Why no D day in 1943?

[ChristopherPerrien]

Sorry if this has been brought up before. I know an invasion in 1942 was not possible because the US had just entered the war but I haven't heard any good reasons there was no attempt in '43.

Back in the day; 24 pages of going there

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... t=round+up

Are you still mad about it?

Not as much as I was when it started Aber. AFAIAC, it would have worked and I won the debate. In short-

Churchill wanted the Med in 1943, so Operation Husky happened instead. That is the truth why Round-up did not occur in the summer of 1943.

IIRC< When it got to the point that I said no panthers got to France in 1943. Because it was brought up about the Germans getting armor to the beachhead at some point in time. Mind you Round-Up would have landed in July-Aug 1943 timeframe. And finally some yahoo(no offense) said 150 Panthers, got to France in DECEMBER !(@#$&) 1943, I just gave up then on furthering the debate, to win more points of contention in favor of Round-up.

Anyway, pretty sure those were the D model worn out/rejects from Russia. But even if they weren't, Round-up in the historical would have landed on the beach, and got off the beach, even with all the skeptics here. Given the historical minor German forces/opposition(they had few units to move and could move to France in 1943) and no Atlantic Wall (wasn't built then). Even with the historical pro gnome POV problem, and even with some of the actual force involved sitting on the beach drinking tea(Patton's aid not me*). .

We had enough force and firepower. We had enough air support to win air superiority over the beaches in the landing and then over France by moving air units. And there was enough lift for the units and logistical support in July/August(witness Op Husky). We had the U-boat problem beat in May 43 (historically true ) If the Germans were gonna fight the Allies somewhere in France or the SiegFried Line in December 1943 :roll: .Oh well, then it proves , Round-up would have worked.

Kudos to Rich for giving the best fire support in real figures on the issue. He shot up a lot of my propositions. But the figs he provided usually gave lie favorable to the points I was trying to make. Which was what I was trying to do, by suckering him in, in the first place. . If you want hard hard figs on landing in France in WWII, or a lot of accurate info on WWII or other militaria stuff like tanks and such, Rich is one of the best historians in the world. We are lucky to have him and I was and am honored that he stoops down to debate here and provide info. Soundboarding goes boths ways, I figure.

Overall, I am happy for the end result. , Am I still mad? Of course , but I am more sad than mad because I failed to convince a lot of skeptics. But hey, they still believe the British POV that infests the history books/green books and colors many of the issues about it. Hard to change that. Might crack it though. As I state and stated back then,

Churchill wanted the Med in 1943, so Operation Husky happened, that is the basic reason why Round-up did not occur in 1943.

It fits in the historical, and answers a-lot of questions. Round up was operationally and logistically possible and would have worked. Kudos to all who participated back then. Wish I could do the work and research to write the book, because that topic and debate is only the tip of Iceberg , and was really messy; But that is now impossible for me to do. Somebody else may 100 years down the road. I hope my topic pops up then and somebody mentions/footnotes me. Who knows?

Regards to all ,
Chris

*(actual-IIRC , "If The British don't get off the beach soon , They'll have grass and limpets growing up one leg")

[Carl Schwamberger]

... But hey, they still believe the British POV that infests the history books/green books and colors many of the issues about it. Hard to change that. Might crack it though. As I state and stated back then,

...

Its not even a consistent or unified British PoV. While Dill was CIGS there were a number of staff studies and plans prepared for retiring to Europe/France in 1942. Post 1944 Monty is supposed to have remarked that delaying the invasion until 1944 was a mistake.

[Sheldrake]

... But hey, they still believe the British POV that infests the history books/green books and colors many of the issues about it. Hard to change that. Might crack it though. As I state and stated back then,

...

Its not even a consistent or unified British PoV. While Dill was CIGS there were a number of staff studies and plans prepared for retiring to Europe/France in 1942. Post 1944 Monty is supposed to have remarked that delaying the invasion until 1944 was a mistake.

