bluff, in order to bully the UK in a cease fire. Luftwaffe never conducted any operation you would expect from someone who is preparing for an invasion. And even in the Hitler's directive the attack was not ordered, but only the drafting of the plan while the invasion itself was under "if necessary". The order was never actually given. It took him almost a month (after the fall of France) to simply issue a directive requesting the drafting of a plan for a "if necessary" invasion.

The German leaders simply did not want to invade the UK. It was thought that they might sign a cease fire so no destruction of a "friendly nation" would have to happen. And there lies the whole problem.

Although, if they did want to and put their minds to it after the fall of France (but it would be better as soon after the Norway was done), even if they managed to win in the invasion, they would lose early from the Soviets and USA (that would most likely either join early or at least be a lot less neutral in helping). So a victory there would definitely spell the loss of war for them. I am just debating if it was possible to invade, if they had the motivation to do so.

 

[Axe99]

Sure, no one said it would be a walk in a park. But all the small German navy had to do is to put up a good fight against the destroyers. For a naval battle, the straights were too narrow for the RN to bring in its full might, even if destroyers are to take part. With mines, S-boats, German destroyers, torpedo boats, bombers and coastal guns it might be possible to provide enough of the cover for an invasion.

I'm sure the Germans would give it a good shot, but for the invasion to stand a chance of success, the KM doesn't need to 'put up a fight', it needs to make sure those 2000 small boats, probably armed with MGs at best, aren't torn apart by around 200 MTBs and MGBs, however-many destroyers, and likely a CL or two - so the KM needs to get through the destroyers and anything larger and provide a screen against a force that's larger than it in every class except torpedo boat (the Brits just had destroyers and MTBs). The only way I can see that happening (in a 'Germany has just taken France in a 'nearish' to historical situation) is going to have any chance of happening is with a considerably stronger Luftwaffe that's cleared the skies and able to support the naval action, and even then stopping that many ships is a huge ask.

If I were Germany trying to achieve this, I'd probably build 6000 boats, and run two 'fake' invasion waves first, to try and grind down the RN (with aircraft only in the fake waves). If it's just one 'invasion', the Brits have too many boats with guns (and quite a few fast and small boats with guns) to be able to screen against (keep in mind on D-Day, four S-boats managed to get through the Allied naval screen - if four S-boats could penetrate the however-many ships the Allies had floating around - and sink a destroyer - it's likely to be very, very hard for the KM to keep the RN's MTBs out. I'm just theorycrafting, of course - it'd be an awful lot of work and ethically questionable to test in a way that'd give reliable results .

 

[Uniform764]

And invading an island that just lost most of its heavy weapons does not require the same things as invading a whole continent guarded by a well dug in veteran enemy.

Three waves were intended, that number could transport it and sustain the damage projected (20-30%) and later provide the supply. With a single round, those ships could supply between 30 and 40.000 tones of supply, and the calculated supply for the first wave is around 4.000. So after the initial landings the remaining ships could start a supply runs. A few of them in a single day.

Firstly a German invasion in September would be facing about 26 divisions, including armour. Yes those divisions were light on arty, but even so that's 3:1 odds at best for the Germans who are likely light on artillery themselves

Secondly 40,000 tonnes is about half the monthly capacity of ports in North Africa like Benghazi or Tripoli, using proper transport ships and port facilities like cranes. In what universe are you shifting that volume of supplies using small beach assault craft, and what on earth is the RN and RAF doing while several thousand little boats cross the channel repeatedly?

 

[Big Nev]

Actually, no. For a transport of 80.000 soldiers that were required in the first wave, you need 1300-1400 of those boats. Add to that another 20% to account the usual losses in a situation like that, and you have the number of around 2000 crafts for the three waves, not 40.000. Or in the extreme case of 30% loss, and low end capacity of 50 soldiers, it would take you around 2500. This also points that the whole barge thing was nothing but a ruse.

The whole bloody D-Day invasion had 4100 landing crafts and that was for the invasion of the whole continent held by the dug in Germans... and we are talking about the UK with next to no heavy weapons compared to the German army in 1940.

