Fictional Seelöwe 1943 or 1944?

[Dr.Fusselpulli]

The battle of Britain in 1940/41 was one of the biggest air battles in history. Germany tries to beat the british airforce. A preparation to the operation Seelöwe, the invasion of England.

England won this battle, but during the war, germany never loses their interest in the operation Seelöwe. Even in 1944 there were official orders regarding this operation.

Wouldn´t it be nice to see a fictional operation Seelöwe campaign in CMBN:CW, so see german forces in an active role and not as the defenders?

So, mostly accourate would be a campaign in 1940, as later it gets, as difficult it will be seen by the german position. But on the other Hand the game simulates the invasion on the Normandy 1944, with often different weapons and vehicles than in 1940.

At first I thought about summer 1943 because in the earlyer years germany had more rescoures and the preparations about D-Day, so earlyer would be more historical accourate than later years.

I tried some tests in the editor about the equipment of the coreforces, but sadly they are different all the time you import them. Exspecially the Surmgewehr44 is a problem if you want to make a 1943 Seelöwe campaign.

But even an early 1944 seelöwe invasion could be interesting with all the allied defenders waiting for D-Day on the British islands.

Maybe there would be seelöwe during the later years if the germans don´t had so many troubles with their eastern front. So without their desaster on Stalingrad or the heavy loses in Kursk they maybe would return and take a step back on england.

[LongLeftFlank]

Well hey, you can game out whatever floats your invasion barge, but to make this a remotely plausible what-if IMHO, you'd have to assume no US participation in the war in Europe (isolationism). Or else a 1942 German victory in the East, quickly followed by a brilliant Rommel annihilation (capture) of the British and then the US armies in North Africa (following Torch). Plus, they change their UBoat codes and are still sinking convoys as fast as the US can build, so only limited US forces have arrived in the UK. Oh, and they got jets early and have air superiority over the Channel. Anything else?

[GLynn41]

it would be for fun -- not historical realism-

[Dr.Fusselpulli]

lol LongLeftFlank, and just in the minute of the german invasion the british troops are disabled by teatime...

I only think an operation Seelöwe is incredible if germany still fight against stalins troops.

But sure, this battle would not be historical accurate. Could be a lot of fun anyway.

[Paper Tiger]

Well hey, you can game out whatever floats your invasion barge, but to make this a remotely plausible what-if IMHO, you'd have to assume no US participation in the war in Europe (isolationism). Or else a 1942 German victory in the East, quickly followed by a brilliant Rommel annihilation (capture) of the British and then the US armies in North Africa (following Torch). Plus, they change their UBoat codes and are still sinking convoys as fast as the US can build, so only limited US forces have arrived in the UK. Oh, and they got jets early and have air superiority over the Channel. Anything else?

LOL. And people wonder why there are so few folks designing for this community. Way to crap all over somebody else's enthusiasm <slow hand clap>

[JonS]

Sealion in 1940 would be fictional.

Sealion in 1944 would be fantasy.

But that isn't important.

There is nothing fundamental about CM that prevents seeing "German forces in an active role and not as the defenders." You don't have to go fantasy, or even fictional. CM is at the tactical level, and there were plenty of examples in Normandy of the germans being active tactically. There were the SS counter attacks agains the Canadians in early-mid June, or the counter attacks by II SS PzK in July, or the attack by PzLehr towards Carentan, or the counterattacks by I SS PzK along Verrieres ridge, or Mortain, or any of the unrecorded local counter attacks that happened every day on every part of the front in Normandy.

The only thing restricting the Germans in Normandy to an passive role in CM is a lack of imagination, or a lack of research.

But if you really must have the Germans active at the operational or strategic level ... why not just have them invade the Iberian Peninsular during April 1944 in order to secure wolfram supplies, or oranges, or some really good tapas, or sumfink. In response the Allies cancel OVERLORD and instead funnel all those forces through Portugal. Game on.

[Michael Emrys]

LOL. And people wonder why there are so few folks designing for this community. Way to crap all over somebody else's enthusiasm <slow hand clap>

But the whole proposition seems a bit odd for a number of reasons. First of all, JonS' comments that you can have all the German offensive action your heart desires at the moment without positing an invasion of England. So I have to ask what the point is. If this were a strategic game, like the old boardgame Third Reich as an example, I can see it as a fun if unlikely scenario. Even as an operational level game it might offer some interesting variations on usual play. But how is a CM game, notionally set in southern England, going to be any different from from a game set in Normandy? You want to get the Home Guard involved?

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

lol LongLeftFlank, and just in the minute of the german invasion the british troops are disabled by teatime...

...And the RN seems to have forgotten to leave any ships in home waters. And the RAF has simply disappeared.

I only think an operation Seelöwe is incredible if germany still fight against stalins troops.

But you would also have Germany spending several years building up an amphibious assault force along with a doctrine on how to use it. Amphibious assaults against a defended coast are probably the most difficult military operations to conduct. The US and the UK had years (or centuries depending on what you want to include) of experience in the art, but they still lost lots of men and matériel in many of their invasions. Germany would have to acquire those same skills from a standing start. The Kriegsmarine had a pretty good idea of how far beyond them such an operation would be, which is why they were never enthusiastic about it. If you want your scenario to be credible, you are going to have to address that issue in a credible way.

