aspqrz02
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quote:
ORIGINAL: mind_messing
What's more, they assumed that the Germans didn't yet have control of the airspace, which is a fairly big assumption concerning the topic. There are various other issues that you can nickpick (like the Royal Navy not commiting major surface ships - the RN destroyers are just going to beat the KM heavy surface units on their own?), but that's the main issue.
Was it possible for Sealion to succeed? Yes.
Was it likely to suceed? That would depend on who won control of the airspace.
Sadly, none of these points hold up in the real world.
1) Airspace Control. The RAF had, to that point, committed only 55% of their total strength to the Battle of Britain, the rest were north of the unescorted Luftwaffe Bomber range line and therefore virtually untouchable.
With only 55% of their forces, the RAF were winning ... slowly, sure, but winning nonethless.
If Sealion was staged, then sortieing the remaining 45% of RAF strength south is a doddle.
Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe has to do three things simultaneously ...
a) Maintain air superiority* over SE England
b) Maintain air supremacy* over the Channel
c) Act as artillery to support the Wehrmacht, who were to be landed with nothing heavier than mortars.
(There is a difference between these. Supremacy means making sure NO RAF AT ALL appears over the Channel, so vulnerable were the Barges)
Historically, they were unable to do even ONE of these things. Against 55% of the RAF strength.
Splitting their forces three ways? Snowballs in hell would have a better chance of succeeding.
KM Heavy Units?
WHAT KM Heavy Units?
NO BBs in service, NO BCs serviceable, NO Pocket Battleships serviceable, 1 Heavy Cruiser (possibly), 1 Light Cruiser.
The RN Home Fleet alone had 50 destroyers, 21 cruisers and 8 battleships, and that does not include the Channel Squadron nor does it include the Western Approaches Command, the former entirely in the Channel area and the latter with significant elements available for deployment there.
The Home Fleet could easily have steamed south from Scapa Flow and attacked the German Barges at night, when the Luftwaffe would have been quite useless and then retreated northwards far enough to be outside the escorted Bomber range for the Luftwaffe by daylight, under an RAF umbrella.
They wouldn't have even have needed to fire their guns, just do a high speed pass along the line of barges ... which, when loaded, had such a low freeboard (about 6") that the wake of the passing ships would have swamped them!
And, of course, what most people don't know is that the forces the Germans landed were not to be resupplied or reinforced for THREE WEEKS after the landing. That was their 'plan' ... assuming any barges survived, which, given the level of seamanship displayed by the barge crews (there weren't enough spare sailors to man them all, let alone man them adequately), is not terribly likely.
No, Sealion was a joke, and the Kriegsmarine, at least, knew it ... on Wehrmacht wish fulfilment planning papers the Kriegsmarine Officers were reduced to scrawling nasty comments on their ancestry and intelligence, evidently, because they were forbidden by Hitler to actually say anything that would show the operation to be impossible ... which they KNEW it was.
Phil
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Author, Space Opera (FGU); RBB #1 (FASA); Road to Armageddon; Farm, Forge and Steam; Orbis Mundi; Displaced (PGD) ---------------------------------------------- Email: aspqrz@tpg.com.au |
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RE: ot - Kenneth Macksey bok about nazi invazion to uk ... - 
Relatively high level descriptions of what it is and what it does is my limit..... 
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