Yet you managed to get the required number to 40.000? Yeah, good job mate, good job. 10 times bigger invasion than a D-Day. Well, you could just sink those in the channel and drive over - RN could hardly do a bloody thing about it. Game over.

So in the end, all of German land factories combined (no shipyards, no airplane factories) had to do is to make 20 of those per day, if we are going for a 4 months period.

Actually, if they did want to invade they would have constructed at least some in the 4 month period after the fall of France, not two prototypes in mid 1941. But there is no way proving to you people that there never was the intention to go and invade UK. To you, it was, and they planned to do it with the barges - so you could crack jokes and bad math. Well, to each his own.

And no, no one talks about a battleship construction problem compared to a tank. We talk about a modified boat. And that does require less work than a tank of the same tonnage.

As far as any RN goes, the crafts (that went 20km/h) would not be noticed until it is too late for any RN units to respond for the first wave, especially if there was a night landing. Also, the RN would use only destroyers and patrol boats against the invasion force as pointed out by the war game. Big ships would stay away from the battle in the fear of Luftwaffe. Admirals did not want to risk a lucky hit on a huge and expensive capital ships that had little to no use in the channel against the small and fast ships anyway. And those ships could be countered by E boats that did fare pretty well against those kind of ships. They sunk 12 destroyers (and around 120 other ships) with little to no loss - they were simply too fast to catch by gun fire and heavy enough that the smaller guns would not harm them.

Both the UK and Germany used them to a great extent against any big ships in the channel, yet no one even mentions the German ones.

Combine it with mines and dive bombers and Germany just might fight off RN destroyer/boat screen that would try to stop the second and the third wave.

Yeah, that’s right. D-Day was conducted by about 4,100 landing craft.

But the thing is, considdering your profession, I would expect you to know better than to make assumptions.

And you’ve assumed that all landing craft are created equal.

They were not.

Let’s compare specifications.

LCA: 9 tons, 36 troops, 6kts. #1,500+
LCI: 234 tons, capacity 200 troops, 16kts. #800+
LCT Mk III: 640 tons, 5 Shermans or 300 tons of cargo, 9kts. #200+
LCT Mk IV: 586 tons, 9 Shermans or 6 Churchills or 350 tons of cargo. #800+
LCT Mk V: 286 tons, 4 Shermans or 3 Churchills or 150 tons of cargo. # 400+
Pilabos 39: 20 tons, 20 tons of cargo, 10½kts.
Pilabos 40: 30 tons, 20 tons of cargo, 9kts.
Pilabos 41: 35 tons, 40 tons of cargo, 8kts

So yeah. The Allied landing craft used during D-Day were, on average, about 12 times the size of the Pilabos 39. That makes my factor of 10 pretty-much bang on doesn’t it?

Yes. Good job.

And those landing craft were not alone.

Apart from the 700+ “ancillary” vessels.

There were almost 900 merchant ships, just a couple of miles off shore, that the landing craft made repeated trips to, in order to pick-up more men, tanks, trucks, etc. etc.

Something the German landing craft could only do, maybe once a day. Current, tides, weather (Royal Navy) permitting.

And…

(and this is the best bit)

almost 1,000 of the destroyer-sized, ocean-going LSTs which could deliver 140+ troops or 15 Sherman tanks directly to a beach after sailing all the way from the USA.

I have no idea how many men you could pack in to one of these things on a channel, rather than Atlantic, crossing, but I would expect it to be a lot.

But going with 140, that’s capacity for the 80,000 first wave of Sealion troops using less than 600 LSTs. So the remainder can land 6,000 tanks without ever going near any landing craft.



Now THIS is something I agree with.

What bother me greatly is that, in the War Game of 1974, Germans were not allowed to use the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine saw limited use, no shore batteries were used and barges were. I have yet to see someone explain how do they think that Germans would use a tow barge actually. As you cannot tow it to the shore (it is behind a tow ship), you must push it - good luck with that using ships. But the explanation was very simple - they never intended to.

I've posted about it in other, earlier threads.

The entire Sealion thing was a huge bluff.

