Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all,
Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
Thanks all.
Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
Thanks all.
Could the Germans stop the dday invasion and what if they did?
Options
Comments
-
-
I think you mean the Soviet Union.
I know exactly what I mean.While the Eastern Front saw the bulk of the fighting, it was the cumulative effect of being attacked on all sides that won the war. Remove the British or Americans and the war would have been very different.
Of course the war would have been different. But there is still no German victory, even if the western allies were absent.
Hitler's plans for Russia were simply too ambitious. The best they can hope for was a stalemate of some description, but even then there is an uneasy cold war that would threaten to be come hot in a serious way over the slightest provocation.0 -
-
You kind of overlook the fact that the German resources tied up by the Western Allies through prosecuting the air and naval campaigns were pretty significant.
Take the Brenner Pass - by late 1943 it was the mostly heavily defended air space in the world - the Germans had over 2,000 AAA pieces along its length including over 800 88's or heavier, at a time when there were barely 200 88s along the entire Eastern Front - and every shell going up, was one that wasn't going out.
Likewise, the resources poured into the air defence of the Reich, to building and - to a degree, manning - the Atlantic Wall were also resources that couldn't be deployed in the east.
None of which would have made any difference and we've had this conversation before.
German needs a decisive victory in Russia in 1941. Without it, Hitler's plans are doomed. 1941 is THE year that Germany needs the knockout blow to occur.
1943 is simply too late and by then every German offensive had failed in its goals. There may be a chance of holding Russia to a draw of some description after that, but that's it.0 -
None of which would have made any difference and we've had this conversation before.
German needs a decisive victory in Russia in 1941. Without it, Hitler's plans are doomed. 1941 is THE year that Germany needs the knockout blow to occur.
1943 is simply too late and by then every German offensive had failed in its goals. There may be a chance of holding Russia to a draw of some description after that, but that's it.
No, I'm not arguing. I think even if the Western Allies had not fought or been forced from the war, then Germany still couldn't have defeated the USSR.
They might have occupied a large chunk of European Russia, Ukraine etc and they might even have precipitated a heave against Stalin, but that wouldn't have amounted to a Soviet defeat at the USSR would have persisted and no doubt rallied a few years subsequent to any such occupation and recovered most if not all of any lost territory.
One point worth noting though is that the US and the Brits did a lot of the R&D heavy lifting - between penicillin, radar, high efficiency fuel refining, radio comms gear & radio navigation aids, computers and computational analysis, cryptography and crypto-analysis, proximity fuses, napalm etc Even the slinky was invented during WW2 as an accidental part of a US Navy research project.0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
Take the Brenner Pass - by late 1943 it was the mostly heavily defended air space in the world - the Germans had over 2,000 AAA pieces along its length including over 800 88's or heavier, at a time when there were barely 200 88s along the entire Eastern Front - and every shell going up, was one that wasn't going out.
An interesting point as Manstein wanted to plaster the eastern front with 88's and let the Russians break themselves in '43.Hitler's plans for Russia were simply too ambitious. The best they can hope for was a stalemate of some description, but even then there is an uneasy cold war that would threaten to be come hot in a serious way over the slightest provocation.
Personally I believe that without western involvement the Eastern Front would most likely have ended this way.
Also the history of the book Fatherland. 0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
In truth the German's could have stopped D-Day if someone had woke up Hitler so that the tanks would be released. The addition of German Panzer's would have crushed the lightly armed airborne units that were meant to hold back the Germans and the beachheads would have been too lightly defended in the beginning to hold back the Germans. IMO
However, the affect this would have had on the overall war would be negligible. Likely the Allies would just try again. If not then all the troops that would eventually participate in Operation Overlord would probably have been sent to Italy, where the Allies had already practically won and they would have just had to cross the alps. More people would have died in the mountain warfare which the allies wouldn't have been equipped for and would stretch their supplies thin as would the extra deaths on D-Day.
