Quote:
Originally Posted by iCaMpWiThAWP
I got some questions about the WW2 long campaign, is it limited to watching history again, or can i change it?
Can i hit the japanese mainland? what about sealion? is it possible to play things like this?
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The WW2 Long Campaign follows the pattern of World War 2.
There are no "what ifs", that is for a User Campaign designer to do if he sees fit.
Sealion would be a simple one, a rounding up of a few tired, hungry and wet survivors of the invasion force to the POW camps.
Sealion has been done to death on the alt-history and WW2 newsgroups and forums. It is a non starter and hands the British a victory on a plate, even if the Germans are allowed to hand-wave total air superiority.
It is a simple plan. Lets crowd a division or 2 into all the low-free board Rhine
river barges we can find (And cripple all the industry that uses these barges in the meantime). We will then tow them at a screaming 2 knots across the Channel in strings behind tugboats. This will guarantee that the invasion flotilla is spotted, as it will take longer than one night to cross. We will do this in the Channel, where the tidal rip current is more than our barge-string forward progress rate so we will inevitably drift off sideways and be unable to make headway if we try to head into the current to correct our course. Our barges will be so overloaded that all the Royal Navy has to do is charge some destroyers at full speed through the flotillas of these things during the night. No need for any gun or torpedo use, the wash from the destroyers will simply swamp the barges. As would any towing on anything other than a flat calm, and since "choppy" weather is rather normal for the Channel we had better pick our time well!. We are so slow that even if granted total air superiority, the RN will have enough night where the Luftwaffe is useless to do this. Germany has no significant navy and if they did put them out to screen the force, it would be party time for the RN home fleet.
Actually - the RN have valid gun targets, as killing a tug will leave its string of 3-4 unpowered barges full of seasick passengers wallowing about to be dealt with at leisure.
Now lets imagine that a few disordered remnants make it to the beach. These barges are not landing craft, so the infantry have to go ashore somehow, either by jumping over the side and swimming in (loaded with combat gear) or we beach the barges. Beached barges would likely be barges we no longer have the use of, for return missions.
If we are landing our few Panzers, then the only way to get these ashore is to beach the barge they are in, and
blow the sides or the bow off with explosives!. Ditto for any carrying field guns etc. (We have no plans for any transport, so any ATG and field guns would have to be man-pushed).
We would need to capture a port to get any significant weaponry ashore. All ports on the relevant target areas will be blown by the British on approach of any force (they have other ports elsewhere to use). Catch-22.
We don't have enough barges to resupply our troops
and land a significant force, so any resupply is up to cycling the survivors back to French ports (through the Royal Navy destroyer attacks once again) and then load up for a day or 2 there, before again setting off for a 20 hour run across the Channel (Braving the RN once more).
So any infantrymen - it really only is a few infantry that might have made it ashore - that we left on the beaches will need to wait about 3-4 days for any reinforcements or even resupply. This will be not much as there will not be many barges (and especially the tugboats!) left by now, and the Kriegsmarine will have lined the bottom of the channel. There probably will be no practical resupply really, the few survivors being pounded on the beaches will be the only troops that make it ashore. As for any paratroopers and glider troops used, it is hunting season for the UK land forces.
The land forces that might make it would be a couple of much reduced regiments of infantry with no support weapons, and a half dozen tanks and howitzers all trying to fight their way off the beaches. And maybe a division of para/gliders being annoying somewhere for a few hours.
Any barge-landed forces will be fairly randomly spread out over a rather wide area of southern England due to the problems with barge towing and tidal currents, not to mention the confusion of the RN night attacks. Many of these will fall ashore on rocky and shoals shores and not nice sandy beaches. These will be shipwrecks, not "landings".
So - alarums and excursions for the UK land forces for 24 hours or so, but mainly leading off POWs to camps. Many kill markers for the RN, it's a wet dream come true for them.
Any infantry that made it ashore would have to deal with the beach counter-landing defences and then once the UK HQ realised that there was noting else then a counter attack from the several divisions held South of London on the stop lines. This included several brigades of "I" tanks - A10 and Matildas 1 and 2. Remember - the German survivors of their own self-inflicted shipwreck (it really
cannot be called a "landing", even if the British stood aside and let them try it unopposed!) will be lucky to have any AT guns at all surviving that event, and then getting from the barge wreckage across the beach..
Sealion was always a political manoeuvre - it had no basis in operational reality.
Simulating Sealion in SP games:
First problem is that all "barges" are self-propelled, and of the sort that are designed to be beached. We do not have a class of unpowered items not designed to be used on the open ocean, needing tugs to pull them and that will react badly to any attempt to beach them (most would broach in the surf).
