Operation Round Up Cancelled, I'm mad about it.

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ChristopherPerrien
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#46

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 21 May 2006, 18:24

A note to everybody , this is all done in fun with an eye towards studying what may have been done different. In that respect Operation Round -Up is a "straw-man" arguement, I apologize if I appear to using the Straw-man offensively and with bias, I claim "devil's advocate!" or maybe "Adm.King!". I know Round-up entails risks, but I also know so does /did Overlord. To me it is that year difference between the two plans that demands looking back in hind-sight and judge if the Allied High command made the right decision in the realm of strategy. Round-up or Italy?

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#47

Post by Hop » 21 May 2006, 21:25

As to the air war, which I am hearing so much about , we had enough asets in England in 1943 to interdict German forces. We were already conducting massive day and night strategic bombing of Europe that failed to accomplish its goal.
In April 1943 (and by April the preperation work for the invasion would have had to be underway) the USAAF flew 540 fighter sorties and 449 bombers sorties in the ETO, dropping 1,130 tons of bombs. By July that had risen to 2,286 fighter and 3,245 bomber sorties and 4,366 tons.

To put that in perspective, in April 1944 the USAAF flew 21,554 fighter and 21,880 bomber sorties in the ETO, and dropped 38,540 tons of bombs. By July that had risen to 42,953 fighter sorties and 31,925 bomber sorties and 63,062 tons.

And of course, in the first half of 1943 the USAAF was only carrying out shallow penetrations of German air space, so there were not just 5 - 10% of the total sorties of 1944, they tended to be less effective as well.

The USAAF contribution to an invasion of Europe in the summer of 1943 would have been negligible.


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#48

Post by RichTO90 » 22 May 2006, 01:54

ChristopherPerrien wrote: Hi Rich , Well I am looking at Round-UP for Aug 1943, and I don't see having to Cancel Torch because of that. We might scale it back a little. And given Hitler's propensity for "standing fast" I don't see any German forces being withdrawn from Africa, we'll just let them sit there and die on the vine in Tunisia , which was already occuring, plus if they try to ship anything back we could have just sunk it.
Okay, so you do it in August 1943. Essentially, I assume by cancelling HUSKY, AVALANCHE and BAYTOWN and shipping everybody back to blighty after 12 May 1943? That at least is potentially doable and would not neccessarily overtax logistical resources in England, which in 1943 were minimal.
As to your 300+ panzer comment are you talking PZ's III IV and VI's, or are you including all those Italian tin can's too.
28 PzII, 204 PzIII, 34 PzIV, 31 PzVI with units sent to Tunisia, 68 PzIII and 142 PzIV sent as replacements = 507
Like I said Aug 1943 Round-up , but I think that German forces were weak at that time in France not because they were being sent-off in small numbers to the side-show in North Africa/MED. I believe the massive investment of German fighting strength for the Kursk offensive and the Nazi-eating Bear on the Russian front had much more to do with it. And as I said earlier we knew of the German July Kursk offensive through Ultra. And being informed of the subsequent failure of Citadel and the Russian counter-attack it looks like a good time to kick the Nazis in the ass while the Russian are beating his head in, so-to-speak.
If you do it in August 1943 then the "window" is closed. Among other things in France are the completely reconstituted 3. and 29. Panzergrenadier Divisions and 14., 16., and 24. Panzer Divisions oops! forgot 26. Panzer and 60. Inf.Div. (mot) as well. By that time 9. and 10. SS are also operational, each with the equivalent strength of a panzergrenadier division and 21. Panzer Division has been partially reconstituted by consolidating existing mechanized formations in France. . Also, vacationing in Northern Italy are the SS Panzer Korps, with 1. SS Panzer Division and 1. Panzer Division.

And what was the massive investment in Zitadelle, aside from the ill-fated Panthers? None of the Panzer divisions were significantly overstrength or even reinforced, while most were actually numeriaclly weak. None of the divisions committed came from France or any other region of Ob. West or Ob. Sued, the drawdown of Panzers was strictly due to the commitment in Tunsia.
Last edited by RichTO90 on 22 May 2006, 15:33, edited 1 time in total.

