Playing around with an idea in my head here...
The Japanese plan for operation Ten-Go was to beach Yamoto on Okinawa as an unsinkable beach defense.
Was anything similar ever considered for Normandy? Several dozen ships were intentionally sunk to form the Normandy Mulberry harbors including the hulks of HMS Centurion and the French battle ship Courbet.
The old battleships Renown and Resolution were in England as training ships. From what I can tell online, they could move under their own power but had their main guns scavenged for other vessels.
Would it be feasible to run them aground at the first high tide after the troops land? The secondary guns could provide fire support and every German weapon fired at the battleships isn't being fired at unarmored landing craft.
Afterwards the ships become part of the Mulberry.
Later edit: I was thinking about Revenge but had a brain fart and typed Renown in the first post. As others have pointed out, HMS Renown was still being used in combat roles. Revenge was clapped out and had her main guns removed shortly before D-Day.
The Japanese plan for operation Ten-Go was to beach Yamoto on Okinawa as an unsinkable beach defense.
Was anything similar ever considered for Normandy? Several dozen ships were intentionally sunk to form the Normandy Mulberry harbors including the hulks of HMS Centurion and the French battle ship Courbet.
The old battleships Renown and Resolution were in England as training ships. From what I can tell online, they could move under their own power but had their main guns scavenged for other vessels.
Would it be feasible to run them aground at the first high tide after the troops land? The secondary guns could provide fire support and every German weapon fired at the battleships isn't being fired at unarmored landing craft.
Afterwards the ships become part of the Mulberry.
Later edit: I was thinking about Revenge but had a brain fart and typed Renown in the first post. As others have pointed out, HMS Renown was still being used in combat roles. Revenge was clapped out and had her main guns removed shortly before D-Day.
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