sealioning uK with its new defenses

[George Smith Patton]

Im just looking for tips on how to defeat the UK, general tips, for early sealion. Just general tips so that after i land or paradrop, I can win and cap the brits. It was easy before the made it more challenging, and I like the challenge, I just want to know I should bring to it so that i can win.

[HappySack]

If you're able to naval invade then you got the naval fight down along with the fight in the air.

Assuming you got both fronts won you should be able to support your forces with your CAS once you launch your invasions and since you should have landing craft researched from doing Weserubung already you can invade with 30 invasions spread out across the English Channel.

Personally I just target Portsmouth and Dover with two groups of 15 divisions each to secure them, if you want to be extra safe then while they're in combat you should send your paratroopers in a line behind the river in London to delay the counterattack and/or use harbours for more supply but neither are necessary.

To succeed you just need to strike hard and fast to take the ports before they can swarm you and push your forces back, there are some advanced strategies to scout their coast and look for the weakest point with a single ship or invade through Scotland but both take more work and no one has time for that.

I did in on release of the GOT but the pic only shows the aftermath (after I didn't take it seriously and failed the first time)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3367785132

[George Smith Patton]

Originally posted by HappySack:

If you're able to naval invade then you got the naval fight down along with the fight in the air.

Assuming you got both fronts won you should be able to support your forces with your CAS once you launch your invasions and since you should have landing craft researched from doing Weserubung already you can invade with 30 invasions spread out across the English Channel.

Personally I just target Portsmouth and Dover with two groups of 15 divisions each to secure them, if you want to be extra safe then while they're in combat you should send your paratroopers in a line behind the river in London to delay the counterattack and/or use harbours for more supply but neither are necessary.

To succeed you just need to strike hard and fast to take the ports before they can swarm you and push your forces back, there are some advanced strategies to scout their coast and look for the weakest point with a single ship or invade through Scotland but both take more work and no one has time for that.

I did in on release of the GOT but the pic only shows the aftermath (after I didn't take it seriously and failed the first time)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3367785132

lol, okay, well I was confident untill the combined italian and french fleet got sunk in three battles, sinking only one british destroyer. I have no idea why they lost though, no subs, it may have been because they tried to retreat or the mission they were assigned to was landing support instead of naval strike

and yeah, Im a biut late with cas, im playing italy, trying to do monaharist path and form rome, i have fighter bombers in production however I dont have enough of them, easy enough to fix though.

[HappySack]

Oh, if you're playing Italy then it's more tricky since you won't have as much production but it still has the same concept.

But in this case you should have a stronger navy which should be able to chip away at theirs but it's tricky to get the right balance since you still want more fighters.

[velvetcrabman]

Tbh it's often best to avoid the Channel altogether and invade across the North Sea on a line Hull-Newcastle.

Whatever route you choose tho' speed is the key immediately on landing, as pointed out above.

The advantages of the northern route are several:

without radar coverage and huge amounts of planes that are present in the south supremacy is way easier to gain

heading out of Newcastle you can send fast units towards Glasgow and Liverpool, from Hull to Bristol and Liverpool. Done quickly this will make the mainland a meal of three parts, two of them unsupplied.

even a single thrust cutting the UK in half is sufficient to make life way easier.

Fast reinforcement and fast captures of ports to stop their reinforcements flooding in is essential.

As for navy, as soon as you land then either set them to convoy escort on low threat attack or return them to port to preserve ships and let the reinforcements take their chances, the Royal Navy is, on occasion , capable of devastating even a reasonably large opponent. Bearing that in mind having a large reserve of convoys helps.

All HS's points are valid and accurate, but there's more than one way to kill a cat.

On losing two fleets in quick order: that's probably down to intelligence , if they were in the Channel it almost certainly is.

[George Smith Patton]

Originally posted by velvetcrabman:

Tbh it's often best to avoid the Channel altogether and invade across the North Sea on a line Hull-Newcastle.

Whatever route you choose tho' speed is the key immediately on landing, as pointed out above.

The advantages of the northern route are several:

without radar coverage and huge amounts of planes that are present in the south supremacy is way easier to gain

heading out of Newcastle you can send fast units towards Glasgow and Liverpool, from Hull to Bristol and Liverpool. Done quickly this will make the mainland a meal of three parts, two of them unsupplied.

even a single thrust cutting the UK in half is sufficient to make life way easier.

Fast reinforcement and fast captures of ports to stop their reinforcements flooding in is essential.

As for navy, as soon as you land then either set them to convoy escort on low threat attack or return them to port to preserve ships and let the reinforcements take their chances, the Royal Navy is, on occasion , capable of devastating even a reasonably large opponent. Bearing that in mind having a large reserve of convoys helps.

All HS's points are valid and accurate, but there's more than one way to kill a cat.

On losing two fleets in quick order: that's probably down to intelligence , if they were in the Channel it almost certainly is.

What sort of intellgience? Radar?

[velvetcrabman]

Spies, radar, ships, planes all add to intelligence, as does equipment mounted on ships/planes, naval radar is a particular boost.

