1943: The Allied victory that never was.

[Richard Anderson]

I was trained to think of tactical skill in how the Captain, Lt, or Sergeant handled combined arms, the array from tactical bombers overhead to mines underground. In these German vs US remarks about tactical skill its always in the context of rifle squads and platoons or maybe companies, with precious little about skills of the company, battalion, regimen, division, corps leaders on either side executing the various arms in combination. Any thoughts from you on this?

Actually it is the opposite. The analysis done by Trevor et al was focused mostly on division-level. You can infer that the outcomes were built from tactical skill in the squad through regiment, but that was never really dissected in detail.

[glenn239]

With respect to tactical air;

1- As far a I can see, the Allies won't really be able to practically put tactical air power over Bordeaux or La Rochelle, which are 220 and 300m from the Cotentin Peninsula, all of it directly over German held territory, and therefore probably both out of the definition (AFAIK) of "tactical air power" and practicality. As I understand it, the USAAF was short of tactical twin-engined bombers at the time so it mainly relied on P-40s and P-39s. Such aircraft could reach St Lorient, Brest and possibly St Nazaire with bombs but what would they do with them? The U Boat pens are going to laugh at fighter-bomber or light bomber attacks. Brest is closer to the UK than it is to the Cotentin Peninsula, so there's zero reasons why attacks on Brest would be more effective from the Cotentin where you have to fly partly across German territory.

The plan was not my proposal so others can address this, but to the point I agree with you that if the Allies cannot put tactical airpower over the French seacoast ports that the U-boats will not be greatly impeeded.

3- I'm not sure what tactical air power operating from the Cotentin really has to do with signal intel.

A faster response time on target was my assumption.

4- U Boats entered and left ports under fairly heavy surface escort. The stats in the ETO, where targets were rare and normally heavily escorted, show that anti-shipping strikes tended to be very costly for aircraft so why would it be better to carry attacks on surfaced U-boats from the Cotentin Peninsula than anywhere else, or not at all, especially since any mission trying to save distance by flying from Cotentin would be coming across German-held territory and therefore giving far more warning to the defenders?

Costly for aircraft? I thought that the point to sinking submarines was because these were costly to shipping.

[Kingfish]

After Market Garden,reality was that an invasion of Germany was not/no longer possible til the Spring of 1945 ,and that thus forces could be committed for the liberation of Lorient and Saint Nazaire the forces that were available to liberate Brest,could be used after 20 September to liberate Lorient and Saint Nazaire .

Part of that reality was a front line far longer than the one in Normandy just over a month prior, so I fail to see the logic of committing three badly needed divisions (and a hefty slice of US artillery assets) to capture ports that are no longer relevant to the overall strategy. Bear in mind that in addition to the ports listed by EwenS, there was also Marseilles which actually came online prior to the ones listed.

[Kingfish]

After Market Garden,reality was that an invasion of Germany was not/no longer possible til the Spring of 1945 ,and that thus forces could be committed for the liberation of Lorient and Saint Nazaire the forces that were available to liberate Brest,could be used after 20 September to liberate Lorient and Saint Nazaire .

Part of that reality was a front line far longer than the one in Normandy just over a month prior, so I fail to see the logic of committing three badly needed divisions (and a hefty slice of US artillery assets) to capture ports that are no longer relevant to the overall strategy. Bear in mind that in addition to the ports listed by EwenS, there was also Marseilles which actually came online prior to the ones listed.

[Kingfish]

After Market Garden,reality was that an invasion of Germany was not/no longer possible til the Spring of 1945 ,and that thus forces could be committed for the liberation of Lorient and Saint Nazaire the forces that were available to liberate Brest,could be used after 20 September to liberate Lorient and Saint Nazaire .

Part of that reality was a front line far longer than the one in Normandy just over a month prior, so I fail to see the logic of committing three badly needed divisions (and a hefty slice of US artillery assets) to capture ports that are no longer relevant to the overall strategy. Bear in mind that in addition to the ports listed by EwenS, there was also Marseilles which actually came online prior to the ones listed.

