Alternate history- no Barbarossa, Operation Sealion instead. - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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The Second World War (1939-1945).
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#14139985
I've been reading blogs written by Brits who were in southern England during the blitz, as well as travel sites and coastal management documents. What I found was really interesting. First, those white cliffs are not continuous, they have gaps, and there are usually shingle and sand beaches at the gaps. Second, the British thought the Germans would land at these gaps, and built bunkers, tank defenses and pillboxes at the landing sites. Third, there was a serious shortage of trained troops to man the gaps, and they had expected poorly armed home guard forces to back up regular army forces.

I also found the beaches have a decent slope for landing from large craft, a large tide, sw t w waves prevail....

So I went and sketched a 30 meter craft with a forward round hull and aft flat, with a ferry type landing plank, and bow thrusters, retractable props and rudders. This thing can be built in a tank factory, I don't need a shipyard. And it can sail 600 km, hit the beach, land two tanks and one truck and get out.

So, given German ingenuity and engineering capability, I think they could have tooled to build 600 of these craft by may 1941. This would be a really nice war game subject, the key would be whether the strategic bombing campaign could slow uk industry enough to give the German Air Force the ability to sink the fleet as it sailed to defend the beaches.
#14140030
This thread is not about Germans succeeding , that premise is yet to be established first and as German Success is inevitably linked with British Failure, you can't look them up in isolation.


well yea, Im just trying to think of how the Germans could have succeeded and thinking of what they would have done, given the situation and outlined conditions, ofcourse Britain would have done something in reaction to what I'm saying.
#14140110
The question was not whether Sea lion could ever succeed. It couldn't. Its highly doubtful that /Sea lion would ever leave the French ports. German shipping was highly vulnerable to British bombing. The German transports had to be dispersed long before the invasion fleet was assembled. Overlord was only launched with huge levels of air and Naval superiority behind which the allies could prepare their build up over 2 years at their leisure.
#14140203
Germany cant build ships on the med. more ships on the north sea and Baltic would still be bottled up. The difference in strength between the Royal Navy and the Kreigsmarine means that it's not possible to challenge the Royal Navy in the North Sea or Channel directly. Resources could be diverted to the Italians, but again they are fair way short. Ship building takes time. Naval personnel need training and there is a real limit to rapid expansion. Air power can be pretty effective in the Med, so more air resources cold lead to "control" in some sense.

But supporting more forces in North Africa is hard. Some sort of defeat of the British forces around Tobruk and quick advance to Suez befoe regrouping is possible, just historically it failed. The British with their large logistical base and available reserves in the region always have the ability to form some sort of defense and with the extremely long thin supply lines axis North African forces are up against it.

But Even taking Suez does not directly lead to anything.

India is pretty secure. It has large resources amd a large Garrsion.

Bose's force was a joke , not large enough or supported in India to any degree to be more than a nuisance. "Friendly" areas are regimes with little power. Not really capable of providing a real logistical base or significant forces.

The overland approach from Bruma is again a region with poor infrastructure and logistical capabilities. The Japanese could simply support a large enough force to be a real threat.

German land forces approaching India is a fantasy. The Logistical problems are simply too difficult. From Suez to the Persian Gulf there is no real logistical infrastructure to support large operations. A couple of divisions would be very very hard to support on the Persian gulf and to go overland to India the logistical support would be pretty much impossible.

When attacking an enemy who as a large logistical base and large forces through areas with really really poor logistical infrastructure a long way from your logistical base things rapidly become virtually impossible.


Bose's force had 50,000 men (everyone seems to :hmm: ). That would have doubled once the propaganda of Britain losing in Africa kicked in.

Three German divisions would be enough. So would three Japanese divisions. India was already tittering before the war, the main leaders of the Indian nat. Congress all wanted out of the British empire and saw either the Nazis or the USSR as potential allies. If Britain would start losing the war (say after failing in North Africa) then Indians would see the writing on the wall and liberate themselves.

