Operation Overlord: Could the Allies have done Better?

Half_Life_Expert#4276

Its been a while, but I now have put up the next what if/could it? thread.

Yes, it returns to Operation Overlord, but its looking at an aspect I don't think anyone has looked at much:

The last thread on Overlord was If Rommel could have stopped the Invasion, had he been at his HQ instead of Germany on June 6.

With the 70th Anniversary of D-Day about a month away, I wanted to wait until then, but im going to be on vacation for the week before and im close to being swamped with schoolwork/finals atm, so I wanted to make this thread before I forgot my thoughts.

Many have looked at various ways in which D-Day could have failed, but not many have looked at the possibility if the Allies could have done better with Operation Overlord.

Most people see D-Day as an amazing success, with the disasters of the airborne mis-drops that ended up working to the Allies' advantage; and of course the horrific losses at Omaha Beach.

But Many things went very wrong on D-Day, alongside the two I just mentioned.

Ill show what I mean with a map:





this shows the D-Day Objective line, as in how far the Allies were supposed to have advanced by midnight, the actual advances show how far off they were. Caen, supposed to be taken on D-Day, did not fall until 2 months later.

Over a month later they had still only reached their day 5 objectives. Naturally, the Allies eventually broke out and advanced to Paris, but it took much longer than planned and cost many more lives

The primary failure of the Allies, in my opinion, was failing to recognize the Bocage, the massive maze of hedgerows that crisscrossed much of Normandy. They assumed they were the same as in England, but they were much taller and thicker, essentially tough walls of dirt and plants that are very tough to get through, and provided ideal terrain for the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS units to put up the furious defense that they did.

So, with this thread, I want to examine how the Allies could have Carried out Overlord more successfully then they actually did.

There are two possibilities here:

A) How the Allies could have been more successful with the actual Overlord Plan, meaning Invading Normandy on those beaches and with the same or very similar objectives. This includes things like: little or no mis-drops of airborne troops, leading to the airborne objectives, such as Carentan being more effectively taken; greater success of the Amphibious Tanks; More effective air and Naval Bombardment of the beaches, particularly Omaha

A completely different approach, such as a few alternatives I have thought of, or any that you can think of:
-Landing on both sides of the Cherbourg Peninsula in a Pincer to cut off the Port of Cherbourg and capture it quicker
-Landing On a completely different date, such as the original, May 19th, or a later date. Maybe even 1943 or 1945.
-Landing in the Pas de Calais, and focusing the deception effort, Operation Fortitude, on convincing the Germans that the landing would be in Normandy


As I have said, I don't think many have looked at this possibility, so I think this could make for a very interesting discussion thread

daelin4#9896

Of course the Allies could have done better.

There, one short sentence to shut down all your hard work! *devilish laugh*

Tyer032392

Half Life Expert wrote: »

There are two possibilities here:

A completely different approach, such as a few alternatives I have thought of, or any that you can think of:
-Landing on both sides of the Cherbourg Peninsula in a Pincer to cut off the Port of Cherbourg and capture it quicker
-Landing On a completely different date, such as the original, May 19th, or a later date. Maybe even 1943 or 1945.
-Landing in the Pas de Calais, and focusing the deception effort, Operation Fortitude, on convincing the Germans that the landing would be in Normandy

As I have said, I don't think many have looked at this possibility, so I think this could make for a very interesting discussion thread

Landing at Cherbourg would of been risky as it was not only a major U-Boat base with several military bases and Luftwaffe air fields around, but also much stronger defenses than that of the beaches, with more than likely Panzer tanks in the city as well.

The date of June 6 was decided upon because it was the only day for several months that the high tide would of been high enough to allow the Higgen's LCVP's to safely pass over the beach obstacle that the Germans had placed. Had they landed when low tide was in, than those beach obstacles would of torn the bottoms out of the LCVP's, and caused even greater casualties.

The Pas de Calais, despite being a good port and the original location for D-Day was abandoned because the Germans put the vast majority of their defenses into the port. In fact, the Atlantic Wall over the Normandy coast was incomplete with Omaha being the most complete, but still unfinished amongst the beaches. In the Pas de Calais, the beach defenses were complete, and there were several hardened army regiments and Panzer divisions defending the port. For the Normandy beach zones, only Omaha Beach had a hardened regiment of soldiers while the other four beaches were filled with conscripts. If the Allies had landed at the Pas de Calais, than I imagine that it would of been Omaha beach multiplied by twenty with the possibility of the Allies even being pushed back into the sea.

