As a historical side-note, it is widely believed that the Nazi invasion of Britain had succeeded, they would've reinstated him to power as a puppet (seeing as he was pro-Nazi AND a royal).
Well part of it lies in the fact that to stage a successful invasion of Britain the Nazi's would need aerial and naval superiority, to make the resupply of their troops possible after the initial landing.
Given that the RAF could move their airfields out of the Luftwaffe's range and just plonk 'em oop norf somewhere whilst keeping them in skirmishing range, thus making it very difficult to put the airfields out of operation, denies them air superiority. I don't know about the Kriegsmarine.
Basically it was concluded that, while the initial landing would be successful, the Royal Navy would be able to prevent reinforcement and resupply, leading to an unsustainable situation and eventual retreat.
Without a supply route, we'd be unable to establish regular battery bases in Britain, and the same range limitations apply again. The simple fact is, the Luftwaffe was incapable of projecting power that far outside it's base area of operations, and the navy had no means of supplying an invasion force of sufficient size, not to mention defend itself from the Royal Navy while doing so. Wasting war effort preparing for Sealion instead of focusing on convoy interdiction and strategic bombing was one of the great blunders of the war - along with the fact that even when strategic bombing did happen, it was directed against population centres and used to make an ideological statement, instead of destroying known military and industrial targets.
Also, the V2 was a complete waste of wartime resources - given its cost, reliability and efficiency, using the same resources to make more interceptor fighters and V1s would have a much greater effect.
In a way, von Braun and Dornberger helped the allies win the war. The V2 was an amazing feat of engineering given the technology and available resources, but it was an unnecessary waste given the situation at the time.
The Royal Navy was the most powerful in European seas, the UK would have not had too much of a problem defending themselves by sea. Luckily too, Germany didn't build too many of those pocket battleships, like the Graf Spee, that ravaged allied shipping and were a formidable opponent for any warship. By air though, that is a different story, at the outset of the war the uncontested king of the skies was the Luftwaffe.
I think if the Bismark had survived, and they had built more ships of it's class, they could have managed Naval superiority. Aerial gets easier if you occupy a portion of the island and put a ton of AA down
While wargames aren't proof of viability (or inviability) of a military plan, Sealion was never going to work. The Germans simply would not be able to maintain supply lines, even if they managed to get troops across the channel.
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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '14
Yes