What would you put D-Day's success down to?

Going over in '44 as opposed to forcing a landing in '43.

 

I believe it was a true example of a 'Combined Operation' that had it's share of good fortune. It was well planned. 'Interdiction' the bombing of transport routes across France shouldn't be underestimated, nor too the 'Fake' radio traffic convincing the Germans that a Calais crossing was coming. The work done by the Resistance, Enigma, 'The Man Who Never Was' and of course the bravery of the troops. Hitler's interference helped as well.

I don't believe you can ever say 'What won the war....', there were so many pivitol points. The North Atlantic Convoys are often forgotten about but they kept us in the fight. It was Total War and even the lowly civilian at work in the factories can be proud of what they did.

 

It shouldn't be overlooked, but Adolf and the OKW General Staff clinging to the idea of an Allied landing at the Pas-de-Calais helped out immensely. Imagine if all those troops and panzers were available in the hours immediately following the first landings. How would things turn out? Not very nice for the ground-pounders I imagine.

 

Without Hitler no WWII as we know it.
Without Hitler no sucessfull D-Day for the allies.

I guess the allies had the intel needed to throw the dice for the landings.

Regards
Kruska

 

Very true. If the panzers were on the coast along with the reserve infantry divisions, the Allies would have been pushed back into the sea. I wouldn't call it another Dieppe, but it would be pretty bad.

 

Or not. Panzer's didn't prove very resistent to DD and cruiser fire much less that of BBs. If they had been on the coast the invasion would defitnly have been bloodier but the breakout may have come much sooner as there would have been little in reserve.

 

I did not mean on the beachhead itself I meant that they would be placed a few miles from it. So they would be within striking distance to reinforce the atlantic wall.

 

I agree with you USMC. With all those assets available to the Germans in the Normandy area would make the fighting in the Bocage county most difficult to say the least. All three allied airborne divisions would more than likely been lost, and the area would have been a meat grinder for both sides. The allies could have established a beach head that would be wide, but not deep, that would be protected by massive naval gunfire and bombers flying cover from England. Once inland a bit, things could get ugly. I believe the allies would have eventually prevailed, but it would have been a slugfest for the record books (by western front standards that is). Lots of Purple Hearts.

 

At Normandy we were well prepared it wasn,t a slap dash operation put together at short notice like in the early years and we had overwelming firepower espically airpower but also ship power and i think if the German Panzers had gone for the coast they would have been so exposed our air and ship power would have put severe losses on there panzers and be able to hold the Germans off long enough for us to build up a strong enough force then start moving in land.The germans time had come in Normandy our force was just to powerful and even if they had overrun Omaha beach the other landings were still carried out with minimal losses.

 

Also the mild presence of the Luftwaffe was a major factor. If the Luftwaffe had at least a few squadrons of JU87's and ME109's in the area, that would have made the landings even more of a hell on earth. The fighters could possibly further disrupt the airborne drops. The dive-bombers could possibly hit some of the capital ships in the allied fleet.

 

Yes, those are possibilites worth discussing, so with that it must be considered that the massive RAF/USAAF bomber campaign over Germany contributed to the success of Overlord as well.

 

To be very honest..

if I had been one of those Ju87 pilots, I would certainly have come up with a damn good reason to fly into the opposite direction.

Regards
Kruska

 

I'm surprised that the poor guys went into the air at all when there was allied planes as far as the eye can see.

 

Agreed those Stukas without air supremecy were a death trap.

 

Allied planning and logistics building upon both successful and unsuccessful actions in the previous years of the War.

The Germans were fighting a 3 front war with limited resources for replacements in men and material. While they had conquered a significant amount of land, they also had to hold it, thereby spreading their manpower and troops. Any land the Allies gained was "freed" and their troops were able to use the area and not worry about uprisings or sabotage by the inhabitants. The Allies did on occasion run into problems when the celebrating liberated impeded the forward movement of infantry and armour, sometimes keeping them from making their objectives in a timely manner or even bringing them to a stop (thinking of XXX Corps when they reach Antwerp and didn't go forward to where there Belgian Resistance were trying to hold the bridges across the canals for the Allies).

