Is Sealion possible?

[Damien Thorn]

In real-life, the German Air Force had the RAF on the ropes in the buildup to the invasion of England. Only the stupid decision to stop attacking the air fields and start attacking London allowed the British to recover and go on to actually win the Battle of Britian. As a result, operation Sealion was postponed indefinately.

Is it possible to pull off the invasion of England in WaW before going on to declare war on Russia? This should be the preferred German strategy, as it was in real-life, yet I have not heard anyone talk about this on the forums. Has anyone done it? In my opinion, it should be a very doable option, as long as one concentrates on the air fields and not on infrastructure attacks in the turns prior to the invasion. Does the German AI even try this strategy?

Damien Thorn

[Uncle_Joe]

There are definately some threads about this.

Its not only possible, but probable to pull off a Sea Lion. Britain has to basically make it her sole goal to oppose it in order to survive a serious attempt.

There is a thread called 'Defending the Home Island' which has some more details.

[dembe73]

Havent seen German AI try it, but humans will do so (and may succeed). Trying it against England is suicide (4 militia), invading Scotland first can work. Make sure you bring plenty of additional troops to do it quickly otherwise its a victory without much value.

[VonTed]

How in the world did you get 1000+ posts and not see any of the other threads on this? [:)]

[Badbonez]

ORIGINAL: VonTed

How in the world did you get 1000+ posts and not see any of the other threads on this? [:)]

Maybe he plays other Matrix games and posts on those forums, I think they're all connected.

As for pulling off Sealion, yes you can do it, but only if 1) Your opponent is not thinking about it and leaves the sea lane open, and 2) Only vs. Scotland. The biggest problem is not the air power, it's the UK's sea power. You need to up your aircraft's torpedo values to neutralize the RN (or at least reduce it) and use your subs to disconnect the UK from the US. But as far as I can see, it's really difficult unless your opponent makes a mistake. And then, once you've got Scotland, be sure to move plenty of supplies in with your troops, because you will probably get cut off.

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: VonTed

How in the world did you get 1000+ posts and not see any of the other threads on this? [:)]

I play Uncommon Valor and War in the Pacific.

[Drax Kramer]

ORIGINAL: Damien Thorn

In real-life, the German Air Force had the RAF on the ropes in the buildup to the invasion of England. Only the stupid decision to stop attacking the air fields and start attacking London allowed the British to recover and go on to actually win the Battle of Britian. As a result, operation Sealion was postponed indefinately.

Actually, what you wrote above did not happen. Throughout the Battle of Britain, RAF was inflicting prohibitive losses on Luftwaffe and given the superior rates of fighter production as well as pilot training, Luftwaffe never ever had Fighter Command on the ropes.

The feasibility of Sea Lion remains a problem for every game designer who wants to give players realistic tools to play with. How to combine the virtual impossibility of Germans ever pulling it off with historical British concerns and resulting build up of ground, naval and air forces to repel the invasion.


Drax

[CharonJr]

Hmm, from what I read Fighter Command was pretty much roughed up and might have lost if the Germans had continued their attacks on the airfields, but we can agree that they were better in dishing out the pain.

In the end pilots were the main problem and since the battle was fought over England many Allied pilots who managed to get out of their planes would be in the air again soon after while the Germans were usually taken prisoner or drowned in the Channel.

The Allied rescue teams (land and sea) were much more efficient and numerous, too.

CharonJr

[Drax Kramer]

ORIGINAL: CharonJr

Hmm, from what I read Fighter Command was pretty much roughed up and might have lost if the Germans had continued their attacks on the airfields, but we can agree that they were better in dishing out the pain.

German attacks on the airfields of Group 11 did not mean that Fighter Command was on its way to lose. Throughout the battle Dowding maintained large reserve in Groups 12 and 13. The one time Germans assumed northern groups were stripped the replace the losses down south they sent unescorted bombers from Luftflotte 5 across the North Sea only to see them massacred.

At best, Luftwaffe was going to achieve temporary air superiority over La Mance and SE England, insufficient to satisfy the preconditions for launching the Sea Lion.

The Allied rescue teams (land and sea) were much more efficient and numerous, too.

Len Deighton in his book "Fighter" shows how German air sea rescue service was far more efficient than British one. It was so successful that Dowding authorised attacks on hydroplanes that were fishing German pilots.


Drax

[CharonJr]

Hiya Drax,

hmm, is it possible that the US rescue was more efficient than the Japanese one ? I am very sure that I read about the Allied rescue being more efficient than the Axis one, but this might have refered to US vs. Japan.

