Consequences of a 1942 Operation Roundup

I think that criticism falls in the category of true, but not fair.

Dunn's view is that the shipping for a 1943 landing in France existed, but much of it had disappeared into the South Pacific (which IIRC matches your own research). Therefore Roundup could have been carried out if it had the right priority (which Eisenhower and Montgomery showed meant different things to different people).

Otherwise Dunn's numbers seem generally sensible, although there may be some issues in the details - how do you define exactly when a division relocates if it moves in several parts?

Of course a 1942 landing should be Sledgehammer, not Roundup, but everybody at the time was also confused about this.:)

I'd ignored the criticism of Dunn, until I ran across a couple of remarks by Rich Anderson, based on original docs & not secondary sources. Those caused me to suspect a lot of the debate is based on more opinion than fact, which eventually led to the discovery that a lot of suposed 'fact' presented in these 'Sledgehammer' & 'Roundup' debates is baseless opinion.

...

Dunn's view is that the shipping for a 1943 landing in France existed, but much of it had disappeared into the South Pacific (which IIRC matches your own research).

Yes, thats one of the few things from Dunn I've followed up on, tho I hesitate to call my effort research. Since records of where the cargo ships actually were are not easily available I've followed a few others in trying to work backwards from the figures for gross material sent. That provides some interesting back of the envelope numbers.

Therefore Roundup could have been carried out if it had the right priority (which Eisenhower and Montgomery showed meant different things to different people).

.....

Of course a 1942 landing should be Sledgehammer, not Roundup, but everybody at the time was also confused about this.:)

& most still are. So many historians or writers who should do better mislabel the assorted operations planned from 1942 into 1944.
 
IF

- Army Group Center overextends even more than OTL in front of Moscow and is partially encircled
and
- Soviet counteroffensives else during that winter are more restrained (e.g. no landing in Crimea to relieve Sevastopol, only to throw those forces away), conserving manpower
and
- Army Group A is trapped in the Caucasus by Soviet forces reaching Rostov in Dec. '42, and ends up losing most heavy equipment as it evacuates across the Kerch strait
and
- ATL Battle of Gazala is an Allied victory that stops Rommel in his tracks, limiting the need for the massive reinforcements that went to Egypt OTL

then an early-to-mid '43 Allied landing in northern France, aiming for a limited objective such as taking the Cotentin Peninsula, has IMHO a chance of surviving.

The Germans, assuming the defeats above, will simply not have enough of a panzer reserve left over to push the Allies into the sea, without catastrophically weakening the eastern front. Consider that the British had ~2200 tanks in Egypt in October '42 OTL.

This reflects in a general way the idea behind the several Roundup plans. That is taking advantage of a significant weakening of German military forces across the board allowing a coup de main to seize one or more ports on the French coast & a subsequent build up in France via these ports. While "Round Up" represented the overall concept the specific attacks planned on French ports were sub titled Rankin. There were several concurrent versions of Op Rankin. I'd recommend both Giumarras essay & the relevant section of the Hyper War web site for further reading on the differences & details of the several Sledgehammer, Anvil, and Round Up operations.
 
Once the Allies are pushed off the continent again, what would happen on the Eastern Front? Would the Germans be able to slow down any of the Rusain offensives in 1943?

If Stalingrad falls in the summer of 1942, how long would it delay the Russian advance West in the winter of 1942 to the Summer of 1943?
 
How would Stalingrad 'fall' in the summer of 1942? OTL the Germans did not reach the city until autum.


The most rapid victory is the one where the 4th panzer army stays with army group b... you could see the city captured and the volga completely blocked by the end of july or the beginning of august in that scenario... and with those forces still being fresh, and 4th panzer army driving south... the situation would be extremely precarious... the troops who held up army group a didn't have to worry about their right flank being turned because army group b's axis of attack was hundreds of miles away... have the 800 tanks of 4th panzer army free to drive down the volga and the story is much different... like lose everything up to the turkish border including baku different; which would have HUGE implications for the glut of lead lease supplies (i would hazard that losing the volga and western shore of the caspian, especially if the LW could make enough aircraft available to make shipping across the caspian prohibitive... that it would add at least 10-21 days for equipment to reach the front longer than otl; if not more which would severely limit soviet mobility and speed at which they mass their forces
 
Top