Expanded D-Day Landings?

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Von Schadewald
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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#16

Post by Von Schadewald » 22 Jun 2012, 01:30

As it was the invasion was a pretty close run thing, even with five assault divisions and three full-strength airborne divisions.

Yet the original plan for the invasion envisaged only two airborne brigades to cover the flanks and only three assault divisions to be landed between the Vire and the Orne.

What made them think they had a chance against the Germans with such a small force?

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Kingfish
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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#17

Post by Kingfish » 22 Jun 2012, 02:11

Intelligence shapes the strategy. Perhaps in the time of the original plan the allies didn't know the full extent of the German defenses.

BTW, what do you mean by "it was a pretty close run thing". Apart from Omaha, for reasons already pointed out by Carl, all the other beaches were successful. That the allies failed to achieve most of their first day objective points to an overly ambitious assignment, and unforeseen congestion at the exits, rather than a speedy German response. Once past the beach defenses there was very little that stood in their way, at least for that first day.


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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#18

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 22 Jun 2012, 02:42

Trackhead M2 wrote: Do you think Bradley's aversion to Hobart's specialized armor other than DD Shermans was part of the reason for Omaha's high casualties?
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2
No. About 40% of the M4 tanks made it ashore during the first hour. They were unable to either destroy, suppress the enemy or cross the shingle/seawall. The sixteen bulldozers that were to build ramps across the shingle were all quickly destroyed as well. If 30+ medium tanks were unable to get off the beach or survive not many mine flails or flamethower tanks could have either.

I've been over this one several times with experts from the inside and outside, every eyewitness description I could find including whatever German accounts that have turned up, and run though the sequence of events forwards and backwards and compared with other amphibious assualts and my paid years training at this sort of thing.

The problem on Omaha Beach was a near complete failure in fire support. Aside from the 200+ heavy bombers missing their targets by two kilometers two of the six tank companies drowned & none made it ashore in advance of the first infantry wave as planned. The cannon and rocket artillery that were to fire from landing craft failed to suppress or even hit any significant targets. Finally and worst all six Naval Gunfire Spotting teams were out of action within minutes of the first wave touching down. Lacking any calls for fire support from the spotting teams the ships shifted to scheduled targets inland and the numerous AT gun and MG bunkers continued rapid fire on the assualt infantry and tanks. The entire beach was enfiladed by 75 & 88 mm cannon in concrete positions tucked away in the bluffs and gullys & there is not much evidence any were destroyed by the short 45 minutes of preperatory fires before the assualt.

In simple terms the infantry/engineers of the assualt fought effectively unsupported for two hours. The tanks that followed them ashore were mostly destroyed before 08:00. The earliest restoration of the NGF connection appears to be around 08:30 when a 1st Sgt Presley of the 29th Div located a navy radio and contacted the fire support ships. That may have triggered the order for the destroyers to move inshore and fire on whatever they could find. Around 09:00 it appears up to two more radios ashore were working again on the NGF frequency and directing fire on the German concrete cannon & MG positions.

So, the Funnies would have been confined to open beach by the shingle and subjected to AT fires from both flanks when they tried to approach or enter the beach exits. If they crossed the shingle between the exits they would have been among soft sand dunes & wide marsh pits, then up steep slopes or cliffs. The other beaches had some low cliffs, water pits, and dunes, but not the large streatches of Omaha beach. Also the German artillery and MG positions were much better suppressed on the other landing sites. This is not to say US 1st Army was correct in turning down the Funnies, but they would not have been a panacea or substitute for five consectutive failures in fire support.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#19

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 22 Jun 2012, 02:53

Kingfish wrote:Intelligence shapes the strategy. Perhaps in the time of the original plan the allies didn't know the full extent of the German defenses.
There was a sort of loop between the German improvements in the beach defense and Allied plans. As i wrote elsewhere the Neptune plan did not emerge whole and imacculate from behind Montys veil in january. It was constantly updated and revised for five months. The original January plan did not include the Utah beach sector, that was added to simplify the attack toward Cherbourg. The US 82d Div was originally to land on the west side of the Cotentin and was not relocated until the after the Utah Beach landing was added. A high tide assualt was first assumed, but as the obstacles were extended down into the water during the winter and spring a low tide assualt was planned. The Neptune plan was not officially 'locked' until middle May.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#20

Post by Von Schadewald » 22 Jun 2012, 03:00

Here http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=103385 I posited if the British had drawn Omaha Beach, would they have faired any better than the Americans?