Michael

[YankeeDog]

Yes, yes; it's all very true that Sea Lion was never more than the pipe dream of a nutjob with a funny mustache. We've been over this territory before.

But there's nothing wrong with fantasy premises. If you want to create a campaign based on some sort of Nazi invasion of the Home Islands, I say by all means go for it, and don't trouble yourself too much about establishing a "realistic" premise -- this way madness lies.

Returning to the other parts of the OP's queries, I think it would be very difficult to use CMBN to portray German and British forces as they might have been prior to 1944; there are just too many technology and TOE changes. 1943 would be more possible than 1940-42, but you still run into some pretty significant issues. So I'd stick with a 1944 invasion and leave it at that.

Maybe you could use the premise that, instead of continuing the war after the Fall of France, Germany and the U.K. negotiate an uneasy truce in late 1940. There were political elements in both countries that were advocating exactly this. Then hostilities flare up again between the two countries a couple of years or so later, leading to a German invasion attempt in 1944.

About as plausible as any other German cross-channel invasion scenario I've heard.

[Michael Emrys]

Maybe you could use the premise that, instead of continuing the war after the Fall of France, Germany and the U.K. negotiate an uneasy truce in late 1940. There were political elements in both countries that were advocating exactly this. Then hostilities flare up again between the two countries a couple of years or so later, leading to a German invasion attempt in 1944.

About as plausible as any other German cross-channel invasion scenario I've heard.

Yes, that moves the matter a bit closer to the realm of credibility. At least it is interesting in a lot of ways. But you still have the huge hurtle of Germany mastering the art of amphibious assault to get over. There may be a way for them to do this, I just haven't encountered it yet.

Michael

[womble]

...I think it would be very difficult to use CMBN to portray German and British forces as they might have been prior to 1944; there are just too many technology and TOE changes. 1943 would be more possible than 1940-42, but you still run into some pretty significant issues.

FI would sort the Tech and TOE problems, but leave you with some rather unconvincing terrain...

[GLynn41]

Part of the appeal of this game is the what or the never was -- it is for fun- trying to be accurate and trying anything both are OK and while reality is normally rules- it does not have to --state the real then git em -- becasue as long as they are not asking you to do the work it is their game to use- and if they do so- then put it out then we can all gain- fantasy can be a good thing-- my favs-- Japan is invaded----russia and Allies at the end of WW2-----what if kurita and the Yamato force and not turnd away (can.t do this one as no good game around for it) disaster at D Day or at Anzio-- as for reality a few decesions made differently -- such as using the 262 as intended asap- drop tanks at the battle of britian -- a attempt on Hitler worked yeah well maybe-- just enjoy a good game as you would like and share from time to time

[noob]

Panzer Campaigns have a full campaign game for Sealion, set in 1940.

http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/products/PZC/PZC_Sealion/sealion.html

[YankeeDog]

You can spend days, weeks, months imagining all sorts of hypotheticals as to how the Germans could have neutralized the RAF in the Battle of Britain, neutralized the Home Fleet's massive surface ship advantage, neutralized the British submarine threat (the Germans had almost no ASW capability or ships), etc.

All of these considerations aside, IMHO, the unassailable reason why Sea Lion absolutely could not have happened in 1940 is that Germany simply had no way to sealift anything more than a small, lightly armed force across The Channel, much less support an army once they got them ashore. It's another flavor of the age-old logistics trumps tactics adage.

In 1940, the Kriegsmarine completely lacked any kind of assault landing craft. They started work on a couple designs in 1939, but by September 1940, only two prototypes of an infantry assault craft had been delivered. So for the ad hoc 1940 invasion plan, they planned to lift the bulk of the force across the channel using modified inland river barges requisitioned from France and the Low Countries. Such vessels were designed for light cargo duty and pleasure cruising around the rivers of Europe. They were slow and most definitely NOT designed for open ocean waters, nor were they designed for landing and rapid debouchement onto an unprepared beach.

Neither did the Germans have the capacity to do a large airlift in 1940 -- they lost large numbers of their JU-52 air transport fleet in the Assault on the Netherlands in May of 1940, and had not had time to make good the losses yet.

Honestly, given what they were working with in 1940 I think that if the British had been waiting for the Germans on the landing beaches with arms outstretched holding flowers and candies rather than rifles and mortars, chances were still as good as not that a substantial amount of the invasion fleet would have been swamped on the way across. With even token British resistance, it's the Spanish Armada all over again.

If you push the invasion to 1941 or later, depending on what other "alternate history" events you propose to make an invasion more possible (U.S. stays more isolationist and does not provide Lend-Lease, Axis wins quickly in North Africa, Hitler doesn't decide to invade Russia, blah, blah, blah), maybe some things change and the Germans use the time to improve their amphibious capabilities. But then you're also giving the British a year or more to prepare defenses, re-arm the BEF forces rescued at Dunkirk, etc. and this changes the calculus considerably as well.

