Most of the highly experienced players in past posts seem to have held that German Sea Lion leads to a German loss because Allies will eventually recapture London and the Germans forego critical building against the Russians in the early rounds.
While that sounds right, I’ve not seen a detailed explanation of how that actually works out. In a current OOB game, Germany did Sea Lion round 3 with 11 transports and wiped out UK with a bunch of tanks left over, and a heap of transports who now threaten Leningrad, or Gibraltar. In this game Japan held off declaring war against US, wiped out Soviets in far east, and has Navy in Carolines and SZ 6 (it suffers with UKE and China growing unchallenged), so US has had to balance its ~50 IPCs on both sides of the board in the opening rounds.
With UKW wiped out, Egypt is not long for the world, although they did just repel an Italian assault. And at this stage it looks like Germany can grab 2 of 3 of Leningrad, Stalingrad, or Moscow before the US or any other Ally can help them.
That is all just to provide a real game example where the common wisdom about Sea Lion not being a long-term victorious strategy for Germany does not seem to hold.
I would appreciate any insights!
