What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

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T. A. Gardner
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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#16

Post by T. A. Gardner » 26 Feb 2015, 06:05

Well, on that point the Germans needed something they nearly totally lacked: Mechanized civil engineering capacity / mechanized construction capacity. That is, they expended a huge amount of manual labor building the fortifications they did. What they really needed were bulldozers, earth scrapers, dump trucks, and the like.
Those would allow them to use the "cut and fill" construction technique the US preferred for coast defenses:

http://fortwiki.com/Battery_Davis_%282%29

Battery Davis is typical of a "cut and fill." The guns were enclosed in concrete casemates and a series of magazines, and supporting facilities were built in concrete tunnels and rooms that were then covered over with thousands of yards of soil and rock. Most of the protection came from the soil and rock not the concrete. This made construction faster and cheaper than German methods of either building more substantial above ground bunkers and casemates or building substantial below ground structures but foregoing a massive soil over cover due to the difficulty of moving that much dirt.

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#17

Post by flakbait » 26 Feb 2015, 10:11

I remember reading of the story of a German major taken prisoner on June 8th and rushed back to the beaches to be interegated who watched as a literal convoy of every type of vehicle imaginable drove slowly past and then asked 1 of his young enlisted guards in rough English where the all Allied horses were. This battle hardened veteran of the Eastern Front watched as 1 of his young guards walked up to a parked Studebaker 2 1/2 ton truck, popped the hood open and pointed at the engine. The German officer visibly lost his composer and then started crying uncontrollably suddenly knowing that the Allied armies had not brought 1 SINGLE horse to Normandy and that Nazi Germany was now most certainly DOOMED...


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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#18

Post by Sheldrake » 26 Feb 2015, 10:44

Sheldrake wrote:
Old_Fossil wrote:More manpower.

Even without air or naval superiority (really none at all) the Germans still came close to forcing the Americans to abandon Omaha beach. A extra full strength infantry division on each beach would have been a nightmare for SHAEF. The fight for the beach exits would have taken long enough to allow for more German reinforcements to arrive in time. The Allies would probably given up on invading Normandy if that many German divisions had been there. This would require about 30 more divisions on the Atlantic Wall to ensure these extra divisions were there in Normandy. Obviously not possible in the OTL.
Really? Would the allies have given up if there had been more casualties on Omaha beach? I think Bradley, Montgomery and Eisenhower had more intestinal fortitude. This was THE only chance to land in Western Europe in 1944., It was the operation set up by the lengthy and costly Italian campaign and for which 1900 airmen had already died.

The planners had expected up to 70% casualties in the initial assault waves. The casualty bill for Omaha came in well below that and many successful attacks.

Yes an extra division on each beach might have made a landing impossible. However, unless the Germans had second guessed the invasion site, a doubling of the defenders would imply 120 divisions on the western front and rather weak Eastern Front.

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#19

Post by Helmut0815 » 26 Feb 2015, 13:42

Sheldrake wrote:Yes an extra division on each beach might have made a landing impossible. However, unless the Germans had second guessed the invasion site, a doubling of the defenders would imply 120 divisions on the western front and rather weaker Eastern Front.
The initial assumption was:
GoldenState wrote:Let's assume Russia collapsed during late 1941 or early 1942.
So in this scenario the invasion could have been repulsed by extra divisions for the beaches.


regards


Helmut

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#20

Post by JAG13 » 26 Feb 2015, 15:56

T. A. Gardner wrote: Mostly because the Luftwaffe and Heer didn't jointly develop much of anything. Germany, like Japan, had separate R&D programs for each service. While the infighting wasn't as intense as in Japan (there were literally factories where they made stuff for the Navy and Army and the two programs and areas of manufacture were forbidden from talking to each other, interacting, or otherwise sharing anything) it was still present.
Hence, the Hs 293 wasn't going to become a Heer weapons system.
Well, thats what happen when the inmates take over the asylum...
In any case, only air supremacy can prevent such a landing, no navy could stand and conduct a landing if under constant air strikes.
Actually, air superiority won't prevent a landing. At Salerno the Allies had aerial parity at best. The Luftwaffe failed to drive off the Allied naval forces even as they managed a number of devastating hits on ships like the Warspite and cruiser Savanah. The same thing is true of Anzio. It was no different off Okinawa. There the Japanese launched something in the neighborhood of 6,000 Kamikaze alone and failed entirely to stop the landings.
It is sort of the reverse of the Luftwaffe trying to provide cover for the Seelowe invasion. They weren't going to stop the RN from massively attacking the landing fleet.
Which is why I said air supremacy, not mere superiority, if the LCs and troops get straffed to death the landing goes nowhere. As it was, the RN was restricted to night operations around Crete and took heavy loses when caught in daylight, in those conditions they couldnt have sustained a landing.

