Bit more to it than that - the Germans thought that if they had air superiority they could use the Luftwaffe to keep the RN at bay. As demonstrated at Dunkirk and Crete, this was a rather… optimistic idea.
I agree there is alot more to it than that, like the useage of barges and make shift fishing boats as landing craft and the inability to protect the landing all played a key role. But I think that the Luftwaffe’s inability to pound the Brit’s into submission during the Battle of Berlin, and still not being able to gain power of the RAF did infact play a large role in the decision not to invade. I believe Speer touches on this in his book but I will have to go back and read on the discussion of Sealion, but Speer does mention how much Hitler desired a treaty with the English instead of the Italians. I just really think he did not want war with the English or Americans.
I believe I’ve heard from several sources that the Luftwaffe continually underestimated the RAF’s ability to reconstitute itself and always thought the British has less fighters available than what they had.
And again, Gen. “Smiling” Albert Kesselring stated that Sealion was little more than an over optimistic bluff that few in the Wehrmacht really wanted to carry out, and that there was little coordination between the branches. And even less in the way of serious planning…
I am aware of the wargame. I just cannot find any actual OOB for it. The wargamers “assumed” a division would make it ashore. Based on what?
I would like to see detailed lists of the resources that both sides could deploy, perhaps these are not available online. I have tried putting together such a list but I don’t have the detailed source materials that compiling such a list requires.
I did some research on the German’s minelaying ability. From what I have read they did not have the ability to put thousands of mines into the Dover Straight in any reasonable time frame. It isn’t clear how long the mines would have stayed in place anyway, so the minefields would need constant maintenance.
I’m not looking for the outcome of such a study but the OOB for it.
Too bad no company has made a realistic wargame for Sealion with all units that were available historically represented.
The Sandhurst Wargame was initiated by a Newspaper editor to boost sales. I gather that none of the scenario resembled the actual plan thats been pieced together by German historians like Peter Schenk. Further what little I’ve seen resembles a NATO WARPAC scenario with all the trappings associated with poor NATO cold war intell etc. I would not trust it for anything other than some kind of back handed warning to the Soviets during the cold war …just incase they were developing any ideas :shock::lol:
Schenk Invasion England 1940, has probably the best english translation of the availiable Orbats etc and vessels available etc. His conclusion was they had sufficent transport to furful the mission demanded of them.
http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/olda/167881.shtml
But posters are right in pointing out that from Hitles POV, Sealion was nothing more than fearmongering and fright wars to convince/bully etc the UK into Neutrality he never wanted to invade or go to war in the first place. The same argument holds true for BoB. No were in German WW-II experincences did the Germans follow the allied doctrine of sequential phased service campaigns …IE Naval campaign against UBoats followed by aircampaign against the Luftwaffe followed by destruction of the Nazie war industry leading to Normandy. Germans would have done everything instep with each other to overwhelm the enemies ability to command at the same time. Norway 1940 is a reasonable example of this as is Barbarossa.
heres a quick summation of the German Orbat.
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1145
For a more scientific apprasel of the sea states etc log into the site go to North Sea map and study day in day out month in month out. Its remarkable how the seas around the Straits of Dover are always SWH of 1/2 meter to a meter. Looking at Schenk book the modified barges could handle these sea conditions without too much difficulty.
http://www.oceanweather.com/data/
Going by Schenk book, the Germans planned to exploite the Channel currents to average about 4 knots towed speed, but the assembly and actual invasion route from Belgian and French ports would have ended up taking considerable amount of time.
Other interesting points raise show the Germans mustered 4000 invasion vessels plus 320 naval vessels for the invasion fleet. It appears to only refer to the cross channel invasion forces and doesn’t include Uboats or east coast diversions and decoy forces etc.
It appears the Germans had extensive listings of British sea mine feilds and planned a campaign of ~ 5-6000 mines to link all these minefields up to form barrier mine field up to 6 lanes thick. The planned density of mines exceeded the German mine campaign against the Soviets at Kaliningrad, that claimed claimed atleast one out of every three vessels that tried to penetrate.
It appears that German first echelon landing forces had armor artillery and infantry plus flak and supplies to last weeks.
