Could it have been successful? Operation SEALION

[DoyleG]

Could've the German invasion of England been successful?

If so, what would the aftermath would've been.

[Toon³]

If the Germans had beaten the British in the Battle of Britain I still think that a successful land would have been a long shot. The Home Fleet then was one of, if not the most powerful naval group on the planet. It's presents at the time of any German landing, even with German air superiority would have caused major damage to the invading force.

So lets say that the Germans did establish a beachhead in southern england. There is still a considerble British force waiting for them, it is clear where the Germans would land so a quick powerful counter-attack is a real possiblility and because of the limited German transport vessals, tanks would not land in force for 2-3 days after the initial landings.

So the Germans repulse the British counter-attack and have a strong invading force with tanks and aircover. They now have to capture London which will be attempted to be held by the British at all costs. It is at the time, one of the top 5 largest cities in the world. Any fighting in London will take months to win, even if they surround the city and force a siege.

If they do capture London, the government has already been moved and will continue to function and communications in Britian allow the government to function from nearly anywhere in the country.

Another factor is that because they are invading from the south, the heavy war industries of the Midlands, North East, North West, Scotland and Belfast are left in British hands. There capactiy for production would allow the British to continue to be supplied during any fighting.

Also the Germans would have to capture all of the Britain, the country unlike France would not surrender after a portion of the country was captured. The Germans would have to fight threw the large urban areas of Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. This would cost them time and men.

The British could also call on huge reinforcements from India, Canada, Australia and South Africa. There is no doubt that these division would be brought to Britain and would allow the British to match the Germans in numbers or men deployed in battle.

The invasion of Britain would be, in my opinion, a failure because of the time it would take to capture Britain. I cannot see the entire island falling before the Americans enter the war in Dec. 1941, and when that happens any invasion will be destined to be a failure.

[russ]

A key factor in all this is the failure of the germans to direct their initial air attacks on the RAF airfields until they had been sufficiently reduced to make attacks on cities (specifically industral capacity)more successful.A successful bombing campaign would have required Britain to sue for peace which Hitler probably would have accepted,since his main focus was always on Russia.

[Pauncho]

I have to disagree with the second half of your analysis. The re-direction of Luftwaffe efforts from destroying the RAF to the Blitz on industrial capacity was the key failure of efforts to invade Britain in the summer of 1940. If the Luftwaffe had kept to its initial plan of challenging and defeating the RAF in the skies over southern England, they could have driven the Royal Navy from the Straits of Dover in daylight which would have made their (actually pretty feeble) sea transport capacity adequate to their needs - especially in June and July of 1940, when the remnants of the army had almost no heavy equipment because it had all been left behind at Dunkirk.

[CrewDust]

No, all would have taken was a handful of destroyers to get into the channel to decimate any attempted cross channel invasion. The hope was that air attacks would be enough to force a negotiated peace with Britian.

[nicephoras]

Of course. It would just have been really expensive in terms of men and materiel.

[minorthreat]

Another factor is that because they are invading from the south, the heavy war industries of the Midlands, North East, North West, Scotland and Belfast are left in British hands. There capactiy for production would allow the British to continue to be supplied during any fighting.For what it's worth, Belfast was almost leveled during the BOB.

[Toon³]

For what it's worth, Belfast was almost leveled during the BOB.

But the shipyards were still functional. Which was the most important thing.

[spejic]

Because Germany did not have industry anywhere close to America's, it did not have our ability to create specially designed boats and ships for the purpose of amphibous operations. What they were going to use were river and canal barges. But these were not designed for open seas, and swamped easily - the wash from a destoyer would do it. And the soldiers would have to bear a 30 hour trip in those things. While being towed (2 barges per tug) with a thousand others, all in close formation at night time with the only signalling being done by shouting. And once the troops land, they have to wait 10 days for the barges to return to France, get loaded with supplies, and come back again, while being under attack from air and sea forces all the time.

As it was, the planning and testing totally disrupted industry all along the Rhine and got 10% of all the barges sunk from RAF bombing.

[DoyleG]

The ability of the RN to stop and invasion rested on the RAF winning control of the skies. The Navy learned that Sea power was useless if control of the skies wasn't possible. They wouldn't have the freedom of movement they needed.

[Toon³]

The ability of the RN to stop and invasion rested on the RAF winning control of the skies. The Navy learned that Sea power was useless if control of the skies wasn't possible. They wouldn't have the freedom of movement they needed.

But the size of the Home Fleet and the crapness (couldn't think of another word) of the German landing craft, which were just river barges, would have ment that even if the Germans had air superiority, the RN would have inflicted enough damage to completey halt the landings or make it so the amount of German troops that landed could be defeated by the Army.

[Owen Gohl]

The odds against Sealion were very great. Here are only some of the reasons:

1. Germany had no experience in amphibious operations, aside from making some largely unopposed landings on Baltic islands during World War I. They had no landing craft in the Allied sense of the term. They had no marines (their so-called naval infantry did little more than guard shore installations).

2. Germany had lost about half its small surface navy in the Norwegian campaign (10 DDs at Narvik alone) and the surviving force would have been incapable of keeping the Home Fleet out of the Channel.

