Operation sea-lion. Was it ever possible?

Question

If The Lufftwaffe had won the Battle of Britain and gained air superiority over the skies of the UK, How would a naval landing have been successful considering the might of the Royal Navy? Wouldn't they have just been blown out of the water?

Answer 1

Once you have air superiority, seapower is powerless to stop an invasion. The Germans would simply pick their targets and sink them. The actual invasion would then consist of massive airstrikes and naval fire on all british troop concentrations before landing German forces en masse. Of course, just prior to invasion there would be 2 or3 German airborne divisions dropped behind enemy lines cutting comunications, blowing up ammo dumps and causing chaos.

Answer 2

No, Operation Sea-Lion was never possible, even if the Germans could defeat the Royal Air Force.

The Reasons Why:

1. The German Air Force, it was not designed to fight ships. The difference between combat in the Pacific and the Atlantic is that the Japense airplanes were designed with the destruction of ships in mind, and further their pilots were trained to target ships. As a result the Japense were much more effective in sinking opposing fleets then the Germans would have been. Further, the Japense used both bombers, and in particular torpedo planes to great effect, the Germans had no torpedo planes as they were focused on ground support. Furthermore, the torpedo planes are required to sink battleships. Could the German air force have attacked British destroyers, yes, but they couldn't impact or much less stop Royal Navy operations during the withdraw from Dunkirk or Crete.

2. The German Navy, 1 cruiser and 6 destroyers was the operational German Navy after their Norway campaign. The Germans had over half their fleet sunk in this campaign and that was not even against the full might of the Royal Navy. These remaining ships would have been brushed aside by the British and their transport and landing ships destroyed.

3. German Army, an opposed beach landing requires specialized equipment and training. Amercians, Japense, and British all developed specialized ships, and training to do a beach assualt. These skills took time and energy to develop. The Germans did not have this capability in July 1940, and could not have developed it before 1941.

I will agree that the Germans could have landed troops, both by air, and sea in England, but theses forces would have been limited by their transportation abilities, and unable to be resupplied once in England as the Royal Navy would have engaged enemy shipping. While the Royal Navy would have taken casualties, these casualties would have stopped the resupply of Germans, and destroyed the German ships. There was no chance, even with control of the air, for Sea-Lion to work.

Answer 3

The English channel is not very wide. If the Germans had gained sufficient air superiority they could have prevented Navy interference in the initial landings, which would have been supported by airborne drops. And if the Royal Navy had thrown itself wholesale into stopping the invasion the Stukas and other aircraft would have inflicted massive losses on them. But, the Luftwaffe never gained the superiority they needed and the invasion was put on hold indefinitely.

Answer 4

Of course it was possible. After all the germans invaded Norway and that was more difficult that crossing the Channel. Of course the coast defences would be more serious (simple question of numbers) but the initial landing would only have to secure an airfield and a harbour- very similar to the air-drop invasion of Crete.
The Royal Navy would probably go down fighting- as they did in the defence of Singapore

Answer 5

Air superiority beat naval power in WWII - look at the Far East and the Pacific War. So if the RAF had been beaten, the Germans would have been able to make some sort of lodgment in England.

Answer 6

If the Germans had air superiority they would eventually have sunk all the ships of the Royal Navy

Answer 7

well the initial intention of operation sealion was to destroy the raf bases and air force installation then concentrate on sea and navy targets in the english channel and cross at dover and close to plymouth to open a pincer movement on london had it gone ahead.

if they had stuck to this plan instead of targeting cities when the raf bombed berlin in retaliation after an accidental bomb drop on london i think they could have succesfully stopped the raf at their bases.

had this been achieved the next stage was to target all shipping and military vessels in the channel with the belief that the royal navy would re-locate the navy to safe ports outside the stuckers range - liverpool and scarpa flow. once this had been done the channel would have been open to conquest and britain with an incredible small army of roughly 60,000 troops on the mainland could have been over ran


so yes it could of happened had the raf been defeated at its bases the navy would have been sitting ducks and an ampibious assult a real possibility

Answer 8

I think it's more likely that they would have continued bombing Britain's industrial base while keeping the land war on the continent.
Of course, once the States entered the war, it would all be a moot point anyhow.