So I am reading a book and its going over the buildup to D-Day. I don't recall names etc but they brought in an Officer from the Pacific and basically scoffed at him when he brought up the idea of using the tracked-amphibious landing craft that were common in the Pacific - the 'Alligator'. Instead, as we all know, they used regular Landing Craft. So - why was this? If the Alligator was tried and proven in amphibious assaults in the Pacific, why not use it for the invasion of Normandy? On the same line - why did the Americans think it was better to load up 11 miles out (while the British loaded up 50+% closer) and why attack the defenses at the strongest point (while the British went for the weaker points)? It would make sense to do things the British way in Normandy...I guess its good that it all panned out in the end.
Availability one lead factor. There was a desperate enough struggle going on for conventional landing craft already. Zero to no chance of obtaining LVTs in sufficient numbers for something as vast as the 6th. There are photographs that appear to show one LVT on a Normandy beach (maybe 2, I forget) They've cropped up here or 2T before.
I would imagine several concerns factor's in here. The never invented here conceit, the past experience of other landings made successfully without them, the concern that sea conditions (as in Omaha) might have been too rough for a well organized landing and the need for such craft in landings that had obstacle's like coral reef's as seen in the Pacific.
The LVT as a military vehicle was intended for a specific use, assault on coral atolls, as a support vehicle - a cargo hauler. The Marines used it experimentally as an assault amphibian at Betio in November 1943, just seven months before NEPTUNE. Those used were LVT-1 and 2, the first of which was essentially a prototype and training vehicle. LVT-2 was marginally better. Neither was armored - the "armor" used at Betio was New Zealand-sourced boiler plate. By June 1944, about 400 had arrived in England as Lend-Lease, most were LVT-1. In addition, each U.S. Army Quartermaster Transportation Corps Amphibian Truck Company had two LVT-2 assigned, which were used in the invasion, they are the ones seen in the photos of UTAH and OMAHA. I have no evidence the British used any of theirs. One month later, the Marines and Army used the first actual assault amphibians at Saipan in the Pacific, all which were then available. So the answer is they were there, but weren't assault vehicles and in that environment would not have actually helped. They didn't. The transport areas for OMAHA and UTAH were about 11 kilometers - not miles - off shore, although further out than was desired. Look at a map of the area. The reason was anchored transports are targets, the Norman coast turns north northwest at Isigny, forming a near right angle, and that coast was lined with coast artillery guns from 105mm on up. The transport area was a compromise between close enough and far enough.
The first question has been asked in several threads on different forums and whatever book you have been reading may be the source. http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=223464&p=2030142&hilit=LVT#p2030142 This argument is rooted in the idea that the Pacific theatre generated expertise in amphibious assaults, but ignored by the Joint US and British planners in the ETO and MTO. However, this misses several facts:- The cross channel assault was very different to the majority of assults in the Pacific. Dieppe demonstrated that the cross channel assault would be made against beaches covered by small arms, mortars artillery and anti tank guns with force densities much higher than in the Pacific, backed by strategic armoured reserves. The Op Overlord team were using the technology and techniques developed since Dieppe for launching multi divisional assaults from Nov 1942 onwards in Operations Torch, Husky, Avalanche and Shingle. They had built and assembled a huge force of specialised landing craft organised in flights and flotillas. By 6th June 1944 none of the operations in the Pacific matched any of these in scale. There was a lot of liaison between the two theatres with US Marine officers. Two senior US officers Collins and Corlett had served in the Pacific. Marine Officer Hanson Baldwin claimed in a Nov 1944 report that the D Day assault would have been easier with LVT rather than DUKW. However, the Alligator wasn't actually tried and proven in amphibious assaults at the time when the Allies were planning the cross channel assault and building the invasion fleets. Eisenhower's decision to increase the number of assault divisions from three to five in January 1944 resulted in an urgent need for a lot more landing craft. There was a massive shortfall in assault craft and the crews trained to man solved by heroic efforts by industry and the navies. The first half of 1944 was not the best time to suggest replacing the assault craft and DUKW with something else. The LVT would have to be a lot better than the combination of landing craft and DUKW to switch technology at this late stage in D Day preparations. The first version of the LVT that would have been much better on D day as an assault craft was the LVT-4 which had armour and a ramp at the rear. The LVT1 1 lacked armour and the LVT2, first use Nov 1943) required any troops to exit over the side. The tracked LVT 4 could get to all sorts of places a DUKW couldn't and was widely used in North West Europe from Winter 1944-45. The LVT was needed in the pacific because assaults often had to to land on the far side of coral reefs that would beach or rip the bottom from a landing craft. There were enough beaches to land in France that did not need access over reefs. DUKW had been in service since July 1943 and were just as good for transferring stores from ship to shore. I used to think that the Americans were in error to assault the strong points frontally. However, it was hard to find any alternative to the landing beaches chosen in the Omaha Sector. In the event the attack on Utah landed some way from the strong point. For what it is worth the landings by British brigade groups and US regimental combat teams were structured and very very similar.
The early studies for Normandy, carried out by COSSAC - Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander - identified what would become the British/Canadian beaches and proposed an assault by three divisions on three beaches. COSSAC's direction had been to plan on the basis of what was expected to be available, but everyone who looked at the plan agreed that more troops and more landing sites would have to be found. What became Utah Beach was promising, both for landing and for the possible early capture of the port of Cherbourg, but the only way to link that to the other beaches was to assault the obviously more difficult shoreline in between. Omaha was the best or least-worst site between Utah and the British beaches.
