Best Axis result post D-Day victory?

The best possible outcome is a strong backlash in the US. I can see Dewey perhaps going for a more anti-war in Europe campaign than now, as FDR has just overseen a colossal military debacle. And, adding to that the effect of a failed D-Day on FDR's health Dewey may be able to win. The US turning to focus more on the Pacific theatre seems plausible under another administration, and would take a lot of the heat off the Germans from the West. It wouldn't solve the Eastern Front problems though, and there's the possibility that the South of France landings go ahead anyway, the Allies beginning to focus on a Southern European strategy.
 

sharlin

Banned
I know that the Allies have more destruction capacity,but in the case that the allies will nuke a German city the Germans might try to poison a British one and that fact will have been taken in to consideration before doping a-bombs on Germany.

V2 i know a bout the carry capabilities of it,but also that there is the possibility of improving it.(true the chance of them having the time are slime at best)

Chances are slim? *hands you the [Understatement of the week award].* Seriously there's more chance of Her Majesty the Queen bottling someone on a live interview then screaming COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE F**KING HARD ENOUGH! than the germans altering the V-2 in time for it to be capable of carrying at least a 10 tonne payload.
 
D Day two, the comeback

A German victory in D Day means, at best, that the Wallies fail to secure the beach heads and sail back to England. Wallie losses will not be large, since we're not talking of loosing all the forces that sailed. German looses will also be heavy, since the concentration of troops required to beat back the landings will present a prime target for allied air power, and there will be massive air attacks to cover the allied pull back.
The Germans will now find it very hard to resist the temtaption to move forces easts to consolidate the front.
This will mean that at the end of the summer of 44 the Germans will be holding a stronger line East, and that the wallies will still have large forces and the capability to land them. This can only lead to a repeat D Day. Depending on German strengh in France, this may vary from a more or less repeat overlord, to a more ambitious operation (simultaneous landings in the South of France and The Dutch/Belgium coast being the most ambitious)
 

sharlin

Banned
Holding a strong line in the east is still going to do nothing more than ask Bagatron if it would at least wipe its feet before kicking the door in.
 
The worst outcome for Germany was to have the Russians to make it to the Elbe, drop the "Iron Curtain" and move Poland westward to the Odra River.

To stop the Russians, American and British forces need to beat the them to Berlin and the Polish border. Are there any credible scenarios? Is this suggestion ASB?
 
The worst outcome for Germany was to have the Russians to make it to the Elbe, drop the "Iron Curtain" and move Poland westward to the Odra River.

To stop the Russians, American and British forces need to beat the them to Berlin and the Polish border. Are there any credible scenarios? Is this suggestion ASB?

Why would the soviets move Poland to odra river (is it Elba river ?)
No is not ABS but it requires a different relation of the allies with the soviets.
for ex: they are not allies so no land-lease and the soviets are moving slower,and/or a what you occupy you keep
Or there is a successful coup against the Nazis.(here when is the question),and a subsequently peace between the allies and the Germans.

Another option is to have the allies and soviets agree that the soviet zone ends at Oder-Neisse line which (if by border you mean today’s border between Poland and Germany)
 
Last edited:

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
To state at the opening: A full out repulse was virtually impossible. Had it been even a 15% possibility the landings would not have taken place. The worst outcome for Overlord as it was designed would have been a failure on one of the beaches (likely Omaha, which was always seen as the greatest challenge) combined with the other invasion beaches getting isolated. Neither of these was likely, both were frankly impossible.

That being said...

In the end the results are the same, except the Red Army likely reaches the Rhine. As has been noted, the Western defenses would have been stripped once the Soviets reach Eastern Prussia. When that happens the Wallies go into France, either across the Channel again or into Southern France via the Med. The Allies then manage to roll across most of not all of France against fairly light resistance while the Red Army faces the mass of the Heer (pretty much as was the case IOTL).

The Soviets may be delayed in their advance on Berlin since the reserves that were used, insanely, in the Bulge are now available to defend on the Eastern front. The delay may be as much as four months, although it would likely be under three. In the end, however, the Red Army takes Berlin. Nothing, NOTHING, was going to save the Reich by mid-1944 from Stalin's revenge.

The Allies would continue, if not increase, the Bomber Offensive, with likely major increases on attacks against the rail network in Eastern Germany. Allied activity in Italy may increase as well, although that front had pretty much been discredited by spring of 1944.

It is unlikely that the Bomb is used against Germany, there were simply no worthwhile targets and it is unlikely that Germany will still be in the war in any reasonable sense by the time the weapon is ready. For the same reason the use of anthrax is vanishingly unlikely, there would simply be no reason to cross that rather broad threshold.

Probably the greatest impact in Europe is on the victims of the Camps. The Reich would have additional months to continue that senseless genocide.