But anyway, don't let all this throw cold water on whatever fun you want to have with a hypothetical. Go for it.

[poesel]

So why were the Brits so afraid of the invasion at the time?

[umlaut]

So why were the Brits so afraid of the invasion at the time?

Probably because they had to be.

They didn´t have the luxury of having our hindsight on the real capabilities of the german invasion forces. So they would have to assume that the germans could and would invade - instead of saying "Oh, well. Jerry probably can´t pull it off anyway"

[YankeeDog]

So why were the Brits so afraid of the invasion at the time?

Besides the obvious "Better to have an invasion defense plan and not need it, than to need an invasion defense plan and not have it?"

For starters, even with all that Ultra intelligence and so on, I would not assume that the British had perfect knowledge of German amphibious capabilities in 1940. And even if the British assessment of German Naval and amphibious capability was on the mark, the Germans were just coming off a pretty remarkable string of successes, so the British were understandably more than a bit spooked and second-guessing their own intelligence at this point in the war. No one expected the Germans to take Paris in five weeks, and if they could do this, maybe that actually could get across The Channel somehow.

But ultimately, I think the historical record shows that higher echelons of British command were skeptical of the idea that the Germans would be to be able to mount a credible invasion attempt in in 1940. I do think they were worried about and preparing contingencies for a possible invasion in Spring of 1941 or later. Now, in hindsight, we know things went a different way, but in the late Summer of 1940, Lend-Lease hadn't started yet, things in North Africa hadn't really gotten rolling, and Barbarossa hadn't happened. So 1941 and beyond were very much the unknown for the British High Command and they had to be ready for anything.

Finally, invasion prep gave the British people something concrete to prepare for, rather than simply impotently watching the air battle overhead, and reading headlines about shipping losses. The stormtrooper bogey man showing up on English shores was an easy fear to sell. Churchill knew this used it to motivate the British people behind the war effort. We tend to think of British civilian morale in the war as some sort of unbreakable monolith, but immediately after the Fall of France, this was definitely not the case. Churchill needed a way to galvanize the public behind the war effort.

[Childress]

We tend to think of British civilian morale in the war as some sort of unbreakable monolith, but immediately after the Fall of France, this was definitely not the case. Churchill needed a way to galvanize the public behind the war effort.

Excellent point.

[Michael Emrys]

As usual, I find YD's comments and observations to be pretty much on the mark. However, and also as usual , I want to quibble just a little bit with this one item:

For starters, even with all that Ultra intelligence and so on, I would not assume that the British had perfect knowledge of German amphibious capabilities in 1940.

Not perfect knowledge no, but they did have a pretty good idea. In addition to Ultra intercepts (which may not have been all that important since Bletchley could only decipher them now and then at this point in the war), they had aerial photos of the craft the Germans were assembling in North Sea and Channel ports. In fact, during the last days of summer, they were bombing the concentrations on a near-nightly basis. Plans were in hand to intercept any invasion fleets and to meet any forces that made it to the beaches. And while it would be a miracle if everything went according to plan, Churchill for one was confident that any attempt at invasion would be annihilated.

Michael

[Erwin]

The point is still that the CM series is an entertainment GAME series, and if someone wants to design an invasion of GB, or (say) New York or Washington for fun, why not?

[YankeeDog]

The point is still that the CM series is an entertainment GAME series, and if someone wants to design an invasion of GB, or (say) New York or Washington for fun, why not?

Absolutely. IIRC, back in CMBO days someone actually did do a set of fictional invasion scenarios where the Germans invaded the East Coast U.S. in 1944. Only marginally more likely than a 1944 moon invasion but hey, why not?

[c3k]

Did someone mention Nazis on the Moon as being unlikely? Have you not watched Iron Sky?

[Apocal]

I keep thinking I'd love if someone would redo the campaign from Close Combat 1 in CMBN, but then I remember we don't have persistent terrain and the troops are abstracted blobs rather than individuals.

:-/

[JyriErik]

So why were the Brits so afraid of the invasion at the time?

One more reason that hasn't been mentioned was that virtually all of the British Army's heavy equipment had been left in France during the evacuation. That meant that there wasn't enough armour and artillery to refit the troops evacuated from France, let alone arm the new divisions being raised. Then there was also the home guard which was armed with anything available, including pikes.

A July 1940 invasion might have succeeded becase of the lack of heavy equipment, but that would have required the Germans to have planned Seelöwe in advance. By September I suspect success was no longer possible since the British had put their economy into full war mode and were producing enough to be able to rearm their forces and stop an invasion.

Jyri

[Michael Emrys]

A July 1940 invasion might have succeeded becase of the lack of heavy equipment, but that would have required the Germans to have planned Seelöwe in advance.

Exactly. I would go further and say that they would have had to anticipate such an invasion and begin preparing for it even before the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. Design, testing and production of amphibious landing craft would be a long lead time item. It would also tip Germany's hand as to what its strategy might be.

Michael