proplover
Actually the British would have been very effective for the following reasons:
- You mention U-Boats... They would have had to operate against fast warships in extremely shallow water and in a very confined space. It is probable that the RN would have initially used light forces from Harwich and Portmouth against which the U-Boats would have been far far less effective that you think. Once the light forces had got amongst the invasion traffic it would have been slaughter, especially given that the number of German escorts would have been very very low.
- The Luftwaffe at that stage of the war were pretty ineffective against surface ships (yes there were some losses - 12 IIRC - at Dunkirk but that operation succeeded) and even later at Crete where the RN did sustain heavy losses from the air they still forced back the amphibious invasion fleet. Twice.
Anyway if SeaLion had been attempted Dowding had plans to withdraw all of the fighters to the South Midlands where the airfields would have initially at least been out of range of the Germans but we still could have covered the beaches.
- The RN's night fighting capability had improved massively since WW1 where basically er er they didn't have any. If the RN had got amongst the traffic at night then both U-Boats and air power would have been negated.
- The Germans couldn't bring heavy equipment across in anything like the amount needed. The plan was to land 10 infantry divisions and then somehow get the armour across... the dotty plans were to basically plonk a tank on a barge and take a flying leap at the shore .... and all of that against the RN. You light-blue jobs might well take the p*ss of the RN (in a friendly way
) but I strongly suspect that if there was an invasion in the offing then they would uphold their "Engage the enemy more closely" traditions ....
- Also the number of fully equipped British troops in the area was much higher than supposed. by September most of the losses incurred at Dunkirk had been made up and there also were 3 fully equipped Canadian divisions in the area.
It would in all probability have been a mangle for the Germans