German invasion plans didn’t require BoB to defeat the RAF BEFORE invasion. That campaign would have been run parrallel to ground and sea actions to overwhelm UK command ability. All that was required was to be able to operate in the channel area. Invasion did plan for a 1-2 week build up period where LW would divert some airpower from BOB to hammer RAF coastal bases and RN naval units in port possibly duplicating their success in Dunkirk [ 3/4 of the Allied destroyers out of action after one week]. For some strange reason the Admiralty concluded that all anti invasion warships [~ 56 destroyers and 1/2 dozen cruisers] had to remain in port during day light hours inorder to sortie overnight ??? making them sitting ducks for Stuka attacks.
If you look at the following site it appears in late 1940 German had > 700 auxiliary warships alone to choose from.
http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_converted.htm
But it also appears that the bulk of any proper landing craft were built in 1941-43 period. Unfortunatly, none of the converted barge vessels are delt with on that great site.
Another interesting book is Peter Smiths “Hold the Narrow Sea”, which explores combat in the English channel through out the war. Its clear that the Germans fought very effectively in both air and sea battles around this period in the war.
http://www.amazon.com/Hold-Narrow-Sea-Warfare-English/product-reviews/0861900790
Another book that high lights the effectiveness of the KM smaller unit naval battles is Vincent Oharas “The German Fleet at War, 1939-1945.”
http://stonebooks.com/archives/041121.shtml
Both these books high light just how impossible it was to fight against enemy naval vessels at night at this time in the war.
Another thing these books high light along with many UBoat studies in the war is how difficult and time consuming it is to actually sink a vessel even a civilian one. As a rule of thumb, the number of enemy vessels including lowly barges and trawlers, that are sunk in any ‘convoy attack’ is approximately equal to the number of attacking vessels. Rearly does this exceed 1:1 only occasional German surface raiders got between 4:1 up to 8:1. These are not the kind of attacks that can be duplicated on a massive operational scale. So you can roughly calculate how many German invasion vessels the allies can expect to destroy on any given day by totaling the number of attacking ships.
Another surprising finding you get from examining OHaras book is that German escort fleets were very effective until the last year of the war as was indeed the bulk of the small units [Destroyers on down]. It appears that in 3/4 of the cases when the allies attacked German convoys [no matter how badly out gunned] the germans convoys were able to escape their attackers, focusing any losses on their own escorts and not the convoys.
That’s an interesting point. I recently finished a book of a German war photographer/correspondent where it’s mentioned that “Unternehmen Seelöwe” was nothing but one giant gamesmanship to distract from Germany’s deployment in the east.
I recall reading a long time ago something vaguely along the same lines in a reasonably well researched source which, alas, I can’t recall but the essence was that Hitler gave Sealion to his commanders to distract them from whatever it was he wanted to distract them from. It was primarily an internal exercise in distraction rather than one aimed at the Allies.
I saw an interview with Adolf Galland on the excellent “World at War” series in which he pretty much states the very same thing–that Sealion was little more than a bluff coupled with an elaborate feint in order to cover preparations for Barbarossa…
It may have been a feint to cover the fact that the Germans couldn’t invade the UK from Hitler, and try and scare the British into a negotiated peace. It cannot have been about Barbarossa however, as the decision to invade was not made until quite some time after invasion preparations had been under way.
But wasn’t there some overlap in planning? And even though Sea Lion was officially canceled, I’m not sure this was adverted to either the British or the Soviets, and I think Hitler still had units earmarked for the “phony” invasion even after the start of German hostilities against the Soviets…
I have been reading a book called “The German Generals Talk” by B. H. Liddell Hart.I’m sure that Hart’s work is well know to most on this forum and I believe his discussions with German Generals in this book is genuine and their answers accurate.
in it, on page 146 he cites a conference between Admiral Raeder and Hitler. Hitler expressed his views summarized in the record of that conference that, “The Fuhrer also views the invasion as a last resort, and also considers air superiority a prerequisite”. This was a conference on July 16th.
Hitler then made a peace appeal to Britain in his speech to the Reichstag on the victory in France.
Hitler knew that a continued war with Britain would be long and bloody and he had no desire to continue. politically he was already looking to Russia and didn’t want a war on 2 fronts.