These Rhine barges really do not "land" - they would have to really shipwreck themselves to let the troops try to get off, or wait for the tide to recede and ride on the sands (if the British were sporting enough to allow that of course!).
SP does not have a "tide", or "drift" - it is not a naval game.
SP AFV landing barges have proper unloading ramps. We don't have a class that actually has to blow a hole in its own side with explosives to then try to get the 2 or so panzer 2s or 2 or so 105mm howitzers on board off.
Apparently the Germans had severe problems with seasickness of the troops on board these scows, even in harbour and lagoon tests. No tests were done on the open channel as far as I know. SP has no way to simulate troops reduced to "I don't give a shoot, I am so seasick I want to die" status, but in a scenario, morale and experience could be cut drastically?.
We also really do not have a way to simulate the real "joy" for the prospective German shipwreck survivors/castaways, ie the night before the landing. SP does not have rules for swamping/sinking by passing high speed vessels.
SP does not have any weather rules - so there is no way to simulate a bit of "frisky" channel weather springing up and doing the work for the British. (The most likely Sealion scenario really!). In that case the main "work" would be done by any local RNLI and air-sea rescue stations under a flag of truce.
Any land part of a "Sealion" game is entirely irrelevant. There would be no real land activity. The German survivors are just castaways waiting to be interned in POW camp. All the Brits need do is contain them on the beach and wait for the non-existent supplies to run out really.
A "sealion" scenario based on reality can skip the "beach landing" phase and just have some seasick infantry already landed on the beach (ignore barges or have some burning wreckage) with almost nil heavy weapons, trying to break out of a beachhead that outnumbers them. And with a reinforcing force of Matilda + infantry (that also outnumbers the seasick shipwreck survivors) arriving after a while to beat them back into the surf. A boring game.
The only really interesting game is the real killing event - the destroyer action against the helpless barges, escorted by a few minesweepers against 50 or more UK DD. That would be a game for a naval set of rules, but again a bit boring as it is just target practice once the minimal escort was dealt with.
Conclusion
To "do" a sealion type thing that had any chance of success then you would need a
strategic game, that lets the Germans change priorities (like HOI?).
- They would need to build a fleet big enough to destroy the RN in home waters first. And do this before the USA came into the war (or have an alt time-line where the USA does not aid the British in any way). Otherwise their navy has to be a challenger to the combined fleets.
If they tried this before 39, and they would need to, the British Empire would notice, and build to match - i.e. exactly the same situation as the WW1 "riskflotte". Any steel on warships would detract from panzer production, guns from land howitzer etc production, so if they went for the big fleet, then insufficient tanks for France '40 (recall that they invaded Czechoslovakia primarily for the armaments industry of Skoda - tanks and guns, so were struggling to get enough already).
- The British Empire would build to match. And as a naval power, they had many more shipyards (especially battleship and carrier sized ones) than the few Germany had. Germany would be bottlenecked by this lack, even if they had tried to build a RN-challenging fleet pre war. The USA would also have noticed too, and built. The Washington naval limitation treaties would not have happened either.
- Nazi Germany only came around in 1933 or so. Even if they
had decided to build a vast surface fleet, then they probably could not have done much more in those 5 or so years than they
already had. Perhaps a dozen more destroyers and 3-4 more cruisers and a battleship more than in real life?.
- Then they would have to build real landing craft and in sufficient numbers to do an Overlord. (In real life it took the combined production of the USA and British Empire to build sufficient of these for Overlord). More resources taken away from the Heer. So unlikely to be any Barbarossa in this alternate time-line.
- No France 40 would mean no channel ports to do the invasion from, so then why build the vast fleet of landing craft in the first place
- Germany was effectively bankrupt by 1939, trying to build up its army. They had no credit, and invading other countries was their solution to this, by robbing their resources. So building up a vast battle fleet while remaining at peace would be a non-starter anyway.
- German surface naval units were stinkers, in general. The large destroyers were mechanically unreliable, and unseaworthy. The over-large 5.9 inch guns were slow loaders, and next to useless in any sea on such small ships. The light cruisers had diesels that broke down regularly, so they rarely left port.
- Then the real kicker, is that they would need enough fuel for this vast navy. The lack of oil (and other key resources - The Norway operation was to protect the iron ore supply route from Sweden which was also critical) was the doom of the German position in the war in any case. This vast armada would likely spend its time floating about in harbour (and getting no real experience) like the WW1 High Seas Fleet due to critical fuel shortages.
- All of this would take time. Germany does not have time. If this alternate reality follows the real one then Manhattan comes on line in 45. If it is a Germany against the British Empire only one then "Tube Alloys" will come on line in 47-8 most likely. In either case one wonders which German city would be the first to get a bucket of "instant sunshine" delivered?.
Cheers
Andy
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