Operation 'Sea Lion'

[Sir John]

......and to complement Swampy's thread on Dunkirk, I give you the following claim,

Hitlers Operation 'Sea Lion' would have been a disasterous failure.

The Germans would have been very lucky to get a few planeloads of paras onto English soil, and NIL of her 'sea borne' troops.

Reason 1. The Royal Navy Home Fleet.

Reason 2. RAF Fighter Command.

Reason 3. The 300,000 troops saved at Dunkirk all rested and patched up, would have had a "turkey shoot".

Reason 4. Winston Churchill, the original 'British Bulldog!


SJ

[Swampy]

Last, but certainly not least, the Germans didn't have the necessary landing craft. As Churchill said, the Allies couldn't have done it without air and naval superiority, so neither could the Germans.

[Sir John]

Yes, If Germany had had 1000 or two of 'Higgins boats' she MAY have done a bit better, but the RN would still have blown them out of the water.

Ten (10) destroyers, and a couple of cruisers, would never have been able to defend the invasion fleet against the RN.

SJ

[boxcar]

The waters in the English Channel are some of the choppiest in the world. I had to cross that section twice and was never so sick. From the pictures I have seen of the Normandy invasion, the currents seemed to be much milder closer to shore.

[Swampy]

One RN destroyer cut loose on the German barges would have wrought havoc.

[Sir John]

Swampy,

As Matthias will probably confirm, Rhine barges are generally UNpowered, and only about one in 3, I think, were powered.

The powered ones were supposed to tow the un-powered ones to just off the English beaches, then unhook and PUSH them through the surf to the shore. These barges only had about 18" of freeboard to cope with some very rough seas, and I expect that even if they did by some miracle get that close, most would have drowned right there.

This was well known to the RN, and one of the main tactics was to charge about shooting up the sea-sick soldiers and swamping them with bow waves.

SJ

[Deleted]

One needs keep in mind that the Germans had U-Boats which might have had an impact on the RN , had there been a Sea Lion , may have had had I said . Perhaps the Germans looked at the history of the cluster f--k of Gallipoli and called it off , one can learn a lot from history .

[Sir John]

The English Channel is NOT good submarine country, far too shallow.

And with over 60 Destroyers and about 80 Frigates in the Home Fleet, they would not stand a chance. In mid 1940 Germany had about 60 subs all up.'



SJ

[Swampy]

The subs can prey on merchant shipping, but they never had a chance against the warships of the RN - that's why the RN could bottle up the Graf Spee, and that's why the subs never sank the battleships.

[mcnoch]

"Op Sea Lion" would have been a disaster and many Wehrmachts officers send some of the freed French Champaign bottles to their Luftwaffen-counterparts as little thank you for failing again.

Germany has a lot of ships suitable for the continental-river canals, but they were not able to operate across the English Canal. Adolf Hitler and the GHQ had to true understanding of the complexity of such an undertaking.

[Deleted]

I belive it was a sub that sank the Royal Oak , or Royal something , the Empire had so many Royals floating around I can't keep up .

[mcnoch]

Feb 25, 2013 21:55:31 GMT -5 Swampy said:

The subs can prey on merchant shipping, but they never had a chance against the warships of the RN - that's why the RN could bottle up the Graf Spee, and that's why the subs never sank the battleships.

Well, some of the big ships became the prey of the German submarines:
HMS Courageous
HMS Royal Oak
HMS Ark Royal
and cruisers and destroyers suffered a lot of looses.

[Sir John]

It was common for RN BBs to be named for Royal Family members (King George 5th, or "KGV") or Titles (Prince of Wales or "POW").

Same as the USN with BBs named for States etc. Submarines for fish, and Cruisers for State capitols.

So far we have no RAN ship named 'Sir John', but i await with great expectations.



SJ