If Alexander the Great could do it the Nazis would have managed.. :D

If the Germans in my case would have managed to deny the the Royal Navy the mediterenan, then what? The Royal Navy would just park in the home Islands? Good let them sit there for a year whilst being bombed by the Luftwaffe. Britain would surrender through attrition with no manpower or resources incoming from the colonies and their convoys being harassed and sunk.
#14140290
If you land a truck full of petrol at say Haifa and drive it towards India you would consume all the petrol before seeing India. It's impossible to supply ANY force of ANY size from the Mediterranean coast to India. The Axis simply lack the capacity to support anything by sea in the face of any opposition at all in the Indian ocean. That leaves railing through turkey. The Railways would require investment to be effective down to Basra, maybe 6-12 months to get it working. In order to get the throughput of so many tonnes a day a quite significant amount of rolling stock and engines would have to diverted from the German war economy. Then you have overland t India, without anything like reasonable roads, it's debatable that a truck full of petrol at Basra would make India. It's pretty tough country. The Breakdown rate on the trucks would be brutal, which means more spares, less space for supplies, I serious doubt you could supply ANY force by truck from Basra to India.

And it all takes time, With increased build in North Africa say the best you could do would what mid 41 at the Suez, Some how the Persian gulf what early 1942, India maybe late 1942, at best. The wars alredy turnning against the axis. It's a pretty slow strategy.

90% of All British imports in the war were North American or Caribbean, The Med, Africa, India it's not important from a defend the British Isles. To break British by blockade it's the North Atlantic. The rest is a relatively unimportant side show.

The Japanese had more than 6 divisions and Bose (which is the total strength you allocated) and failed pretty dismally historically.
#14140296
some distances

Tripoli Cairo by road 2041km
Latakia (Syria) ---> Basra (Iraq) by road 1424km
Latakia (Syria) ---> Karachi (Pakistan) by road = 4359km
Basra (Iraq) ---> Karachi (Pakistan) by road 2936km
Basra (Iraq) ---> Berlin (Germany) 4775km
Berlin (Germany) ---> Moscow (Russia) 1831km
Berlin (Germany) ---> Stalingrad (Russia) 2715km
Berlin (Germany) ---> Karachi (Pakistan) 7506km

(roads existing today)
#14140300
That leaves railing through turkey. The Railways would require investment to be effective down to Basra, maybe 6-12 months to get it working. In order to get the throughput of so many tonnes a day a quite significant amount of rolling stock and engines would have to diverted from the German war economy. Then you have overland t India, without anything like reasonable roads, it's debatable that a truck full of petrol at Basra would make India. It's pretty tough country. The Breakdown rate on the trucks would be brutal, which means more spares, less space for supplies, I serious doubt you could supply ANY force by truck from Basra to India.


Irrelevant :|

The Germans had to build their own railway system in barbarossa (15,000 miles) (Soviet Railways where either destroyed or unusable) as well along with airfields etc. Here they would not be advancing through scorched earth and their supply lines wont be harassed by partisans.

And it all takes time, With increased build in North Africa say the best you could do would what mid 41 at the Suez, Some how the Persian gulf what early 1942, India maybe late 1942, at best. The wars alredy turnning against the axis. It's a pretty slow strategy.


Losing? To whom? We have a magic alliance with the USSR in this scenario.

90% of All British imports in the war were North American or Caribbean, The Med, Africa, India it's not important from a defend the British Isles. To break British by blockade it's the North Atlantic. The rest is a relatively unimportant side show


Good so sink them.

The Japanese had more than 6 divisions and Bose (which is the total strength you allocated) and failed pretty dismally historically.


Yes they failed historically, but here the cavalry is coming.
#14140313
I remember reading the opinion of a military man from the United States about a year ago for a discussion on naval invasions, and his conclusion was that, given German capabilities as they existed at the time, following through on Operation Sealion would have been such a significant misappropriation of German resources and required such a radical reinvestment of military priorities, that the shift would have had the effective consequence of ending the war for the Allies a year earlier.
#14140369
Moscow only 900 Km or so from Brest-Liviosk, dont let the figure 15,000 kms of rail fool you. The Rail engineers can all work in parallel on a number of lines at once, they are all working near the large logistical base. By the time the front nears Moscow the engineers should be abut halfway or so. o for most of the time you are running trucks 200 400 kms when they are only using 25% or so of the load as fuel.