CharonJr

[dembe73]

I just executed another one in PBEM, this time better than the last one moving about 12 infantery units into Scotland after capturing it with transports and paratrooper after severe bombing raid combined with naval bombing. I repaired the factory and the resource so even if cutoff the garison has its own supplies.

[Drax Kramer]

Americans were WW2 champions in rescue operations. It was surely a morale boost for their pilots in Pacific to expect that the navy will do its best to try to fish them from the sea.

Japanese attempts were next to non existant.


Drax

[5cats]

Also the British "recovery" method for pilots fished from the icy-cold North Sea was:
>put his feet in a tub of hot water
>give him a cup of scalding hot tea
>place him beside a roaring fireplace
>watch in dismay as he goes into shock & dies.

It wasn't until the Germans told the Red Cross about how to properly treat hypothermia that this changed. The Fleet & RAF did notice that the longer it took to get the pilot to port the better they survived, but had no clue why.

Anyhow, we can't have the Battle of Britian in GGWaW because the Germans can't have range 2 fighters in time. Seems silly, eh?
Here's an idea, invasion across a "narrows" should give transports increased (double?) amphibious capacity. This would make invading England (and Normandy) a lot easier...

Ps: I read that the rescue teams for both sides would often 'meet up' at sea and swap people during the BoB, usually at night.

[Barthheart]

Back to the original question... yes Virginia there is a Sealion. CharonJr just pulled it off on my Wallies![:(]

[coach3play4]

Yes - but would you not agree that the real life landing areas in Scotland where quite limited. Additionally weather (fog, rougher seas etc) add to the difficulty in a Scotland landing, versus a South or East England landing. My opinion is that even if conditions favored a German landing, they would have landed in England, not Scotland.

A more interseting scenario would be an Irish landing. This possiblity was also open in WWI (and of course part of the Irish uprising of '16 looked to German support). If again the Germans acheived the necessary air and sea position, an Irish landing could have been successful with far less investment of troops. Air supply would be possible, and think of the possibilities in furthering the blockade of Briton. The sub campaign would have air support.

[Uncle_Joe]

Barthheart:

Interesting. Did he pull it off with surprise or did he actually overpower you. My dime-store analysis is that if Britain makes a real effort to defend, then Germany cant really conduct a successful Sea Lion. They can almost always get to Scotland if they want, and then invariably end up trapped. Note that this is in a non-FoW environment which is why I am asking if you were surprised or not.

Thanx.

[CharonJr]

Uncle Joe,

due to me sinking most of the Royal Navy in the North Sea prior to the fight, amassing a large number of fighters/bombers in the Netherlands together with a paratrooper and not removing them despite being under heavy pressure from the Russians I would think that he was not surprised, but overpowered But it was a FOW on game.

I think Barthheart mainly lacked the units to effectively defend both Scotland and England.

IIRC he had about 2 fighters, 2 artillery, 2 flak, 2 infantry and 1-2 militia in each in addition to the autogenerated militia. The turn was Spring 42.

CharonJr

PS: And I had about a dozen fighters/bombers, 7 transports with 2 infantry/artillery and 1 heavy bomber with a paratrooper and 1 heavy fleet each for providing shore bombardment during the initial bombing and 1 for the invasion itself.

[Barthheart]

Yeah, what CharonJr said.... I was not surprised. I was focused on other events and he stayed focused on Sealion. By the time I tried to prepare I was sacrificing the RN BB's as AAA platforms but his airforce was to strong. If I had just builtup from the start I could have held him off... but it was good solid planning on his part... let's see if it was really worth it.[;)]

[CharonJr]

Barthheart,

well, the game was essentially lost when I learned that Japans attack would effectivly unfreeze all of Russia

The higher US and Russian modifiers would have been bad enough already, but not being able to get through to the Russian industrial centers and not being able to bag a decent part of the Russian army where the final stroke IMO.

But Sealion might have given us some room to breath and the Russians were not able to put a real dent in the German economy. The situation is surely better now than it was before

CharonJr

[5cats]

Back to the origional topic: It just seems ODD that it's easier to invade Scotland than southern England in GGWaW.
One big problem IMHO is that the German fighters can't fly 23 miles to reach England [:-] This means no BoB.
How about starting the Germans with 1 research point in Fighter Range? At least they'd get into combat 1 turn sooner. As it is, by the time they reach range 2 it's time to invade Russia, not conduct Sealion.
Or, as I already suggested, increased Amphibious Assault capacity across a Narrows?
CharonJr, what does IIRC mean???