Editing Operation Sea Lion (section)

=== Minefields ===
Lacking surface naval forces capable of meeting the Home Fleet of the Royal Navy in open battle, the main seaborne defence for the first wave invasion fleets would have been four massive minefields, which were intended to be laid from S minus nine, thus nine days before landing. The ANTON minefield (off [[Selsey Bill]]) and the BRUNO minefield (off Beachy Head), each totalling over 3,000 mines in four rows, would have blocked off the invasion beaches against naval forces from Portsmouth, while the counterpart CAESAR minefield would have blocked off beach 'B' from Dover. A fourth minefield, DORA, was to be laid off [[Lyme Bay]] to inhibit naval forces from [[Plymouth]]. By the autumn of 1940, the ''Kriegsmarine'' had achieved considerable success in laying minefields in support of active operations, notably in the night of [[Texel Disaster|31 August 1940]] when the 20th Destroyer flotilla suffered heavy losses when running into a newly laid German minefield near the Dutch coast off [[Texel]]; however no plans were made to prevent the mines being cleared by the large force of British [[minesweeper]]s which were based in the area. ''[[Vizeadmiral]]'' [[Friedrich Ruge]], who was in charge of the mining operation, wrote after the war that if the minefields had been relatively complete, they would have been a "strong obstacle" but that "even a strong obstacle is not an absolute barrier."<ref>Schenk pp. 330–32</ref>