Seelowe

*** split from Suvorov books ***
Seelöwe was never seriously contemplated in impementation, other than putting a show for a bluff.

This post has been edited by dragos on February 07, 2009 09:56 am

I disagree. The German HQ's (OKW, Kriegsmarine, OKH, Luftwaffe) made their plans - quite late, it's true - and even requisitioned all the boats on the west coast. Why do you think it was just a bluff?

If 1) Dunkirk evacuation was not allowed to happen and 2) Luftwaffe would not lose the Battle of Britain then Seelöwe would have been a real opportunity. The key factor was air supremacy over the Channel.

It is curious (to say the least...) why didn't anybody "pay" for those two events - I mean the Reichsmarschall remained on his post until the end of the war. And he could have been blamed for both events, although the stopping of the tanks at Dunkerque was somehow a common decision of von Rundstedt and Hitler (which confirmed each other their worst fears).

This is a rethorical question.
The persons who could answer it died long ago.

Gen. Dénes

Perhaps the unexpected fall of France, which surprised both camps, and all the world, was enough to let such events, which appeared quite unimportant in this view, to pass as acceptable in the view of Hitler's expectancies.

the "preparations" were made by assembling river barges which were not seaworthy. if by a conjuncture of fantastic weather, they would have managed to put 100.000 men ashore, they had no transport capacity to keep them resupplied. even without the interference by the RN.
they would have, with the merchant navy of 1914. but not 1940.

the whole thing was a bluff to scare the british politicians into a peace agreement.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on February 08, 2009 12:21 pm

May have been a bluff or not, but it worked quite well: both sides believed it. And the Battle of Britain was NOT a bluff!

The British also had destroyed 10% of the German barges in the first 2 months of the battle of Britain.

Yep. The Germans seem to have begun losing men/material even before the start of the operations...

This post has been edited by MMM on February 10, 2009 12:50 pm

BoB was no part of Seelöwe. It started much to late in the year for that. To take advantge of the weather, the invasion, with subsequent capture of some ports with intact unloading capacity, had to be over by the end of august. if they didn't invade in july, they certainly would not have done so in october or november, when the weather in the channel is much worse.

both sides knew very well what an invasion requires, what cargo space is needed to sustain it and both sides had extensive documentation on each others shipping. no surprises.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on February 08, 2009 09:01 pm

Oh, you make it seem as if it should have been planed all in advance and followed exactly afterwards... which was NOT the case with many brilliant victories (on both sides) attained in spite of careful planning and, most of all, against the odds! Seelowe was not made (IMO, at least) due to the lack of political will (and maybe fear?) from Hitler. Otherwise, how could one explain the bombing of London and cities?

it has not been made for the lack of a possibility for military implementation.
to have everything required for a realistic chance of a successfull invasion, a massive naval programme would have been required, together with a strengthening of the luftwaffe, at the expense of the heer. this, given the industrial output geared for war in 1940 would take 3-4 years at least, time which adolf did not have.
the bombing of london and so forth was an attempt to convince the british to sue for peace, nothing else. it was no prerequisite for a landing, which was not possible for several years anyways.

for one, adolf didn't see much of a conflict of interest with britain. he demanded the imperial colonies back (not that they were worth anything) but would have gladly settled for much less if he didn't have to wage a resource-wasting naval war.
other than that, as britain is an island and the RN in the position to turn any landing into defeat, given the surface strength of the kriegsmarine, in 1940 there was no military possibility to attempt a successfull invasion.

both sides were very well aware of this.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on February 09, 2009 09:39 pm

Is it so? Was it so in many other cases? And I have to disagree with you (of course, on the "vast" field of counter-factual history) on the impossibility of an invasion. It would have undoubtedly succeeded, but the costs would have been too high. They did NOT need more than a couple of divisions and some airfields, as the RAF was already cornered - only the Krauts didn't know that!
And as for the bombing of the cities, I have my doubts that Hitler/Goring mistook the Brits for Spaniards at Guernica or Netherlands at Rotterdam, believing they'll subdue them w/ airpower alone. But BoB is another question, although it is clearly linked w/ Seelowe.

Is it so? Was it so in many other cases? And I have to disagree with you (of course, on the "vast" field of counter-factual history) on the impossibility of an invasion. It would have undoubtedly succeeded, but the costs would have been too high. They did NOT need more than a couple of divisions and some airfields, as the RAF was already cornered - only the Krauts didn't know that!

nowhere i said a successfull invasion was genuine impossible. it was impossible with what the kriegsmarine and luftwaffe had at her disposal in 1940.
they had no landing craft, no transport capacity, not enough harbours in close range with loading capacity to sustain a sizable army on the british shore.
the kriegsmarine did not have enough forces to secure the channel.
the luftwaffe could not keep the RAF+RN from interfering with the landing and supply. the invasion force would not only have to land, they'd have to be sustained there, they needed to caputure ports with unloading capacity intact and keep them intact.

even with air superiority archived it would not be enough. the luftwaffe archived local air superiority over the eastern and central mediterannean. it didn't keep the RN from intercepting an invasion force for crete, which was much weaker defended than the british shore. it didn't keep the RN from interfering with the supply of the afrika korps to the point that supply shortage seriously hampered their operational capability.

obviously the RAF wasn't all that cornered if a few weeks later managed to make the aerial assault of britain a costly affair.
and, as i said, the RAF wasn't even the biggest problem. the RN was.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on February 10, 2009 01:57 pm