 

[blue_yonder]

After reading this thread, I find myself wondering whether someone in Whitehall ever considered a reverse-fortitude deception, losing the BoB on purpose and doing everything it could to invite the tugboats over.

 

[Big Nev]

After reading this thread, I find myself wondering whether someone in Whitehall ever considered a reverse-fortitude deception, losing the BoB on purpose and doing everything it could to invite the tugboats over.

Sucker the Wehrmacht in to loosing the war you mean?

No. It would have been politically unacceptable to allow a single German boot (however briefly) on English soil.

And, mental as you like, I doubt that even Uncle Adolf was that bad a poker player.


Bessides, I think we've agreed a concensus that Uncle Adolf was bluffing anyway.

 

[blue_yonder]

Sucker the Wehrmacht in to loosing the war you mean?

well, I do hope intel and deception will be possible in the game after a few expansions - 'never has so much been owed to planes which gave up after a couple of days and parked in East Anglia..'

 

[Big Nev]

well, I do hope intel and deception will be possible in the game after a few expansions - 'never has so much been owed to planes which gave up after a couple of days and parked in East Anglia..'

PMSL

Yes.

...parked in East Anglia, along with 12 group, chomping at the bit, just waiting for The Off.

It's an interesting idea but if you were to do that in multi-player, I'm pretty sure you'd get slagged off.

Probably not as much as a German player who fell for it though.

Against the AI?

Well... yeah. The AI is (or at least was) a sucker.

People forget that the BoB was fought almost entirely by 11 group and there was a 10, 12 & 13.




11 Group squadrons. 14 Hurricane, 7 Spitfire.
10 Group squadrons. 5 Hurricane, 3 Spitfire.
12 Group squadrons. 7 Hurricane, 6 Spitfire.
13 Group squadrons. 7 Hurricane, 2 Spitfire.

(I've only listed the Spit's & Hurricanes. There were more types with other jobs to do)

 

[Swinds]

PMSL

Yes.

...parked in East Anglia, along with 12 group, chomping at the bit, just waiting for The Off.

It's an interesting idea but if you were to do that in multi-player, I'm pretty sure you'd get slagged off.

Probably not as much as a German player who fell for it though.

Against the AI?

Well... yeah. The AI is (or at least was) a sucker.

People forget that the BoB was fought almost entirely by 11 group and there was a 10, 12 & 13.




11 Group squadrons. 14 Hurricane, 7 Spitfire.
10 Group squadrons. 5 Hurricane, 3 Spitfire.
12 Group squadrons. 7 Hurricane, 6 Spitfire.
13 Group squadrons. 7 Hurricane, 2 Spitfire.

(I've only listed the Spit's & Hurricanes. There were more types with other jobs to do)

How could you miss the Defiants of 264 Sqn and 141 Sqn and the Gladiators of 263 in Plymouth jokin

 

[Swinds]

I noticed that the aircraft are grouped in .... groups (amount of aircraft assigned to a groups)

 

[Director]

Well, Vukovdav, someone needs to talk about logic and academic approach to you because you clearly are out of your field of study and either have no idea what nonsense you're saying or you just like the shock value. Most people in your situation would say, "I'm sorry, I mis-spoke," , or "Perhaps I overstated," and we'd get on with it. But if you actually, really believe the a-bomb had no effect on WW2, and would have had no effect had it been dropped on Moscow or London, then there is no response I can make to you that the forum rules will permit. If a historian told you that bombarding an element with high-velocity particles would make absolutely no difference to any element, you'd say they were uninformed or reasoning incorrectly, out of their field and out of their depth.

I am only an amateur historian. You are uninformed or reasoning incorrectly. You are out of your field and out of your depth. I shall henceforth ignore you on that topic.

I don't think moving men and cargo in U-boats is reasonable because they aren't large enough. The cargo subs were too big to maneuver, too easily detectable and impossible to unload military cargo in any reasonable amount of time in any port the Germans could reasonably capture. A fishing village won't do it. And the fuel cost would be high. Oh, and good luck trying to convince Hitler or Doenitz and Raeder to give up the one naval weapon they have with a proven chance of working - not politically do-able (and they'd have been right to shoot you down).