[joe.manuci]

I never rush UK but bleed them out first: with fighters and subs then add nav bombers, then and the fleet.
Sealion on the east coast possibly with air support from Norway, Benelux, France until first airport is captured

[George Smith Patton]

Originally posted by joe.manuci:

I never rush UK but bleed them out first: with fighters and subs then add nav bombers, then and the fleet.
Sealion on the east coast possibly with air support from Norway, Benelux, France until first airport is captured

can you explain further? im playing as italy, however this sounds intresting for a germany game, does it not run the risk of the US joining? can you give more details on how you get to this point?

[Bored Peon]

As Italy, I would take the Suez first, that sends all the convoys around the Cape in South Africa. Then go take South Africa and then set up a couple of convoy raiding fleets and the UK will stop receiving a lot of their resources. That would include oil from the Middle East.

Then usually put convoy raids one sea zone away form the shores in the Atlantic (to prevent naval bombers sinking subs) and cut off the other supplies from South America and West Africa along with any trading with the US for their oil.

Doing this should also draw out the UK fleets from the channel as you keep sinking their escort fleets. The AI eventually sends out one of their strike fleets.

As far as taking UK, if you can take a port or two with about 6-8 Marine divisions each then have an army ready to land after. If you have the DLC the Marina commandos can wreak havoc as they damage stuff invading then retreat (without needing ports if the template is all commandos.)

[George Smith Patton]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

As Italy, I would take the Suez first, that sends all the convoys around the Cape in South Africa. Then go take South Africa and then set up a couple of convoy raiding fleets and the UK will stop receiving a lot of their resources. That would include oil from the Middle East.

Then usually put convoy raids one sea zone away form the shores in the Atlantic (to prevent naval bombers sinking subs) and cut off the other supplies from South America and West Africa along with any trading with the US for their oil.

Doing this should also draw out the UK fleets from the channel as you keep sinking their escort fleets. The AI eventually sends out one of their strike fleets.

As far as taking UK, if you can take a port or two with about 6-8 Marine divisions each then have an army ready to land after. If you have the DLC the Marina commandos can wreak havoc as they damage stuff invading then retreat (without needing ports if the template is all commandos.)

I paradropped France and took out yugoslav, Romania and czeslokia. The reason for wanting go very fast is I dont want to fight the US, however now that I am discussing this in great detail, It may be rather fun to deal do it, the only real trouble is of course germany, I can still take put framce, and then fight germany in czkeslokia and the borders while I bulid up a navy and air force, then turn my attention to the allies eventually after doing that.

[velvetcrabman]

I'm thinking that for UK it's always better to go straight for jugular if you're the only attacker. Not picking off colonial holdings means they leave most of the troops in those instead of having them at home.

Taking out France in 1937 means it's never part of the Allies .(Looking at OP comment they formed Little Entente anyway?)

This means you can have naval invasions queued up and ticked to launch when war is declared, which means in turn that UK fleet is in port with no orders at that moment and you could launch invasions with 2 destroyers if pre-positioned, let alone what's now 3rd (4th?) biggest navy in the world . Gamey but effective.

[George Smith Patton]

Originally posted by velvetcrabman:

I'm thinking that for UK it's always better to go straight for jugular if you're the only attacker. Not picking off colonial holdings means they leave most of the troops in those instead of having them at home.

Taking out France in 1937 means it's never part of the Allies .(Looking at OP comment they formed Little Entente anyway?)

This means you can have naval invasions queued up and ticked to launch when war is declared, which means in turn that UK fleet is in port with no orders at that moment and you could launch invasions with 2 destroyers if pre-positioned, let alone what's now 3rd (4th?) biggest navy in the world . Gamey but effective.

that was my thoughts, unfortuntally that navy didnt do me very well, it was wiped out for just a sinlge british destroyer i think.

[velvetcrabman]

Yeh, unfortunately the goose is already cooked......

try having a read of these, slightly out of date, easy reading and apply as much to SP as MP and jammed full of good advice:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/emstelegram/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides&appid=394360

This guy has some very watchable vids, seem to remember he does a parachute take down of UK with Belgium and several sea invasions with various nations:

https://www.youtube.com/Bitt3rSteel

[George Smith Patton]

Originally posted by velvetcrabman:

Yeh, unfortunately the goose is already cooked......

try having a read of these, slightly out of date, easy reading and apply as much to SP as MP and jammed full of good advice:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/emstelegram/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides&appid=394360

This guy has some very watchable vids, seem to remember he does a parachute take down of UK with Belgium and several sea invasions with various nations:

https://www.youtube.com/Bitt3rSteel

Actually, did a reload, I found some class of 30 knots crusiers with scouting planes, and put some destroyers in with them, had three of these task forces scouting in two sea sone with my main fleet on strike force. The intoal landing was difficult and I only had a 300 cas with 6 battalions in all 34 infantry divisions (no support) and I actually took out the UK. I didnt pay the navy all my attention as I had to mirco a fair bit given my limited resources, however the battle reports I did see, my navy didnt do the greatest, however they did do more then they took and I think they destroyed one task force of the british navy at one point. Pretty fun even if I wasnt able to pay full attention.