What is your source for Omaha bering added at the last? I thought Juno was the extra beach. The COSSC three division plan was to lodge between the Vire and the Orne, with Morgon mentioning Grandcamp. As a further thought, Hanson Baldwin may well have been right to claim that the LVT was more seaworthy than DUKW and would have ensured that more of their loads lost were landed, But there was little vital that was scheduled to be landed by DUKW, the most important being the 105mm guns of the cannon companies. The British took the view that there was no point landing wheeled artillery on D day and re-equipped the assault divisions with SP guns landed by LCT, which could be used in the surf. But there was a lot more that went wrong at Omaha that would have been done differently with hind sight. Would the LVT have made more difference than say, 40+ extra British AVRE armoured engineer tanks per RCT or an extra 40 extra tanks landed at H Hour by the British using the RMASG Centaurs, which might have been M4s? or more faith in the 8th Air Force's blind bombing and not forced them to bomb 1000 yd south of the beach and actually hit the beach defences?
No the outermost western and eastern beaches, "U" and "S" were added. From my book Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: Under the original plan as conceived by Major General Frederick Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), only three divisions were to assault just three beaches, Lion-sur-Mer – Courseulles, Courseulles – Arromanches-les Bains, and Colleville-sur-Mer – Vierville-sur-Mer, designated respectively the targets for Forces “J”, “G”, and “O”. But, Eisenhower, who was appointed Supreme Allied Commander (later Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Forces, SCAEF) on 6 December 1943, immediately objected to the limited nature of the COSSAC plan. Eisenhower’s misgivings may have begun as early as 27 October 1943 in Algiers when he was first briefed on the plan by an American member of the COSSAC Staff, Brigadier General William E. Chambers.[1] On 27 December 1943 Eisenhower met with Montgomery, who had been appointed Allied Ground Forces Commander and General Commanding 21st Army Group on 24 December 1943, to discuss the plan.[2] Both agreed that two additional assault divisions and beaches had to be added. By 21 January 1944 agreement had been reached to add the beaches at Ouistreham – Lion-sur-Mer and Quinéville – les Dunes-de-Varreville to the plan.[3] They became the targets of Force “S” and Force “U”.[4] [1] Forrest Carlisle Pogue, The European Theater of Operations. Vol.4, The Supreme Command, United States Army in World War II, (Office of the Chief of Military History United States Army: Washington, D.C., 1954), p. 108. [2] Charles Lamb, Montgomery in Europe 1943-1945, (Franklin Watts: New York, 1984) p. 59. [3] Carlo d’Este, Decision in Normandy, (Dutton: New York, 1983), p. 62-64. There is some controversy about the exact dates and who objected first, see Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, (Harper & Brothers Publishers: New York, 1952), pp. 172-176, Ellis, p. 32, Lamb, pp. 61-67, and Harrison, pp. 165-166. [4] See Harrison, pp. 72, 182, and passim.
I don't browse other forums so saying the question has been answered elsewhere doesn't really matter - it would sort of defeat the purpose of having this forum if it did. Now, understandably with hind-sight, D-Day saw plenty of soldiers drown when their craft hit sandbars and deployed their ramps too early or got damaged. Wouldn't tracked vehicles, like the Alligator, have mitigated some of these losses as it would have 'driven' over such obstacles and (theoretically) brought its troops closer to the beaches/objectives? To me, it would seem like being able to drive your troops up the beaches in armored vehicles would have been better than making them run over very exposed ground for long distances just to reach safety. Obviously the Alligators weren't impervious to everything being flung at them, but they would have reduced the effect of small arms fire and potentially would have seen more troops get to protective areas (or provide areas of protection if they got knocked out themselves.
The purpose would be the same one as reading multiple books on a subject, which is in order to get multiple points of view, different research, and different analysis on the subject. There are also people who avow that the only book they "need" to read is the Bible or Quran. I don't believe they are correct either. Of course, and that is why modern amphibious assault "boats" are typically modern versions of the LVT or are hovercraft-type designs. However, that is fundamentally because of those wartime lessons learned as in Normandy. However, to that point, the experience in North Africa and the Mediterranean was the LCA and LCV (P) were perfectly adequate assault boats. Betio demonstrated the problems with the LVT-1 and -2, while only the Marshall Islands landings indicated they might really work. However, the fundamental problem remains availability. 1,225 LVT-1 were produced initially and were only suitable for training. Betio demonstrated they were not an "assault amphibian" by any stretch of the imagination. The LVT-2 was slightly better; 3,413 were built and many were retrofitted with an armored cab to protect the driver. Now the LVT-4 was a much better proposition, with a rear-ramp and moderate armor protection (1/2 inch for the driver and 1/4 inch for the embarked troops...from the front) and with a rear ramp, but only 215 were available at Saipan on 15 June 1944. And, by 1 June 1944, only 5,561 LVT-1, -2, and -4 had been manufactured. And that remains the problem. All the LVT available in England for NEPTUNE were LVT-1 or -2. 200 LVT-1 and 100 LVT-2 were in British hands as Lend-Lease. The 19 or 21 (I forget which) US Army QM Amphibian Truck companies in the ETOUSA each had two LVT-2. Meanwhile, 1,072 LCV(P) and LCA were required for the assault. Each carrying 36 troops. The LVT-2 carried 18. Do the math. The landings at Saipan required nearly 800 LVT to land the four Marine regimental landing teams. The NEPTUNE assault was the equivalent of 8 regimental landing teams (+). So it would have required somewhere around 1,600 to 2,144 LVT to accomplish the mission. Then, on top of that, you need a vessel to launch it from. The standard AP and AK davits could be modified to carry them in place of the normal LCA and LCV(P), but typically they were launched from LST or LSM...which were also in short supply and dedicated to hauling other things that were considered important, like tanks, artillery, trucks, and assault cargo. See the problem? You can't simply say "I want LVT instead of LCA/LCV(P)". It doesn't work that way.
