章 328: Chapter 405 Operation Sea Lion

At the start of World War II in the original timeline, Germany swept through most of Europe with a devastating force.

In less than a year, Germany had successively occupied Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Only Britain remained in resistance in Western Europe. At this time, Hitler extended an olive branch to Britain. Due to Germany's insufficient pre-war oil reserves and the need to prepare for the subsequent war against the Soviet Union, Hitler believed that too much force should not be expended on the Western Front. Moreover, Germany's main enemy was the Soviet Union, and a mere knock on Britain would suffice. As long as Britain indicated that it would no longer be an enemy of Germany and returned the original German colonies seized during World War I, a peace treaty could be signed.

Unexpectedly, the newly appointed British Prime Minister Churchill was a tough nut to crack. Chamberlain's precedent made Churchill completely disregard Hitler's diplomatic tricks. In his inaugural speech, he clearly stated: "Our policy is to fight with all the strength God has given us, on land, sea, and air, against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime!" After several unsuccessful persuasions, an annoyed Hitler ordered the drafting of the "Operation Sea Lion" to invade Britain.

However, the previously invincible German army took a big tumble on the British battlefield. The German Air Force and the British Royal Air Force engaged in fierce combat in the skies over Britain. From July to the end of October 1940, the German Air Force lost 1,733 aircraft (Britain claimed 2,698), and the Royal Air Force lost 915 aircraft (Germany claimed 3,058). The German ground forces never set foot on British soil, and "Operation Sea Lion" had to be indefinitely postponed.

In 1974, after the war ended, the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst conducted a large-scale battlefield simulation exercise using the most advanced computer simulation technology of the time to reenact the "Operation Sea Lion" that the Germans failed to execute.

To reflect the authenticity of this reenactment, the British military specially invited three senior World War II German generals to serve as exercise judges—General Adolf Galland, who had participated in the Battle of Britain and was later appointed as the "General of Fighters"; General Friedrich Ruge, who had participated in the "Operation Weserübung" invasion of Norway and was responsible for clearing the British coastal minefields during "Operation Sea Lion"; and General Heinrich Trettner, who had participated in the Battle of Crete and commanded the German 4th Parachute Division.

In addition, various parameters set for the exercise were based on the actual composition and deployment positions of the naval, land, and air forces of both Britain and Germany in September 1940.

On the first day of the exercise, which was September 19, 1940, in reality, the participants calculated the adverse weather conditions over the Channel based on the weather forecast at the time. Due to the persistent lack of improvement in meteorological conditions, the makeshift German landing fleet had to stand by in the port. Meanwhile, German planes and ships launched offensive mining operations, laying mines on the various routes where British ships were rushing to aid the Channel, and the German feint forces began landing operations in Iceland.

The adverse weather continued until the afternoon of September 21. In the evening of the 21st, the German forces received a weather report indicating that the weather would improve the next day, allowing for landing operations. Thus, the massive German landing fleet began to assemble at dusk and crossed the English Channel at night. The fleet was quickly discovered by the British, who immediately sounded the invasion alarm. At midnight, the British home fleet set sail from various anchorages, heading south towards the English Channel.

At dawn on September 22, a German airborne force of 8,000 paratroopers landed in southern England, cutting off the traffic lines between the beachhead and the interior. Behind them, a German army of 80,000 ground troops successfully landed on the southern beachhead of England. However, due to the lack of specialized landing craft, the German forces were forced to use barges to forcibly send troops to the beachhead, resulting in 25% of the barges being destroyed by artillery fire during the landing. To cover the landing operation, the German Air Force exhausted all its strength to seize air superiority over the beachhead but failed. They lost more than 300 aircraft in one day, while the Royal Air Force paid the price of 237 aircraft being shot down.

In the naval aspect, a British naval flotilla led by the cruiser Manchester attempted to enter the Channel and bombard the landing site but was fully intercepted by German torpedo boats and submarines outside the Channel. Fearing that large ships would be targeted by German planes and submarines, the Royal Navy temporarily refused to allow these ships to enter the Channel for reinforcement.

In the ground combat on the 22nd and 23rd, the German forces managed to advance several miles inland and occupied the ports of Folkestone and Newhaven. However, both ports were completely blocked by the British forces before their retreat—just as the Germans had done at Cherbourg during the Normandy landings. Although the railways leading to the beachhead were cut off by the German Air Force, the British forces still managed to organize a counterattack on the 23rd, preventing the German beachhead troops from continuing their advance inland. Although the German forces had deployed all ten divisions of the vanguard ashore, they had to halt their offensive due to a lack of follow-up supplies and wait for the next wave of fleets to arrive with supplies and ammunition.

However, these supplies would never arrive.

On September 24, when the second and third waves of German barges left the port and embarked on the journey across the English Channel, they were intercepted by a Royal Navy blockade consisting of 17 cruisers, 57 destroyers, and torpedo boats.

In this near-massacre naval battle, 65% of the German transport ships were sunk by the British flotilla, the rest were forced to return to French ports, and only a small portion of the transport ships successfully delivered supplies to British soil.

At the same time, once the British flotilla confirmed that the situation in the Channel was under control, the main ships of the British home fleet entered the Channel, completely cutting off the German reinforcement channel. Seeing no hope of victory, the Germans attempted to use transport ships to withdraw some of the landing forces. But during the retreat, many transport ships were sunk by the Royal Navy's fleet, causing heavy losses to the German forces. Eventually, the isolated German vanguard on British soil, having exhausted their ammunition and supplies, was forced to surrender to the British forces on the 28th.

Overall, although the German initial landing forces achieved better results than expected in this computer-simulated exercise, the German Air Force failed to gain air superiority over the beachhead, and they were powerless to stop the British home fleet from entering the English Channel. This ultimately led to the devastating defeat of the German second and third wave fleets by the Royal Navy. Of the nearly 90,000 German troops who landed in France, only 15,400 successfully withdrew to France. 33,000 were captured by the British forces, 26,000 died in combat, and another 15,000 perished in the English Channel when their transport ships were sunk by the Royal Navy—accounting for one-third of the total casualties.

Including the three German military representatives, all six judges involved in the exercise unanimously believed that "Operation Sea Lion" would have been a complete disaster.

Although "Operation Sea Lion" was declared bankrupt, the German high command seemed to still not give up on the remaining value of the operation. They ingeniously applied this doomed plan to the biggest deception in human history—the "Operation Barbarossa" against the Soviet Union.