ABSTRACT
The crucial development in the planning took place in a remarkable exchange of information between the Army and the Navy. The Navy responded by sending a copy of Study Red with covering comments pointing out that it would take a year to get a landing fleet together and emphasising the vastly superior power of the Royal Navy. On 16 July Fhrer Directive No. 16 was signed, ordering preparations to commence for the operation, now called Sealion. The reactions in Army and Navy High Commands were very different. In the former all was positive bustle, in the latter dismay. The Army went to work on Sealion with enthusiasm. One of their number, General Georg Hans Reinhardt, grasped the crucial problem: this was a seaborne assault on a defended shore. The Deal landing idea was more serious as it gave access to the broad, chalk uplands of the North Downs, good tank-bearing country.