[Onslow]

With respect to tactical air;

1- As far a I can see, the Allies won't really be able to practically put tactical air power over Bordeaux or La Rochelle, which are 220 and 300m from the Cotentin Peninsula, all of it directly over German held territory, and therefore probably both out of the definition (AFAIK) of "tactical air power" and practicality. As I understand it, the USAAF was short of tactical twin-engined bombers at the time so it mainly relied on P-40s and P-39s. Such aircraft could reach St Lorient, Brest and possibly St Nazaire with bombs but what would they do with them? The U Boat pens are going to laugh at fighter-bomber or light bomber attacks. Brest is closer to the UK than it is to the Cotentin Peninsula, so there's zero reasons why attacks on Brest would be more effective from the Cotentin where you have to fly partly across German territory.

The plan was not my proposal so others can address this, but to the point I agree with you that if the Allies cannot put tactical airpower over the French seacoast ports that the U-boats will not be greatly impeeded.

3- I'm not sure what tactical air power operating from the Cotentin really has to do with signal intel.

A faster response time on target was my assumption.

4- U Boats entered and left ports under fairly heavy surface escort. The stats in the ETO, where targets were rare and normally heavily escorted, show that anti-shipping strikes tended to be very costly for aircraft so why would it be better to carry attacks on surfaced U-boats from the Cotentin Peninsula than anywhere else, or not at all, especially since any mission trying to save distance by flying from Cotentin would be coming across German-held territory and therefore giving far more warning to the defenders?

Costly for aircraft? I thought that the point to sinking submarines was because these were costly to shipping.

Good point about response times to intel.

The issue about the number of aircraft lost in the Bay is significant. Even in late 1943 there were only 70 Long Range or Very Long Range aircraft available to Coastal Command. When you have very few aircraft surely you shouldn't throw a disproportionately high rate of them away by putting them in the Bay where they could be (and were) attacked and destroyed by JU88 long range fighters. An aircraft that has been shot down isn't going to protect any ships. An aircraft over a convoy will.

[Richard Anderson]

3- I'm not sure what tactical air power operating from the Cotentin really has to do with signal intel.

A faster response time on target was my assumption.

Good point about response times to intel.

Since glenn couldn't be bothered to answer, I guess I'll ask you. How are they supposed to get a faster response time on target from signal intel if they don't have any SIGINT?

The issue about the number of aircraft lost in the Bay is significant. Even in late 1943 there were only 70 Long Range or Very Long Range aircraft available to Coastal Command.

Indeed, which is why I was wondering why a landing on the Cotentin or Brittany magically creates more such aircraft.

[T. A. Gardner]

Now they are "quoting" The Dupuy Institute to me. This has ascended from trolling to high comedy.

That is funny. But you, and I, know where that'll go if we get involved...

No please do. I actually find it amusing that there may be an echo chamber here sufficient to sustain the belief that TDI didn't view the Germans as having a combat effectiveness edge (with TDI being open to that edge disappearing by BoBulge if PoW included).

It appears that Anderson was a researcher at TDI, which would make his efforts to deny TDI's conclusions all the more amusing.

Oh, I fully acknowledge Dupuy argued that the Germans had an edge. My position is his methodology with the QJM and TDI is garbage and largely meaningless.

Oh, I was a "researcher" at TDI? Good to know. And I was denying "TDI's conclusions"? Yes that is an amusing notion. On a par with the other imaginary, unsupported, and non-factual opinions trotted out by S.

Sorry, I thought you were. My mistake.

[T. A. Gardner]

It would still have been possible to liberate Lorient and Saint Nazaire in the Autumn of 1944 or the Winter of 1944-1945 .

With what forces?
More important question: why bother? The emphasis was now much further east.
Case in point: On Sept 20th Gen. Ramcke surrendered the city of Brest. That same day Col Frost was surrendering at Arnhem.