General Blummentritt also confirmed the total lack of interest by Hitler to want an invasion of Britain to take place. He says on page 153, " Although Operation Sealion was ordered, and preparations made, the affair was not pushed forward. Hitler scarcely seemed to bother about it all - contrary to his usual way…"
This seems to confirm the “bluff” theory but according to those “close” to Hitler is was hardly a bluff but a complete lack of heart in the completion and execution of the plan, for his mind was already turned eastward.
Sea Lion order - 16 July 1940.
Work on invasion plan against USSR ordered - 22 July 1940.
Sea Lion postponed indefinately - 17 Sept 1940.
Operation Barbarossa ordered - 18 Dec 1940.
As many historians have written, including Adam Tooze, Hitler had the idea stuck in his head that the UK was part of his Ayran race and he hoped that one day they would see sense and join him in his war against the Bolshiviks in Russia and the Jews in America. He pushed this idea from the moment he got in to power. When you compare Hitlers prewar ramblings and ravings, with everything he tried to do in the 1930s and WW-II, you see he got his way most of the time. As I already reported, Hitler never wanted to invade or go to war with Britain. These were all ‘fright wars’ to make the British see they were all alone.
All military comments by generals and admirals etc can only be understood with this back drop in mind. Raeder had been pleading with Hitler from 1933 on to invest in a large navy to battle the UK, but Hitler constantly insisted there would be no war with the UK until the late 1940s, so there was plenty of time to build a fleet.He would not even tollerate any discussion in this direction in the 1930s. The only way Raeder got some semblence of a fleet built is because he insisted the ships were needed to defeat the French fleet, not the British fleet…which is also way those ships resembled French designs like their high speed torpedo boats and super destroyers etc.
Sure! They begged Hitler to “invest in a large navy,” as well as a large strategic bomber force, a number of “heavy breakthrough” (Tiger) tanks in 1938, and various other competing projects. But where was he to get the resources to actuate it all? The Germans were saddled with various strategic limitations and thought that taking most of Western Europe would have alleviated their naval weaknesses on the surface…
And I think you’re reading far more into the poppycock rhetoric of Hitler’s bombastic speeches more so than in his actual policy decisions…
They didn’t beg him to invest in any large navy or super bomber force! These were all programmed and underway when Hitler took over power. Both programmes were doable within the constraints of the existing strategic situation. Both programmes were squashed in a fatal attempt to address Hitler’s ever-expanding demands for more occupation troops. The lack of resource issue was pressurized by German heavy industry, which wanted nothing to do with Hitler’s warmongering. Not that they were against Hitler, they just had no faith in diverting their heavy industry towards war. They feared more the loss of their traditional market share than any enemy threat, so the hoarded the steel production and thus prevented further armaments expansion through the late 1930s. Westerners just don’t seem to understand how much Hitler’s demands molded and crippled the German rearmament and war effort . Perhaps you need to read more translated German histories and less English histories of the war?
We don’t have any idea how much resources Hitler’s nazi wasted on the massive building projects to suite nazi vanity before the war. Examining secondary military programmes like the "West Wall”, the Steel alone allocated to the ‘West wall’ was on the order of ¾ million tons plus millions of tons of concrete; sand; gravel & timber. This production effort spanned 4 years requiring ½ million workforce and nearly 2 billion RM investment to build a string of hundreds of mini “Atlantic Wall” style fortifications, backed up by thousands of infantry bunkers and gun/artillery positions. Just to give you an idea, the entire German armaments building programme from 1935-1939 amounted to about 6 billion RM, in otherwords West Wall amounted to fully 1/3 of this investment.
The armored steel component built for the Westwall was about 65,000-70,000 tons. In many cases that was wasted building massive steel wall of 10-35cm thick-armored steel, for a machine gun position along with similar thickness armored doors. Worse hundreds of massive armored copulas [some times 130 tons] were built for light mortar or machine gun positions in these fortifications. Since German military doctrine was built on mobile warfare such luxuries as heavy fortification went completely against doctrine.
