"Operation Sealion... Invasion of Britain" Topic

Has anybody gamed this what if? scenario and how did it turn out?

I've tried a few of the Lardies Sealion scenarios. Didn't run them to completion however.

Lardies = Two Fat Lardies (I Ain't Been Shot Mum)

I'm busy building forces for thsi in 10mm……

A member of the Blitzkrieg commander website has done a campaign

PDF link

MH
:-)

One of the definitive games of this was run at Sandhurst in 1973 as a proper military exericse using the historical OBs, plans and weather for September 1940. The umpires included Adolf Galland and Vice Admiral Ruge.

It was dramatised in 'Sealion' by Richard Cox (I think). The Germans got ashore and pushed inland but then somewhat unsurprisingly had their supply routes cut to pieces by the RN and they were eventually thrown back into the sea.

I've played it out as a boardgame using several versions. Of these the most detailed was GDW's "Their Finest Hour" which (IIRC) included bombing barges as the invasion fleet built up. It went pretty much as Martin described: you need to take out the RN from the equation, and even then things are tricky.

Justin
I'd agree that is a more likely alternate history, but from a wargaming point of view, Sealion is extremely attractive. All the fun of 1940's Blitzkrieg amongst English lanes and villages; fallschirmjager being hunted down by the Home Guard; limited number of combatants with tiny tanks fighting over towns whose names we can pronounce. And it is fictional, so no-one knows what 'should' happen. What's not to like? I say let's continue the tradition of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth at Maldon and LET the Germans come over the Channel, so we can beat them in a fair fight!

"..beat them in a fair fight.."

I'm not sure the Huns would be up for that;-)

Last year the SOTCW (Society of twentieth century Wargamers) magazine – The Journal had a themed issue on Sealion with 7 scenarios.

sotcw.net

I've done one figure game. It was a para drop to secure a couple of vital bridges inland of the beach invasion. Owing to my usual crap luck, the equipment canisters for my Fallschirmjaegers fell in the river and the Home Guard Lewis gun in the pillbox by the railway bridge wiped out any attempt to salvage them. Without any decent arms I was forced to skulk in some hedgerows and hope for the Wehrmacht to come and rescue me.
I've also boardgamed Sealion several times in the dim and distant past. Always the same result; the Germans get ashore and overrun most of Kent/Sussex. They then get their supply lines cut and the invasion withers away. It got too boring to keep playing.

Interesting idea for a game – I really like the early war period – as noted, tiny tanks in villages you have never heard of

As for a fair fight – as I recall, if you wanted a fair fight, don't call the Fallschrimjager

The Fallschirmjaeger had had a mixed experience in Norway and Holland, and that was without facing Captain Mainwaring or indeed, Big Martin :o)

They don't like it up 'em!

There was a campaign in an Issue of Battlegames Magazine (five scenarios) recently.

In July, S-2 Shop Productions released Operation Sealion: The miniature operational campaign guide, Volume 1. Operation Sealion was Hitler's planned invasion of England in 1940, following the fall of France.

I use the book, Invasion: The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England, July 1940
by Kenneth Macksey as a basis for my SEALION.

The Germans launch the invasion just after Dunkirk.
The take advantage of the lack of time to rearm the British troops but the Germans must capture ports for the invasion as the lack specialist equipment.

The early battles follow the book, the Germans making rapid gains paratroops capturing ports and airfields.

However, the British were using a scorched earth policy, destroying fuel rather than letting it fall into enemy hands and a storm prevented the Germans from re-enforcing, more importantly getting vital fuel.

With the Panzer tanks almost out of fuel the German commander wanted to withdraw to defend the ports, but received orders to hold positions to the last man!

The British took advantage gathering all available forces
picking off Panzer tanks many which were now immobile.
The Germans were reduced to infantry in a fighting retreat towards the ports.

In the end the British won only because of the weather, a storm preventing mechanized forces getting vital fuel.
This could have happened to the Allies in 1944 if they had not had have PLUTO.

I think the idea of using a captured British Army as a 'bargaining tool' sounds like a complete flight of fancy, not a viable ALTERNATIVE(apologise for the upper case but I'm now officially sick of seeing 'alternate') history.
Even if you buy into the "Hitler let the army escape" line, which itself is preposterous IMHO, then what sort of bargaining do you envisage?
OK- let the men go and you can take over the country?
Or even- well we'll have 100k back and we'll give you Sussex…

Come on now…please.

"OK- let the men go and you can take over the country?"

more along the lines of, "let us keep France and lift your blockade and we'll let the men go." ie peace

But that's not a simulation of Operation Sealion is it?

Sealion could only have worked IF the Luftwaffe had managed to destroy the Royal Air Force AND deny the Royal Navy access to the Channel.
Could sure make for some interesting scenarios for all those interested in the early war period of course.

