New WWII Scenario in the works

[The Apologist]

Sealion?

Sealion is rather conclusively debunked here:

http://www.flin.demon.co.uk/althist/seal1.htm

For the truly interested, a visit to http://groups.google.com and a search through the newsgroup soc.history.what-if for "Sealion" will probably cover just about every angle of that most fantastic operation, though it requires wading through a lot of ideas being repeatedly brought up... and repeatedly being quashed.

Oh, and as for Churchill thinking that Britain couldn't hold out? Ridiculous! Read his history of the Second World War (specifically, Volume II: Their Finest Hour) - there's copies of his communications with Roosevelt and others, and never a trace of defeatism.

Looking forward to the scenario, though

[Cal]

Re: Sealion?

Originally posted by The Apologist

Oh, and as for Churchill thinking that Britain couldn't hold out? Ridiculous!

Actually, I heard somewhere the Churchill admitted (AFTER the war) that the only part of Germany he was really afraid of was the Kreigsmarine.

But anyway.... to get away from the AH, and back to me "finishing this thing," whoever wants to help, *gazes in the ANZAC, Hobbes, and Jimmywax's general direction..*
I could really use 3 unit graphics to represent Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Patton unique "general" units the Americans posses from the start.

Anyway, this week is final week at my college. (Did I mention that? ) But afterwards, I'm all free to work hard on my idea.

Here's the potential title.gif I'm going to use, FMK made it for me.

The title graphic has the name "Home Front" on it, which is the working title for this (even though it's not a very original title).

[Scott F]

I don't believe Operation Sealion, as drawn up, would ever work. My hypothetical scenario is not Operation Sealion. Sealion was not drawn up until well after the fall of France. When the Luftwaffe took to punishing Dunkirk, several General Staff officers had hypothesized that if the BEF was annihilated (though they seemed to all believe that it could be done only by land), they could effectively get across the Channel. Even with the miracle at Dunkirk, there were no heavy units or large pieces of equipment of any real nature left in Britain. They had all been left behind on the continent. You would literally have weary British infantrymen, still soggy from Dunkirk, and lots of old WWI veterans in the militia groups, all armed with mere rifles and assorted small arms, attempting to stop a mechanized military force equipped with superior firepower (not just tanks, but the German infantry units had a highter density of machine guns, submachine guns, mortars, and so on per soldier than any other army in Europe at the time).

The battles of Crete and Norway were all fought in areas where the Germans enjoyed near total air supremicy, and even then they took severe losses. The German surface fleet was all but wiped out at Norway and the Parachute divisions were lucky to win at Crete (where despite heavy German bombing, the RN managed to slaughter the German followup seaborne fleet)

Yes, they were lucky to win, but you are forgetting just that. They did win. There was tremendous defeatism in Britain and most of Europe by June 1940. The Germans had just smashed Poland in two weeks, the Netherlands in two days, Belgium in two weeks, France in four weeks, Norway in six weeks, Denmark in just three days, and Luxembourg in a matter of hours. Adolf Hitler had done in four weeks what Kaiser Wilhelm could not do in four years. The shock on Britain (and the world) was tremendous. And this is before Churchill could do anything about grim determination and fighting from here and there and forever to rally the people. IN June and July of 1940, the British people needed rallying. They needed it desparately, as much as British historians and apologists love to downplay it.

To defeat Britain, the Germans don't need to occupy the island. They need to bring about the fall of the Churchill government. Churchill was not exactly known for his military acumen at this time. He was noted for the naval disasters that he presided over at Narvik and at the Dardanelles more than for his rallying of the people with great speeches. If there is no miracle at Dunkirk to give a glimmer of hope, and the Germans manage a foothold on Britain proper, with Britain already a psychological wreck, it is unlikely that Churchill's government would not have fallen. And if Churchill's government fell, it meant the establishment of a government under appeasers such as Lord Halifax, who could very well have become to Britain as Laval and Petain were to France.

Scarpa Flow is only a days sailing time from southern England. Had the Germans been able to mount a surprise lighning assault across the Channel, the heavy ships would have arrived in good time to destroy the German supply convoys, and maroon the invasion army. Also, during the period of 1940 in which the danger of invasion was highest, many of the heavy warships were moved to southern ports (Plymouth in particular)

All true, but I do not think that the British would risk their fleet in the Channel, an area that is so close to Germany as to become a shooting gallery. We know now that the Germans lacked torpedo bombers. The British did not know that then or could not be certain of it. At Taranto, the British sank Italian ships with planes made of canvas and wood. Who might know what hundreds of modern German warplanes equiped with dive bombing equipment or torpedos might do? The fleet was up north until much later in the summer, and even then only a scant few large units were sent down.

