Five Ways D-Day Might Have Ended in Disaster

[DicedT]

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/five-ways-d-day-could-have-been-disaster-10601

[TheCommandTent]

Very interesting article, thanks for sharing.

[GDS_Starfury]

not bad at all.  I think the Germans not throwing in everything they could have with the Luftwaffe was their biggest actionable mistake.  if they really contested the skies they would have been chewed to pieces but that would have left the ground forces enough freedom of maneuver to actually get where they wanted go and make a difference.

[mirth]

I seriously doubt the Luftwaffe would have accomplished much even with a maximum effort. It was a spent force by June 44 and in no way capable of challenging Allied air superiority.

During the June 6 D-Day assault itself, a total of 171 squadrons of British and AAF fighters undertook a variety of tasks in support of the invasion.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAF-H-DDay/

The Luftwaffe gave a maximum effort during Bodenplatte, put up some 800-900 fighters, caught the Allies flat-footed, and accomplished squat. And it cost them a large number of their remaining veteran pilots.

[GDS_Starfury]

I didnt say they would accomplish much.  I just think they could have distracted allied air enough for their armor to get forward.

[mirth]

I didnt say they would accomplish much.  I just think they could have distracted allied air enough for their armor to get forward.

And I'm sceptical it would have allowed them to do that much. Rommel was correct, the armor needed to be forward to begin with.

[SgtRock]

The Western Wall took 6 years to build but, only 6 hours to penetrate. The only thing that could have stopped the D-Day invasions was mother nature. If allied aircraft couldn't fly and German Armor was at the front, the allies would have had a tough time. The biggest failing of the D-Day invasions was the lack of planing on what to do after the beaches were taken but, with Hitler in charge the Germans didn't have a chance.

By June 1944 the Luftwaffe was dispersed all over the place because most of it's forward airfields were destroyed, they just couldn't operate in force to make any difference. The allies where conducting multiple 1000 plane raids, the Luftwaffe was operating in small groups of 3 to 10 aircraft at a time.

[bayonetbrant]

I think the article reasonably notes that - although D-Day / Operation Overlord might have ended in disaster, the war overall was already lost for Germany at that point.

[mirth]

I think the article reasonably notes that - although D-Day / Operation Overlord might have ended in disaster, the war overall was already lost for Germany at that point.

Agreed, but that's not going to stop me from arguing with Star ;)

[GDS_Starfury]

Indeed.