Or worse?

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#21

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 22 Jun 2012, 03:24

Von Schadewald wrote:
Yet the original plan for the invasion envisaged only two airborne brigades to cover the flanks and only three assault divisions to be landed between the Vire and the Orne.

What made them think they had a chance against the Germans with such a small force?
Back when those plans were written the Germans were considerablly weaker. One of the Brit plans from 1942 shows barely 25 divisions in France, Belgium and most of those were static garrisons or shot up cadres that just had drifted in from the Eastern Front. Perhaps six divisions would have opposed the proposed Brit invasion after a week. The sector this plan was written for was defended by a single infantry regiment, with one battalion actually near the beach and a single company scattered in outposts along the beach. This was typical for most of 1942 & 1943. There were no beach defenses other than at the ports like Dieppe. The German strategy was to have garrisons hold out in the ports until a counter attack force of a couple corps assembled in a week or two. The beaches were mostly manned by platoon size observation posts with some MG and maybe a infantry gun to 'observe' five or ten kilometers of sea side.

Rommel could contemplate defending beaches between the ports because the number of corps in the west were doubled by early 1944 from the 1942 garrison. He also had corps and army artillery units that were not in the west in 1943 and could depend on the good rebuilt divisions not disappearing off to the east as soon as they were retrained.

The plans COSSAC wrote in 1943 were fairly reasonable given the much lighter defense and smaller stratigic objectives. The COSSAC staff was also limited to the units actually in the UK. Ike & Monty had a blank check with which they could draw upon some 60% of the Allied ground forces globally. COSSAC could not depend on more than some 6000 aircraft in the UK, Ike had well over 10,000 and no one could deny him a single plane. COSSAC actually saw the number of landing craft in the UK decline as the new production was sent off to other theatres. Ike could with his signature cause the entire amphib fleet return from the Med and those in US waters rush to the UK.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#22

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 22 Jun 2012, 03:28

Von Schadewald wrote:Here http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=103385 I posited if the British had drawn Omaha Beach, would they have faired any better than the Americans?

Or worse?
Better in that they would have planned their fire support differently. As for the rest of it Sword Beach suggests how the Brit methods would fare.

The other variable would be combat expereince. Balikowskis book 'Omaha Beach' has a analysis of casualties seperated by regiment & battalion. In that it is clear the units from the 29th Div were at a disadvantage. The 1st Div was one of the seven US combat expereinced div in the ETO with combat experience from Tunisia & Sicilly. The difference also shows in the advance of the assualt battalions in the first hours. In the 1st Div sector infantry companys were rallied quickly and some infiltrated into the German defenses an hour after landing. In the 29ths sector only the Ranger companies and some infantry that followed them got off the beach that quickly.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#23

Post by Kilgore Trout » 22 Jun 2012, 17:46

To clarify: Kilgore Trout QUOTED Maj.-Gen. H. Essame from his book "Normandy Bridgehead", and did so only to try to give more understanding of the basis for the initiating question.