Everyone loves to talk about how ****ty the Luftwaffe was and how incredibly wondrous and flawless and perfect the RAF is. The Luftwaffe's performance against the small craft of Dunkirk is likely every bit as indicative (or not indicative, depending on your view) of their future performance against Royal Navy surface units as the RAF's performance was during the Channel Dash, in which over a dozen warships, three of them capital ships, managed to sail in broad daylight through the English Channel largely unharmed.

As I said previously the German surface fleet was all but wiped out at Norway. About half the destroyers had been sunk, along with a large chunk of the navy's cruiser force. Most significantly, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been damaged and were not combat ready untill late 1940. As a result, the Royal Navy outnumbered the Keigsmarine by a huge margin.

First, the British cannot be certain of that, so there will be a considerable fear factor during the period of the landings. Second, numbers are really unlikely to mean much navy wise when the bulk of the fleet remains up north a day away. Third, the Luftwaffe can likely attack surface combatants and sink or damage them far easier than they could sink trawlers or pleasure yachts which lifted so many from Dunkirk.

True, but when the British pulled out of Europe, they did a supurb job of wrecking all the ports from which could be used to mount an invasion.

Not all of them, and certainly not if they are wiped out by the Army instead of the Army being restrained to leave victory to the Luftwaffe.

One must realize that no alternate history will ever be perfect. Someone will sneeze and assinine and foolhardy plans will succeed. A butterfly will flap its wings in South America and wondrous plans will end in disaster. History is full of implausibilities. Alternate history might as well be the same (though Hitler managing to conquer Canada seems to be quite a stretch.

[Cal]

Originally posted by Scott F
Hitler managing to conquer Canada seems to be quite a stretch.

There were thousands of butterflies flying around in Brazil that month.

[The ANZAC]

Well, Cal here is MacArthur! Yes it's here already (I ahd one left over from earlier)

[Cal]

Originally posted by The ANZAC
Well, Cal here is MacArthur!

Excellent!

[Cavalcadeus]

Alot of information on Canada and our defences around 1935 can be found here

http://www.glasnost.de/hist/usa/1935invasion.html

It might be useful for the bit about Germany invading Canada.

[Case]

This site has the American order of battle on the 7th of December 1941: http://freeport-tech.com/wwii/013_usa/__usa.htm

[Leonidas]

Cal: Great looking page art for "Homefront". While the name is fine for the scenario, I would suggest holding a scenario-naming contest (in a separate thread) for this scenario.

Here is some info on the actual historical plans from 1899 that Germany had for invading the United States:

From Michael Gannon's book "Operation Drumbeat" - In 1899, the German Admiralty Staff had prepared a detailed contingency plan for a joint Navy-Army invasion of the United States. The plan called for a direct assault on New York Harbor including the initial landing of two to three battalions of infantry and one battalion of engineers on Long Island. From New York the combined naval and land forces would spread north to Boston and south to Norfolk. The plan presumed 33.3 percent naval superiority.

As an alternative to the above plan, consideration was given to initially seizing Puerto Rico, but this gave way in 1900 to a plan of advance that called for a German armada out of Wilhelmshaven to descend on either New York or Boston through Provincetown as a base of operations. The revised plan envisioned a landing force of one hundred thousand men that would have to be transported to the Cape Cod peninsula. . .

Best of luck on the scenario. . .

[Jimmywax]

Cal- if you find me some good pictures (preferably in color) of Ike and Patton i will get the units done for you.

[Cal]

Originally posted by Jimmywax
Cal- if you find me some good pictures (preferably in color) of Ike and Patton i will get the units done for you.

Ok... here's an oil painting of Patton (the only one in color I could find.)

[Cal]

Here's an actual picture of patton. (b/w)

[Cal]

And here's one of Eisenhower in 1944. (b/w, couldn't find on in color.)

[Leonidas]

Make the Patton unit one tough SoB.

He was feared and respected by the Germans; despised by many American Staff Officers; and came to be grudgingly respected and loved by his men.

He never lost a battle. . .

Although, the political back-biting and in-fighting was a no-win situation.

And make sure he doesn't slap any soldiers. . .

[Case]

If you're after more pictures of Patton, try google image search.

Cal, are you sure about Ike? He was more of a political type of General (eg his strength was co-ordinating Allied efforts, and not commanding armies)