The USN had air supremacy at Okinawa, the Japanese may have launched a lot of strikes, but relatively few made it through thus failing to affect the outcome.
But, an air and ground launched ASM could have worked. The one I suggested with a pattern running torpedo payload would have worked well. Just fly it out into the landing fleet and let the torpedo go. So long as the torpedo works properly it is likely to hit something.
It would have been easy to implement as well, they already had done extensive research in gliding torpedoes and had the LUT and FAT pattern running systems, plus the Italians torpedoes, but if your carriers can survice long enough...

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#21

Post by glenn239 » 26 Feb 2015, 19:47

Started as an ASM, but they couldn’t get the altitude control to work to make it a true sea-skimmer.
Did they ever try a variant of their X or Y Gerat beam rider systems?

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#22

Post by JAG13 » 26 Feb 2015, 20:37

glenn239 wrote:
Started as an ASM, but they couldn’t get the altitude control to work to make it a true sea-skimmer.
Did they ever try a variant of their X or Y Gerat beam rider systems?
No that I am aware of, they tried a boom that actually made he bomb climb a bit when it hit the water and radioaltimeters I think afor the ASM version, they were developing an IR seeker by wars end for the ship and land based KM version.

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#23

Post by glenn239 » 27 Feb 2015, 19:29

No that I am aware of, they tried a boom that actually made the bomb climb a bit when it hit the water and radioaltimeters I think afor the ASM version, they were developing an IR seeker by wars end for the ship and land based KM version.
That sounds pretty primitive. I was thinking more along the lines of using X or Y Gerat to guide the V-1 from a launch site inland, out to the coast where the invasion fleet was, then another form of Y Gerat right up on the coast that sent a beam, say 50 or 100 feet over the water that the V-1 could receive by way of a steerable antenna poking up, (shielded to prevent signals from being received from the seaward side) and whenever it received that signal, it would know it was at 50 or 100 feet, and descend back down to the proper altitude, then slowly start to climb again.

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#24

Post by JAG13 » 27 Feb 2015, 21:07

Hmm, still think that a wire guided version of the Hs-293 or Bv-143 (if the altimeter works) would have made more sense, signals can be jammed and the Gerats had been around for a while.

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#25

Post by glenn239 » 27 Feb 2015, 21:59

I'm not an engineer. But I thought to jam a signal like X or Y Gerat, the jammer has to be between the emitter and the receiver.

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#26

Post by thaddeus_c » 28 Feb 2015, 19:12

always thought if Germany had put the effort into their nascent radar seeking glide bomb that would have been most effective weapon BV-246 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blohm_%26_Voss_BV_246 especially since they were so cheap to produce.

in conjunction with V-1, launch radar seekers then follow up with rocket launches

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#27

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 28 Feb 2015, 20:27

I am all in favor of better firepower as a solution to this hypothetical. I am curious about the realisitc production numbers for the proposed weapons, & how they would be distributed along the breadth of the Atlantic Wall. I'm also curious about what folks thinkthe Allied counters would be & their effectiveness?
glenn239 wrote:I'm not an engineer. But I thought to jam a signal like X or Y Gerat, the jammer has to be between the emitter and the receiver.
None of the online sources I looked at indicated this. Tho, they are a bit brief. http://www.duxford-update.info/beams/beammain.htm

Maybe a radio expert can elaborate?

Given the highly effective jamming & spoofing of the German search radars in June 1944 I'd not be overly optimistic over German eforts at guided bombs. It might be best to hand wave away the Fritz X deployment in Italy in 1943. The Allies figured that one out very quickly & at Salerno the Germans had to attack the US destroyer equipped with signals intel equipment that was interfering with the Fritz X attacks. To increase the effectiveness of these weapons over Normandy operational testing previously might have to be avoided.

There is also the rather obvious, to me at least, remedy of counter fires vs the guide beam transmitters. I cant catagoricaly address capabilities for 1944, but in 1984 or 1994 anything radiating search, guidance or communications signals was a high priority target. We strove to keep our response times to such targets in seconds.

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#28

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 28 Feb 2015, 20:34

maybe instead of these beam guided weapons we might consider a piloted delivery system. A one shot aircraft with a cheap engine like the V1 or the Natter, basic flight controls, a 500 kg bomb, and piloted by fanatical young SS volunteers. Call it the Kirschblüte?

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#29

Post by JAG13 » 01 Mar 2015, 07:58

Carl Schwamberger wrote:maybe instead of these beam guided weapons we might consider a piloted delivery system. A one shot aircraft with a cheap engine like the V1 or the Natter, basic flight controls, a 500 kg bomb, and piloted by fanatical young SS volunteers. Call it the Kirschblüte?
You mean something like this?

Image

Image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_F ... eichenberg

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Re: What would it take to make a Secure Atlantic Wall?

#30

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 01 Mar 2015, 15:52

... like this?
Not specifically but those will do. While their speed will not obviate the effect of proximity fuzes on the AA fires the speed would cause trouble for other aspects. A lot of these are going to rush past the AA fires before proper aim occurs.

Did a bit of checking on Allied counter fires vs signals transmissions. It appears there was a program active, but no details yet.

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