1. There was consistency in the British position, but not to the point where the plan no longer made sense. No doubt there were plans for an early cross channel attack in 1942. An early second front was a highly desirable and the logical goal of US entry into the war. However, no one in 1941 could predict how much worse the strategic situation would become in 1942.

2. Monty said a lot of things to annoy people. He also really despised COSSAC - Sir Frederick Morgan.

It also has to be admitted that Churchill's attitude to the Americans changed once they were at war along side the British. Alanbrooke's diary includes reference to some coarse Churchillian remarks about the difference between what might be said when wooing the object of ones desires and after the deed had been done. Churchill was a great statesman, which is just a nice word for a politician. He said a lot of things the Americans wanted to hear in 1941 from which he later backtracked.

[OpanaPointer]

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/ ... index.html

[Aber]

Churchill wanted the Med in 1943, so Operation Husky happened instead. That is the truth why Round-up did not occur in the summer of 1943.

I beg to differ.

A pre-requisite for Round-up in 1943 is a US Army Group in the UK (otherwise the British effectively have a veto).

Post the decision for Torch, Bolero was slowed down by the US so that there was only 1 US division in the UK for much of 1943. The US diverted shipping, aircraft and ground units to the Pacific.

At Casablanca the options on the table after the capture of Tunisia were Husky (and similar relatively small operations in the Mediterranean), or do nothing until an invasion of NW Europe in early 1944. The US did not have the shipping capacity to get enough units to the UK for Roundup in 1943, but it was easier to blame Churchill.

[ChristopherPerrien]

Guess you didn't read the plan or realize Round-up(or at last my scenario) was predicated on not invading Sicily(Husky) or Italy( Avalanche). Where do you think the units for Round-Up went anyway? .

Army group? We landed more in Sicily than we did Normandy.

As I said Churchill, wanted England's Pond back. The Med if you are not familiar with Churchill's Victorian/English Empire world view. Churchill had the most pull, especially with Roosevelt.Suppose I could beat on Roosevelt for that , but I do enough of that in the Pacific theater.

As to italy being some kinda of threat. After hearing of 20000 Italians surrendering to one jeep patrol in Africa. I go,no, the Italians were no threat. Neither was Italy or Sicily to anything. And the Germans defended Italy on a shoestring, so there were no hordes of troops they could have pulled from Italy to stop Round-up. Husky and Avalanche were wastes, of men, units, equipment, supplies, and most important, time.

But i'll let sleeping old dogs lie, since I am one myself.

[Rob Stuart]

Actually, the ABC-1 talks, with military leaders from US, Britain and Canada, formulated the "Germany First" policy. It was confirmed with FDR and WSC met at Placentia Bay for the Atlantic Conference and publicly announced at Casablanca.

In fact the "C" in "ABC-1" stood for "Conversations" and not "Canada". Canada was not involved in the ABC-1 talks. Overall strategy-making was done by Churchill and Roosevelt, and the Combined Chiefs were to have only US and UK members. Even during the two summit meetings in Canada, at Quebec City in 1943 and 1944, the Canadians were simply the hosts and were not participants. I think Ottawa bought the argument that it would be impractical to open up the strategic decision making process to include Canada, Australia, France, the Netherlands, etc, but it got seriously annoyed when, for example, decisions about the allocation of Canadian production and what was to be allocated to Canada from other countries' production were proposed to be made without adequate Canadian input.

[Sheldrake]

Guess you didn't read the plan or realize Round-up(or at last my scenario) was predicated on not invading Sicily(Husky) or Italy( Avalanche). Where do you think the units for Round-Up went anyway? .

Army group? We landed more in Sicily than we did Normandy.

As I said Churchill, wanted England's Pond back. The Med if you are not familiar with Churchill's Victorian/English Empire world view. Churchill had the most pull, especially with Roosevelt.Suppose I could beat on Roosevelt for that , but I do enough of that in the Pacific theater.

As to italy being some kinda of threat. After hearing of 20000 Italians surrendering to one jeep patrol in Africa. I go,no, the Italians were no threat. Neither was Italy or Sicily to anything. And the Germans defended Italy on a shoestring, so there were no hordes of troops they could have pulled from Italy to stop Round-up. Husky and Avalanche were wastes, of men, units, equipment, supplies, and most important, time.