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Michael Emrys
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#49

Post by Michael Emrys » 22 May 2006, 04:19

Kingfish wrote:
You make one point that does really affect the potential success of Round-up and that is the U-boat war. But in 1943 the U-boat war was a see-saw affair depending when Egnima could be read.
See-saw in that it went up once and came down once, and from there stayed down. However, the allied high command had no way of predicting that the tide would definetly turn in their favor. In fact, for the first half of the year the evidence pointed to the U-boats winning the battle of the Atlantic.

[snip]

Armed with this knowledge the allied high command could now plan for an invasion in '44, comfortable in the fact that the convoys from America, the lifeline of any invasion plan, would be getting through in sufficent numbers to sustain such a campaign.
Add to this that even if all the U-boats had somehow magically disappeared in the middle of 1943, it still took a year for the merchant fleets to recoup their losses and to grow to a size to be able to support the ETO armies well enough to have a chance of winning instead of a mere stalemate.

Michael

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#50

Post by Jon G. » 22 May 2006, 10:21

Michael Emrys wrote:Add to this that even if all the U-boats had somehow magically disappeared in the middle of 1943, it still took a year for the merchant fleets to recoup their losses and to grow to a size to be able to support the ETO armies well enough to have a chance of winning instead of a mere stalemate.
Allied new constructs surpassed sinkings by U-boats already in 1942 if memory serves, which is testament to US shipyards' efficiency more than it says anything about increased survivability of Allied convoys. However, getting ahead in the sink:build race is only half the story as you imply. High shipping losses were an impediment to planning. The Arctic convoys were temporarily halted in 1942 after the slaughter of PQ17 - that, and the British cutting back on domestic imports ensured that the build-up of US forces in Britain proceeded as planned.

The surplus shipping found by temporarily abandoning the convoys to Murmansk could have been used to speed up Bolero, but that in turn would have sent more ships across the mid-Atlantic air gap, where shipping losses were high well into 1943. In order to keep losses at an acceptable level, you would have to close the mid-Atlantic air gap earlier by giving more Liberators to the RAF Coastal Command (resulting in fewer Liberators for the 8th AF and Bomber Command) You would also have to tell the Russians that they would get no help whatsoever of even the most indirect kind (by cancelling Torch, with resulting larger German forces in W Europe, and Italy still in the war), and also accept the continued Axis presence in North Africa for the time being, thereby tying down more Allied shipping which would have to sail round Africa en route to the Far East.

Realistically, I don't think it would have been possible to sail all Allied forces which had participated in Torch back to the UK and then launch an invasion of NW France in 1943. Once you commit to Torch, you also commit to postponing the invasion of France.

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#51

Post by Andy H » 22 May 2006, 17:07

Jon G. wrote:
Michael Emrys wrote:Add to this that even if all the U-boats had somehow magically disappeared in the middle of 1943, it still took a year for the merchant fleets to recoup their losses and to grow to a size to be able to support the ETO armies well enough to have a chance of winning instead of a mere stalemate.
Allied new constructs surpassed sinkings by U-boats already in 1942 if memory serves, which is testament to US shipyards' efficiency more than it says anything about increased survivability of Allied convoys. However, getting ahead in the sink:build race is only half the story as you imply. High shipping losses were an impediment to planning. The Arctic convoys were temporarily halted in 1942 after the slaughter of PQ17 - that, and the British cutting back on domestic imports ensured that the build-up of US forces in Britain proceeded as planned.

The surplus shipping found by temporarily abandoning the convoys to Murmansk could have been used to speed up Bolero, but that in turn would have sent more ships across the mid-Atlantic air gap, where shipping losses were high well into 1943. In order to keep losses at an acceptable level, you would have to close the mid-Atlantic air gap earlier by giving more Liberators to the RAF Coastal Command (resulting in fewer Liberators for the 8th AF and Bomber Command) You would also have to tell the Russians that they would get no help whatsoever of even the most indirect kind (by cancelling Torch, with resulting larger German forces in W Europe, and Italy still in the war), and also accept the continued Axis presence in North Africa for the time being, thereby tying down more Allied shipping which would have to sail round Africa en route to the Far East.

Realistically, I don't think it would have been possible to sail all Allied forces which had participated in Torch back to the UK and then launch an invasion of NW France in 1943. Once you commit to Torch, you also commit to postponing the invasion of France.
One must also note that the British shipyards were more effective in repairing damaged merchantmen and turning around ships in port, thus negating some of the effect of increased sinkings.