Greetings, Frans.

From what I have read /discussed the Luftwaffe did not have the ability to bomb ships at night--All the RN had to do was hide by day and run riot at night--I saw a documentary on that Sandhurst re-game---Basically the Germans had 3 days to win or they would be stranded by the RN rampaging through their supply lines…GHQ line and dads army managed to buy Britain those 3 days…I was just wondering if anybody had come up with a different result…

It is not that easy for the RN, if they attack by day they face the Luftwaffe and by night they need to beware of German mines.

And couldn't the Germans have crossed the channel only during daytime?
And were would the Royal Navy have hidden?

Greetings, Frans.

Even in daytime, the Royal Navy could still assemble powerful surface forces in the Channel---and in a fight for the Home Islands, I suspect they'd be willing to take risks even more suicidal than the ones they took off Crete in 1941.

In 1940 the Luftwaffe hadn't yet developed the necessary tactics & equipment necessary to pose a major threat to the RN, Dunkirk notwithstanding. A destroyer moving at 40 knots is a much tougher target than the near-stationary ships that suffered at Dunkirk. They also didn't have the AP bombs needed for armoured warships & few torpedo bombers, although all these were developed in the next 12 months.

Similarly the Germans just didn't have the capacity to install the dense minefields needed to deny the RN access to the Channel.

Remember also that the RN only need to interupt the supply routes until the autumn storms close the Channel to all shipping!

Given that the best the Luftwaffe could do was sink three Destroyers in one day – happened twice at Dunkirk and once off Crete – and that the Royal Navy has something like 92 Destroyers in home waters alone as of 16th September 1940 it's probably better not to wargame the naval side of things.

To the tune of Wir fahren gegen Engelland

The sea is big, cold, stormy.
Can you lend me a safety-jacket – a life belt?
What do you charge for swimming lessons?
How many invasion trips do I need to win the Iron Cross 1st Class?

We are seasick. Where is the basin?
Is that a bomb, a torpedo, a shell, a mine?
Our ship is capsizing, sinking, burning, exploding!
Our section, platoon, company, battalion, regiment, is drowning!

The sea here has such a smell of oil.
Here even the water is burning!
See how beautiful the Captain is burning.
Charles – Willie – Fred – John – Abraham is burnt to ashes – drowned, minced-up by the ship's propeller.
We must turn back!
We journey against England!

We journeyed against England.
We want to go home!

Ah, that old chestnut, Op Sealion!

Martin Marix Evan's recent book on Sealion has about half the book devoted to a long, detailed description of the unsuccessful German invasion attempt. It's so detailed I suspect a wargames campaign behind it.

I played 3W's boargame last year and it seemed to approach the consensus above – the Germans could have landed, and pushed inland for a few days, until weather and the RN intervened to stop them dead.

"And couldn't the Germans have crossed the channel only during daytime?"

Too wide and not enough daylight for the bulk of the shipping which was available to the Germans – precisely the problem facing the Germans in the game. They had a few fast ships which could make the trip in daylight, but most of them them couldn't. Dover straits apart, the channel is quite wide. In daylight the Luftwaffe did not have sufficient strength to simultaneously deny the channel to the RN, support the land forces and keep the RAF at bay.

The Home Fleet alone outnumbered the KM 10:1 in destroyers and cruisers without calling in any reserves from overseas at all. People forget quite how large the RN used to be, and in the defence of Britain, willing to take heavy losses.

Yep, especially after the Norway invasion, the KM lost about half its strength sunk or damaged so would have been snapped up quite quickly by the RN…Raeder said something along the lines that for every destroyer or cruiser the KM could field the RN could provide at least a flotilla!!!

Also there are plenty of places to hide…Along the Suffolk coast and Thames estuary there are plenty of inlets and creeks that could have hidden an entire fleet!!

The British also were the only country in Europe to have a trained and supplied resistance in place before a German invasion.
Churchill new there were many pro Nazis in Britain, the resistance had orders to shoot them!
They could have tied up a lot of German troops with their attacks on German supplies.
The Germans would have done the usual mass shooting of civilians but this was one of the points of the resistance, (or terrorists if you are the German player) to let the British Know that Nazi rule would be brutal!

"I played 3W's boargame last year and it seemed to approach the consensus above – the Germans could have landed, and pushed inland for a few days, until weather and the RN intervened to stop them dead."

That's just to get some sort of a game going. In reality the Royal Navy had within 4 hours easy steaming of the invasion area – 3 Light Cruisers, 40 Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts, 20 MTBs and probably a couple of hundred lesser armed vessels. And the Germans were planning to cross during the night.

