AHC: OP Overlord, Dragoon rolled into one> N Germany.

[Curiousone]

When examining the potential landing sites for what became Operation Overlord (D-Day) in OTL, the planners looked over the full range of European coastline available to them. A major factor in choosing Normandy was the projected availability of aircover. The crushing of the Luftwaffe with the introduction of long range fighters over Europe happened towards the end of this planning stage & the claims of kills by the pilots weren't creditable enough at the time to influence any change.

Say the Allies believed their plans to invade Normandy had been leaked at some stage. They overlook alternate landing sites and come across.. the North German plains. A high-risk (landing close to Germany = fierce resistance), high-reward (landing in Germany means cutting off more of the Red Armies advances, ending the war quicker if you can handle it) candidate.

The decision is made to fold the projected Amphibious Operations Overlord & Dragoon into one big all or nothing invasion of Northern Germany.

How does it pan out?

 

[Cymraeg]

Sorry, but this is highly unlikely due to the airpower question. Plus it takes us perilously close to a certain set of islands that must not be named...

 

[wietze]

i thought the same, those unmentionable islands (where i live close to lol)

 

[Curiousone]

Sorry, but this is highly unlikely due to the airpower question. Plus it takes us perilously close to a certain set of islands that must not be named...

Lol no, no Islands that shall not be named.

So no reliance on P-51's providing aircover for alternative landing sites, Northern Germany or not with a weakened Luftwaffe then?

 

[Kome]

Yes because Germany and Japan showed us that basing your strategic planning on a high risk, high reward principle is SUCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHH a good idea.

 

[Curiousone]

Yes because Germany and Japan showed us that basing your strategic planning on a high risk, high reward principle is SUCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHH a good idea.

Well this would be Operational level rather than Strategic. On the operational level the Germans and Japanese more or less had to try High-Risk, High-Reward stuff. And they pulled it off, for a while at least.

The W/Allies? Not so much. Market-Garden, Anzio maybe. Important thing there for them was that they could afford such failures & were prepared to try them for the hope of shortening the war. Maybe the same logic could dare risk invading Germany direct.

Anyhow, if it was tried, anyone have any guesses as to whether the W/Allies could pull it off? Effects on the face of Europe?

 

[I want to learn]

Maybe if the Pacific War ended early so there are a bunch of aircraft carriers to project air power over the beaches?

 

[Cymraeg]

Sadly we've been over this all before. In excruciating detail. The airpower part is very, very difficult to surmount - you'd need a lot of aircraft carriers and an admiral willing to risk them in the North Sea so very close to German U-boat bases plus Luftwaffe bases on three sides. There's also the fact that there's only one major port in the area - Wilhelmshaven. And any attack would have had the Germans blowing the port facilities to kingdom come to stop them from using it. Oh and then there's the terrain. The area between the Islands-that-must-not-be-named and the mainland are awash with mud at low tide and the mainland itself is riddled with canals and flat as a pancake.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Say the Allies believed their plans to invade Normandy had been leaked at some stage.

Technically plans to land in Normandy were leaked, in October 1942. When the Eastern and Central Task Forces for Operation Torch assembled and departed the UK in late October the British deception organization passed through their Double Cross system the idea the armada was to land on France, probablly the Normandy area. The Germans dutifuly put their garrison in France on alert and deployed their mobile reserve accordingly. when the invasion did not come, they went back to their usual business.

 

[MattII]

Always made me wonder why they didn't try to spoof a landing north of the Dover Strait. I mean sure, neither Dunkirk nor Ostend are great ports, but they're as good or better than anything found in Normandy itself, and they're further from Normandy than Calais is, they're closer to Germnay, and reinforcing that will force the Germans to spread its construction resources even more thinly.

 

[katchen]

I've always thought that the Jutland-Schlewchwig border would be a good alternate landing site. There is a stretch that is noth of the unmentionable islands and only 30 miles of driving across a peninsula reaches the sea on the other side. Jutland is friendly territory and once the German forces on it surrender, Aalborg is a port that can be used to supply the troops. Once across the narrow neck (15 miles), a quick drive to the south and Flensburg has fallen and then the U-boat base at Kiel is vulnerable. Then Hamburg and Lubeck, probably before the Germans can bring in any sutstantial reinforcements from either the eastern or western front. Then on to Berlin, while Hitler is still headquartered at Wolfschanze near Rastenburg in East Prussia. A classic "hit em where they aint" strategythat handled right, could cut the Reich in half.

 

[MattII]

And apparently the Germans are just going to allow this to happen?

 

[katchen]

If almost all their troops are in either France or Russia and Poland, with whom will they prevent it from happening?

 

[MattII]

The Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine perhaps? Normandy was within range of pretty much every aircraft in the allied arsenal, but Denmark will only be in range of those aircraft with drop-tanks, and with travel there taking longer, fewer aircraft can be in position at any one time.

 

[Jotun]

I've always thought that the Jutland-Schlewchwig border would be a good alternate landing site. There is a stretch that is noth of the unmentionable islands and only 30 miles of driving across a peninsula reaches the sea on the other side. Jutland is friendly territory and once the German forces on it surrender, Aalborg is a port that can be used to supply the troops. Once across the narrow neck (15 miles), a quick drive to the south and Flensburg has fallen and then the U-boat base at Kiel is vulnerable. Then Hamburg and Lubeck, probably before the Germans can bring in any sutstantial reinforcements from either the eastern or western front. Then on to Berlin, while Hitler is still headquartered at Wolfschanze near Rastenburg in East Prussia. A classic "hit em where they aint" strategythat handled right, could cut the Reich in half.

Bullshit squared. The whole of the Schleswig-Holstein/Jutland west coast is dominated by marshland that won't take heavy vehicles. Least of all thousands of them disgorged from landing craft. Next problem is the mudlands that stretch for miles on end during low tide. It would be high fun indeed to see hundreds of grounded landing craft playing sitting duck every twelve hours or so.

Nah, a landing in the north is a pipe dream.