To give you an idea of this wastage, the entire German warship-building programme through 1934-1940 [~ 21 major warships of which only about ½ were completed, even through 1942-43] required an investment of ½ million tons steel including nearly 110,000 tons of armored steel. Many of the above mentioned warships were repeatedly delay or never completed due to the shortages of steels going to existing army projects like the Atlantic Wall etc. In fact all warship-building schedules had to be set back an additional year in 1937, due to these resource shortfalls.
This means even ½ of the steel allocated to the ‘West Wall’ plus all the armored steel also diverted, could have allowed Germany to build a prewar fleet of two aircraft carriers [0]; 4 battleships [2]; plus 5 heavy cruisers [2] and two light cruisers [0] ; supported by ½ dozen [4] fast replenishment tankers and 30 destroyers [22] to be completed by 1940 [Actual number completed by end of 1939 is in brackets] . In fact the amount of ship construction and armored steel left over in 1940-42 time period would have allowed the “Twins” to be re gunned from 9 x 11” guns to 6 x 15” guns plus over 20 destroyers built. In addition either two of the H class battleships; all three of the OPQ battle cruisers or up to 4 of the P class Panzerschiff; could also have been built with these displaced resources.
A scaled down simpler ‘Westwall’ programme could have still continued, but been limited to thousands of infantry bunkers and built up gun positions for static divisions to occupy.
Thanks for that informative post.
It’s not my field, so two questions spring to mind.
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Was the steel used in fortifications the type of steel that could have been used equally well for warships?
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Isn’t there a degree of irony (no pun intended) in Germany devoting so much effort and material to fortifications after its experience in defeating the French fortifications on the Maginot line by flanking them?
Some work has been done, for instance the following post on the Axis History forum; http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=114&t=152290
Note; the numbers in the chart are not actual ships, but “deployment months”, i.e. one destroyer deployed in a specific area for one month. So, for example, the number “911” in the category “Home Waters” for 1940, represents an average of about 76 destroyers deployed in Home Waters for the 12 months of 1940.
The links in the post are for RN cruiser deployments
No, they weren’t. There were ostensibly no German plans at all to build beyond the very few moderate sized “capital” ships they were allowed under the Versailles Treaty until Germany negotiated the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1934, two years after Hitler took power. That was when the Kriegsmarine began to formulate plans to modernize and increase it’s fleet. But even then, it was still rather modest compared to it’s possible enemies. The famous, and hopelessly ambitious, Z Plan was formulated in 1939.
Uhm, what “market” existed for German warship production in the 1930’s?
And my understanding of the German economy was that by the late 1930’s, it was virtually a “command economy” with steel resources, and other vital commodities, allocated by the government. German heavy industry wasn’t hoarding steel or much of anything else in the late 1930’s.
No, it didn’t. The West Wall was built because Hitler realized he would be badly outnumbered by his potential enemies and he badly needed to economize on the number of troops required to defend Germany while he embarked on his anticipated conquests. The fortifications allowed him to use second rate garrison troops for defense while his best mechanized formations were engaged in Czechoslovakia, Poland, etc.
Yes, the failure to meet ambitious naval construction objectives was due to resource “shortfalls”, but steel was probably one of the least important. The German shipbuilding industry simply didn’t have enough slips capable of accommodating large warship construction, and repairing the numerous large warships damaged early in the war in the Norwegian campaign exacerbated that problem. Moreover, there was a chronic shortage of experienced shipyard workers due to conscription into the German Army. Expanding shipyard capacity would have cost as much, if not more, than expanding aircraft production and tank production, both of which enjoyed higher priority than warship construction. Germany simply didn’t have the money and had to make hard choices; these choices did not favor the Kriegsmarine.
I suspect that the fact that Germany was operating it’s armed forces on an extremely constrained fuel budget also impacted warship construction. The sustained operations of even a small number additional large, or medium-sized, surface warships would have been impossible for Germany without significant new oil resources, so there was little point in expending scarce raw materials and labor in constructing them.
This assumes, of course, the availability of the shipyard capacity, which wasn’t there, the shipyard workers, who were to a large extent serving in the German Army, and the oil to operate these vessels, which remained in oil fields under Soviet control.
In any case, the ships planned would have been but a drop in the bucket compared to what was realistically needed to confront the Royal Navy with any chance of success.
