Political Implications of Sea Lion

If Japan goes J-1 … DOW on W.Allies… be very careful with the baiting part…
  Unless UK and US are played very accurately, should SeaLion be even moderately successful… If Gib bombed successfully and German Navy survives US3 and UK3 counterattacks…
and Japan takes Calcutta on J-3… things go downhill pretty quick for Allies…

That is a lot of resource being diverted from ground troops. The war with Russia is won on land.

By the time you have bought a major IC, an AB, a bunch of destroyers and some TTs, you have spent 80-90 ipcs? That is a lot of ground units lost.

Plus those TTs and destroyers are stuck in the Black Sea and redundant in a few turns time - unless you attack the strict neutrals.

@captain:

Yes the sub can still cause disruption  , but if a German sub is there then Russia doesn’t get the 5 pu bonus NO money because there is a warship in 125.

Correct, but then UK move a destroyer there, and then we have the ball going on……

Even if the thread looks dead, I just would like to underline Brados post, he is absolutely right! I somehow like DD and sub G1 more because usually the sub can go to SZ 125 and can hardly be removed - stealing the +5 from RU which makes Barbarossa easier.

I think sealion for any price does not make sense anyway for DE. Thus give UK the chance to make a mistake.
In case UK does Tarranto attack round 1 (which is imo necessary to keep the balance in the Med) he is indeed forced to go for ground only. Even with 1 fighter 6 inf and 10 inf round 2 German has 68% with a 10 transport sea lion.

However leaving UK with ground only leaves him somehow paralyzed and if dices roll slightly above average in German 1 UK will suffer painful convoy disruptions in Canada and SZ 109 for at least 3 rounds.

However I have to admit that I lack experience how “post sealion” game goes further. Germany does an IPC loss move by taking UK leaving him with 1-.3 ground units and air after the battle and ~34 extra IPCs.
On the other hand RU can take Poland, Slovakia Romania Round 3 giving them a +17 boost. On the other hand Germany has >80 IPcs round 4 allowing them to replace almost the entire ground force he lost in UK.
Plus US can take Brasil earlier and has already a drop in US3 to Gibraltar –> And at least threatens to recapture UK - which is again risky as in case Germany can recapture you shove IPCs in the German’s mouth^^. Looks still unclear to me - a lot of pros and cons.:)

I guess in my next German game I will simply go for that in order to see how this works empirically^^

In my games that never happened so far, would be interested how this would continue^^

@wwestpro:

But planes can still take them out if the defender is scrambling.

That’s true.  The defender could still have planes left (either carrier-based or scrambled), which would also stop the amphibious assault.

The rules for scrambling specifically state that you may only scramble if combat is occurs in the sea zone surrounding the island with the air base.  This combat may be either a straight naval battle if defending naval units exist in the sea zone or just an amphibious attack launched from the sea zone if there are no existing defending naval units.

@Dany:

I think a sea lion would have less than 10 % chance of success against a cautious UK.

The first turn you sink everything in the North Sea and move your fleet to sz 112 (in 111 the UK can will be able to block an invasion as you won’t be able to kill all his ships. With luck you should be able to kill everything that’s can be a problem for you in turn 2 w/o loosing any planes. You also need to kill the fleet of Canada so they can’t bring extra units to England. You land all your planes within reach of the UK. You mop up France and other places with land units. Build is 1 CV (needed to defend your fleet in range of the RAF and the Gibraltar fleet (with is very unlikely one will be able to take out) and 1 TRS (could build a bmb instead but I think the extra hit is usefull and there are already to many planes that can be shoot down by the AA).

The UK places one ship to block ur shore bombard and build 7 inf and 2 art (or 3 inf and 5 art if he is brave). Also lands his TAC in the UK.

Ur turn 3, you attack with 2 tanks, 2 inf and 8 planes. He defends with 9 inf, 2 art, 3 figs 1 tac an 1 aa. The chanse of success is less than 10 %.

Might be better to fake and attack and then not doing it, just building an CV more or less forces the UK to build inf the first turn and allows the german to keep destroying some fleet.

You’re doing this wrong.  Germany can also build 2 transports G1 instead of 1 in addition to the carrier.  Try reading the Sealion invasion thread.

Also something we’re thinking about: attacking Britain G1 to wipe out the poorly protected RAF with 7 air units, building a defensive fleet with a CV and 2 TRNs on SZ 112 G1 (with the 2 fig, 1 bs, 1 cru, and 1 trn already there), then sacrificing the 3 transports G2 to invade Scotland with 6 land units, forcing the Brits to divide their land forces for a G3 naval crush.  G2’s build should be monster if nothing else since it contains French IPCs and Germany’s NO.

@xzorn:

Having a fleet, planes and a few trannies in the Baltic lets you threaten Britain and Russia, while defending your Scandinavian holdings. Brits will have to be wary of an attack and waste precious resources in anticipation. And if he does, simply use the fleet, airforce and trannies on other things.

So just the threat of Sea Lion is good enough.