Expanded D-Day Landings?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Britain manpower shortage of 1944 was probablly more a assignment or allocation problem. I've read through several counts of where the soldiers were & what they were doing in 1944 & there seem to be a lot of Brit or Commonwealth men in antiaircraft battalios or other service units doing marginally usefull tasks across the globe. The US had some intimination of this future problem in 1943 started redirecting the formation of new units to balance against the larger requirement for infantry in 1944-45. It was not a complete solution, but was helpfull when the crisis did come in latter 1944. The US also seems to have been a bit more adroit in reassigning men from existing support battalions to the infantry. There are claims the Brits were not as efficient at this.

All that does not avoid that there would have been a worse crisis with the Brit infantry were the 6th June losses higher.

I do have to point out the per division losses for all the armies of the Normandy battles were among the highest in WWII. There were much smaller scale actions that were worse, but for battles of one or more armies sustained across three months few were worse. The German divisions lost more men per day than in most battles on the eastern front & certainly in any other battle of remotely comparable scale. The Brits & the US Army had a few brief actions of corps size that cost a higher proportion of the division inviolved, but nothing on this scale. For the better part of 90 days the two side shot it out at close range & the Germans could not sustain it. For the German 7th Army & the armored corps hardly 10,000 infantry replacements arrived between 6th June & 30 August, not even 20% of the total killed, wounded, or captured. The Allies despite everything were able to replace the bulk of their losses, and were able to do so with out their combat formations being crippled by such a high turn over in soldiers and leaders.

As I hinted at earlier, a higher concentration of German defenders near the beaches risks higher casualties as well. It is not inconceivable such a strategy could break the German armies earlier than in OTL. A through statistical analysis and some exhaustive gaming of the whole idea might reveal something about which way this could go, but the time required looks intimidating.

[Aber]

Britain manpower shortage of 1944 was probablly more a assignment or allocation problem. I've read through several counts of where the soldiers were & what they were doing in 1944 & there seem to be a lot of Brit or Commonwealth men in antiaircraft battalios or other service units doing marginally usefull tasks across the globe.

No there was a real problem, as they disbanded 2 divsisions (50th and 59th) during 1944 in North West Europe. This was after many light anti-aircraft units (and RAF regiment IIRC) had been converted into infantry.

The replacement problem was a real issue for Montgomery in the Normandy campaign - he couldn't afford casualties and this affected his appraoch to battle. D'Este only managed to partly research the issue in his Normandy book, but IIRC has subsequently agreed that there was a real shortage.

[Kingfish]

Britain manpower shortage of 1944 was probablly more a assignment or allocation problem. I've read through several counts of where the soldiers were & what they were doing in 1944 & there seem to be a lot of Brit or Commonwealth men in antiaircraft battalios or other service units doing marginally usefull tasks across the globe.

No there was a real problem, as they disbanded 2 divsisions (50th and 59th) during 1944 in North West Europe. This was after many light anti-aircraft units (and RAF regiment IIRC) had been converted into infantry.

The replacement problem was a real issue for Montgomery in the Normandy campaign - he couldn't afford casualties and this affected his appraoch to battle. D'Este only managed to partly research the issue in his Normandy book, but IIRC has subsequently agreed that there was a real shortage.

This was not a problem exclusive to the British. IIRC, the Canadians also suffered from this, especially the French-Canadian contingent. The New Zealanders also experienced a shortage, and felt compelled to convert their AT, MG and LAA battalions into line infantry for the final offensive in Italy.