Interesting, because I had the understanding that no Luftwaffe existed in any meaningful form prior to Hitler’s takeover of power in 1933 and his regime predates the formation (unofficial in 1934) and official in 1935 by years IIRC. I’ve read that the original commander (Weaver?) certainly wanted strategic parity if not superiority with the Entente and certainly lusted after four engine bombers. But German industry had been retarded by the defeat of 1918, the resulting punitive Versailles Treaty abortion, The Great Depression, and the fact that Germany was largely strategically isolated with limited access to resources severally restricting the capabilities of German workers and engineers. Germany was also years behind the Allies in aircraft design and engine manufacturing and had very limited ship building capability. So they had to focus very carefully under the Allied Inter-Military Commission. The main reason why the Luftwaffe’s bomber fleet was basically restricted to twin-engined medium bombers was that they were much easier to produce technically speaking than four engine bombers were. And the Luftwaffe wanted numbers more than anything, and for all its power an technical innovation, the Luftwaffe also suffered from a strategic incoherence under Udet and his successor, and Goering was a pompous arsehole that routinely lied to Hitler to cover fundamental fissures in the air weapon. It simply isn’t ‘all Hitler’s fault!’ Although I agree there was a great deal of Nazi economic incompetence until Speer turned things around --too little, too late…
Both programmes were doable within the constraints of the existing strategic situation. Both programmes were squashed in a fatal attempt to address Hitler’s ever-expanding demands for more occupation troops.
No they weren’t! You can’t just build up what doesn’t, or hardly, exists in less than a decade! And I have no idea what you mean by “occupation troops.” Germany wasn’t occupying anything more than the Rhineland when the programs were started…
The lack of resource issue was pressurized by German heavy industry, which wanted nothing to do with Hitler’s warmongering. Not that they were against Hitler, they just had no faith in diverting their heavy industry towards war. They feared more the loss of their traditional market share than any enemy threat, so the hoarded the steel production and thus prevented further armaments expansion through the late 1930s. Westerners just don’t seem to understand how much Hitler’s demands molded and crippled the German rearmament and war effort . Perhaps you need to read more translated German histories and less English histories of the war?
Oh please! German heavy industry is certainly culpable in Hitler’s “warmongering” as the industrialists greatly profited from it. Nobody in Germany complained about rearmament. Nobody should have as the German state had a right to self defense in proportion to its importance. In the beginning, no one saw rearmament as anything more than Germany retaking her rightful place in Europe and maintaining parity to the Soviet threat. I think you are blurring the distinction between rearmament, which most Germans (and many Europeans) saw as inevitable and necessary, to his later aggression to which most Germans would have been blissfully unaware, including his general staff, until the late 1930s. The German rearmament program of the 1930s was an absolute boon for them. But Hitler, nor anyone, could change the fact that Germany was strategically vulnerable and isolated with a heavy reliance on the hated Bolsheviks for trade and resources. But you could kindly enlighten us all on “Hitler’s demands?”
As for reading less English and more German histories, I in fact purchased The Blitzkreig Legend co-written by a colonel in the Bundeswehr, Karl-heinz Frieser, who used primary archival resources to dispel many of the myths of the Heer’s “mobile warfare” formations. Perhaps you can suggest some others?
We don’t have any idea how much resources Hitler’s nazi wasted on the massive building projects to suite nazi vanity before the war. Examining secondary military programmes like the "West Wall”, the Steel alone allocated to the ‘West wall’ was on the order of ¾ million tons plus millions of tons of concrete; sand; gravel & timber. This production effort spanned 4 years requiring ½ million workforce and nearly 2 billion RM investment to build a string of hundreds of mini “Atlantic Wall” style fortifications, backed up by thousands of infantry bunkers and gun/artillery positions. Just to give you an idea, the entire German armaments building programme from 1935-1939 amounted to about 6 billion RM, in otherwords West Wall amounted to fully 1/3 of this investment. The armored steel component built for the Westwall was about 65,000-70,000 tons. In many cases that was wasted building massive steel wall of 10-35cm thick-armored steel, for a machine gun position along with similar thickness armored doors. Worse hundreds of massive armored copulas [some times 130 tons] were built for light mortar or machine gun positions in these fortifications. Since German military doctrine was built on mobile warfare such luxuries as heavy fortification went completely against doctrine.