The other major impact is in the Pacific. With the delay in the fall of the Reich, that means no DoW from the Soviets to act as the "other shoe" to the nuclear attacks. The chances of Olympic occuring are vastly greater in this scenario although there is also the strong possibility that the Navy & AAF gets their way and Japan is simply starved and burned into submission.

Overall, figure the failure of D-Day adds a minimum of 10 million deaths, 60-65% of them in the Pacific (where up to 1 million civilians were dying in the Japanese Zone of Occupation each month) to the WW II butcher's bill, with that figure soaring if the U.S. chooses to simply let Japan wither on the vine.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Chances are slim? *hands you the [Understatement of the week award].* Seriously there's more chance of Her Majesty the Queen bottling someone on a live interview then screaming COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE F**KING HARD ENOUGH! than the germans altering the V-2 in time for it to be capable of carrying at least a 10 tonne payload.

Best mental picture of the week! :D
 
The idea that German reserves in the east will slow the Soviet advance ignores the fact that from 1944 onwards the Germans failed to identify the Soviet main effort until the waning stages of an operation. In the summer '44 offensives Army Group Center was destroyed, drawing German reserves north. ITTL this will likely include forces from the west. However, these will arrive too late to do little more than delay the Soviet advance, as they will have to wait until the Red Army outruns it's supply lines. German counterattacks rarely succeeded except at the very end of a Soviet offensive.

German forces from the west will concentrate in Belorussia and along the Vilnius axis. However, by then the Soviet main area of effort will have shifted to the northern Ukraine and Poland. Stripped of reserves the Red Army will tear through this area as IOTL. German reserves will be unable to contain the strength of 4 tank armies, supported by multiple seperate tank, cavalry, and mechanized corps. Reserves will again be shifted, but as IOTL the Soviets will only halt when they've achieved their objective of seizing bridgeheads over the Vistula.

Finally, as all German reserves are concentrated in Belorussia and Poland, the Red Army will again shift it's main area of effort, collapsing German defenses in Rumania and advancing into Hungary. This will again draw German reserves away from other directions. In the long run it sets the stage for the Budapest, Gumbinnen, and Memel Offensives, which will serve STAVKA's Maskirovka plan as IOTL, diverting German reserves from central Poland. Vistula-Oder will be just as devastating.
 
To state at the opening: A full out repulse was virtually impossible. Had it been even a 15% possibility the landings would not have taken place. The worst outcome for Overlord as it was designed would have been a failure on one of the beaches (likely Omaha, which was always seen as the greatest challenge) combined with the other invasion beaches getting isolated. Neither of these was likely, both were frankly impossible.

That being said...

In the end the results are the same, except the Red Army likely reaches the Rhine. As has been noted, the Western defenses would have been stripped once the Soviets reach Eastern Prussia. When that happens the Wallies go into France, either across the Channel again or into Southern France via the Med. The Allies then manage to roll across most of not all of France against fairly light resistance while the Red Army faces the mass of the Heer (pretty much as was the case IOTL).

The Soviets may be delayed in their advance on Berlin since the reserves that were used, insanely, in the Bulge are now available to defend on the Eastern front. The delay may be as much as four months, although it would likely be under three. In the end, however, the Red Army takes Berlin. Nothing, NOTHING, was going to save the Reich by mid-1944 from Stalin's revenge.

The Allies would continue, if not increase, the Bomber Offensive, with likely major increases on attacks against the rail network in Eastern Germany. Allied activity in Italy may increase as well, although that front had pretty much been discredited by spring of 1944.

It is unlikely that the Bomb is used against Germany, there were simply no worthwhile targets and it is unlikely that Germany will still be in the war in any reasonable sense by the time the weapon is ready. For the same reason the use of anthrax is vanishingly unlikely, there would simply be no reason to cross that rather broad threshold.

Probably the greatest impact in Europe is on the victims of the Camps. The Reich would have additional months to continue that senseless genocide.

The other major impact is in the Pacific. With the delay in the fall of the Reich, that means no DoW from the Soviets to act as the "other shoe" to the nuclear attacks. The chances of Olympic occuring are vastly greater in this scenario although there is also the strong possibility that the Navy & AAF gets their way and Japan is simply starved and burned into submission.

Overall, figure the failure of D-Day adds a minimum of 10 million deaths, 60-65% of them in the Pacific (where up to 1 million civilians were dying in the Japanese Zone of Occupation each month) to the WW II butcher's bill, with that figure soaring if the U.S. chooses to simply let Japan wither on the vine.

I know one of the What If? books supposed that a sudden storm in the English Channel could stop the invasion. TBH I think that is the best way for the Germans to repulse D-Day. Of course this doesn't change Germany's final fate...

teg
 
Why would the soviets move Poland to odra river (is it Elba river ?)
Move Poland is essentially what the Soviets did. In 1938, Warsaw was in western Poland and Lwow was in eastern Poland. When the borders were re-drawn, Poland moved westward to the Odra River as Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine gained territory at the expense of Germany.

