Could D-Day work better in Belgium?

perfectgeneral

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Originally Posted by perfectgeneral
We could take Antwerp


theres a reason antwerp is like 50 miles inland on the sheldt... its because coastal belgium is a swamp

to land at antwerp or anywhere near it requires steaming up the sheldt at slow speed, being horribly vulnerable to artillery strikes or even tanks firing at ships (the russians actually did that with some success during the fighting for the baltic balcony in 1945)

normandy was a brilliant landing space if one must land in northern france. france is weird with lines of communication. the channel ports arent connected lateraly in any significant way.... all the lines radiate out from paris. therefore a unit at dunkirk has to go back down to paris and then up to normandy to fight there allowing the allies precious time to build up their beachhead

landing in belgium is the making of disaster at dday. hitler had served in ypres in ww1 he had intimate knowledge of the area. the first possible thing he would order would be for the all the drainedge sites to be blown up to flood the allies onto an island. units that had advanced would be horribly cut off and unable to resupply except by air... they would actually have to use catalinas in some areas!

I grew up in the Fens.

How much flooding can I expect in coastal Belgium during early June 1944 given German forces in the area and lots of allied divisions suddenly turning up?

I know you want me to think of the Battles of Ypres, but why would it be like that? If we were talking about areas of Holland, that are reclaimed and below sea level I would agree at once. With this case I'm going to need a little homework. Something more than stating the same thing over and over like it is an essay in itself. You may have a point, but you aren't making it.

Recent combat near Ypres:
click to enlarge

Why wasn't Belgium flooded to stop the Germans in 1940? The sluices were opened on the Yser to make it a deeper river for a defence line. It didn't turn Dunkirk or Nieuport to mud. De Moeren is more of a problem for forces coming from the Calais area to counter-attack than for forces landing on the coast. The rest needs a spring or fall high tide to stand a chance of flooding.
 
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perfectgeneral

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BW,

Very much so.

I'm not the only one who remembers those WW1 photos of Flanders and can extrapolate what WW2 aerial and naval bombardment will do to similar terrain with an even higher water table... shudder...



Longer invasion routes for the landing forces that can't be sealed off against U and E boats as the Channel was? More mines that will need sweeping thus adding to the risk of tipping the Germans off to the invasion sites? Closer to Germany and more of the Luftwaffe? Closer to Calais and more of the Heer? Closer to more KM forces? Having to advance into terrain that was and can be flooded? Having to advance into a denser network of deeper rivers closer to your landing zones? Shall I go on?

Do we abject amateurs with far less knowledge despite our hindsight really need to continue to radically second guess the actual professionals on the spot? I can understand nibbling around the edges, but radically recasting the Overlord invasion requires an in depth knowledge that no one here possesses and few would possess outside of professional military historians with years of research at hand.


Bill

Water table had nothing to do with the mud at Ypres. Rivers shelled into broad muddy courses, maybe. Heavy rains with no drainage except the trenches and shell craters, certainly.

Notice the trees that once grew there:
Pic049PaschendaeleMud.jpg


If those craters full of water demonstrated the water table then those trees would never have grown.

The mines are a problem, but they could be cleared in spots along the coast to keep the Heer guessing. The threat of being closer to the KM is a bit lame in 1944. I need to see a map or aerial photograph of these flooded areas that will prevent Overlord or expanding the beach head. The river density lies to the south of the landing area (making things hard for those forces from Calais that worry you (although they don't seem that bad on the map). Shall you go on? Can you? I'd really like to hear a more detailed argument that cites some sources and justifies the tone some of the posters on this thread have taken.

I think that last paragraph argues against AH.com in principle. Who are we to argue anything in a world of experts?

Overlord in Normandy was not the only option. It is not the sole answer to a military formula. I'm surprised that people are treating this like an exercise with a correct answer. Normandy was a good move, but if it was the only move then the Germans were pretty stupid to defend anywhere else.
 
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perfectgeneral

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Perfectgeneral,

Yeah, they probably had a better one seeing as they had Enigma decrypts and tons of other SIGINT that you don't.



Yup, that was a mistake. Of course the Germans hadn't planned on the bocage being so useful for them either.



That's hindsight, nothing more. We know there should have been a third PLUTO and a third Mulberry and lots of other things. Assuming we could plan the operation better than they did is utter nonsense however.

You and I can't even begin the imagine all the issues and options they juggled.



Armchair quarterbacking does it for me, especially military strategy armchair quarterbacking from folks whose only brush with organizing a military operation comes from wargames.

Trust me.


Bill

Bill what on earth are you doing on this thread? I didn't start it to tick you off. I have no intention of making it about you either. The question is 'Could D-Day work better in Belgium?'

I lost a lot of relatives in ww2 (great uncles mostly). I don't expect this or any other thread to bring them back. I'm just asking a question to invite speculation. The more convincing, the better, but I don't expect anyone to actually be a general and have the correct answer. Least of all me. I don't see AH.com as a career move. I respect the rigour of a good time line, but enjoy the beer and pretzels too.