But i'll let sleeping old dogs lie, since I am one myself.

I was going to ignore what seems to have been a rather eccentric set of views. However, these comments, together with those posted 08 Nov 2015, 21:21 offer an insight into how some of the really bad decisions in military history get made.

We had enough force and firepower. We had enough air support to win air superiority over the beaches in the landing and then over France by moving air units. And there was enough lift for the units and logistical support in July/August(witness Op Husky). We had the U-boat problem beat in May 43 (historically true ) If the Germans were gonna fight the Allies somewhere in France or the SiegFried Line in December 1943 :roll: .Oh well, then it proves , Round-up would have worked.

The problem with arguing that you know for certain that there was enough fire-power and air superiority is that none of these can be known in advance and no one can PROVE that Roundup would have worked. Lots of operations in military history "should " have worked, but did not. France should have fallen to the Germans in 1914. On paper the Germans should have won Kursk. This is Clausewitz's grit, and Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns." It is hubris to claim that a plan can be guaranteed to work.

Op Round up might have worked. But it might not have done. Maybe there was adequate air power in 1943 (without the P51, or the attrition to the Luftwaffe from the 1944 point blank offensive. Maybe the limited British and US forces in the MTP and ETO on May 1943 could have mounted a cross channel invasion in September 1943. Maybe the landings would have been far easier in September 1943 than June 1944. But maybe not.

The known issues were shipping, shipping and more shipping. The successful cross channel assault did not depend on the difference in tank quality in 1943 v 1944. The success of the second front would depend on whether the allies could build a secure lodgement area and how fast they could transfer their forces to Europe. There were two aspects to this.

#1. The cross channel landing would have to be an assault, not an unopposed night landing. Dieppe demonstrated that it was not possible to sneak a division ashore. The allies landed more divisions on D Day for Op Husky than they did for Op Overlord, because they had to fight their way ashore. The Op Husky landings took place at night with only a fraction of the fire support. Until the U Boat was won, the shipyards which made small assault craft were busy building escort vessels. Op Round up could only have been a three division landing - or a seven division repeat of Dieppe!

#2 Success would be a function of how fast the allies could build up their forces by sea and air against the Germans by road and rail. The build up across the Atlantic was dependent on the total allied shipping. Opening the Mediterranean freed up a million tons of shipping. Furthermore, the Italian campaign opened up a second front in a geographically constrained area which absorbed German forces which would otherwise been free to oppose a landing. The 15th Army group contained an army group of 20+ divisions in Italy. If the 15th Army group had not been ashore in Italy, it would not have made any difference to the build up in France, which critically depended on shipping not numbers of troops.

Any gamble to invade in 1943 would be a risk. The losses in 1943 would be disproportionately borne by the British and Canadians, who had more troops theatre, but fewer overall than the Americans. The British were wary of invitations to risk losing their main field army, particularly as it seemed to be more for the political convenience of American service chiefs than for sound strategic reasons. Marshall had been pressing for an early invasion from April 1942, even at a point when it would have been suicidal.

The British team at Casablanca knew quite a lot about what can go wrong with plans which on paper can be "proved to work." Churchill had been convinced that the Dardenelles landings were a good idea. Brooke had been a staff officer on the first day of the Somme. They had heard a lot from people who knew for certain that as plan would work, which is why both were still anxious in 1944 about Overlord. On balance the Allied leadership in Ww2 was one of the more remarkably effective coalitions in military history. There is more to be gained in studying why it worked despite differences in opinion than trying to prove it did not.

[ChristopherPerrien]

Well you brought up one point indirectly. The British experience of fighting the Germans in WWI on a large scale cost the British millions of men. That points and pointed the British in 42-43 back to very old strategy of England, the peripheral strategy which the English are well known for. And in the end I still look at Churchill for wanting pursue the peripheral strategy(while adding to Britsh Empire the Vichy French territories ) as basically typical of the British statesman he was and the "British" mindset. America fought a different war in WWI, and expected to do the same in WWII.