Post the landings we talk about the extended supply line in France that began to limit the Allies options until the port of Antwerp was liberated, but the real supply line was thousands of miles long as it reached back to England and North America where several years worth of ongoing manufacture and production of supplies and material ensured that there were enough ships, planes, and equipment for D-Day and the initial days after the beachhead was made. The convoys of the North Atlantic made a major difference. The logistics of supply became an issue when it became difficult to transport supplies forward from the beaches of Normandy. Later it was a problem for 21 Army Groupd to replace the men lost by the Canadians and the British with most fighting under strength.

Aside from the planning and the logistics, or the actions or inaction of officers and leaders Allied or German, was the dedication and personal courage of the men who stepped out of the landing craft into water and a hail of bullets and kept going until they succeeded at the task assigned to their units.

 

Both Ike & Monty. 'Overlord' by Hastings has a paragraph or two on this, 'Cross Channel Attack' by Hoffman is harder to find but has more depth on the question. The US Army Green book concerning Overlord has quite a bit on it. Those are just the books on my shelf. There are quite a few other Brit & US authored books that refer to this to one extent or another.

In one sense the decision made its self. That is the Roundup plan from 1943 Morgans COSSAC group had updated over the winter was rendered obsolete just from the ammount of Allied combat and support material arriving in the UK. Roundup had been based strictly on what was at hand in the UK and a few bits that might arrive. Morgan could not count on more than enough landing craft to handle a assualt larger than three infantry divisions & a tank brigade or two. Any follow on force was similarly limited. There were not a lot of US Army ground forces in the UK then either and the Brits had less than a dozen combat ready divisions there. From the inception for Torch the Mediterrainian had priority for Allied resources and the Bolero operations, building up a US ground force in the UK, was effectively stalled. With the final commitment to a 1944 invasion of France and appointment of a commander (Eisenhower) the flow of resources abruptly changed. US combat forces begain arriving enmass and other forces/material were stockpiled near US ports, ready for direct shipmet to capture French ports.

When Ike & Monty first started planing in the winter of 1943/44 they could count on more than double the resources COSSAC had at hand. So, it required very litttle thought to expand the assualt and follow on plan

A second aspect is Roundup had a lesser stratigic objective. It was to establish a army group in France, a large lodgement where the Allies would build up additional forces for a later and separate campaign into the interior. Overlord stepped straight from invasion to a attack towards Germany. The schedule called for two Army Groups to be on the continent within 60 days, and allowed for two more armys entering France via Marsailles/Toloun.

I expect had Morgan 40 divisions vs less than fifteen, and sufficient ships Roundup would have been much more ambitious.

Even against the nearly botched assualt at Salerno the German 16th armored division was unable to repel the assualt. Tanks and the Italian coastal artillery used by the Germans failed, and the veteran grenadier battalions of 16th Div could do little more than fight a stubborn defense. A subsequent counter attack with strong armored forces, and reinforcement from two more veteran & well led divisions failed as well.

In operation Husky a veteran German armored corps concentrated a counter attack against the green and only partially landed US 45th division. That failed to halt the landing. The Tiger tanks present inthis attack frightend the US soldiers, but at the end of the day they and many other German weapons were left destroyed on the battlefield.

 

German high command was divided.

Rommel disgreed vigourously with von Runestedt as to how the coming invasion should be handled. Hitler was forced to intervene, compromising by allowing Rommel to have his way, AND to hold back reserves for a mobile counterattack as other commanders wanted. As we all are well aware, when you compromise, you often get the worst of both sides of the debate, or at least, not what you planned for.

The result was confusion on a grand scale. Even with overwhelming air-superiority, the German Army still managed to put up a fight, and came within a small margin of dividing the beachead into pockets. The fight on Omaha was a very near run thing, and the Allies were lucky to link up their beach-head into a single entity so quickly.

There were definately good quality German troops present for "Overlord", and without this dis-unity of German command, we may well have been able to see exactly what they were capable of.

 

Well if you are talking opposed landings I'm not sure there were all that many others. The Japanese only tried a few. Norway hardly counts as it was a surprise attack vs a neutral nation. I don't remember reading about the Spanish makeing all that many either. I guess the Norse might be the early masters of it.

 

So in 1944 what experience the US have more so than any other nation, in ANY form of warfare much less amphibious assaults ?

And if the Japanese "only tried a few" why did it take four years to take them back, especially when you consider that much of the captured Japanese territory was bypassed? Rather than "only tried a few" they captured most of South East Asia by seaborne assault.