Even if the Italian front never went anywhere though the German's had already lost the war. Their was a story in a Stephen E. Ambrose book which I think was called the Victors about Rommel in North Africa in 1942 after Stalingrad had been lost. Where he tells a fellow soldier that the war is already over. That true. Once Russian concentrated their ENORMOUS manpower the Germans had lost.
That's my rant over. 0 -
BeardedNomad wrote: »In truth the German's could have stopped D-Day if someone had woke up Hitler so that the tanks would be released. The addition of German Panzer's would have crushed the lightly armed airborne units that were meant to hold back the Germans and the beachheads would have been too lightly defended in the beginning to hold back the Germans. IMO
However, the affect this would have had on the overall war would be negligible. Likely the Allies would just try again. If not then all the troops that would eventually participate in Operation Overlord would probably have been sent to Italy, where the Allies had already practically won and they would have just had to cross the alps. More people would have died in the mountain warfare which the allies wouldn't have been equipped for and would stretch their supplies thin as would the extra deaths on D-Day.
Even if the Italian front never went anywhere though the German's had already lost the war. Their was a story in a Stephen E. Ambrose book which I think was called the Victors about Rommel in North Africa in 1942 after Stalingrad had been lost. Where he tells a fellow soldier that the war is already over. That true. Once Russian concentrated their ENORMOUS manpower the Germans had lost.
That's my rant over.
In all probability if OVERLORD had failed the Yanks would have just folded their tents and left for the Pacific, leaving some token support and promises to supply the Soviets who would have been effectively left to finish the job on their own.
The anglophobic Admiral King would have got his way as regards supply and personnel being routed away from Europe into the Pacific, and this, crucially, would have included the Higgins' boats and various other landing craft.
Also, the Brits were tapped out. One of the reasons Monty was so timid in his handling of his ground forces and why such reliance was placed on armour by him was because the British were scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel at this point in the war. It was a real struggle to field infantry divisions and replace casualties, and even the veteran formations were war weary - there's likely no way they could have run another major amphibious operation in Europe for several years.
In the event of OVERLORD failing they would more likely have used what reinforcements they could field to shore up Alexander's campaign in Italy, but more likely with the Yanks switching to the Pacific, they'd have reinforced Slim's (by far their best general) campaign against the Japanese in Burma, which in mid to late '44 was achieving some notable successes.
In mid to late 1944 and into 1945, the Italian campaign was not amenable to to receiving reinforcement beyond replacing casualties - at the point it was still mired in the mountains between Florence and Bologna - it was mountain fighting which meant despite having nearly 500,000 personnel in the country and 14 field divisions and overwhelming air power, the fighting often came down to a company or two slogging it out against a prepared German defensive position because that's all the narrowness of the valleys permitted - it was brutal, attritional fighting, and during the winters it was every bit as terrible as the Eastern Front, but on a much smaller scale.
Beyond the mountains lay the Emilia Romagna - which because of it's flatness the tankers were dying to get loose in. When they eventually broke out they found it was an alluvial plain, criss-crossed by an infinity of irrigation and drainage ditches which made perfect anti-tank obstacles. And because it was alluvial it turned to a tread clogging mud at the first drop of rain and rose in choking clouds (which made close air support difficult) when it was dry.
Alexander's assessment was that he'd need 28 divisions to drive the Lubjana Gap, and probably another 10/12 for a drive on Vienna. Even if OVERLORD had ended in tatters the Yanks wouldn't have provided that kind of manpower and the Brits didn't have it - the Italian campaign was never going to lead to a German defeat, its value lay in the fact that it forced the Germans to tie up divisions they could ill afford and could put to better use elsewhere, it also forced them to supply those divisions (which tied up more precious resources operating and protecting lines of communication) and it drove a certain amount of innovation in combat practice on the Allied side that proved very useful elsewhere, particularly in relation to combined arms warfare, close air support and indirect fire support.0 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
Advertisement