Landing Troops

The Allies landed 5 divisions on D-Day, about 135,000 troops on the beach and 24,000 paratroopers. The logistics, planning, training, and coordination involved in that is exceptionally detailed to say the least. The Germans wanted to land 11 divisions in the initial first assault of "Operation Sea Lion" that never happened, and seeing how the Germans didn't have the logistics, materiel, or cohesive planning that the Allies had, could the Germans have managed to land that many more troops successfully than the Allies landed in the "largest amphibious invasion in history" up to that point?

 

Thanks. This question wasn't about Sea Lion in general, just did the Germans have the type of resources, planning, logistics, etc., to land more troops in an amphibious invasion than the Western Allies ever did?

 

They weren't really planning on landing 11 divisions on the first day though were they? From what I recall they were only landing elements of those divisions leaving a lot of the heavy material and log support for later waves.

 

That's my understanding also; the "first wave" was to be landed over several days.

The Allies actually landed six divisions on D-Day plus numerous supporting units. When the landing was expanded to five beaches, they first planned to land one division on each, but it was recoginized that Omaha would be especially tough, so it got a second division, the experienced "Big Red One".

Four more divisions were at sea and landed on D+1, again accompanied by other units including the glider regiment of one of the American airborne divisions. The total Allied amphibious force dwarfed anything the Germans could have used for Sealion.

 

If the Germans had the material available to them and designed an invasion thay would be effective over the channel they would have done so. The air war was a huge deciding factor in the planning.

 

And do not forget the Allies had already had practice from the larger amphibious landing on Sicily - agreed less resistance but more ships and beaches etc.involved.

Brian