Nothing, NOTHING, was going to save the Reich by mid-1944 from Stalin's revenge.

Suppose the Germans recognized that and after D-day, Hitler loses power (heart attack, coup, assassination, etc.) and the leadership surrenders to stop losses. Not having reached German soil, would the Soviets have accepted that surrender and stopped advancing, given how badly the Nazis brutalized them? Was the OTL truce on the Elbe the best possible outcome for Germany and the West?

So, can we conclude that the only chance the Reich ever had to endure would have been to leave Russia alone in the first place?
 
So what?
America only has maybe 6 atomic bombs by September 1945. And using those bombs on Germany was always much riskier than using them on Japan because all of Japan's cities could be approached over water. Every time we flew a mission over Germany we lost planes to German anti-aircraft fire on an approach of a couple hundred miles or so. I know how risky these raids were because my brother-in-;law's father flew on these raids as a translator, listening to German chatter because he, a German Jew understood Deutsch. The law of averages caught up with most flyers if they flew long enough, thus Catch-22.
So with 6 bombs, if the plane one of them is on gets shot down, either it can be armed before impact in which case the Allies have tipped their hand and eliminated the surprise (and maybe Hitler vacates Berlin for a bunker in the mountains beneath Berchtesgaden) or it goes down intact delivering an intact A-bomb into Nazi hands. And unlike the Japanese, the Nazis have a working atomic weapons progrram and may be able to reverse engineer from it fairly quickly. This is a lot riskier than bombing Japan.
So it could come down to the choice that neither Roosevelt nor Churchill ever wanted. Either negotiate a separate conditional surrender with Hitler that cuts out Stalin....or invade Norway, the South of France and live with the Communists occupying and communizing all of Germany and whatever else of Europe they wind up occupying after Russia defeats Hitler while concentrating on preventing the same thing from happening in the Pacific.

Also it was by no means certain that the Manhatten project woul result in a working atomic bomb. If D Day fails it does not neccesarily result in a seperate peace. What it does men is Fermany can transfer more mobiledivisions to the Russian Front.

One problem for the Allies if D Day fails could come if they lost a lot of landing craft which might make Dragoon harder to implement. Plus the Germans can send much of what they have/keep/transfer back to Frace if/when Dragoon is launched leaving the Atlantic Coast tobe held with lower grade forces.
 
To state at the opening: A full out repulse was virtually impossible. Had it been even a 15% possibility the landings would not have taken place. The worst outcome for Overlord as it was designed would have been a failure on one of the beaches (likely Omaha, which was always seen as the greatest challenge) combined with the other invasion beaches getting isolated. Neither of these was likely, both were frankly impossible.

That being said...

In the end the results are the same, except the Red Army likely reaches the Rhine. As has been noted, the Western defenses would have been stripped once the Soviets reach Eastern Prussia. When that happens the Wallies go into France, either across the Channel again or into Southern France via the Med. The Allies then manage to roll across most of not all of France against fairly light resistance while the Red Army faces the mass of the Heer (pretty much as was the case IOTL).

The Soviets may be delayed in their advance on Berlin since the reserves that were used, insanely, in the Bulge are now available to defend on the Eastern front. The delay may be as much as four months, although it would likely be under three. In the end, however, the Red Army takes Berlin. Nothing, NOTHING, was going to save the Reich by mid-1944 from Stalin's revenge.

The Allies would continue, if not increase, the Bomber Offensive, with likely major increases on attacks against the rail network in Eastern Germany. Allied activity in Italy may increase as well, although that front had pretty much been discredited by spring of 1944.

It is unlikely that the Bomb is used against Germany, there were simply no worthwhile targets and it is unlikely that Germany will still be in the war in any reasonable sense by the time the weapon is ready. For the same reason the use of anthrax is vanishingly unlikely, there would simply be no reason to cross that rather broad threshold.

Probably the greatest impact in Europe is on the victims of the Camps. The Reich would have additional months to continue that senseless genocide.

The other major impact is in the Pacific. With the delay in the fall of the Reich, that means no DoW from the Soviets to act as the "other shoe" to the nuclear attacks. The chances of Olympic occuring are vastly greater in this scenario although there is also the strong possibility that the Navy & AAF gets their way and Japan is simply starved and burned into submission.

Overall, figure the failure of D-Day adds a minimum of 10 million deaths, 60-65% of them in the Pacific (where up to 1 million civilians were dying in the Japanese Zone of Occupation each month) to the WW II butcher's bill, with that figure soaring if the U.S. chooses to simply let Japan wither on the vine.