Regards

Andy H

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#52

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 22 May 2006, 20:48

Kingfish wrote:
You make one point that does really affect the potential success of Round-up and that is the U-boat war. But in 1943 the U-boat war was a see-saw affair depending when Egnima could be read.
See-saw in that it went up once and came down once, and from there stayed down. However, the allied high command had no way of predicting that the tide would definetly turn in their favor. In fact, for the first half of the year the evidence pointed to the U-boats winning the battle of the Atlantic.

Here is a list of ship losses starting for the first half of '43:

Jan - 30 British, Allied and neutral ships of 189,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes
Feb - 50 British, Allied and neutral ships of 310,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes, 1 corvette
Mar - 90 British, Allied and neutral ships of 538,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes, 1 destroyer
Apr - 40 British, Allied and neutral ships of 242,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes, 1 destroyer and 1 submarine
May - 40 British, Allied and neutral ships of 204,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes

This is the data the allied high command was looking at in the first part of '43.

Now, once the summer rolled around the pendelum swung back, and losses dropped to a fraction of what it was in the spring:

June - 7 British, Allied and neutral ships of 30,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes
July - 29 ships British, Allied and neutral ships of 188,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes
Aug - 4 British, Allied and neutral ships of 25,000 tons, 1 escort
Sept - 11 ships of 54,000 tons and 4 escorts
Oct - 13 ships of 61,000 tons and 1 destroyer
Nov - 7 ships of 28,000 tons and 1 US destroyer off the Azores
Dec - 7 ships of 48,000 tons and 2 destroyers including one US in the North Atlantic

Armed with this knowledge the allied high command could now plan for an invasion in '44, comfortable in the fact that the convoys from America, the lifeline of any invasion plan, would be getting through in sufficent numbers to sustain such a campaign.
Googd post Kingfish, However one more IMPORTANT thing needs to be looked at when figuring when was the turning point in the U-boat war , and that is U- boats SUNK. May 43 was the record 41 sunk. So the "happy time " of German u-boat in Mar43 quickly turned in to disaster by the Summer of 43.

http://uboat.net/fates/losses/chart.htm
Chart of U-boat losses 1939-1945
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total
1939 2 5 1 1 9
1940 1 6 2 (1) 5 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 (1) 24
1941 5 2 1 4 3 2 2 5 10 34
1942 3 2 6 3 4 (2) 3 11 9 11 16 13 5 86
1943 6 19 17 15 40 17 37 25 9 26 19 7 237
1944 15 20 22 23 23 26 23 (3) 32 (4) 22 (5) 13 (6) 5 14 238
1945 8 20 25 41 29 123
Total U-boats lost 751

(1) U-31 was sunk twice in 1940, March 11 and November 2.
(2) Including U-573 which was interned in Spain after air attack.
(3) Including U-1164 and U-872 destroyed during air raids.
(4) Including 7 boats scuttled at their bases after to prevent capture.
(5) Including 3 boats scuttled in the Black Sea near Turkey.
(6) Including 2 boats sunk and 2 heavily damaged in an air attack on Bergen, Norway
These figures count all U-boats "lost" to the Kriegsmarine. That includes air attacks in harbours, training accidents, accidents at sea and 2 boats interned in neutral countries. In short, any event which cost the German Navy a U-boat for good (i.e. the boat was not re-floated and re-commissioned to fight again).


What is also of interests is the 7 U-boats scuttled in 44 at French bases. This same sort of result might be expected in 43 if Round up was done.

Some of the secondary aspects of a 43 invasion need to be considered besides the lesser amounts of Panther tanks , V-1's, Wall defenses and troops, etc. Namely that the advantages gained in 44 by Overlord , gaining airbases, shorter flying time, and territory closer to Germany had a direct effect in how well the air-war went, above and beyond just having more aircraft in 44. These advantages would apply to a 43 Round-up as well. Also this applies to the U-boat war by threatening or seizing U_boat pens in France that would directly affect ship losses.

So while people talk of "ship losses" being one of the PROBLEMS for not doing Round-up, I will note this also makes Round-up a good SOLUTION, for the same.