Dieppe fell to the Allies almost intact on 1 Sept, with the first supplies flowing through it on 7 Sept.

Le Havre fell on 12 Sept
Boulogne fell on 22 Sept
Calais fell on 30 Sept
Just like Cherbourg and Brest, these 3 ports required substantial renovation before supplies could be moved through them.

Antwerp fell on 4 Sept largely intact although it was 28 Nov before the first ocean going ships were able to dock.

On the Channel coast only Dunkirk was left in German hands, cut off from Sept behind Allied lines until the end of the war.

In April 1945 there was a campaign on the Biscay coast to begin mopping up these fortress ports led by the Free French. They started in the south with the Royan Pocket at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, followed by Ile d’Oleron. La Rochelle was to have been next but the war ended. Taking these seems to have been more a matter of French pride than strategic necessity.

Cherbourg was opened 18 days after the City was taken. On 16 July 1944, four liberty ships anchored in the outer harbor and discharged to DUKW's that took the cargo inland via a beach. Thiry days after Cherbourg fell, the first wreck in the harbor was cleared, and within 90 days the port's capacity had increased to larger than it was prewar.

The German commander of the garrison told his superiors the harbor had been thoroughly demolished and would never be usable. The US and British salvage commanders said the job was amateurish and the wrecks and damage proved easy to clear.

[ljadw]

After Market Garden,reality was that an invasion of Germany was not/no longer possible til the Spring of 1945 ,and that thus forces could be committed for the liberation of Lorient and Saint Nazaire the forces that were available to liberate Brest,could be used after 20 September to liberate Lorient and Saint Nazaire .

Part of that reality was a front line far longer than the one in Normandy just over a month prior, so I fail to see the logic of committing three badly needed divisions (and a hefty slice of US artillery assets) to capture ports that are no longer relevant to the overall strategy. Bear in mind that in addition to the ports listed by EwenS, there was also Marseilles which actually came online prior to the ones listed.

Badly needed divisions were used to capture Brest (which after its capture was not used ) DURING the advance to the German border,thus why would three divisions not be used in November\December when the front was stationary and when they were thus not badley needed ?

[ljadw]

Distance Brest-Cologne :1035 km. Lorient-Cologne : 995 km,Saint-Nazaire-Cologne 931 km .
The real problem was not to have more ports where supplies could be unloaded for the front, but to transport these supplies to the front .
Supplies stocked in harbors were not important, important were the supplies that left the harbors .
The unload and stockage capacities of Marseille, Antwerp, Rouen, etc do not indicate the amount of supplies that arrived at the front .
The liberation of Lorient and Saint Nazaire could give the civilians and the industry of the Bretagne the needed supplies and could also relieve the other railways and ports .

[ljadw]

It would still have been possible to liberate Lorient and Saint Nazaire in the Autumn of 1944 or the Winter of 1944-1945 .

With what forces?
More important question: why bother? The emphasis was now much further east.
Case in point: On Sept 20th Gen. Ramcke surrendered the city of Brest. That same day Col Frost was surrendering at Arnhem.

Dieppe fell to the Allies almost intact on 1 Sept, with the first supplies flowing through it on 7 Sept.

Le Havre fell on 12 Sept
Boulogne fell on 22 Sept
Calais fell on 30 Sept
Just like Cherbourg and Brest, these 3 ports required substantial renovation before supplies could be moved through them.

Antwerp fell on 4 Sept largely intact although it was 28 Nov before the first ocean going ships were able to dock.

On the Channel coast only Dunkirk was left in German hands, cut off from Sept behind Allied lines until the end of the war.

In April 1945 there was a campaign on the Biscay coast to begin mopping up these fortress ports led by the Free French. They started in the south with the Royan Pocket at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, followed by Ile d’Oleron. La Rochelle was to have been next but the war ended. Taking these seems to have been more a matter of French pride than strategic necessity.

