Germany left (most of) France 1943?

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Carl Schwamberger
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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#16

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 12 Sep 2014, 13:02

Hm... at their peak in late June or early July the German AF was sending between 1100 & 1300 sorties daily, or nightly against the Allied army. After early June most of the bomber attacks were flown at night. How many night or daylight sorties reached the targets I cant say.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#17

Post by thaddeus_c » 12 Sep 2014, 13:25

Carl Schwamberger wrote:Hm... at their peak in late June or early July the German AF was sending between 1100 & 1300 sorties daily, or nightly against the Allied army. After early June most of the bomber attacks were flown at night. How many night or daylight sorties reached the targets I cant say.
cannot find any information on force strength of LW in 1943 vs. 1944?

is that the number of sorties flown only over France or does it include Italy also?


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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#18

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 13 Sep 2014, 19:49

Just Normandy. My notes dont show how long or consistently that number was maintained. If you dig into the US and British AAR of the units in Normandy you can find reports of the German attacks, mostly at night, but they dont give a clear idea of scale/size. the standard English language histories dont mention this much at all. Its like the German bombing of Nijemgan or Bastonge, barely a paragraph in the books about those.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#19

Post by maltesefalcon » 14 Sep 2014, 15:14

Not just a matter of the number of Luftwaffe planes on strength.
In 1943 any allied bomber or fighter missions had to fly from England North Africa or eventually southern Italy.
The Allies didn't have the long range Mustang in quantity in 43 but they still had lots of shorter range fighters.

Giving the Allies the French interior would allow the Thunderbolts Spits and attack bombers freer range into the Reich.
That's a problem for the Germans.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#20

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 16 Sep 2014, 02:42

maltesefalcon wrote:...

Giving the Allies the French interior would allow the Thunderbolts Spits and attack bombers freer range into the Reich.
That's a problem for the Germans.
Also the twin engined medium bombers can reach Germany as well. that about doubles the number of bombers able to attack German industry in 1943.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#21

Post by Baltasar » 16 Sep 2014, 08:53

It also allows for more concentrated defense efforts as the Allies would have much less room to maneuver or to feint attacks. However, since the Allied used overwhelming numbers as their primary tactic, that'd indeed mean that much more destruction within the Reich proper (and that much less in France).

As others have pointed out earlier, abandoning France in '43 could be potentially desasterous for the Reich.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#22

Post by thaddeus_c » 16 Sep 2014, 13:42

how fast could Allies occupy any part of France?

the Germans could mine the harbors and use block ships, the ports in the south were able to be put in operation quicker as well as the rail system. in this scenario at least intent would be to preclude as much of that as possible, at least extensive mining and block ships used as well as every bridge destroyed along with power plants.

take up a line of defense from Vosges Mtns. along (reconstructed) Maginot Line to Ardenne and then the Somme River.

all the "burrowing around" done by forced labor on V-3, Atlantic Wall, V-2 sites, etc could be directed towards German factory sites.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#23

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 16 Sep 2014, 22:01

thaddeus_c wrote:...
the Germans could mine the harbors and use block ships, the ports in the south were able to be put in operation quicker as well as the rail system. in this scenario at least intent would be to preclude as much of that as possible, at least extensive mining and block ships used as well as every bridge destroyed along with power plants. ...
Probablly the first & best indicator would be Cherbourg. The Germans sunk every ship present as a block, mined the docks, harbor and channel with every mine in reach, tore up the railroad tracks to the docks, demolished the warehouses, communications, power station, fuel tanks, and anything else. In all this they drew on experience from trying to sabatoge ports like Bizerte, Naples, or Messina. The US Army captured Cherborg in late June & imeadiately sent in assorted army engineer & navy salvage units assigned specifically to Cherrborg. In four to five weeks the port was restored to its nominal peacetime average intake of 8,000 to 10,000 tons per day. By late August beaching ramps for LST unloading, additional railroad spurs, new warehouses for dry storage, additional fuel storage tanks, additional cranes dockside, ect... had been added to bring the average intake up to 18,000 to 20,000 tons per day. A surge intake of 25,000 tons per day occured in early September. (From Ruppenthal. 'Logistics in Overlord' US Army WWII Historical Series.)

Using the experience of the US & British armies in Italy it appears both sides dealt with the ports with less experience, tho the Allies had some advantage in their extensive experience in naval salvage for both the USN and RN. Restoring the Italian ports like Naples took a similar amount of time as Cherborg in 1944. A US Read Adm Ellesberg wrote a book postwar that included some description of these salvage/restoration operations in Italy. Unfortunately I'd not located a copy yet.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#24

Post by thaddeus_c » 17 Sep 2014, 00:06

thanks for your patient detailed replies.

my original post was meant to focus on the timing also, would the same force be available early in 1943 as was assembled by June 1944? or would a "rushed" invasion of France complicate Allied efforts?

digesting the replies one alternative might be to allow Vichy regime to continue? and not execute Case Anton which entailed occupying a larger area?

