How likely should Sealion be?

20-40% because of historical accuracy. It would actually be even less than that but it’s important to have a “game”. On the other hand I don’t think a failed Sealion should be “game over” as it was NOT the end of The German charge. Not sure how it would work but I’d like to see it.

80+
if they win, the game is just getting started; especially if they buy 10 transports and move entire army to take it.
if they lose immediatly wiuth such a costly attack, you can restart game.

exactly 50.

1 in 4 chance it works.  Its enough for Germany to warrant spending all the IPC to gain the 20-something IPC from the UK, but not high enough that its a toss of a coin on the viability of playing the UK in Europe until liberated.  Something around a dice roll of 2d6 looking for a 2 or less works.

However a lost Sealion should cost Germany immensely to maintain any form of a navy following a failed attempt.
Such as Germany can only produce destroyers and subs following any form of failed land invasion on UK.

IMO a full on German assault (fail or win - this one already does, no?) on UK should advance US the at-war NO IPC at the beginning of the following US turn.

This is similar to what I think would have happened if the UK actually experienced a German invasion on the ground and makes it the equivalent of Hawaii in terms of activating the US earlier than an end of US3.

voted less than 50%.
45% would be good.

I think Sealion should be tried only if UK plays badly on UK1, otherwise, it should be hard to take UK.
Personnaly, since Alpha 2(and it has not changed with Alpha 3), my “philosophy” for Sealion is this : if UK player build silly things on UK1 (Mic, AC, 3tnk for Saf…), or does Taranto then they deserve to lose London, and my german will do anything possible to take London.

40% if Germany purchased 12 transports on T1 and T2 combined.

It should be just as likely as Germany’s planners thought it would be in WWII…

What that % is, I don’t know…

That would be less than 5% than probably. They needed to have naval dominance, or a hugely supperior air force. They had neither, and thus sea lion was a pipe dream.

exactly 50% if UK goes all out on defense. This would mean, that Germany won’t survive with much left (airforce + groundforces). Russa will be a huge threat and the US can relatively easy free the UK again. If the UK plays bad, then sealion should be quite likeley. This gives Italy some time to get going (so Italy is not boring to play) and if Germany doesn’t proceed with sealion turn 2, but goes Barbarossa, then the UK can fight for Afrika (give Italy a good fight) or try to invade Norway and help out the USSR.

As the UK was the sole opponent of Germany and Italy for a quite long period, it shouldn’t be unlikely to defend the UK, even if Germany is going sealion at full throttle.

just my 2 cent.

80% + Simply because if Germany loses a UK takedown attempt… that’s game over.  The amount of allied powers needs to get thinned out. Historically Germany did try to take over the UK so it makes sense with better leadership (being the PLAYER) that Germany takes it over.

Also if you know that germany is going to win vs UK, it makes it easier to setup the game. The current setup itself is fine, maybe give germany another fighter and usa a few more land units to storm south america (or let usa do that before the war after all usa already had colonies and making more may have gone unopposed in congress).

@theROCmonster:

That would be less than 5% than probably. They needed to have naval dominance, or a hugely supperior air force. They had neither, and thus sea lion was a pipe dream.

No. Sorry. This is just not true. Before even the Battle of Britain, Hitler had some generals that believe that Sea Lion should be put into effect rather than the air war over Britain. If Hitler had not invaded Russia, and the United States of America had not entered the war (both of which can happen in this game until round 4 (2 entire years)) then the entire European axis would have had all the time in the world to prepare for Sea Lion. They had superior technology. They vastly outnumbered the British. And had they devoted everything they had towards defeating Britain, along with using what they had smarter (taking out radar stations and airfields instead of making the same mistake they would make at Stalingrad by bombing buildings over and over again) it would have most likely happened, and succeeded. Air, not sea, was proven to be dominant in World War Two for the first time. The Luftwaffe could have, given two years time and combined with the significant (although not as much as the British) Kriegsmarine and good planning, protected transports for enough time for the vastly superior Germany army to cross the channel and destroy Britain just like they did France. So, now you know, and you won’t embarrass yourself again with your ridiculous 5% Sea Lion chance comments. Sea Lion was not only possible, it was probable. But Hitler f’d it up when he thought it would be a good idea to make 2 enemies out of one, and then Japan thought it would make even more sense to make 3 enemies out of 2.

You have lost your mind. Just look at the figures for the number of aircraft built in 1940. UK built MORE than Germany built. How in the world can a sealion happen when you cant control the english channel? You might be lucky enough to get one huge push of men onto the soil of UK. Maybe 100,000 men and that is being really REALLY fair. The brits would easily be able to push this back. The US had the best amphibious techknology in the world by the end of the war and even they had a really hard time putting tanks on the the battle right out of the amphibious asault. Just look at D-Day and how many tanks never made it to the beaches. So lets say Germany could get 100,000 men on the land. How does Germany intend to resupply these men? How do these men take out tanks that the British have, but obviously the Germans couldn’t get very many onto British soil. I don’t see how you can sit their with your 7th grade knowledge of History and school someone who has their bachelors in history and is working on getting a Masters in Military history. Sea Lion is a joke to any real military historian. We know it just wasn’t possible baring EXTREME luck by Germany. If at anytime the British thought they might be invaded for real, like they saw Germany’s navy massing for a landing somwhere on British soil, then The british would have retreated their entire navy to outside of the Island of UK and would have done anything possible to keep the Germans out of their land. The British navy, at the time, was HUGE. 16 battleships and scores of destroyers and 6 aircraft carriers…. They also had the advantage of defense on their side. Please explain to me how sea lion was even a possibility in 1940 or even 1941 for that matter. How could they get naval and air dominance. Please don’t think I believe that all they needed was air dominance, because if it came down to it UK would have made sure the Germans only got one landing off before their navy came in in HUGE numbers and crushed the second or even first landing force. While the men landing would have a hell of a time on the beaches with the British being on defense. Rememeber over 300,000 men were evacuated from dunkirk, so the British still had defenses in place.