12th SS and Pz. Lehr, had they been nearer the front, certainly could have had much more effect in counter-attacks on subsequent days. This would likely have greatly increased total Allied casualties, but would not have been strategically significant. In the face of the fire-power from sea and air that the Allies were able to bring to bear near the landing areas, I doubt strongly that the landing force could have been beaten back. The Allies learned the hard way at Dieppe in 1942. Subsequent landings (Sicily, Salerno and Normandy) had testy moments, but ultimately succeeded because of concentrated fire-power.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#24

Post by Kingfish » 23 Jun 2012, 05:07

Kilgore Trout wrote:12th SS and Pz. Lehr, had they been nearer the front, certainly could have had much more effect in counter-attacks on subsequent days. This would likely have greatly increased total Allied casualties, but would not have been strategically significant.
It would be strategically significant, but for an entirely different reason. It's worth noting that once 12th SS and Lehr arrived in Normandy both were immediately forced to assume defensive positions along the front. This delayed the allied breakout on that flank, but at the cost of grinding both divisions down as their intended relief didn't show until a month later. Had both divisions gone on the offensive early on they certainly would have caused considerable casualties on the allied divisions already ashore, but they too would suffer heavy loss. This would leave them incapable of defending against the follow-up allied divisions.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#25

Post by Kilgore Trout » 23 Jun 2012, 06:49

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, how is that strategically significant? To force the invasion to retreat back to Britain would have been. To have a couple of divisions a bit more depleted would not. The Allied force was going to break out of the lodgement area in one way or another anyhow. After that occurred, the next opportunity for a strategically significant gesture (one that would seize the initiative in the battle) could not occur west of the Seine R.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#26

Post by Kingfish » 23 Jun 2012, 15:46

Kilgore Trout wrote:Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, how is that strategically significant? To force the invasion to retreat back to Britain would have been. To have a couple of divisions a bit more depleted would not.
I agree, their depletion by itself would not be, but in terms of the overall German strategy the consequence of their depleted state would be.
The Allied force was going to break out of the lodgement area in one way or another anyhow.
Yes, but as they themselves envisioned it was to be a gradual phased expansion of the lodgement, and not the complete rupturing of the line that came from Op Cobra. Here the breakout would be a true breakout, and in country better suited for mechanized exploitation.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#27

Post by Kilgore Trout » 23 Jun 2012, 20:30

Except that the magnitude of the breakout derived mostly from Hitler's insistence on a counter-attack near Mortain, intending to re-seal the breach. It failed bacause an attack made precisely where and when it is expected has a much-diminished likelihood of success. A better tack would have been to begin staged withdrawals along the line while shaping a loose "umbrella" around the break-through forces. In that way, almost all of the troops and ordnance of Armee 7 and Panzerarmee 5 could have retired in fairly good order to fight in another place on another day. 12th SS would not have had to wear itself to an shadow making its outstanding defense to hold open the Falaise Gap. This is much more how the Allies had expected the battle to play out. It may have led to a serious fight for the Allies to get across the Seine R. and a longer, more bitter fight once the Rhine R. and German border were reached. Ironically, that may have ultimately allowed the S.U. to advance to the Werra-Weser R., from where they would move only by being pushed.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#28

Post by Aber » 24 Jun 2012, 11:17

Carl Schwamberger wrote: So, the Funnies would have been confined to open beach by the shingle and subjected to AT fires from both flanks when they tried to approach or enter the beach exits. If they crossed the shingle between the exits they would have been among soft sand dunes & wide marsh pits, then up steep slopes or cliffs. The other beaches had some low cliffs, water pits, and dunes, but not the large streatches of Omaha beach. Also the German artillery and MG positions were much better suppressed on the other landing sites. This is not to say US 1st Army was correct in turning down the Funnies, but they would not have been a panacea or substitute for five consectutive failures in fire support.
Well as ex-artillery I can see why you concentrate on failures in fire support. :D