Cherbourg was opened 18 days after the City was taken. On 16 July 1944, four liberty ships anchored in the outer harbor and discharged to DUKW's that took the cargo inland via a beach. Thiry days after Cherbourg fell, the first wreck in the harbor was cleared, and within 90 days the port's capacity had increased to larger than it was prewar.

The German commander of the garrison told his superiors the harbor had been thoroughly demolished and would never be usable. The US and British salvage commanders said the job was amateurish and the wrecks and damage proved easy to clear.

I don't see that an increasing port capacity of Cherbourg larger than before the war,was (very ) important ,as an increase of the port's capacity does not mean an increase of supplies leaving the port .The amount of supplies leaving a port was decided/limited by the capacity of the railways to transport these supplies .And this amount limited also the number of supplies that could enter the port .
Other point is that the advance to Germany after the fall of Paris was not only /mainly depending on the number of available supplies, but also and maybe more on the capacity of the Germans to slow/stop this advance . If ''the Hun was on the run '', there would be no supply problems and very few supply needs. If he was not on the run,more supplies would not defeat him .

[glenn239]

Glenn, I do appreciate your knowledge and reasoning and you appear to think Sledgehammer was practical, so can you give me some insight into how you think the LCT problem should be handled? As far as I'm aware, it's fairly simple;

It's not my proposal to begin with, and the ones making it do not seem to be active in the thread anymore. I am not the one to be answering your questions to such detail, I am not a substitute for the expertise of others here. Perhaps the best way forward would be for you to contact the leading posters advocating Sledgehammer and ask them to return to the discussion?

My take on Sledgehammer in 1942 is that the Allied armies would have muddled through. They would have suffered more debacles, more reverses, more defeats, more casualties as a consequence of all factors that have been outlined, but the benefits to an early liberation of France and the Benelux were worth the risks. That being said, I think the best strategic option for the Allies in 1942 was in Southern France by doing a deal with Vichy France, for the reasons already discussed. If the Allies can just land in Toulon, etc., without a shot fired, then all the problems about beach landing craft disappear. Where Sledgehammer fits into that would be, by the threat of its existence ready to go in the UK, it pins the bulk of the German army in France to the northern regions, allowing the landings in Southern France to flourish and advance northwards.

That being said, and understanding that I am NOT the lead in this discussion and claim to have no particular expertise or insight, you asked me, so let's look at your comments below.

1- A landing craft should have its maximum draft well aft so that if it grounds while beaching, it doesn't broach to. The deeper stern sections also allow the propeller and rudder to be more immersed and makes the craft significantly more seaworthy and easier to handle.

A landing craft first and foremost has to exist in order to be able to be available to use. If the strategic imperative meant a landing in 1942 needed to be attempted, then flawed designed would have to be mass produced with the tradeoff being higher casualties, accidents, and attrition.

2- Until after December 1941, the UK and Empire had no possibility of carrying out a major cross-Channel landing in the foreseeable future. Even claims such as the fact that the Empire had 300+ million are largely irrelevant since apart from many social factors, the UK could neither arm many of them or transport them to the UK given the lack of shipping and the extended shipping distances created by war.

The argument made by others is that the British and Americans had the capacity to assign France as the decisive theatre in 1942 and then bend all strategic deployments, industrial production, and operations around that decision, subordinating other theatres and industrial priorities in the process. They did not do this, and whether that was or was not the correct decision is the subject of this thread. In terms of manpower otherwise than to these methods, the existing possibility was to lower the standard of training for American troops on the calculation that Darwin would be a fast teacher in the field, and American troops are fast learners. Again, aiming for an urgent strategic priority at the cost of ugly compromises.

3- Therefore the UK had four choices;

a) Have no new LCT type craft until Sledgehammer is chosen, and therefore do very little in the way of actual or threatened amphibious operations and get little or experience in the relevant operations;

Not an option for the reasons discussed.

b) have an LCT (4) style veseel that was shallow, especially aft, to be used on the Channel beaches. Such a craft would be weak and unseaworthy and less practical in areas such as the Med, where such craft could be used in the foreseeable future without the US getting into the war.