Had they put their mind and will to SeaLion, as you say, it would have failed. If you divert the resources to SeaLion then there's no Fall of France, no occupation of the Netherlands and Belgium, and no bloody place to launch the invasion from. The consensus verdict is that you can't have both panzers in France and landing craft (and naval airpower over the Channel) for SeaLion, and launching an invasion from, say, Emden and Wilhelmshaven is simply infeasible. Big Nev made some good points here.

What makes me mad is that some commentators here think of Germans as a retarded toddlers who just happened to have some big guns.

Nope. Don't think they're supermen either. Think they're men like everyone else and subject to the laws of economics and production like everyone else. Subject to the laws of feasibility, human failing and occasional flashes of brilliance like everyone else. Go back and read this thread; if you have, it hasn't registered: there's no-one here calling Germans retarded or infantile, or assuming they are anything but scarily competent.

Did you not read the part where we talked about their existing design for landing craft being unusably bad? And why, for that reason and because they didn't have the time or resources to build them, they went with barges?

Sure they could have done a lot if they had been able to see the perfect path to victory in 1933. They'd have nuclear weapons in 1939 and jest in 1941 and flying tanks in 1945, I guess. But it is not reasonable for a German Army just recovering from the Versailles Treaty to say, "You know, we could have twenty more infantry divisions and artillery and tanks and stuff, and airplanes and battleships and all, but we're going to build landing craft and cargo subs instead. So what if France takes the Rhineland and Poland invades East Prussia? We'll be set to launch an invasion of England from ports so far away that it must surely fail - and England will never, ever see us building all these landing craft and cargo subs and prepare to greet us. This can't possibly work - we'll do it!!!" I mean, what do you think they are, retarded toddlers?

I really do not know what WAS discussed here

At last, we agree.

For a transport of 80.000 soldiers that were required in the first wave

No, the German Army plan required 13 divisions and they were refusing to execute unless that could be provided. For goodness sake, at least show that you know the difference between the Army and Navy plans.

Nope, I'm out. Wanted a discussion, got an argument with someone who doesn't understand the difference between theory and practice.

 

[angelosnau]

I don't think that it was possible and that's why it wasn't done.They Germans needed huge air and naval superiority.They had neither.They were a bit better than the British in the air and far inferior at sea. You can't invade an island without a navy. The english channel would quickly become the tomb of many Germans. The minor German air superiority was largely cancelled due to the fact that the fight took place over Britain,which gave the British a huge advantage. On the other hand if Britain wasn't an island,it would have probably fallen by June-July 1940.

 

[druebey1]

I was trying to think of a Gettysburg thing, but my knowledge of the American War of Independence is somewhat limited.

WOT?

Firstly, Japan was giving the RN a hard time. PoW & Repulse, the three week Indian Ocean cruise. So that's already in-place, it just needs to be brought forward a year or so. Is this possible? Doubtful, but a definite maybe.

Italy was trying. But their battleships had crap main armament and the high command were all but useless. The navy was up for it, but were held back by poor equipment, poor doctrine & (IMHO) even poorer leadership.

Now, all that said, even if the German allies manage to achieve more victories at sea (which basically means, somehow, getting half the Kido Butai in to the Med') there is still this...

Multiple naval losses of capital ships which require the re-distribution of RN heavy units isn't going to seriously deplete the 100+ destroyers that are on-hand to defend the English Chanel. Move the battleships to where they are needed, support them with an appropriate screening force and the RN still has those hundred destroyers (and God only knows how many smaller craft) to fight what? Scharnhorst, Gneisenau a CA & a handful of destroyers & E-boats? Keep the Renown & Repulse at Pembroke (there was a MASSIVE RAF flying boat base there so... positioning a squadron of Hurricanes there to protect them wouldn't be a problem) or Scapa Flow so that they are available to intercept the German battlecruisers if they sortie.