There were a number of differences in the US and British approach which I think would be significant:
- amount of armour allocated to each beach - IIRC the British allocated roughly twice as many DD tanks to a beach as the US
- other armoured vehicles - the British funnies included the Churchill based AVREs and Sherman based flails, but also included self propelled divisional artillery, divisional AA (IIRC 40mm based on Crusader tanks) plus RM centaur tanks with 95mm howitzers. There was a lot more 'armour' in total on British beaches. By contrast the landings on Omaha included towed artillery in DUKWS and AA based on man portable 0.5in Brownings.
- approach to obstacles - the British doctrine was to use 'funnies' - flails cleared mines and barbed wire, AVREs laid tracks over shingle and soft sand, bridges over anti-tank ditches and seawalls and towed beach obstacles. The US planned to use buldozers and engineers in the open. Even if the AVREs did little else they kept a lot more engineers alive.
- infantry tactics - the British emphasised 'get on the beacgh, get off the beach' in training ie don't stop. The US plan seems to have been combined teams of infantry with bangalore torpedoes, flamethrowers and explosives working as a unit to defeat bunkers on the exit draws. When the troops reached the cover of the seawall mixed up and in the wrong place, the plan broke down and it took a little time for the troops to start plan B - infiltrate up the bluffs.

Overall the layout of Omaha with the bluffs behind the beach made it more difficult to use an armoured approach, although at the eastern end the slope of the bluffs was lower and Churchill tanks could probably have gone up them.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#29

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 24 Jun 2012, 15:12

Aber wrote:
Well as ex-artillery I can see why you concentrate on failures in fire support. :D
What else is there to concentrate on? :D
Aber wrote:There were a number of differences in the US and British approach which I think would be significant:
- amount of armour allocated to each beach - IIRC the British allocated roughly twice as many DD tanks to a beach as the US
- other armoured vehicles - the British funnies included the Churchill based AVREs and Sherman based flails, but also included self propelled divisional artillery, divisional AA (IIRC 40mm based on Crusader tanks) plus RM centaur tanks with 95mm howitzers. There was a lot more 'armour' in total on British beaches. By contrast the landings on Omaha included towed artillery in DUKWS and AA based on man portable 0.5in Brownings.
- approach to obstacles - the British doctrine was to use 'funnies' - flails cleared mines and barbed wire, AVREs laid tracks over shingle and soft sand, bridges over anti-tank ditches and seawalls and towed beach obstacles. The US planned to use buldozers and engineers in the open. Even if the AVREs did little else they kept a lot more engineers alive.
- infantry tactics - the British emphasised 'get on the beacgh, get off the beach' in training ie don't stop. The US plan seems to have been combined teams of infantry with bangalore torpedoes, flamethrowers and explosives working as a unit to defeat bunkers on the exit draws.
This is still confusing me a bit. On one hand I read the focus for Omaha Beach was on clearing the 'Draws' which were the only practical vehicle exits, on the other the landing plan shows battalions of the early assualt waves distributed broadly across the entire beach & less concentrated than one might expect. Digging into the individual orders/plans for each battalion might clarify this
Aber wrote: When the troops reached the cover of the seawall mixed up and in the wrong place, the plan broke down and it took a little time for the troops to start plan B - infiltrate up the bluffs.
Longer for some than others. The difference in combat experience seems to have made the difference in what the individual comapanies and platoons did in the first hours
Aber wrote:
Overall the layout of Omaha with the bluffs behind the beach made it more difficult to use an armoured approach, although at the eastern end the slope of the bluffs was lower and Churchill tanks could probably have gone up them.
...and thats where the rifle companies inflitrated the bluffs earliest.

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Re: Expanded D-Day Landings?

#30

Post by Aber » 24 Jun 2012, 18:12

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
Aber wrote: This is still confusing me a bit. On one hand I read the focus for Omaha Beach was on clearing the 'Draws' which were the only practical vehicle exits, on the other the landing plan shows battalions of the early assualt waves distributed broadly across the entire beach & less concentrated than one might expect. Digging into the individual orders/plans for each battalion might clarify this
It varied eg Doe Green in front of the Vierville draw had 4 companies assigned, Dog White had just one. I agree it was not as concentrated as the plan would suggest - I assume due to practical limits of space available - and the actual landings of course were not all in the right place.

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