I've just had a discussion with a person, outside of this forum, who stated categorically that (are you ready) "Dunkirk proved that Sealion could work cause if the brits could sail 100k+ troops in small boats in a rush, so could the germans."... took me a bit for my brain to recover of this stupid before drowning him in facts...
Anyone seen this one before, or is it a new one?
The idea that Dunkirk is a reverse Sealion is an intriguing one - extraction from hostile, insertion in friendly is Dunkirk. Sealion is extraction from friendly, insertion in hostile.
The key though is still going to be why the British could do the first, and whether the Germans could.
Dunkirk was a salient under attack from land and air. The British were able to evacuate because they could challenge the air domination and could provide naval domination for the evacuation force
Turn it around for Sealion. The Germans INTENDED to have achieved air dominance, rather than challenge for it, and to be able to use it to make up for naval inferiority.
The question then resolves to - how vulnerable were major British warships to Luftwaffe attack? If we assume is not going to be launched until air dominance over Britain has been achieved, then this is the key point.
Major British warships have AA defences and carrier defence. The question then is whether the Luftwaffe is capable of overcoming these.