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What’s the best Operation Sea Lion book, in your opinion?

Meadow

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I’m on the Kent coast for a much-needed long weekend and obviously I’m in theoretical Sea Lion country. It’s gotten me thinking - there’s a lot of Sea Lion (not press) fiction out there. Some of it gets slated, some of it is good but isn’t trying to explore the actual ins and outs of the invasion-as-planned.

What I’m after is a narrative-ish work that takes the real plans, German and British, and talks through how it might’ve gone if they’d tried in conditions close to OTL. Yes, that means Germany loses - but where would the battles be, where might the GHQ line be tested, and so on? As I recall, there’s at least one out there that’s the famous 1970s war game played out as a narrative, concluding with the Germans pushed back to the sea. Is that worth picking up?

SLP’s own collection, Fight Them On The Beaches, contains some great stabs at exploring the real plans. But it’s not a long-form work.

So, any suggestions?
 
I still rate Kenneth Macksey
View attachment 57859
(read it on a boring sea-side holiday in 1985 and it has stuck with me)

Yes, I’ve read that one - probably about the same time. IMS, it involved an invasion on a narrower front and a couple of months earlier, so Britain’s defenses weren’t organized enough to stop the invasion. Still a bit of an optimistic scenario for the Germans, but a good read nonetheless.
 
I was very influenced by the 1974 Royal Military Academy wargame of Sea Lion at Sandhurst which envisaged an initial successful invasion that was then choked off, probably with 90,000 German soldiers in southern England. Reviewers dismissed reference to that wargame feeling that online discussion had 'proved' that no part of Operation Sealion could have worked in the slightest, which they felt meant that my book was completely unnecessary.

Having been involved and participated in quite a few of the follow up games held at Sandhurst, the reason for the dismissive reaction was that the war game (both the 1974 version and the biannual subsequent versions from the 1980s onwards) took as a premise that the RAF and RN couldn't respond in any way for the first 24 hours of the putative invasion.

This was done with the overt and stated objective of allowing the Germans to get a substantial and relatively organised force ashore in the first wave. It was accepted that realistically, it is unlikely that the RAF and the RN would sit on their thumbs drinking pink gin for the first day of an invasion.

The wargames are probably a pretty good representation of what might have happened given the ridiculous starting premise, but as a basis for analysis of what might have happened, have that slight problem that the first 24 hours are simply handwaved to allow a game to take place in the first place.

This has been covered any number of times, and ignored any number of times.
 
There is a timeline on AH.Com which makes changes to the pre-war Luftwaffe in order to provide the conditions needed for Sealion to go ahead, with the invasion failing after a few days.

I'd also be interested if anyone has written or looked into a Sealion - 1942, with the rough premise that Germany drives the Soviet Union back to the Brest-Litovsk line, before concluding a (temporary) peace deal with the Soviet Union, before turning his attention to Germany's biggest threat - Britain.
 
This has been covered any number of times, and ignored any number of times.

I think I was unhappy that amateurs felt so entitled that they could simply come along and insist that the book should never have been written because of some online forum they had participated in. I am sceptical of such 'proof'. It may be my age but I seek something more substantial than simple commentary.
 
I think I was unhappy that amateurs felt so entitled that they could simply come along and insist that the book should never have been written because of some online forum they had participated in. I am sceptical of such 'proof'. It may be my age but I seek something more substantial than simple commentary.

Do I count, having been at around a dozen of the games?
 
I'd also be interested if anyone has written or looked into a Sealion - 1942, with the rough premise that Germany drives the Soviet Union back to the Brest-Litovsk line, before concluding a (temporary) peace deal with the Soviet Union, before turning his attention to Germany's biggest threat - Britain.

German invasion of Britain later on happens in @Nick Sumner 's Drake's Drum series, doesn't go well for the Germans (due to it being a very different UK at that point but then Britain would have extra time to adjust in a hypothetical post-Moscow Sea Lion too).
 
I feel like I could do a short story involving a weird recreation of Sealion as a gambling game/sim (!). It would become this Mayweather/McGregor thing where Wehraboos pour tons of money into the German side, while the historically/technically knowledgeable who know what would happen essentially get free cash after the British (spoiler alert) decisively win.
 
I'd also be interested if anyone has written or looked into a Sealion - 1942, with the rough premise that Germany drives the Soviet Union back to the Brest-Litovsk line, before concluding a (temporary) peace deal with the Soviet Union, before turning his attention to Germany's biggest threat - Britain.

I did a novel featuring an invasion in 1950, but that might be a bit too far in the future for this.

Chris
 
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