Cal, I agree that the Wallies would give it a 2nd go ASAP, that the 2nd comming of the wallies would face weaker German forces in France (the presure east sucking them eastward) and that the extra german strengh east would delay the red advance.
But wouldn't the reduced german resistance in France, coupled with the delay in the red advance, allow the wallies to actually go further and faster east than OTL?
Not Ivans on the Rhine but rather GIs on the Oder?
 
Cal, I agree that the Wallies would give it a 2nd go ASAP, that the 2nd comming of the wallies would face weaker German forces in France (the presure east sucking them eastward) and that the extra german strengh east would delay the red advance.
But wouldn't the reduced german resistance in France, coupled with the delay in the red advance, allow the wallies to actually go further and faster east than OTL?
Not Ivans on the Rhine but rather GIs on the Oder?

AdA

I rather doubt this because as much as the Germans, once the break-out began the problem was logistics. Even if many mobile forces are switched east the ports are still likely to be garrisoned and the railways in France, in the event of a latter 2nd D-Day, are likely to be pounded even harder than OTL. Hence even if the allies get a bridgehead in the north and then break out quickly they will still be limited by their supplies and probably start running short by about the German border. Giving time for the Germans to send forces back to the west again.

Steve
 
Guys

Although not strictly an allied defeat I think the most likely way for avoiding a successful June landing in Normandy without markedly earlier PODs would be if the weather window that occurred OTL doesn't open and then Eisenhower has to call off the landings.

Think this would only delay matters until the next similar moon [and hence tidal conditions] abut 30 days later. [Unless the weather was again bad in that period]. Would the Germans risk sending large forces east, expecting an invasion was coming, even with Operation Bagration tearing AG Centre apart? How would Stalin react to a delay in the Normandy invasion?

Also one other point in that 13-6-44 saw the 1st V1 attacks on Britain. While a pretty effective air defence was built up that stopped a lot a delay of even a month is going to mean a lot more getting through and doing a lot of damage. Fortunately Hitler aimed them all at London but if a few had hit some of the invasion ports that could be nasty, although probably not fatal for a new attack.

Steve
 
AdA

I rather doubt this because as much as the Germans, once the break-out began the problem was logistics. Even if many mobile forces are switched east the ports are still likely to be garrisoned and the railways in France, in the event of a latter 2nd D-Day, are likely to be pounded even harder than OTL. Hence even if the allies get a bridgehead in the north and then break out quickly they will still be limited by their supplies and probably start running short by about the German border. Giving time for the Germans to send forces back to the west again.

Steve

US/Brit logistics were unique in their vast trucking capability, allowing them to rely on railways a lot less than others.
My rational is that the way things worked out OTL were ideal for the soviets. The Wallies landed far from the German border, and drew a lot of German forces to try and box them in ( a useless exercise when you don't have firepower to bomb the box nor the assets to cut its supply lines) then the Germans allowed most of their forces west to be caught and destroyed in an avoidable disaster at Falaise. Meanwhile, the soviets were betting in the red and winning again and again until they exhausted their logistics and stopped.
The Wallies therefore maxed out German forces in the west as much as possible, while failing to beat the soviets to any place they wanted to get to first.
In the very unlikely event of the Wallies failing at D Day, be it by an act of God or by Ike loosing its nerve faced with a lot of resistance and counter attacks at all beaches and aborting the party, the Germans would move forces to minimise the soviet advances in the east, and while still loosing most of AGC (I'd expect Bragation more or less as OTL, but the follow on offensives being less successful) would probably be able to contain the Soviets faster and further east than OTL.
With German reserves now committed, the Allies, probably under new and more agressive management, might try again, but possibly in the most aggressive way possible, landing simultaneously in the south of France and in the Belgium/Dutch coast. The allies could now possibly be in a position to invade Germany earlier than OTL.
 
Given Hitlers "one bullet" speach I would expect the Germans to strip Western Europe of troops and launch a grandiose and doomed offensive in the east.
 
Best possible or best probable?

Best probable: Continuation and intensification of US/UK bombing campaign. Greater western materiel assistance to USSR. Long term planning for a possible second invasion attempt - as much to keep Germans tied down in west than to actually invade again. Increased emphasis on Italian campaign and possible Balkan or South French invasions by Wallies. When available, use of nuclear bombs on German targets if Russians don't get there first. War maybe continues another 6 months max.

Best possible: Churchill government falls and Roosevelt dies. Wallies (one or both) get political cold feet regarding continuation of war in west. Propose an armistice in which, in exchance for peace, the Germans must agree to give up something substantive (maybe immediate military withdrawl from Italy or Scandinavia, with a timetable for some or all of France). Stalin is backstabbed just like he expected he would be, so he also agrees to bail on war if Germans withdraw to their pre-Barbarossa lines. If Germans are smart they'll do this. If not, come 1945-46 they will get nuked by Wallies and occupied by USSR.
 
Top