Bmnoble981#3908

Who really knows, the only way to give an accurate assessment would be to see, the actual intelligence the planners had available to them, when they were planning the invasion. Not everything we know now as a result of the invasion, short of giving the planners all the info we have now I don't think they could have done much better.

from what I have read Churchill was against invading Europe through France, he wanted to invade through Italy, the Americans wanted to invade France. The Americans won out because they were bringing the necessary man power and equipment.

its possible they could have done better, its also possible it could have gone much worse. Maybe if they delayed the invasion long enough the Red army would be at Berlin's door step and the German High command would have recalled its troops from France to defend the fatherland, maybe they could have landed unopposed while the Germans consolidated its forces in a new defensive line along the Rhine, deploying the bulk of there forces to the east.

"No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy" Carl von Clausewitz

Ancient_Ruffian#5651

History has a remorseless logic all of its own, but I'm going to suggest that if the allies had used better strategic bombardment of the German defences, especially those at Omaha beach, they would have saved a lot of American lives. The RAF had huge bombs available to them, the "Tallboy" and "Grand Slam" weapons, and had these been used on the near-complete sections of the Atlantic wall the German fortifications would have been reduced to rubble, as the U-Boat pens at Peenemunde were. From the little I know of this battle, Allied naval support at Omaha seems to me to have been sadly lacking - did no one have the balls to bring their ships in close enough to provide meaningful fire support?

Could the parachute assault have been improved? I'm not sure how. There is bound to be confusion in that kind of operation, and how you plan for sh*t not to happen is beyond me.

It would have been a mistake for the allies to simply not invade and wait for the Red Army to do all the work for them. Stalin was becoming increasingly impatient at the lack of a second front in Europe - obviously he didn't count Italy as anything meaningful, and in a way he was right, because once the Germans took over the defence of Italy, allied advances slowed considerably. D-Day happened not exactly before time, from the Russians' point of view.

Churchill was a great fan of the "stab at the soft underbelly of Europe" scenario, but it didn't work in WW1 at Gallipoli, and it wasn't going to work in WW2 either. Greece and Crete should have shown him that.

Rath_Darkblade

daelin4 wrote: »

Of course the Allies could have done better.

There, one short sentence to shut down all your hard work! *devilish laugh*

Yes - and I know how they could have done better.

All Churchill needed to do was get in his time machine, go back to 1889, and kill Hitler! *G*

But then Stalin would invade Poland instead, and World War II would start anyway. Rats.

Tyer032392

The Weaver wrote: »

History has a remorseless logic all of its own, but I'm going to suggest that if the allies had used better strategic bombardment of the German defences, especially those at Omaha beach, they would have saved a lot of American lives. The RAF had huge bombs available to them, the "Tallboy" and "Grand Slam" weapons, and had these been used on the near-complete sections of the Atlantic wall the German fortifications would have been reduced to rubble, as the U-Boat pens at Peenemunde were. From the little I know of this battle, Allied naval support at Omaha seems to me to have been sadly lacking - did no one have the balls to bring their ships in close enough to provide meaningful fire support?

I forget where I read it, but a U.S Destroyer captain when hearing that the United States might have to give up on Omaha beach and land at Utah and either Sword and or Juno that he ordered his warship forward to nearly beaching it so that the 5'' guns would have the range on the Bunkers. Once that happened and the second wave was in bound for the beach, the destroyer opened up on the beach defenses and pretty much wrecked havak on the exposed defenders. I believe that even the anti-aircraft guns were firing at the defenders as well.

Half_Life_Expert#4276

Tyer032392 wrote: »

I forget where I read it, but a U.S Destroyer captain when hearing that the United States might have to give up on Omaha beach and land at Utah and either Sword and or Juno that he ordered his warship forward to nearly beaching it so that the 5'' guns would have the range on the Bunkers. Once that happened and the second wave was in bound for the beach, the destroyer opened up on the beach defenses and pretty much wrecked havak on the exposed defenders. I believe that even the anti-aircraft guns were firing at the defenders as well.

yeah, and he very nearly ran aground

dge1

There was more to it than just one destroyer providing close support. Here is an article that provides some background and some detail. One of several that are available.

