A simulation of Germany’s planned invasion of England in 1940
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The Germans briefly contemplated invading England after the fall of France in 1940. This game simulates such a hypothetical invasion. You play the Germans, and the game starts after two infantry divisions have come ashore between Folkestone and Bexhill. Two Fallschirmjager divisions have also air dropped behind enemy lines further inshore. Germany has air superiority, but all of your units start out the game as unsupplied: they cannot move and they cannot attack. The only way to supply them is by air using the AERIAL RESUPPLY card until you capture a port/supply head along the coast. You have two main objectives: capture Dover and drive British forces out of Eastern Kent. The former objective lets you position shore batteries that can protect German supply convoys from Royal Navy ships. The latter objective establishes a base for a future drive on London. You need to do this quickly before the Royal Air Force regains air superiority and British reinforcements arrive.
Game Details:
Time per turn: 2 days
Human Units:
[x]: Panzer battalion
[/]: Fallschirmjager battalion
[x]: Infantry regiment
Computer Units:
(o) British armored brigade
(-) Home Guard unit
(/) Coastal defense unit
(x) British infantry brigade
Design Notes
This game is designed to simulate a more scaled down version of a German cross channel invasion of the UK, based on learning from operations that occurred later in the war. The game assumes that the Germans have “won” the Battle of Britain, in that the RAF has pulled its interceptors back from South East England while it rebuilds its strength. Coastal command bombers operating from bases in the North of England can still reach the English Channel. This gives the Luftwaffe the ability carry out a large airborne operation on the scale of 1941’s Operation Mercury. The game also assumes that the Luftwaffe is prepared to support the invasion with 100% of its bombers, and decided to postpone its night bombing of London. This matters because German bombers would be needed to bomb Royal Navy surface ships if they approach the landing area, attack large concentrations of British Army troops before they can reach the German landing zones, and transport supplies to captured landing strips. You can see the importance of the German air force in the card deck.
At the start of the game, Germany has successfully put two amphibious and two airborne divisions ashore, but has not captured a deep water port that can handle the hundreds of tons per day of supplies needed to sustain such a force. For this reason, all human units start the game as out of supply. Given Germany’s lack of amphibious landing craft, most of these troops would have waded ashore with only the supplies they could carry on their backs. Your first objective, consequently, is to capture a decent sized port and land some panzers. Of course, the British would have known this and fortified any ports worth having. To capture a port, therefore, German troops are going to need to assault a heavily fortified town, and that will require lots of supplies.
This is where the Luftwaffe comes in. The game assumes that the Luftwaffe could move enough supplies to sustain at least a portion of the four division landing force. It is reasonable to assume that 20,000 lightly armed troops operating with a degree of surprise would be able to capture a few British airfields during the first 24 hours of the operation. The Germans could then use transports and bombers like the He-111 to ferry in hundreds of tons of supplies a day to support an assault on a coastal port. Kriegsmarine destroyers could provide gun fire support. In essence, the Germans would capture a port by attacking it from behind rather than engage in a frontal amphibious assault. With a port in hand, larger transports could off load heavy weapons like artillery and tanks. The Germans could then start to push deeper into English territory and establish a deeper defensive perimeter.
Could the Germans have successfully invaded the UK in the fall of 1940? Based on this simulation, the answer would have to be a tentative yes. The Germans probably could have established some kind of defensible position in South Eastern England. Assuming the Luftwaffe could prevent a British counter attack for a few weeks, German ground forces would have enough time to dig in and build fortifications. Capturing London might not have been in the cards, but 100,000 firmly entrenched German troops would have given the Reich a real bargaining chip in negotiations with the British. Hitler could have traded Eastern Kent for British neutrality. If the UK stayed in the War, a German redoubt on British soil would have tied down British forces needed in Greece, North Africa and the Middle East, giving the Axis a freer hand. Any kind of Allied cross channel invasion of France also becomes a lot harder. Sea Lion would have been a gamble for the Germans, but probably one worth taking.
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