You know Roc,  I’ve heard tell a few times - in terms of quotes from the horses mouth, about how great France was, in 1938,39, early 1940.  How they had so many MILLION soldiers, How their TANKS were better, and how the Maginot line was impenetrable.

Low and behold, ingenuity, and determination ruled THAT day.

Yes on paper the optics and logistics could be viewed as “Bad” for sealion  But there are a few things you’ve left out/falsed stated…

In Europe, the allies did NOT enjoy air superiority…  infact they almost lost air superiority during the battle of britain, and would have, had the germans continued to target their airbases as oppossed to begin to target the citizens of London.

Don’t rule out the possibility,  this was a legitimate venture, and in a 3 year span, had war not spread across to the other nations of the world… or if chamberlain had stayed in power, or the King intervened… any number of things could have happend.

Granted Garguantua if a lot of things happened then sea lion could have been possible. This is why I gave it a 5% chance. Look up the figures of how many planes were lost on the british side and the German side in the air war over UK in 1940. Also look up how many planes each side was building. The Germans lost over a 100 more planes than UK did, since defending air power with radar beats attacking air in an unfriendly air zone that also has anti air gun fire. In 1940 UK built more aircraft than Germany as well. Granted UK had to split up their air power into three main theatres, Great Britain, Egypt, and the East Indies/India/Singapor/Hong Kong area.

I had a balance thought in mind.

Making UK more powerful in order to counter easily a sealion at the expence of the US power.

Something like UK starts with 10 more infantries in UK but US gets 5IPC less from their continental bonus.

Maybe UK shouldn’t have to split their income but the USA has to?

Seems like an easy fix to save England rd1-rd3 and splitting up US power. Of course it would probably break the game in a million ways that I can’t think of…

@theROCmonster:

You have lost your mind. Just look at the figures for the number of aircraft built in 1940. UK built MORE than Germany built. How in the world can a sealion happen when you cant control the english channel? You might be lucky enough to get one huge push of men onto the soil of UK. Maybe 100,000 men and that is being really REALLY fair. The brits would easily be able to push this back. The US had the best amphibious techknology in the world by the end of the war and even they had a really hard time putting tanks on the the battle right out of the amphibious asault. Just look at D-Day and how many tanks never made it to the beaches. So lets say Germany could get 100,000 men on the land. How does Germany intend to resupply these men? How do these men take out tanks that the British have, but obviously the Germans couldn’t get very many onto British soil. I don’t see how you can sit their with your 7th grade knowledge of History and school someone who has their bachelors in history and is working on getting a Masters in Military history. Sea Lion is a joke to any real military historian. We know it just wasn’t possible baring EXTREME luck by Germany. If at anytime the British thought they might be invaded for real, like they saw Germany’s navy massing for a landing somwhere on British soil, then The british would have retreated their entire navy to outside of the Island of UK and would have done anything possible to keep the Germans out of their land. The British navy, at the time, was HUGE. 16 battleships and scores of destroyers and 6 aircraft carriers…. They also had the advantage of defense on their side. Please explain to me how sea lion was even a possibility in 1940 or even 1941 for that matter. How could they get naval and air dominance. Please don’t think I believe that all they needed was air dominance, because if it came down to it UK would have made sure the Germans only got one landing off before their navy came in in HUGE numbers and crushed the second or even first landing force. While the men landing would have a hell of a time on the beaches with the British being on defense. Rememeber over 300,000 men were evacuated from dunkirk, so the British still had defenses in place.

I agreed with a lot of what Gargantua wrote, and would like to add a few more things. To start, I think you’re looking at this the wrong way: Britain’s point of view. But Britain doesn’t get to set up Germany’s attack. Germany picks how the battle plays out, not Britain. Their are countless examples throughout history of two sides fighting, and one going on the offensive and doing the unexpected to great success, even defeating “superior” forces. How about Hannibal, Washington crossing the Delaware at Trenton, Midway, and yes, the rout of France. Just b/c you can point out 1,000 reasons why the light bulb won’t turn on doesn’t mean that Germany wouldn’t have found a way given enough time. Any “real military historian” wouldn’t be naive enough to have studied all of the great upsets in the history of the world and still have the arrogance to label a feasible operation as having only a 5% chance of success. At least my “7th grade knowledge of history” has taught me that. Add to that the fact that we are not trying to completely accurately represent how the war would have turned out… We are trying to accurately represent how the war might have turned out if the axis was given a slight boost in all arenas.