Ancient_Ruffian#5651

dge1 wrote: »

There was more to it than just one destroyer providing close support. Here is an article that provides some background and some detail. One of several that are available.

I really should learn to not say anything until I know what I'm talking about. But I was thinking more about heavier naval units, like cruisers and capital ships. There were a ton of them at Normandy.

US destroyer captains in WW2 generally seem to have made a habit out of punching well above their weight.

Naisho

The heavier ships couldn't get close enough for accurate shelling if I remember, and the area for Omaha was supposed to have been bombed but cloud cover had actually prevented accurate bombing and thus the invasion occurred on a beach that was near pristine. The bombs were supposed to make holes throughout the beach to offer protection. Nobody had realized the bombing run had failed when the invasion had begun so the shelling by naval batteries wasn't fully possible at extreme ranges without seriously risking the soldiers lives on the beaches.

Toxicseagull

The Weaver wrote: »

History has a remorseless logic all of its own, but I'm going to suggest that if the allies had used better strategic bombardment of the German defences, especially those at Omaha beach, they would have saved a lot of American lives. The RAF had huge bombs available to them, the "Tallboy" and "Grand Slam" weapons, and had these been used on the near-complete sections of the Atlantic wall the German fortifications would have been reduced to rubble, as the U-Boat pens at Peenemunde were.

Manufacture of those bombs was a huge problem. they took months just for the metal to cool and Grand Slam wasnt ready until march 1945. Tall boy's first drop was a few days after D-Day as well.

Ace_Blazer

Yes, a destroyer is one thing, but calling in long range artillery strikes from the heavy ships while the infantry was landing would have been a huge disaster. "Danger Close" indeed.

Mackles

As for not using extensive strategic bombing prior to the landings, the whole point of landing in Normandy was that it would be unexpected. Whereas if you're dropping bombs over an area for several weeks you're sort of giving the game away. Then on the day weather and not wanting to risk hitting their own troops fluffed the bombing, and the big ships couldn't effectively bring their guns to bear on the beaches themselves.

Erminaz#1429

Mackles wrote: »

As for not using extensive strategic bombing prior to the landings, the whole point of landing in Normandy was that it would be unexpected. Whereas if you're dropping bombs over an area for several weeks you're sort of giving the game away. Then on the day weather and not wanting to risk hitting their own troops fluffed the bombing, and the big ships couldn't effectively bring their guns to bear on the beaches themselves.

Good point, if they had announced that they were going to land in Normandy and ran bombing runs for an extended period of time prior, the Panzer divisions in the area would have been redeployed towards the actual landing areas instead of Pas-de-Calais and would have made the landing just as bad if not worse. If I remember correctly, one of the things that helped the invasion was that Hitler distrusted his commanders and had taken command of the Panzer division away and required them to get his permission before taking action. When the landing happened no one wanted to wake up Hitler for him to give the order, and lack of air recon as well as allied paratrooper activity, resulted in confusion as to what was going on, and where the actual landings were taking place.

As it was only 2 panzer divisions responded to the actual landing.

Mackles

A defining trait of the Wehrmacht in the latter stages of the war was Hitler promoting people based on their sycophancy and using divide and conquer to maintain control - which of course does not lend itself to an efficient command structure or effective fighting force. As well as this, Rommel was the commander for that sector/area (I forget the correct terminology ) and he was away for his wife's birthday. The timing couldn't really have been much better, all things considered.

dge1

One thing to keep in mind is the the Allies wanted the German defense to believe Normandy was a diversion with real attack coming through Pas de Calais. Some bombing at both places would not have given too much away I think. It would have fit in with the German High Command's (in Berlin) belief about where the real attack was coming.

Tyer032392

dge1 wrote: »

One thing to keep in mind is the the Allies wanted the German defense to believe Normandy was a diversion with real attack coming through Pas de Calais. Some bombing at both places would not have given too much away I think. It would have fit in with the German High Command's (in Berlin) belief about where the real attack was coming.

The allies even had some great espionage activity in England prior to the Normandy invasion, even going as far as to create inflatable tanks, vehicles, ships, and even created a proxy paratrooper drop in the Pas de Calais if I recall correctly.