What could have the Nazis done to ensure D-Day went to Hell

Considering that there are a couple of D-Days going to Hell recently, & thus in this spirit, what could have the Germans have really done to ensure that D-Day ends in the flames of Hell for the Allies?

Could have they packed the beach areas with several Panzer divisions instead of Static Divisions?

Or could they have used mass artillery? Or hundreds of V1s &/or V2s?

How about the Nazis lay so many sea mines that you could walk all the way from Caen to Cherbourg without getting your feet wet?

Maybe the Nazi atomic scientists make a breakthrough & they have one U235 A Bomb which could be used to nuke the Allied landings?

Anything else?

Short of the nuclear device not much:
The V-1s required quite large fixed installations, easy targets for air raids espesially given the allies air suppiriority.
Massed artillary has more or less the same problem.
A panzer division is more or less useless on the beaches (Panzers were designed for manouver warfare) and France has more than enought coastline for the allies to find some less heavily defended area to land, plus as above the allies air raid -in particular the fighter bombers- would do in most of the Panzer.
Laying a massive mine field would perhaps work but only if the allies had no idea that it was there, and given the allies air and naval dominance I doubt you caould hide it let alone get sufficient ships and planes to lay it.

Not much, part deux

The V-1 was a pilotless a/c that had a primative control system. They were basically area weapons. (Even fired at a big area like London, a large number missed). The V-2 was targeted like a large artillery shell. It was slightly more accurate than the V-1.

Moblility was the key to any effort to defeat a landing. You had to be able to get the troops to the right place. The Germans had lost that mobility. There wasn't enough fuel. Allied air attacks made troop movements difficult.
(Mobile formations in the Normandy area used bicycles for transportation).

If the Germans had positioned their Panzer Divisions forward, there was a chance they could break through to the beachhead. But there was so much Allied firepower afloat, in the air and on the ground, a real defeat wasn't practical.

The mindset of the respective leaders would come into play if the Germans did indeed threaten the landings. What would it take to have the allies back off? What would be considered too great a loss? Would they be willing to throw more troops onto the beachs if the issue was in doubt? How hard would the Germans push?

Maybe their navy (particularly the E-boats) could have been more effective - they did sink/damage a number of US LST's that had been conducting training off the British coast earlier in the year.

To really defeat the invasion, the Germans would have had to have prevent the invasion from going forward. Had they used their Ar234 jet bombers and Me262 jet fighters to advantage they could have attacked the many base camps in the UK. They could have also bombed the large numbers of amphibious craft in the harbors.

There are a lot of interesting 'what if' stories floating around the opine on what might have happened.

You can ask Ian to move this to the discussion area, instead of the books, movies, etc, area.
The only thing the Germans could have done was move their armor forward, bunker it up, and disperse it with the infantry. The US had difficulty destroying tanks from the beaches because they couldn't easily put antitank guns on the landing craft and the communications to the offshore warships wasn't good enough. It's not that the warships couldn't accurately hit the tanks because you don't need to hit a tank to knock it out. A six inch shell anywhere near a tank will disable it, even if the tank itself is still in one piece.
They might have been able to throw us back. It would have used up a lot of their army defending the coast, though. They had to defend anywhere we might attack, and we only had to attack in one place.

relax an offtopic thread is how the largest thread in the forum so just keep posting here.

To ensure d- Day is going to go to hell...maybe some satanic sessions?
I imagine Göring, hitler and himmler dancing naked and bleeding from ritual mutilations around some fire thing....

I have no idea how this thread ended up in the Books, Movies, Games, and Websites forum other than I was half drunk when I though of this thread & put it in the wrong forum...

What Could The Nazi's Have Done???

Well, even if they *had* succeeded in holding back the Allies at the beaches, they still had to deal with the Russians... even with some divisions transplanted to the Eastern Front, the war might have dragged on a bit longer, but the outcome would have been the same....

Don't forget the nukes the US had. In August 1945, Germany may still be fighting the Red Army, and control France if the US haven't landed yet, so prepare to scratch two German cities...