3. Germany only had one airborne divsion, which had just suffered considerable losses in Holland (its commander had been seriously wounded). By comparison, the Allies deployed three such divisions on D-Day. In any case, attempted airborne landings would have run into significant RAF opposition.

4. Even if Fighter Command had been wiped out RAF Bomber Command was largely intact and would have been attacking the beacheads day and night.

5. Aside from a few semi-amphibious tanks the Germans would have had no armor in the first wave. As they had no LSTs they would have found it difficult to move tanks across the Channel. They also would have had difficulty shipping and landing any artillery pieces over 75mm.

6. The Germans lacked the means to keep the beachheads adequately supplied and would have had great difficulty mounting a breakout. They had no plans for artificial harbors or pipelines across the Channel, both of which played a crucial part in supplying Allied operations in Normandy four years later.

7. As their intelligence was very poor (e.g., they considerably overestimated RAF losses) the Germans would have had little knowledge as which beaches were the most heavily defended or the proximity of British reserves to the beaches. British counter-intelligence had already captured or "turned" all German agents in Britain, which limited Germany to signals intelligence and aerial photographs.

8. The British were reading the German army and air force codes and thus would have had fairly detailed knowledge of German operational plans.

[Bluto11]

4. Even if Fighter Command had been wiped out RAF Bomber Command was largely intact and would have been attacking the beacheads day and night.




obviously the Germans would not have tried to invade unless they were successful with the Battle of Britain.


good points!

[spejic]

The ability of the RN to stop and invasion rested on the RAF winning control of the skies. The Navy learned that Sea power was useless if control of the skies wasn't possible. They wouldn't have the freedom of movement they needed.You mean like how the Germans had almost total control of the airspace over Dunkirk, and they were only able to sink 4 out of 39 destroyers that happened to be stationary for long periods while taking on troops? I don't think they would do better when the targets were not bottled up in a tiny harbor and could maneuver. In 1940 Germany did not have the power to meaningfully affect naval actions with their air force. Besides, the British had more fighters at the time and the British were building more so the gap kept getting bigger. It wasn't likely that the German air force could fight off the British fighters and bombers at the same time as protecting their own bombers.

[DoyleG]

5 of the 9 destroyers lost at Dunkirk were lost due to air attack even when the Luftwaffe didn't have full air superiority. The Germans knew that getting the RAF out of the invasion area was important and we know that the RAF were considering pulling their aircraft away from the south to avoid further losses.

The RN knew from Norway that Sea Power was limited when the Germans even held a marginal air superiority. Complete control by the Luftwaffe would mean further losses for the RN if they were even to try and stop a German invasion.

[CrewDust]

5 of the 9 destroyers lost at Dunkirk were lost due to air attack even when the Luftwaffe didn't have full air superiority. The Germans knew that getting the RAF out of the invasion area was important and we know that the RAF were considering pulling their aircraft away from the south to avoid further losses.

The RN knew from Norway that Sea Power was limited when the Germans even held a marginal air superiority. Complete control by the Luftwaffe would mean further losses for the RN if they were even to try and stop a German invasion.

The difference is the RN's destroyers would not have to been stuck in one area for a long time like they were during the evacuation. Plus if they sent 20 only six or seven would have been needed to lay waste to the barges. Plus they could have thrown Motor Torpedo boats against the invasion which would have been really hard to destroy from the air.

[96Squig]

I think what you all fail to see that after all, taking Britain was not Hitler's plan. He wanted to share world power (at least for then) with Britain and was always favouring a peace treaty. Plus the Germany population still felt quite positive to the british, as opposed to the French, Polish or Russian. Had also to do with Hitler's twisted teachings, the English were considered part of the 'Herrenrasse'.

I don't think sealion would have worked.

[nicephoras]

Germany's only hope was to starve Britain. And they came dangerously close, actually.

[Anthony]

I think the answer if "Who KNows" -- it could have gone either way.

I'm a member of the Churchill Center here in the US, and the "conventional wisdom" among the Churchill scholars is that it woul dhave been an uneven fight -- had the Germans managed to land, it would have been over quickly. The British Army lost all their heavy weapons at Dunkirk, and while they were training a new army, they barely had enough weapons for the old army.

That said, I have seen other scholars claim that the Germans lack of sealift capacity and a surface fleet, along with the Germans poor airlift capacity, would have cut off the German landing and allowed the British to starve out the Germans.

I am just glad we never learned that outcome.

[spejic]

I'm a member of the Churchill Center here in the US, and the "conventional wisdom" among the Churchill scholars is that it woul dhave been an uneven fight -- had the Germans managed to land, it would have been over quickly.That's a really big if. Sure if the Germans could manage to land the 9 divisions planned it would have been big trouble for England. But you saw how much trouble it was to land only 4 on D-Day, and that was with the combined economic force of America, England and Canada. And even if the defenders were short of artillery and tanks, the invaders would have absolutly none of these until at least the second landing. For the first 10 or so days the only support they would get would be Stukas, which we know would have been a failure.

Sealion was not a military plan. It was a wish.