As to Overlord , and its success. It was a hammer on an eggshell.IMO, Little to actually study there except to know the details. WHich only points towards Roundup, while not being such a "walkover", would have worked IMO. We went through all the possible units, air, ground, sea, logistics, etc. I don't think a stone was unturned in my earlier topic. Yes it is messy , and yes I went on rants , but in the end for the bulk of the debate it seem pretty interesting to me. I can't do it again. I am sorry if I am fuzzy about all this now, I definitely could not do a source/fact/numbers cited based, true forum rules, debate now. . I seemed to be losing my mind and memory to an extent.


And yes ,me using the term "walkover" IIRC, I mentioned in my Roundup topic and my reasons, There are more than a few pages of Overlord in there.

Chris

I'll refrain. Someone can take this football in some other direction, please

[Sheldrake]

Well you brought up one point indirectly. The British experience of fighting the Germans in WWI on a large scale cost the British millions of men. That points back to very old strategy of England, the peripheral strategy which the English are well known for. And in the end I still look at Churchill for wanting pursue the peripheral strategy(while adding to Britsh Empire the Vichy French territories ) as basically typical of the British statesman he was and the "British" mindset. America fought a different war in WWI, and expected to do the same in WWII.

This is lazy thinking and a might be regarded as a bit of slur on the motivations of Churchill and his colleagues. His government was willing to ignore what might have been in Britain's national interest and defy the Nazis, fighting them on the beaches etc, ,even though there was an argument that Imperial preservation and financial security might have been better served by a deal with Hitler rather than mortgaging the future to the Americans!

Dismissing Churchill and Brooke's advocacy of the Mediterranean theatre as British self interest is a rather blinkered view of strategy. The war against the Germans and their European allies had much in common with the American Civil War. Arguing that Mediterranean could have been ignored as peripheral has the same logic the argument that only the Eastern theatre mattered in the US Civil War. In this strategic setting it made sense to establish several geographic fronts to stretch the weaker power. Scott's anaconda strategy worked a lot better than the half baked plans of many of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac.

Brooke unlike some of his American critics, past and present, saw the East, West and Mediterranean as a common theatre of operations> It was, as the Germans could transfer their troops quickly from one front to another. Pining Germans in Sicily or Italy was no different to pinning them opposite Caen or somewhere on the Russian front. It did not matter where they were, just where they were not.

[OpanaPointer]

Actually, the ABC-1 talks, with military leaders from US, Britain and Canada, formulated the "Germany First" policy. It was confirmed with FDR and WSC met at Placentia Bay for the Atlantic Conference and publicly announced at Casablanca.

In fact the "C" in "ABC-1" stood for "Conversations" and not "Canada". Canada was not involved in the ABC-1 talks. Overall strategy-making was done by Churchill and Roosevelt, and the Combined Chiefs were to have only US and UK members. Even during the two summit meetings in Canada, at Quebec City in 1943 and 1944, the Canadians were simply the hosts and were not participants. I think Ottawa bought the argument that it would be impractical to open up the strategic decision making process to include Canada, Australia, France, the Netherlands, etc, but it got seriously annoyed when, for example, decisions about the allocation of Canadian production and what was to be allocated to Canada from other countries' production were proposed to be made without adequate Canadian input.

Close enough:

Staff Conversations were held in Washington from January 29, 1941 to March 27, 1941, between the United States Staff Committee representing the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of Staff of the Army, and a United Kingdom Delegation representing the Chiefs of Staff. Representatives of the Chiefs of Staff of the Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were associated with the United Kingdom Delegation throughout the course of the these conversation, but were not present at joint meetings.

[ChristopherPerrien]

This is lazy thinking and a might be regarded as a bit of slur on the motivations of Churchill and his colleagues. His government was willing to ignore what might have been in Britain's national interest and defy the Nazis, fighting them on the beaches etc, ,even though there was an argument that Imperial preservation and financial security might have been better served by a deal with Hitler rather than mortgaging the future to the Americans!