[nebelwerferXXX]

"Going out from the United States, with its enormous reserves of wealth, its massive productive capacity, and its manpower, this effort, great as it was, helps to reveal something of the nature of Britain's war effort as she embarked on the last phase of the desperate struggle against time. For four years she had been at full stretch, fighting in theatres of war embracing the Atlantic, the Arctic and Indian Oceans, the Mediterranean and many lesser seas. Her armies had toiled and fought through North Africa and large parts of the Middle East, achieving victories little short of miraculous under Wavell and Auchinleck, and at last the reward of Alamein under Montgomery, but in the dark months between suffering agonies of defeat and frustration on the fringes of many lands. Her troops had fought up through Sicily and Italy, and were crawling through the steaming jungles of South-East Asia. Now, impoverished, her manpower dwindling fast, compelled perhaps to barter her autonomy, she knew only that victory in 1944 might save her. Steadily the 'terms of war' had moved against her, placing her more at the mercy of her friends than of her enemies, and she had come doggedly, even bravely, to the eve of her 'last throw'. "("D-Day" p 43, R.W. Thompson)

I have read this passage from the book also. D-Day spearhead of invasion.

[Von Schadewald]

What would have been terrible is if the 6.30 am sea landing had failed or been cancelled due to weather or German resistance, and the 24,000 Allied airborne troops who had been dropped at midnight could expect no support, leading to their death or total capture.

[Carl Schwamberger]

In the previous six weeks I had reviewed some information of the old COSSAC & earlier plans for smaller amphibious invasions in NW Europe. Those were amusing when applied to the game board, but irrelevant to this thread. Reviewing a couple posts here caused me to think about how much larger Operation Neptune could have been had all the amphib lift in the Pacific in June been available to Eisenhower?

To rephrase the OP. Could any of the Beaches of Op. Neptune taken in significantly more men & vehicles on 6th June? Were there any other suitable beaches further along the coast? Globally could enough air transports been collected to add another 5,000 to 10,000 airborne in the early hours of 6th June?

[Aber]

Interesting question.

With hindsight, the things that would have made a difference would have been clearing more beach exits faster, and more airborne troops behind the beach defences disrupting the defenders artillery and counterattacks.

Not so much extra divisions but specialist units in the right place.

[RichTO90]

To rephrase the OP. Could any of the Beaches of Op. Neptune taken in significantly more men & vehicles on 6th June? Were there any other suitable beaches further along the coast? Globally could enough air transports been collected to add another 5,000 to 10,000 airborne in the early hours of 6th June?

Given that the existing beaches were unable to take in the planned landing as it was I would doubt that more landing craft would help. It wasn't the craft, it was the limited number of beach exits. Expanding the number of beaches gives diminishing returns as well.

For the Americans, the 4th Division landing could have been expanded to a second RCT on the right of the actual landing - essentially where it was originally planned, which would have placed it right on top of STP 12. A second two-RCT divisional landing could have gone in on the right, but that would have been in the teeth of the coastal batteries north and northeast of Montebourg. Theoretically a third division could go in on the beaches of Grandcamp-Maisy, but it would likely be a disastrous cluster@uck given the crossing conflict with craft heading for the actual beaches.

The British have it no better. In theory the 3rd Division landing could be expanded to two brigades, with one coming in on the right of SWORD, but JUNO and GOLD are pretty much full. Otherwise the only alternative is east of the Orne, which would put the landing right on top of the Dives marshes - probably not a good idea - or landing between Houlgate-Honfleur - also not a good idea given the strength of the coastal batteries in the Bay of the Seine.

So I think the best you could reasonably expect to be effective would be to expand from a eight regiment/brigade landing front to a ten regiment/brigade one. Going larger than that incurs other risks that probably weren't acceptable to planners of the time.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Looking at the map it does seem a bit crowded there. Maybe the benefit would be in higher landing rates for the following units. What were the losses among the craft in the assault waves? Perhaps there would be some benefit in a larger replacement pool?

Alternatively there could have been two seperate but near simultaneous landings, a few days or a week apart. That looks overly complex as well, and no doubt anathema to Monty & Ike. MacArthur kept Eichelberger & Krueger busy at that sort of thing with large scale landings at two or more points spaced apart just a few weeks. I have to wonder if that sort of pace connected to the descriptions of logistics failures in the US 6th & 8th Armys. I suspose pursuing this line of thought might lead to speculation on the April Anvil operation Eisenhower was so reluctant to cancel during the planning of January.