DMA said:

I have no idea how this thread ended up in the Books, Movies, Games, and Websites forum other than I was half drunk when I though of this thread & put it in the wrong forum...

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Has anyone noticed we all seem to drink a great deal here, especially when posting? I mean I tipple enough that I sometimes tipple over myself, but my first urge isn't to go pound the keyboard, I'll tell you that

Tanks and massed artillery, especially real big artillery that might slug it out with offshore BBS, may indeed be at a disadvantage with these same BBS, but that's the way they fight and they have an advantage too in that they're firing back. If real big artillery could keep the BBS preoccupied with their own safety and far enough offshore, then a double row of tanks right on the beach would really give the troops landing a problem.

The Nazis weren't completely out of planes, were they? Again, if they realized this was the Big One and not a diversion, couldn't they mass enough AF to at least give the Allies a fight in the sky rather than let them bomb at will?

Easy. Germany could have prevented D-Day or make it at least into a public relations disaster for the allies.

Give France its freedom back in 1941. Germans leave.

WFHermans said:

Easy. Germany could have prevented D-Day or make it at least into a public relations disaster for the allies.

Give France its freedom back in 1941. Germans leave.

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why 1941?

it could happen in 1944

Imagine a German-French Peace treaty in May of '44.

Vichy rules the whole country, Hitler might keep some bases and the border between both countries return to pre WWI.

The thing people forget with this one is we also have to assume the western allies are a lot more stupid or have a lot worse intelligence. No one in their right mind launches a naval invasion against a strongly defended, prepared position. So for the Germans to ensure D-Day goes to hell then we have to assume the allies just jump on board their ships andm charge over to France without going "er, where are the German defences by the way"

It's a crazy idea, but maybe it could work:

If the Germans knew where the Allies want to attack (a big If, Hitler himself didn't believe it), and had their V1 rockets ready (some months earlier than OTL), and never used them before, they could try to shoot them on the incoming ships and the soldiers on the shores. But probably the V1 can't aim enough for that plan... unless the Allies used that many boats that every shot finds a target...

My understanding is that the Nazis didn't have a hope of building a A-bomb 1944, but they still has other nuclear options. They could have dropped dirty bombs on the Allied invasion front or spread uranium dust in the atmospher, it won't stop the Allies right away, but it'll definetly slow them down when troops on the front lines start comming down with radiation poisoning.

Maybe if they had this...

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/743/743158/img_2809243.html

and...

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/743/743158/img_2809248.html

plus this...

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/743/743158/img_2809246.html

... in large quantities of course.

oberdada said:

why 1941?

it could happen in 1944

Imagine a German-French Peace treaty in May of '44.

Vichy rules the whole country, Hitler might keep some bases and the border between both countries return to pre WWI.

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Just as long as they do it before D-Day. A treaty in May 1944 is actually an excellent idea to spoil D-Day because all the planning and preparation would have been done.

I think the Allies would have invaded France anyway then, even if it would be neutral. It would just be another shameful incident the mainstream historians would have to cover up.

WFHermans said:

Just as long as they do it before D-Day. A treaty in May 1944 is actually an excellent idea to spoil D-Day because all the planning and preparation would have been done.

I think the Allies would have invaded France anyway then, even if it would be neutral. It would just be another shameful incident the mainstream historians would have to cover up.

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I am not so shure about that. They might have done something else, like putting more troups on the Italian Front.
Or maybe, D-Day is reduced to a Free French Opperation, with change of suceeding, because fewer German troups are emploid in the Region.
Result is a French Civil war.

Making peace with France, also means a big Change in GErman politics.
Peace treaties with other occupied countries could follow. (serbia, Greece)

They could have peace treaties all around their borders, so the allies couldn't get in. Those nazis are really bastards.

WFHermans said:

They could have peace treaties all around their borders, so the allies couldn't get in. Those nazis are really bastards.

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Bastards that's right!

But I don't think a neutral Poland or Slowakia would have stopped Stalin