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#53

Post by JonS » 22 May 2006, 21:43

ChristopherPerrien wrote:while people talk of "ship losses" being one of the PROBLEMS for not doing Round-up, I will note this also makes Round-up a good SOLUTION, for the same.
Isn't that putting the cart before the horse though?

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#54

Post by Michael Emrys » 22 May 2006, 22:00

ChristopherPerrien wrote:What is also of interests is the 7 U-boats scuttled in 44 at French bases. This same sort of result might be expected in 43 if Round up was done.
But that's giving the most optimistic projection for Roundup conceivable. A much more likely turn of events has the invasion sealed off and bottled up not far from the beaches with no breakout before late spring of 1944. With no breakout from the beachhead, the U-boat bases are not threatened and operate pretty much as they did.

Michael

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#55

Post by Kingfish » 23 May 2006, 00:25

ChristopherPerrien wrote:Googd post Kingfish, However one more IMPORTANT thing needs to be looked at when figuring when was the turning point in the U-boat war , and that is U- boats SUNK. May 43 was the record 41 sunk. So the "happy time " of German u-boat in Mar43 quickly turned in to disaster by the Summer of 43.
True, the two go hand in hand, but it is merchant ship losses that has an effect on allied strategy and long term planning.

In addition, the allies didn't have a magic crystal ball that would tell them their losses would drop dramatically in the summer. If anything, based on the figures I posted they wouldn't have seen evidence of that downward trend until late in the year. The first 5 months losses averaged 50 merchant ships a month. Then there is a big drop in June to 7 ships, but next month losses climbs again to almost those of January. Looking at it from that snapshot in time could you predict the allies were winning the battle of the Atlantic, or that June was simply a fluke?

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#56

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 23 May 2006, 17:07

Kingfish wrote:
ChristopherPerrien wrote:Googd post Kingfish, However one more IMPORTANT thing needs to be looked at when figuring when was the turning point in the U-boat war , and that is U- boats SUNK. May 43 was the record 41 sunk. So the "happy time " of German u-boat in Mar43 quickly turned in to disaster by the Summer of 43.
True, the two go hand in hand, but it is merchant ship losses that has an effect on allied strategy and long term planning.
I would not say hand-in-hand as that implies a two way effect, U-boat losses will directly affect ship losses, ship losses do not affect U-boat losses.
In addition, the allies didn't have a magic crystal ball that would tell them their losses would drop dramatically in the summer. If anything, based on the figures I posted they wouldn't have seen evidence of that downward trend until late in the year. The first 5 months losses averaged 50 merchant ships a month. Then there is a big drop in June to 7 ships, but next month losses climbs again to almost those of January. Looking at it from that snapshot in time could you predict the allies were winning the battle of the Atlantic, or that June was simply a fluke?
Using ship losses and U-boat losses , yes it could be predicted that the Allies were winning by the summer of 43. I would say the month of July would have totally confirmed which way the U-boat war was going, granted its been a while since I have done trend analysis , but the figures look that way. Wish I could set one up for y'all but I have forgotten exactly how to do accurate trend analysis and forecasting, and I don't do second-rate statistical studies.

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#57

Post by Jon G. » 23 May 2006, 20:45

Winning the battle of the Atlantic is only the first step for an invasion of NW France. You are basically proposing an invasion simultaneous with beating the U-Boat menace. If you want to invade in 1943 instead of in 1944 you are also going to need far more landing craft built in 1942 and the first half of 1943. More landing craft launched in preparation for a 1943 Round-Up means fewer destroyers and destroyer escorts built in the same period, which in turn probably means higher shipping losses in 1942 and 1943 than the case was historically.

To add some more numbers to the discussion: 6.1 million tons of Allied merchant shipping was sunk in 1942, much of it off the American eastern seaboard. 7.0 million tons of new merchant shipping was launched in the same year. From late 1942 until mid-1943 when the air gap was closed the U-Boats' killing ground of choice moved to the mid-Atlantic. A new cargo ship launched from, say, Portland, isn't going to replace a similarly-sized ship lost in the Atlantic right away, so the relationship between lost shipping and newly built shipping isn't 1:1.

