The entire reason for the aerial campaign was to get the RAF out of the way, so the Luftwaffe could defeat the Royal Navy. They had to do it this way, as not even a company could have been landed and supplied in England. The Royal Navy was simply to strong. Imagine trying to supply a division in tight waters, where you are grossly outnumbered, but in the water and on land.

I'm sure some of the English posters could supply some better answers. However, my guess is that even with the near destruction of the RAF... Sealion would have been very tough on the Germans. I'm not sure what the German Navy had in the line of transports and supply (They had huge problems getting shipping to North Afrtica for instance). Through out WWII, air lifting larges amounts of supplies was a problem and often turned into a disaster. Even with German air superiority I'm also pretty sure the Royal Navy would have attempted to destroy any crossing. Again, this I think goes back to how much sea lift capacity the Germans had avvailable.

the german navy was to weak she couldn´t stop the royal navy to crush the invasion fleet in the english channel the german didn´t had enough LST landing boats or what ever they even tried to rebuild some river boats to transport troops

My main point was for the Germans to use a small invasion to force the British to come to them. I know the German Navy was no threat to the Royal Navy, but the fight would not be between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine. What would be the result of a battle between the Royal Navy and RAF fight the Luftwaffe in tight waters? Would Home Fleet have ended up like HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse or come the have withstood the air attack? What was the deployment of the Royal Navy during the battle of Britian? What strength did they have in the Channel? How fast could the full fleet have been throw into the fight? What role would U-Boats and mines have played? Car Ferry and Riverboat may look stupid compared to the amphibious force the Allies built later but was there enought to overcome the British land forces in their greatly weakened state after the Dunkirk? Could the watercraft gathered from around Europe have stayed concentrated for long without destroy the economy?

"Car Ferry and Riverboat may look stupid compared to the amphibious force" Well two things here - without the presence of numer larger kriegsmarine ships, the presence of British cruisers and battleships would not have been needed. Torpedo boats, costal patrol craft and destroyers would have chopped a make shift landing force to bits.. Plus the smaller faster craft would (I imagine) be tougher targets for the luftwaffe. The other probably more significant question would be could the Germans manage to supply any unit they mangaged to land.

Does anyone know the exact amount of naval assets in and around the channel? That could help, also what about if the German's sent in the majority of their surface fleet to allow some German units to attain some beachheads and setup some airbases, which as JohnBarry mentioned would make it tougher for the RAF and indeed the RN. The Kriegsmarine (minus their underseeboot's) could be used as either a diversion or escort and act as a pawn to be sacrificed in order for the Lufftwaffe and the German army to setup airbases, keep them and neutralise any threat coming from the English army and airforce. However, it is a big risk but, so is war.

The vast majority of transport avilable to the germans were unpowered barges, these would have to have been towed accross. various seaborne invasions thoughout the war showed a few major factors in any hope of success 1, air superiority - without this a major landing was unlikely without heavy casulaties, and the supply virtually impossible to maintain. the beachhead would suffer under air attacks and even the inferior british bommbers of the time would have reeked havoc in hit and run missions 2, specialised equipment as proved at diepe to overcome the beach defences 3 supply (especially without aircover) to provide sufficent for a major invasion requires a big infrostructure one that the germans didnot have (they managed to supply the invasion of france purely because it was over quick, a lession they learnt from for barborossa) so 1940 it would have been a big problem compounded by the losses in sea transport suffered in the invasion 4 terain, the countryside of kent(likely place for sealion) is very similar to normandy and an attacking army would suffer the same kind of problems the allies did there. aircover could and would make things easier but even a stalemate in the air would have likely led to an unsuceesful invasion

Firstly, just a quick hello to everybody on the boards. Been reading these forums for a while now and have enjoyed many of the discussions, so thanks for the info and entertainment. I have to agree with joe6pack on this one. Personally I'm not sure that Germany could have pulled off the invasion even with air superiority. As previous posters have said, making the RAF fight over the channel would certainly have aided the german cause but there was never much doubt that had germany gone ahead with Sealion then a beachead would have been established regardless of the RAF's capability to intervene. Britain's coastal defences were woefully inadequate at the time and were expected to put up no more than a token, stalling resistance to the initial landings. Contrary to popular belief the Royal Navy would probably have been able to mount little in the way of 'overwhelming' counter attacks to the first wave of any invasion. The vast majority of Britain's home fleet was kept well out of the range of the Luftwaffe in Scotland and was a good days sailing away from being able to interfere in the invasion. Sure there were numerous smaller craft that could have harrassed and impeeded the invasion fleet but probably not enough to stop it in it's tracks. As I see it the German plan falls down when it comes to reinforcing and resupplying the initial beachead. Come day two the RN would have been able to flood the channel with massive numbers of craft, the RAF would have been rapidly moving forward squadrons from the other group sectors in the UK, and the Luftwaffe is once again forced to fight over the UK beachead and split it's forces between interdiction in the channel and ground support on the beaches and inland. Sheer weight of numbers in the channel suggests that germany would have almost certainly been unable to adequately support the troops ashore or bring in sufficient heavy equipment and reinforcements. Add to that the fact that the majority of the invasion fleet was made up of flat bottomed river barges (as an author whose name escapes me just now wrote, "why waste shells just capsize them with the wake of a passing battleship or two"), and as I see it the chances of making any invasion stick were minimal.