In the quick googling of the LCT (4) I just did, (which is literally the sum total of my knowledge of it at this moment), it seems like for its faults it was the option that could be made available in sufficient numbers for 1942. It was designed for the English Channel, which is where the operation is taking place. So yes.

c) do what they did - create a seaworthy craft (ie LCTs 1-3) that could work well in 99% or so of the world, including the places where it could foreseeably be used as a threat and in practice before the US got into the war and amassed its forces (if it did, which we all know was not a certainty). It was also eminently foreseeable that if the US did get in the war, it would need time to build up its forces and therefore a cross-Channel LCT could be built and the older ones used as support craft or in other areas (which is what happened).

(b) and ( c) are not mutually exclusive, so I do not see why they would be presented as such. The Allies could build substandard craft for an immediate operational purpose even while preparing better designs for mass production later.

d) create the seaworthy LCT 1-3 type and then, as Kurt has said, use it in Sledgehammer. The problem here is that Kurt doesn't know how boats, beaches or landing craft work. On a flat French beach, vehicles and men getting off the bow of an LCT 1 to 3 would drown because such craft draw 6-7' aft and on a flat beach that means a depth of 6'-7' at the bow.

Not an option if not able to be ready in large numbers by the fall of 1942.

Although Kurt doesn't see that as a problem, reasonable people can see that drowning your invasion force is a less than optimal outcome.

Hyperbole in this context is taken for a weakness in the point being made. Wars are wars, not picnics. A higher rate of casualties in land accidents sometimes are required to pursue a larger purpose. Tough shit.

As far as I can see, three of the options are clearly unworkable.

(a) leaves them with few options, little experience, and no way of creating a threat.
(b) puts other operations and the LCTs at hazard due to the weak and unseaworthy nature of the shallower vessel and its problematic handling on steep beaches.
(d) is obviously ludicrous.

By your own reasoning you have not eliminated (b) as containing the potential for success.

Option C is clearly better to me. So - can I ask whether you think the above is a reasonable appreciation? What do you think the Brits could have done to get enough LCTs together in time for Sledgehammer? What other programmes would be cut back and how would cutting back those programmes free up the specific resources needed to make enough landing craft in general?

As stated, b and c are not mutually exclusive. In terms of where to cut spending, I would suggest that if the intention is to march into France in 1942, make a deal with the German generals against the Nazis in 1943, and be in Warsaw before the Soviets that perhaps the thing to cut back on so is the 4-engine bomber programs? The argument being if the intention is to occupy the Ruhr by 1944 that the Allies probably don't need bombers to bomb it.

[Richard Anderson]

Sorry, I thought you were. My mistake.

That response was not directed at you. Yes, I did research, but I did a bit more than that.

[T. A. Gardner]

I don't see that an increasing port capacity of Cherbourg larger than before the war,was (very ) important ,as an increase of the port's capacity does not mean an increase of supplies leaving the port .The amount of supplies leaving a port was decided/limited by the capacity of the railways to transport these supplies .And this amount limited also the number of supplies that could enter the port .
Other point is that the advance to Germany after the fall of Paris was not only /mainly depending on the number of available supplies, but also and maybe more on the capacity of the Germans to slow/stop this advance . If ''the Hun was on the run '', there would be no supply problems and very few supply needs. If he was not on the run,more supplies would not defeat him .

What I was pointing out was that German planning and understanding of Allied--US in particular--civil engineering and naval salvage capacity was near nil. They really couldn't grasp just how much ability and capacity the Allies had to construct the necessary infrastructure, or repair it. Much of what the Germans thought the Allies would have to do was completely undone by what the Allies actually could do.

The problem after D-Day was the Germans collapsed faster than the Allies predicted, and the advance across France was well ahead of schedule for them. Their planning left their logistics train strained.