Bismarck still needs to be countered when she's finished, but Hood, PoW and a few other BBs can be retained and, if you wait that long (end Sept 1940), you've probably waited too long. You don't want to be conducting any kind of naval op' in the English Chanel in October or later. Really you don't.


So, even if Germany has managed to build a few thousand proper landing craft, the RN doesn't need BBs to defend the island. With the light units they had (which would always be expected to do the heavy lifting anyway) it would still be over very very quickly and it wouldn't end well for the Wehrmacht.

IMHO of course

Civil war.... Not American War of independence.

 

[melkor88]

There has been a number of wargames which have shown that if the Germans had landed they wouldn't last more then a few weeks, as they would not be able to supply their troops, get many more men into England afterwards, and the numbers they would be up against would be too much, even for the more highly skilled troops.

 

[Secret Master]

Bessides, I think we've agreed a concensus that Uncle Adolf was bluffing anyway.

No, I don't think so.

I think Sea Lion fits in the same pattern as Operation Tannenbaum. It's a "plan" in the sense that some of the time, he really was serious, and other times, he was in a better mood. His mercurial nature, in my mind, makes me think that at some points, he really thought it might happen.

And before someone chimes in with "But the plan was ludicrous compared to Tannenbaum!", I'd like to point out that Hitler was no stranger to bizarre and impossible plans. This is the same guy who thought the Luftwaffe could supply the forces at Stalingrad, even after Goering had been demonstrated to be overly optimistic in his assessments after the Battle of Britain.

 

[Uniform764]

This is the same guy who thought the Luftwaffe could supply the forces at Stalingrad, even after Goering had been demonstrated to be overly optimistic in his assessments after the Battle of Britain.

In his defence, which is not something we say of then about His Adolfship, wasn't that based on the proof of principle at the Demyansk pocket, and the issue was with the increased scale at Stalingrad, combined with increased Soviet air power and greater strain on th supply chain generally?

 

[Secret Master]

In his defence, which is not something we say of then about His Adolfship, wasn't that based on the proof of principle at the Demyansk pocket, and the issue was with the increased scale at Stalingrad, combined with increased Soviet air power and greater strain on th supply chain generally?

Yes, except that the size and scope of the operations were vastly different, and there would be no need to supply the forces in Stalingrad if they were simply allowed to slowly withdraw before the encirclement happened. Stalingrad was not even the most important part of the offensive. If the 6th Army had been sitting on the Caucus oil fields, then I might have more sympathy.

 

[agus92]

Don't shoot me for my opinion

BANG!!!

(sorry, had to)

 

[Vukodav]

Well, Vukovdav, someone needs to talk about logic and academic approach to you because you clearly are out of your field of study and either have no idea what nonsense you're saying or you just like the shock value. Most people in your situation would say, "I'm sorry, I mis-spoke," , or "Perhaps I overstated," and we'd get on with it. But if you actually, really believe the a-bomb had no effect on WW2, and would have had no effect had it been dropped on Moscow or London, then there is no response I can make to you that the forum rules will permit. If a historian told you that bombarding an element with high-velocity particles would make absolutely no difference to any element, you'd say they were uninformed or reasoning incorrectly, out of their field and out of their depth.

I am only an amateur historian. You are uninformed or reasoning incorrectly. You are out of your field and out of your depth. I shall henceforth ignore you on that topic.

I don't think moving men and cargo in U-boats is reasonable because they aren't large enough. The cargo subs were too big to maneuver, too easily detectable and impossible to unload military cargo in any reasonable amount of time in any port the Germans could reasonably capture. A fishing village won't do it. And the fuel cost would be high. Oh, and good luck trying to convince Hitler or Doenitz and Raeder to give up the one naval weapon they have with a proven chance of working - not politically do-able (and they'd have been right to shoot you down).

Had they put their mind and will to SeaLion, as you say, it would have failed. If you divert the resources to SeaLion then there's no Fall of France, no occupation of the Netherlands and Belgium, and no bloody place to launch the invasion from. The consensus verdict is that you can't have both panzers in France and landing craft (and naval airpower over the Channel) for SeaLion, and launching an invasion from, say, Emden and Wilhelmshaven is simply infeasible. Big Nev made some good points here.