The beach defenses were pretty formidable too. The invasion front would be covered by nearly 40 naval guns mostly of 6" guns in coastal batteries backed up by 3 x 13.5", 6 x 12" and 6 x 9.2" railway guns.

Well, that seems to be quite a consensus.
So altogether now-
"Who do you think you are kiddin' Mr. Hitler…"

fighting over towns whose names we can pronounce

Like Worcester?

What must have looked the most worrying, from a German soldiers point of view, was probably the collection of flotsam and jetsam that had to pass for landing craft.

Greetings, Frans.

Well, in pretty well all the scenarios described above, the Germans don't have enormous problems getting the first waves ashore, their difficulties are more keeping them supplied and reinforced once they have landed.

There is plenty of scope for tactical or even operational gaming, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a certain level of force could be kept supplied by air (which the Germans also did in the Sandhurst game). The real question is whether the relatively well supplied first wave(s) can deliver a knockout blow before their supplies start to run short, and obviously the further inland they push, the further back the RAF has to base.

Andygamer
I think it's been acknowledged that there would be no fighting as far from the Channel as Wales or the Marches. Some people fondly believe it's a question of supply, but in fact it is to do with place names.

If the Germans transport supplies by air the they reduce the amount of bombing

The further the Germans push inland the German fighters have less time available over the battlefield.
It doesn't matter if they capture British airfields,they have to land somewere there is fuel!

No wonder the whole of Russia looked easier than a bit of Britain!

"Well, in pretty well all the scenarios described above, the Germans don't have enormous problems getting the first waves ashore, their difficulties are more keeping them supplied and reinforced once they have landed."

The German first wave was to land over a period of three days. Within a few dozen miles of the intended invasion area the Brits have four hundred tanks – half of them Matildas.

Still plenty of scope for scenarios though – a ragtag group of German forces attempt to silence a costal battery defended by Commandos, a counter-attack by a Carrier Platoon against a German penetration, a small force of engineers with the Home Guard attempt to hold a key position from the Fallchirmjaeger before the Kiwis with Vickers light tanks come charging to rescue ..

"Within a few dozen miles of the intended invasion area the Brits have four hundred tanks – half of them Matildas."

Are you sure ? On 25th May 1940 there were eighty infantry tanks in The UK. About half were Matilda IIs.

At the end of June Cabinet Office Papers say there were 252 light, 103 cruisers, 110 Infantry and 132 1920s vintage Mediums. Things were better by September but the British Armoured forces were unlikely to be the deciding factor.

Derek Robinson's book Invasion 1940 makes a very good case that it would have been the navy. Germany had neither enough suitable transport ships to carry the invasion force nor warships to protect them.

Probably Matilda's 1 & 2…British manufacturing power was awesome even in 1940 and we were easily building 300+ tanks per month, so 400 would be a fair figure…And remember it only takes 1 or 2 tanks to really spoil a para's day (I.e. Arnhem Nijmagen 1940 and 44 etc)

Some years back, I had the pleasure to sit in on an ad hoc discussion of Sealion that was conducted by several retired USN and USMC officers; all highly trained in amphib warfare. They analysis was that, even without the interference of the RN, the Germans would had to have been extremely lucky to get any kind of intact force on the beach. Consider just this one point: Many of the "landing craft" were converted unpowered canal barges that would have to be towed across the Channel. Imagine doing that at night; then imagine what would happen if they hit any kind of rough water or weather (not at all uncommon in the Channel). Anyone give odds for the Wehrmacht cross Channel swim team?

"At the end of June Cabinet Office Papers say there were 252 light, 103 cruisers, 110 Infantry and 132 1920s vintage Mediums. Things were better by September but the British Armoured forces were unlikely to be the deciding factor."

Cabinet Papers are a tad out I think, but even so between July and September 1940 were delivered 147 Cruiser and 227 Infantry tanks although some of the I tanks would be Valentines not just Matildas.

From what I've gathered 1st Army Tank Brigade of 4 RTR, 44 RTR (49 RTR?) with 'I' tanks, 1st Armoured Division of 2nd Armoured Brigade (Queens Bays, 10 Hussars) and 3rd Armoured Brigade (2 RTR, 5 RTR) with Cruisers and Light tanks along with 1st Canadian Division (+) made up VII Corps – the main counterattacking force and were located in the area Dorking-Reigate-Redhill.

8th Royal Tanks with two squadrons of Matilda Is and one of Matilda IIs was located in the Ashford area and was under command of Freybergs 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary force.

This discussion has inspired me to run an Operation Sea Lion Game at the next Innovation in Wargames Conference in March.

I have dug out the 1940's maps of Britain and done my own research on strengths etc…

The game will have two parts. Planning and then the execution.