Fixing/building 5 railway lines each extending 900kms from your base is easier than one 4500km line extending from your base. As it's easy for the engineers to work in parallel and each draw from the relatively close logistical base, If the same amount of engineers are working on a longer line each doing a 900k section, the ones away from your base cant use the railway and you wind up supporting units 4000kms from your base which just not possible.

In Russia there are many road networks and supplies can be trucked in parallel done many roads (at least when the mud not there). In the Middle east there is often only one road that everything must go down. The middle east/desert is really hard on equipment, the heat, bad roads takes a real toll on vehicles (half their European working life or less) More breakdowns, more spares, less through put. Russia with the muds/snow is worse half the time but much better the rest of the time.

To get a steady supply at the end of a railway or truck network you need so many tons a day, the longer the rail line or truck network the greater number of trucks/trains to maintain the steady supply pretty much in proportion to it's length. With a truck network as it gets longer the more of the load capacity is eaten up in fuel costs so you need even more trucks. at 1000 kms you need double the trucks to 500kms as they eating 50% rather than 25% of their load (and then more trucks to keep the longer supply line flowing) eventually it's diminishing returns makes it pretty unworkable. 1500 kms would be about the the max.

As for harassment of the line, you dont think the British wouldnt use in the long range desert patrol or SAS to interdict your long very vulnerable supply line?
#14313360
fuser wrote:Which game do you have in mind? Any game can hardly abstract all the variables accurately. Either "matrix games" or "Paradox". btw, it has already been settled, Germany can't succeed.


It would be board based, not video games. I've played a variety of detailed boardgames through the internet and some of the more thorough boardgames can get significantly more realistic than PC games.

If you've ever heard of Kriegspiel, it'd be close to that. Just like most professional Wargames are.
#14313446
this is why the Normans had such an easy time conquering England.


This is an incredibly ignorant comment.

1 - before proper navies the channel was a sort of super highway into Britain (think vikings). After the development of proper navies it became a very useful defence. This really started to show around tudor times but was somewhat well established by WW2. I mean seriously …

2 - England was not easy to conquer at all. The Normans basically never lost anywhere from Ireland to Byzantium. The conquest of the Anglo-Saxons was a very close run thing by comparison. If Harolds Army had not had to March 300 miles and defeat his brother, he would almost have certainly won.


Not being British I am very neutral in this discussion.


Liar.
#14313458
fuser wrote:Oh, I have never played board wargames. But I am not sure you can pull this off through skype.


A few of us would play kriegspiel through skype, it's actually not all that hard because you keep track of your own map and orders.

For example, the plan for landings happen, only three of the beachheads are secured and the troops continue with their orders to secure a railway bridge, the forward detachments arrive at the bridge and find that it has been destroyed and that the armored column cannot advance, that information would be passed up through the CoC until it reached the Staff Level (the actual players). These people are probably in France and have been reached by phone or radio. They're not going to be able to see the bridge, the enemy, or the exact situation, they will get a message saying

"3rd Panzer Division has arrived at the Brisbane Railway Bridge, the crossing has been destroyed by enemy fire, how should we proceed?"

The player will then have to decide what to order the unit to do, but the key here is that the players don't have a "perfect map", in that they have a map of the area and they know where the units were and where they are heading, but unless they get confirmation from their units, they have to make an assumption as to their location. Units can get turned around, players can have mis-plotted their location and think they're somewhere else.

It's easy on Skype because only the Umpire (game lead) has a perfect map, and actually moves the physical units.

Everyone has their owns maps that they keep track of, representing where they "think" the units are. It really helps capture the confusion of warfare, and the problems that face staff level officers.

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