Regarding JohnBarry's original post...It seems pretty doubtful to me that a single-division landing would have stood any chance at all. Even assuming German air superiority and an ineffective Royal Navy, one division would have been crushed pretty quickly even by the weakened post-Dunkirk British army. It would have been no trick at all to move mobile reserves to the beachead, seal it off, and then pound the landing force to bits. Of course the Brits would have had to deal with German air attack, but if they had been willing to take losses from the Luftwaffe(a safe assumption given the circumstances!), destruction of the beachead would have been just a matter of time.

I recently talked this one over with a friend (veteran and knows more strategy than I ever will). We concluded the following; 1. The Germans had no conception of how to do an amphibious operation. All evidence (surviving records, etc.) indicate that they viewed Seelowe as (deep breath) just a river crossing on a larger scale. As an example of their misapprehension, they were going to begin loading their heavy equipment at roughly 2200hrs the night before the invasion was to go in, with a false-dawn departure from Calais and the other ports and a projected landfall on the Kent coast at dawn (about 0630hrs British Summer Time). Quite aside from their chances of being able to finish loading in under six hours, the average 10 kt sustained spped of their transports would have put them (assuming an on-time departure) in mid-Channel at dawn. 2. The Kriegsmarine anticipated using their U-Boats as picket lines at the ends of the Channel to block the Home Fleet, which they assumed would be sortieing from Scapa Flow and portsmouth. A more likely scenario would have the capital ships hove to under camouflage up half the river mouths and inlets on the Channel coast- waiting for the transports to come into gun range. 3. The RAF would have been busy with the Luftwaffe, for certain- at least, Fighter Command would have been. Bomber Command and Coastal Command would have been looking for anything afloat in the Channel to sink it, probably concentrating on the escorts to strip the transports of their fire support. 4. The MTBs and MGBs would have been busy, too- but not striking the amphibs. They would have been better employed co-operating with the RN's submarines in hunting down and killing the U-boats; a submarine picks up a U-boat on asdic, relays the data by radio to the nearest MTB/MGB, which proceeds to depth-charge the German. Projected U-boat casualties would be in the 50-60% range (assuming the worst luck for the RN), simply due to the Channel's relatively shallow profile- there's really nowhere for the U-boats to go once they come under fire. (This was why they tried to stay out of the Channel as much as possible, BTW.) In the end, we estimated that the Germans might have gotten a maximum of one and a half to two divisions ashore, plus whatever paratroops got past the Hurricanes. But they would have had (A) no heavy equipment (tanks, artillery, etc.), (B) no motor transport (no trucks, in other words), (C) very little in the way of equipment/provisions/etc. other than each unit's basic load they brought with them (i.e., small arms, basic ammuntion load, plus personal rations, etc.), and (D) no chance whatever of either resupply, reinforcement, or even retreat. The final outcome, we worked out, was the loss of almost all German assets involved vs. admittedly significant casualties on the British side- it would have been a bloody business all round. But by fighting what we would now call a "non-linear" battle (something the British pretty much invented anyway), the Royal Navy, Air Force, and Army would have won. And in the process, destroyed or captured enough of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine to; A. Render the Battle of the Atlantic a moot point (not enough U-boats left to seriously interfere with the convoys); B. Render the Afrika Korps a forlorn hope (no reinforcements available, with the result that Operation Crusdaer probably succeds; there is no "Gazala Gallop", and probably it's all over long before Alamein); and C. OKW and Hitler could forget about Barbarossa until at least mid-1944; which is to say, period (the units needed for it would have been either at the bottom of the Channel or behind wire in Canada). The German failure to realize exactly what they were up against would have been their downfall, coupled with the British having a keen appreciation of having no scope for mistakes. It might have gone differently, but we really couldn't see how. But as Dennis Miller says, "Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong." But I rather doubt it..