why is Sealion different from Norway invasion?

[gwgardner]

In all the times I've played the campaign game I've never tried a Sealion operation. I have tried to invade Norway, with disastrous results every time, when the entire British navy attacks my invading force. However, I've seen repeated posts from players who have done Sealion with apparent ease. So my question - does the British navy not intercept in a cross-channel invasion, when it does for the Norway invasion?

[Hard Sarge]

I would say, because Norway is earlier in the battle, and the Royal Navy is still strong enough to do something

most players when they go for sea-lion had damaged/hurt the RN

I have pulled it off, where I got the RN to head into port to repair, while I slipped in (then you got to keep it damaged enough so your supplies can get though

Sea Lion really is, can you get there, if you get there, you should be able to walk over top of the English Land defences (it will grow and set up a pretty good line, but you should be able to do what ever you want, as long as you control a channel port)

(to be honest, I have not done it in a while, so do not know for sure how much the new rules/systems effect the air to sea battle now)

[PrinceBolkonsky]

Actually, supplying a force in England should be the real problem for the Germans. The British never hoped to disrupt a quick dash across the channel, or to entirely stop the Germans at the beaches. Granted they wanted to do as much of both of these as they could. Their real hope was to heroically waste the fleet in an effort to keep the German forces in England largely out of supply.

Most paper wargames worth their salt attempt to recreate this dynamic. I have no idea whether this game does.

I think the game would be well served if there were both a limit on the number of air strength points that can be committed to the sea bombing mission.

It is extremely a-historical that the Germans can park their airforce on a coast and essentially wipe out the enemy navy. Logistically, if not by doctrine alone, the Germans should not be able to park the entire Luftwaffe in the Med.

I would put air commitments to sea bombardment at around 15 to 20% for the Germans and English and maybe 30% for the Italians and Americans. A stronger force could conceivable be mustered on either side the turn of an invasion and possibly the turn after.

Logistics is actually the single deciding factor at this scale. It is of course seemingly less interesting and therefore is under represented in most simulations. Unfortunately, I don't just mean abstracted but simply ignored.

Now I don't have enough experience yet to speak about TOW but a for instance would be: Most of the cities in the Balkans and Turkey ought to provide a much smaller logistical support. Forces dependent upon the Balkans for supply should be deficient. It should not be possible for a large panzer army to strike out of Rumania at its full ability. Had Hitler not demanded revenge be exacted against the Yugos and the smallish mechanized force had made it to Romania for B day they would have certainly had an impact but not their full impact.

Unfortunately the design does not lend itself to the actual problems of logistics. Most of the German infantry lost about 10% of their combat strength for every 10 to 15 miles they would function beyond the rail net beyond the first 20 miles. The smaller mechanized forces could go much further and this was half their value, or rather, that which allowed their other attributes to be of value. I have noticed that in TOW advancing armies do indeed outrun their supplies a bit. This is great! I hope that the effects are more severe for German and Italian infantry and less severe for Mechanized forces. The other countries either had greater mechanization of their logistics services supplying their infantry or were more resilient to being on potatoes and one gun for every three men! lol

A mod or update that would be nice is the the creation of immobile depot units(Or if coding is difficult for the attributes below then possibly a terrain feature like a similar to fortresses)for purchase where supply could be stored, possibly transferred temporarily from another source via SMPs. This supply could augment supply levels of units nearby in addition to supply drawn from from other sources (range from other sources could be slightly shortened as well as many of their values) Additionally, it would function as a single hex that could receive units via strategic movement. A supply point or unit in a turn not both would be allowed and the unit should cost enough so that players don't over build depots but rather use them rationally and hopefully somewhat historically.

Well there's a ramble. No persons or other representations here in are meant to be either honest or true, nor fictional. Just blather...