Well, just what I say in the title. What is the minimum of forces needed to defeat Operation Overlord? Thank you very much.
Overlord wasn't going to be defeated.Well, just what I say in the title. What is the minimum of forces needed to defeat Operation Overlord? Thank you very much.
Do you mean that if the Germans have in France enough forces to defeat Operation Overlord, then the Western Allies would not launch it?Overlord wasn't going to be defeated.
It was either going to happen and succeed or it was going to fail. I really don't think it would have been tried if it was in the balance.
A better question may be what is the minimum forces required to force overlord to be deferred.
Not sure what the best answer is to that but at a guess I would say that the luftwaffe needs to be in position to reasonably contest (even if it can't win) the sky's above France in the run up to overlord.
Off course not, why launch an operation you are not certain has a good chance of success? Stalin wanted this launched in 43 or even 42 but after their learning experience at Dieppe as well as the landings in Italy in 43 they waited, built, prepared and shaped the battlefield (not the least by the concentrated wrecking of transportation infrastructure leading into the area), waited for the germans to loose a few more formations in the east and get properly invested in Italy as well as the virtual removal of the Luftwaffe as a factor.Do you mean that if the Germans have in France enough forces to defeat Operation Overlord, then the Western Allies would not launch it?
To defeat Overlord, I'd say they'd need airsuperiority at least. Not just over the beaches, but over the whole of France.You would need air parity at the very least, without contesting and not allowing allied air to operate virtually unopposed it does not matter how many forces you try to move to the area as they will be chewed up before they get there and their supply situation will be interesting to put it mildly.
If operation Bagration kicks off as OTL (June 23) then I suspect that there would be even fewer reserves as Army Group Centre would be in the process of having its head kicked in (28 out of 34 of its assigned divisions being destroyed by Aug) and the eastern front commanders screaming for whatever reinforcements they could get.One option in this equation I've seen explored - is what happens if D-day is deferred to July because of the bad weather. The Germans have more time, to strengthen and fortify the beaches. The July date comes - the Germans are ready - because of the fine weather - no Generals off at War Games. The Airborne assault has less darkness to disguise their intent. The
Germans have an opportunity if they can have two problem beaches rather than one - Omaha - as per OTL.
OTOH better weather, gives the Allies better Air Power!!
Yep. I do mean that.Do you mean that if the Germans have in France enough forces to defeat Operation Overlord, then the Western Allies would not launch it?
Then what is that minimum of forces necessary to force Overlord to be deferred?A better question may be what is the minimum forces required to force overlord to be deferred.
Indeed. The issue is that the allies control the sea and the air, so they are going to get across somewhere, and will keep pouring resources into that somewhere.The problem is as follows.
(...)
On D-Day itself, Allied aircraft flew 14,000 sorties, while the Luftwaffe managed a mere 260, mostly in defence of its own battered airfields. In the two weeks after D-Day, the Luftwaffe lost 600 of the 800 planes it kept in France.
Yeah, even if Overlord is somehow repulsed, Italy will still be increasingly in Allied hands and I expect Dragoon to go off as well.The problem is as follows.
To defeat Overload you need to do it very early on. Think about it the Germans tossed everything they could at them for about 3 months and yet the Wallies continued to expand until the pulled the breakout.
You can only toss so many troops into a given area as more won’t fit or you can’t get them there or you can’t keep them supplied or you just plan don’t have them.. And for those first 90 days Germany was pretty close to this point.
So the only practical way of stopping Overload is on the beaches. And that sounds good. But France has about 4600km of coast all told. And D-Day used 80 km or so if it. So the reality is you are NOT protecting all of it. Even just the more usable locations are not going to be able to be protected this would make the Magenot Line and the Great Wall look easy, and you wouldn’t have the troops even if you did.
So the Wallies will find a place. This problem is again like the Germany wins arguments, that the Wallies just have to much going for them,
The manpower the manufacturing the technology and being able to choose where and when. A dd in air superiority and they are not getting stopped. Because if you put enough defenses and troops in location A they just go to B. And there are not enough people in the world to build an army big enough to stand along the whole coast of France in a force big enough to stop them at the beach.
The reality is Overload is a test of who gets there fastest with the mostest. And the Alies just had that way over Germany,
The only way Overload fails is if by some cosmic accident during the storm Germany moves every man t can right up to the beach and even then I am not sure they can put enough troops there under the cover of the storm. And not have the Wallies figure it out.