Nope. Don't think they're supermen either. Think they're men like everyone else and subject to the laws of economics and production like everyone else. Subject to the laws of feasibility, human failing and occasional flashes of brilliance like everyone else. Go back and read this thread; if you have, it hasn't registered: there's no-one here calling Germans retarded or infantile, or assuming they are anything but scarily competent.

Did you not read the part where we talked about their existing design for landing craft being unusably bad? And why, for that reason and because they didn't have the time or resources to build them, they went with barges?

Sure they could have done a lot if they had been able to see the perfect path to victory in 1933. They'd have nuclear weapons in 1939 and jest in 1941 and flying tanks in 1945, I guess. But it is not reasonable for a German Army just recovering from the Versailles Treaty to say, "You know, we could have twenty more infantry divisions and artillery and tanks and stuff, and airplanes and battleships and all, but we're going to build landing craft and cargo subs instead. So what if France takes the Rhineland and Poland invades East Prussia? We'll be set to launch an invasion of England from ports so far away that it must surely fail - and England will never, ever see us building all these landing craft and cargo subs and prepare to greet us. This can't possibly work - we'll do it!!!" I mean, what do you think they are, retarded toddlers?



At last, we agree.



No, the German Army plan required 13 divisions and they were refusing to execute unless that could be provided. For goodness sake, at least show that you know the difference between the Army and Navy plans.

Nope, I'm out. Wanted a discussion, got an argument with someone who doesn't understand the difference between theory and practice.

You simply fail to understand the situation in which the bomb would have been dropped. In 1944, the Soviets already crushed the eastern armies and were in Poland. Even if you kill whole STAVKA and destroy Moscow it would not change the outcome of the war. There would be some effects, just none on the war that was drawing to a close anyway. On London it would have a bigger effect, yet again not a war changing one.

You were only talking about casualties that would result from the bombs, yet you have not said a thing how that would impact the war itself. Simply, it would not. Two main forces were the USA and the USSR, both would not be affected to a great enough extent in order to change something in favor for Germany. USA would not affected at all, while in Soviet Union, most of the people actually conducting the war did not sit in Moscow, main production factories were in the east, rail link was big enough that even a loss of Moscow would not change a thing. It might come as a shock, it might create power vacuum after the war if everyone important is killed, but the war would go on as it did.

And that is very much my field, the effective use of nuclear weapons is one of the things you learn.

After all, it is well debated on this forum that the loss of Moscow even in 1941 after the series of losses would not make the USSR surrender. A loss of Moscow in 1944 would affect the Soviet conduct of war even less so. Funny enough, you only refer to the forum when it fits your view - but when the same people talk about a Sea Lion being a bluff, never actually prepared, and the overall value of Moscow in the war, you skip that part. Smart.

And as far as Sea Lion goes, first of all, if you have bothered to read the thread, you would see that the main reason the operation would have failed is because it was never ever going to be one - Germans did not want it or as you said "not politically do-able". And no, it is not a question of tanks for France or landing craft - the tanks for the France campaign were manufactured a couple of months prior to the invasion itself so that gives you around 6 months to shift the production if you want to. Also, Germany did not shift to a full military production until the mid war, so the capacity was not fully used during that time.

What I thought would be discussed is the German capacity as the second biggest economy in the world at the time to construct things needed for an invasion and possibilities in its staging. Instead, I have seen nothing of the sort, just some out of the place comparisons and inflexible thoughts. Some have yet to realize that there was never the actual plan for an invasion - only a ruse to bully the UK into a cease fire. And as pointed out before, if there was ever even a slightest intention of Germans to stage an invasion, you would see at least some of the landing crafts being built (at least for testing) and some greater modifications on the barges. They would not create only two prototypes a year later.

And one more thing I find amusing - the overall tone here is that, the fall of France was a lucky shot and that both the UK invasion and the war with the USSR would not have worked except maybe in the wildest dreams. Then I wonder, why is the game even created if Germany was so out of place in this war? From the looks of it, the war has been decided in 1939 already, so all that fighting already had a final destination.