(although allowing the French fleet to continue with existing arrangements seems difficult?)

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#25

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 19 Sep 2014, 00:24

thaddeus_c wrote:thanks for your patient detailed replies.

my original post was meant to focus on the timing also, would the same force be available early in 1943 as was assembled by June 1944? or would a "rushed" invasion of France complicate Allied efforts?
Significantly different on both sides. Both smaller at the start in 43 than 1944. There are a lot of variable & the Allies could build a advantage if they are able to plan ahead. If this is on the fly with less than 60 to 90 days lead time then the Allied advantage may be less.
thaddeus_c wrote:digesting the replies one alternative might be to allow Vichy regime to continue? and not execute Case Anton which entailed occupying a larger area?

(although allowing the French fleet to continue with existing arrangements seems difficult?)
About all that can preserve a quasai independant Vichy and its rump army is a robust defense against the Allies executing Op Torch. The swift cease fire by Darlan looked like the worst case scenario to the Germans. Plus several French generals and lower ranks were actively preparing for a Allied decent on the coast. That is preparing to welcome them. Its either Paxton in 'Vichy France' or Jackson in the 'Dark Years' who describe a Vichy division commander attempting to march off to Bourdeux to assist a US corps he was expecting to appear there at any moment after Op Torch started.

There have been a couple threads here & elsewhere speculating on the after effects of a German/French peace treaty signed in 1941. When Petain took over the French government he actually did expect that to happen. He thought negotiations would start in the autum of 1940, drag on through the winter, and a genuine peace treaty result in the spring of 1941. He expected there would still be severe restrictions on the French military, and he had no plans for a alliance with anyone other than the minimum Germany might force on France. According to Paxton Petain & Darlan were a bit suprised or disappointed when the nazi government never opened treaty negotiations.

Taking that as a PoD we could propose a German enforcement force remaining in eastern France & a few key locations elsewhere, the French restricted to a self defense military of defense ground forces and short ranged fighter planes, and formal reparations payments to Germany. Petain expected and could have lived with that. His goal was to re establish French power, and that would have been a first step.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#26

Post by Baltasar » 19 Sep 2014, 11:47

Petain expected and could have lived with that. His goal was to re establish French power, and that would have been a first step.
If the Hitler had done so, it would also have sapped support for the Free French forces, with a France still in existence which has largely preserved it's territorial integrity.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#27

Post by thaddeus_c » 19 Sep 2014, 13:30

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
thaddeus_c wrote:digesting the replies one alternative might be to allow Vichy regime to continue? and not execute Case Anton which entailed occupying a larger area?

(although allowing the French fleet to continue with existing arrangements seems difficult?)
There have been a couple threads here & elsewhere speculating on the after effects of a German/French peace treaty signed in 1941. When Petain took over the French government he actually did expect that to happen. He thought negotiations would start in the autum of 1940, drag on through the winter, and a genuine peace treaty result in the spring of 1941. He expected there would still be severe restrictions on the French military, and he had no plans for a alliance with anyone other than the minimum Germany might force on France. According to Paxton Petain & Darlan were a bit suprised or disappointed when the nazi government never opened treaty negotiations.

Taking that as a PoD we could propose a German enforcement force remaining in eastern France & a few key locations elsewhere, the French restricted to a self defense military of defense ground forces and short ranged fighter planes, and formal reparations payments to Germany. Petain expected and could have lived with that. His goal was to re establish French power, and that would have been a first step.
Paris Protocols signed in 1941? with the idea of no real alliance between the two countries but what if German u-boats and aircraft allowed into Dakar, Tunisia, and Syria? and the Vichy forces of course defending their territory?

seems like they might end up in a shooting war with Great Britain no matter their intent.

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Re: Germany left (most of) France 1943?

#28

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 23 Sep 2014, 01:49

thaddeus_c wrote:...
Paris Protocols signed in 1941? with the idea of no real alliance between the two countries but what if German u-boats and aircraft allowed into Dakar, Tunisia, and Syria? and the Vichy forces of course defending their territory?

seems like they might end up in a shooting war with Great Britain no matter their intent.
Stationing offensive weapons aimed at Britain would sort of negate any idea of nuetrality and run counter to the whole point of establishing a nuetral French state.

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