As to

a might be regarded as a bit of slur on the motivations of Churchill and his colleagues.

Two words ; Operation Ironclad

With all respect, yes , I am kinda pleased you saw that. Yes it is meant as a slight. Perhaps you forget Operation Ironclad and the refusal of the Royal Navy to send a carrier to help the US in the Pacific, when things were the very darkest and tense for the USA . So when the USA was fighting at Midway-Guadalcanal, the British were off screwing around grabbing MADAGASCAR :roll: from the vichy French. Ironclad gives lie to the idea things might not have been "on the square" for canceling Round-Up either.
Go figure
Just call me Admiral King and I have, and there are, reasons to slight the British/Churchill for some things in WWII.
-----------------------
On the other thing==

might have been better served by a deal with Hitler rather than mortgaging the future to the Americans!

In hindsight, I agree, IMO, The world and the British Empire may have been better served if Britain had signed a truce with Germany. But that is a major digression and a monster can of worms that cannot be discussed here.

Whew , I am done ranting. I hope you understand and no offense to the British now. And we can leave that at that.
Good on you,
Chris

[steverodgers801]

An attack on France in 1943 was not a good idea, but Churchill kept demanding an invasion of Yugoslavia and the Dodecanese islands. I have never understood why Churchill thought taking Rhodes would help end the war. His fear of casualties was understandable, but he overlooked that the longer the war took the more casualties there would be. Italy proved to be far short of the promised results and yet Churchill wanted to attack in even worse mountainous terrain.

[Sheldrake]

An attack on France in 1943 was not a good idea, but Churchill kept demanding an invasion of Yugoslavia and the Dodecanese islands. I have never understood why Churchill thought taking Rhodes would help end the war. His fear of casualties was understandable, but he overlooked that the longer the war took the more casualties there would be. Italy proved to be far short of the promised results and yet Churchill wanted to attack in even worse mountainous terrain.

Churchill wanted to bring Turkey into the war. He also had a habit of letting his imagination rip in peripheral areas such as Norway and the Northern tip of Sumatra. Alanbrooke attributed this to Churchill's tendency to focus on some part of the canvas without seeing the whole picture at the same time.

I think your assessment of the Italian Campaign is unfair.

I am not sure exactly what you feel was "promised," and on what basis anyone could seriously expect more than was achieved. Churchill's "soft underbelly of Europe" was a politicians phrase, a good sound bite; long on emotion and short on the specifics.

The campaign was an effective subsidiary operation which engaged 20 divisions of Germans, inflicting one third to a half a million casualties and turning an enemy into a co-belligerent ally. Aircraft from Italy ranged over southern Europe and Germany, outflanking German air defences. It was a second front, the first foothold in mainland Europe, in a theatre where the Germans could not bring their full might to bear. It would be the springboard for the invasion of Southern France and the opening of the Mediterranean Ports.

[HMan]

One thing that always somewhat mystified me was the US insistence on a cross-channel
offensive vs. invading S. France first. Firstly because I have the impression that weather
in the channel is far nastier than in the Med.

Admittedly, this is just based on having to postpone D-Day by 1 day, and a difficult
decision whether to go the next day because of terrible storms. Then in the next
window of ideal moonlight/tides ~ 2 weeks later when the Allied command would have
invaded a horrible storm hit.

A storm that caused far more destruction to Allied ships and artificial harbors than
German action ever did. A storm that had it happened on June 9, 1944 for instance
might have been disastrous.

I vaguely remember the chief Allied D-Day meteorologist in the 80s saying it was
still devilishly difficult to predict channel weather even with satellites.

It would be interesting if anyone has information on what weather was like
on the 1943 possible invasion windows, if there were false predictions
(i.e. so that a benign forecast might have led to a invasion in a bad storm)
or postponements that might have led to the secret of the landing spot leaking out.

Is my assumption that there was far more months when a S. France landing
is feasible than a cross-channel correct?