IIRC the initial calculation was that it took 200,000 tons of shipping to transport a US armored division across the Atlantic, although this figure may later have been reduced somewhat thanks to more efficient loading procedures. If you ship that division to Britain, you are going to need additional assault shipping for invading France. For a first-wave assault with five divisions in 1943, where would you find the 220 LST, 195 LCI, 709 LCI and various other supporting craft that were historically used, particularly when you consider that only 268 LST and 314 LCI* were built in the US until mid-1943?

*These numbers taken from RichTO90's post on page 1 of this thread.

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#58

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 23 May 2006, 23:06

Jon G. wrote:Winning the battle of the Atlantic is only the first step for an invasion of NW France. You are basically proposing an invasion simultaneous with beating the U-Boat menace. If you want to invade in 1943 instead of in 1944 you are also going to need far more landing craft built in 1942 and the first half of 1943. More landing craft launched in preparation for a 1943 Round-Up means fewer destroyers and destroyer escorts built in the same period, which in turn probably means higher shipping losses in 1942 and 1943 than the case was historically.
Hi Jon,
I don't know about this post. One , Roupd -up would be mounted with the same assets that we had for Husky, plus whatever could have been landed from England, and then as they appeared, follow-up forces that were used in Italy and whatever forces we acuumylated in England as the actual Overlord operation was built up. There could no changes in the logistics of landing craft and ship-building. Besides your theory pre-supposes that America was not building LOTS OF AND ALL OF THESE TYPES of ships for the Pacific War too.

To add some more numbers to the discussion: 6.1 million tons of Allied merchant shipping was sunk in 1942, much of it off the American eastern seaboard. 7.0 million tons of new merchant shipping was launched in the same year. From late 1942 until mid-1943 when the air gap was closed the U-Boats' killing ground of choice moved to the mid-Atlantic. A new cargo ship launched from, say, Portland, isn't going to replace a similarly-sized ship lost in the Atlantic right away, so the relationship between lost shipping and newly built shipping isn't 1:1.
Exactly what are saying , as 6.1 to 7.0 , is not quite 1:1 either
.

IIRC the initial calculation was that it took 200,000 tons of shipping to transport a US armored division across the Atlantic, although this figure may later have been reduced somewhat thanks to more efficient loading procedures. If you ship that division to Britain, you are going to need additional assault shipping for invading France. For a first-wave assault with five divisions in 1943, where would you find the 220 LST, 195 LCI, 709 LCI and various other supporting craft that were historically used, particularly when you consider that only 268 LST and 314 LCI* were built in the US until mid-1943?

*These numbers taken from RichTO90's post on page 1 of this thread.
Right so?
Hi Jon,
I don't know about this post. Round -up would be mounted with the same assets that we had for Husky, plus whatever we had in England at the time. And then, as they appeared, the same forces that were used in Italy and whatever forces we accummlated in England as the actual Overlord operation was built up through 43 and 44. Cooking up changes in the historical ship building logististics and theorizing the effects of those made-up changes, is a little outside of the bounds of this "operational analysis".

Regards,
Chris

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#59

Post by JonS » 23 May 2006, 23:11

The scale of ground forces (and air & naval forces too, of course) involved in HUSKY/AVALANCHE/BAYTOWN were vastly smaller than OVERLORD. Furthermore, in Sicily and Italy the geogrpahic size of the potential battlefield is severely constrined. Thinking that the forces used in the Med in 1943 would have acheived much of anything in NWE in the same time period is not supportted by any rational basis.

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#60

Post by Kingfish » 24 May 2006, 01:52

ChristopherPerrien wrote:Using ship losses and U-boat losses , yes it could be predicted that the Allies were winning by the summer of 43. I would say the month of July would have totally confirmed which way the U-boat war was going, granted its been a while since I have done trend analysis , but the figures look that way. Wish I could set one up for y'all but I have forgotten exactly how to do accurate trend analysis and forecasting, and I don't do second-rate statistical studies.
But there is no way, based on the evidence collected up to that point, that they could have predicted the sudden drop in the summer of '43. As I said earlier, losses for the first 5 months averaged 50 ships/month. The average the year before was around 90 ships / month, so yes there was definetly a downward trend, but the evidence pointed to a slow drop. It didn't become apparent until Oct / Nov that the drop in July was not a fluke.

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