Bruges(Brugge)
Month Rain (mm)
Jan 61
Feb 43
Mar 56
Apr 46
May 48
Jun 61
Jul 69
Aug 69
Sep 61
Oct 79
Nov 76
Dec 74
 
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it wouldnt actually be the germans at first that created the flooding the allies would... in order to supress the germans both at the coast and to interdict reinforcments comming up there would be tremendous air and sea bombardments with everything from 6-16 inch guns and 1000 pound bombs.

outside of the ports themselves in 1944 there werent particularly a lot of hard metaled roads in coastal belgium.

to give an easy to understand example. i live in long island new york. we have a high water table. if you live in certain parts of the island were the water table is at its highest you are not allowed to build a basement. the natural reason of course being if you go down 8 feet you will hit water.

there are plenty of trees around even within 500 feet of the beach on both shores... they are just adapted to have shallow roots to avoid salt water.

the farmland in and around northern beligium is fertile from the sea... and in 1944 as there is now there is a highly developed drainedge system that keeps the area relatively dry. the summer is the rainy season in belgium which strains the system

if you have intense shelling and bombing from both sides plus german scorched earth tactics this system will fail. once there is no drainedge available a shell hole from a medium artillery unit will strike down to the water table and not drain. the summer rain will then compound this and cause intense flooding as happened in 1917. the flooding will cover up the all weather roads.

even the all weather roads that might still be usable will have problems there is nothing so vulnerable as a convoy of vehicles moving down a road. lets say there is a road in the muddy area that is still usable. the germans knock out the lead vehicle with an anti tank weapon. the whole convoy is then stuck and a sitting duck because if they manuever off the road into the muddy/flooded area they are going to get stuck. think villers bocage but worse. ( an excellent example of this type of fighting is during the winter war in finalnd. the high snow banks and large ditches on either side of the roads in finland prevented the russians from manuevering off of them. the finland army would knock out the lead vehicle and thus block the whole convoy so they could be wiped out. john mosier has great descriptions of this in his book the blitzkrieg myth)

even if tracked heavy vehicles like tanks or self propelled artillery could manuever through some of the mud... their follow on supply trucks could not thus removing their mobility and freedom of action

the germans in 1940 were extremely careful not to bomb things that would hinder their rate of advance (with a couple small exceptions in belgium). the allies in france did not do this and bombed the hell out of all the infrastructure which completely screwed them in some cases (not being able to use the french railroad system was the biggest one... completely drained their fuel reserves to have to drive up their equipment and sucked up trucks that were very much needed in the motorized divisions) we could use this to assume they would bomb everything in belgium too.

also a lot of the infantry forces deployed would be green. a good veteren division like the big red one could close with the enemy and expect to win by their own prowess. but a green division especially in the american army which believed in firepower above risk, they would first fix the enemy then try to finish him off with artillery or air strikes. in coastal belgium such tactics would flood the area you want to advance through and hinder your progress.

there is also no reason that the germans would play by the rules even if the allies did advance carefully without destroying the drainedge systems. they had occupied the country for 4 years and many of their officers had served there in ww1 so they knew the ground extremely well. even if the allies were hands off with bombardments the germans wouldnt be. if the germans formed a modest defensive line allowing the allies a few miles inland (up to 50 in some areas) a modest artillery bombardment of rear areas would put the allies in real trouble. the trucks and wheeled carriers so vital to bringing up supplies would be terribly bogged down. the germans would just repeat this over and over whilst doing some rain dances... in otl there were a couple of pretty fair sized rain storms about 2 weeks after dday

landing in belgium also puts them against better opponents right away. belgium was in the sector of the 15th army directly commanded by rommel. normandy was in the 7th army sector. being directly under his command its quite possible rommel could and would bypass at least some portions of the chain of command that slowed the german response on dday
 
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A d-day question: why did the shore bombardment start so late?
Wouldn't it make sense to have your ships going and firing along the atlantic wall ever since the start of its existance, or at least since air superiority was stronger.
It'd kill a few Germans, blow up some equipment and leave them a lot of construction work to do at no loss
 
I think the point was made earlier, but the Straits of Dover allowed a choke point for protection of the invasion force from Germany naval units. Any invasion to the east of the Straits of Dover would be much more difficult to protect from German naval units in the North Sea. Another thought is would Belgium be within range of Luftwaffe units stationed in Germany and closer for for German re-enforcement?

Many amphibious landings have been a decent distance away from the objective (Falklands, Korea) so the landing troops have time to establish a beachhead.
 

perfectgeneral

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They will have to bring roads with them.
Those airfield plates.

I really don't think the mud will be as much of a problem as you anticipate. Two to three inches of rain in a month is not a rainy season.
Anyway, here some real ammunition for your argument, but it does show that vertical envelopment around Brugge would put the invasion on solid dry ground.

Aerial view
 
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One advantage of landing in Normandy Or Calais compared with Belgium is that both of these areas are closed to short-range fighter bases.

In fact, COSSAC looked at landing anywhere from Norway to the Bay of Biscay and came up with exactly two places. The German High command came up with exactly the same locations,
 
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