Hi, here's a post about one of my more recent attempts to begin a new subdivision in my larger 20mm World War Two project. This time I will try to gather enough German and British troops to recreate some parts of the fictional invasion of Great-Britain in 1940-1941. I have been fascinated by this plan for several months now as I really love the way the Germans intented to invade England. Their invasion fleet nothing more than a gathering of Belgian, French and Dutch barges strenghten by some prototype vessels. Most of these barges were already gathered in major European ports such as Ostend, Boulogne, Cherbourg and Calais and the invasion force would mainly exist out of infantry supported by some panzer elements for swift actions and a small-scale Blitzkrieg. Before the initial invasion the RAF would have to be destroyed or heavily damaged in order to safeley transport the thousands of German soldiers across the Channel. When this was done, the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine would be able to control the Channel and eventually destroy the Royal Navy as they attempted to attack the German supply convoys. Before the invasion, thousands of highly trained and equiped fallschirmjager would be dropped above the major objectives such as airfields and large ports such as Dover. These elite units would only be counter by British Home Guard and Army units as most of the regular army was destroyed at Dunkirk leaving most of their heavy equipment. As the airfields and ports were secured, the main german invasion force would land and establish a beachhead before pushing further inland.
As part of this project I've started to build some barges, not historical correct ones but who cares in a fictional invasion. The barges are 85% ready and will be shown in a short tutorial on how to build a simple barge. As for the forces involved I've already finished the German paratroopers and bought the German infantry. All I need for the Germans are some armor, trucks and guns. For the British I need to buy some Airfix infantry, light tanks, Homeguard units(?), improvised armored cars and some AT support. But as most of my projects this will be one that will last forever!
Greets,
13 comments:
It's definitely one of the great "what if" scenarios.
Looking forward to hearIng how you progress with this!
I'm looking forwards to seeing how you do this. Agreed it is one of the great 'what if?' scenarios.
The RAF would have their remaining bases in the north to prevent their being straffed and bombed out of exsistence. Their primary mission as I would see it would be to "get the transports" so would not have a very large part in the land conflict? Shore bombardment from the royal navy would be a factor also.
Wouldn't it be able for the luftwaffe to operate from captured airfields for example Lymne near Hythe in an attempt to destroy the northern bases.
As for the RN pounding the beachheads, they would have to face Stuka divebombers and German coastal batteries as the RAF would be further north.
Well that's my 2p, any thoughts or comments are welcome.
Most research indicates that with things as they were, it would have been very difficult for Operation Sealion to be successful.
However imagine if you can if the Germans had managed to get their hands on the French Vichy Fleet, that could have changed things.
The challenge for the Germans (as it was for the Allies on D-Day) would be logistics, keeping their army supplied once they had their beachhead. In order to do that they would need a port.
The barges would probably have never worked, designed as they were for canals and not the English Channel.
Having said that, if we can assume the Germans can get across the Channel and secure a port then this would make life very difficult for the British.
Felix
Another alternative may be for the Germans to land in the North, this was the idea behind 'Seelöwe Nord: The Germans Are Coming' by Andy Johnson
http://amzn.to/kFGNdv
Felix
An excellent period to game. Check out some of Bob's ideas here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bob_mackenzie/
Thr RN operated happily at Dunkirk.
And even at Crete, with no air cover at all.
Stukas couldn't even stop tramp steamers passing through the Dover straights, they would have never stopped the 100 destroyers RN had in the channel getting at the barges.
Great stuff - I'm planning a leter war campaign of the same style, in a more Weird WW2 theme.
Looking forward to seeing how yours comes out!
Barges that only move at 2 -3 knots crossing a (at least) 31 miles wide channel. That's a 24 hour round trip. Plenty of night time for the RN to come down with destroyers and wreck havoc on them. In fact, I think that even a couple of days of bad weather would have been enough to leave the invading army stranded on British soil with no ammo, no fuel and no food.
Just look at how badly the allies we affected in June 1944 by storms, and that was in conditions of total air and naval superiority.
Any German army involved in this is going to be PoW's in very short time, even if they're just going up against the Home Guard.
However, it's a mighty cool "what-if" to run, so I wish you luck and will be following this closely.
Doing this myself aswell good luck.
Great, thanks for all the interesting comments and facts!
@Angry Lurker, I hope to see some post about the operation on your blog!
Greets,
That's a great project. I'm looking with envy... Hope to get more post about this soon.
Benoit
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