Interesting, but very flawed. Firstly, the German steel going into the emplacements was poor quality, utter crap and barely viable to reinforce concrete pillboxes and blockhouses against medium caliber shell fire. How do you think it would have done in the hull of a ship undergoing temperature fluctuations from arctic to tropic seas? Or when a the first British or French shells hits a Marine destroyer?
It is also very arguable as to how much “mobile warfare” was emphasized in German doctrine overall. Much of its logistical system was still horse-and-ox-drawn behind the mighty panzers. And defensive doctrine is as important as practicing blitzing everyone…
Secondly, the West Wall/Siegfried Line may well have SAVED Hitler’s regime in the early part of WWII by blunting and demoralizing the French Army during the “Saar Offensive!” Without the West Wall, even the most reactionary French officer and politician would have had a hard time justifying its halting if there hadn’t been a triumph of German propaganda in metaphorically building up what was a sorry defensive position held by immobile, half-trained Heer conscripts who were devoid of armor, artillery, and who probably would have folded in the face of a determined French drive --fortifications or not. The West Wall also provided some difficulties for the Americans sweeping into Germany. And its imposing breastworks–vauntingly inflated by Goebbels’ lies–even inspired the U.S. Army to build massive specially built gun carriages they would never use …
To give you an idea of this wastage, the entire German warship-building programme through 1934-1940 [~ 21 major warships of which only about ½ were completed, even through 1942-43] required an investment of ½ million tons steel including nearly 110,000 tons of armored steel. Many of the above mentioned warships were repeatedly delay or never completed due to the shortages of steels going to existing army projects like the Atlantic Wall etc. In fact all warship-building schedules had to be set back an additional year in 1937, due to these resource shortfalls.
This means even ½ of the steel allocated to the ‘West Wall’ plus all the armored steel also diverted, could have allowed Germany to build a prewar fleet of two aircraft carriers [0]; 4 battleships [2]; plus 5 heavy cruisers [2] and two light cruisers [0] ; supported by ½ dozen [4] fast replenishment tankers and 30 destroyers [22] to be completed by 1940 [Actual number completed by end of 1939 is in brackets] . In fact the amount of ship construction and armored steel left over in 1940-42 time period would have allowed the “Twins” to be re gunned from 9 x 11” guns to 6 x 15” guns plus over 20 destroyers built. In addition either two of the H class battleships; all three of the OPQ battle cruisers or up to 4 of the P class Panzerschiff; could also have been built with these displaced resources.
You fail to mention that Germany had a surface fleet in WWI that it hardly used as it was hemmed in by the Royal and French Navies. You also fail to mention that the Kriegsmarine’s emphasis was on the u-boats mission of strangling Britain as it was much cheaper and more economically sensible to do so. Secondly, this grand fleet would also have been a waste of resources as much of it would have been sent to the bottom by the navies of France, Britain, and later the United States and also could have been used as a crux by the Allies to build up their own militaries and hasten their own rearmaments programs earlier in the 1930s that were years behind the Germans otherwise…
A scaled down simpler ‘Westwall’ programme could have still continued, but been limited to thousands of infantry bunkers and built up gun positions for static divisions to occupy.
Hindsight is all 20/20 my friend. 
The French and British would also have greatly benefited from it and expended as much of their resources on bad judgments at least as much as the Germans did. Probably far more so…perhaps the French could have heeded De Gaulle’s call in the early 1930s to maintain a large, professional armored striking force in the French Army instead of the general staff attempting to damage his career and pass him over for promotion for his impetuous outburst against the status quo of ‘methodical battle’ operational concepts and “broad front” strategy?
An excellent point I failed to mention was the lack of access to petroleum by the German state that was even more critical than just about anything else. There was a push for Germany to expand its production through the use of synthetic oil plants early on. But the technical challenges were immense. I think one needs to look no further than the inability of the Imperial Japanese Navy to sortie its capital ships late in the War due to fuel constraints to see the limitations Germany faced…