D-Day failure: what was Plan B?

In the unlikely scenario of allies being forced to withdraw from Normandy completely, the southern France invasion with 8-10 allied divisions from the pitiful airbases and ports in Corsica and Sardinia

OTL Op DRAGOON used Naples Algiers, with some embarkation from Tunis, Oran & misc ports. Some of the French had remained on Corsica & Sardinia at the end of occupying those islands, but most of the French had done their prep in Africa. As of January 1944 slightly over 1000 US & French fighters and bombers were based in Corsica. In August between three and four thousand medium bombers and fighters surged into Sardinia/Corsica to support Op DRAGOON. Approx six thousand Allied combat aircraft were operational in the Med & the heavy bombers of the 15th AF also supported the DRAGOON operation. Not as large as the 12,000 aircraft that supported OVERLORD, but this is still larger than the entire German operational AF of 1 June 1944 on all fronts.

would be very unlikely to happen, as such small landings would probably be contained if not even destroyed by Germans.

This presumes the German have the forces remaining to overwhelm the 6th AG. Aside from losses comparable to OTL incurred destroying the 21st AG in Normandy theres several other considerations. 1. the Red Army had launched Op BAGRATION. I supposed Hitler could keep a panzer army sitting around in France 'Just in Case', but the odds are any units still operational are going to be sent east to deal with the disaster of Army Group Center. 2. Any reinforcements for Army Group G & the 19th Army have to traverse France in the face of Allied air attacks. 3. The 6th AG can draw on the reinforcements intended for 12 & 21 AG in September/October. The southern French port group were capable of supporting a minimum of fifteen ground divisions plus corps and army overhead and proportional tactical airfares ashore. The more likely outcome is the Allies have a robust army group built up in November.

Alan Brooke in his diaries says he was angry with Churchill for agreeing with Stalin that Dragoon should actually take place as decoy even before Overlord for exactly the same reasons, i.e. such a small force would be very vulnerable. So making a landing of 8-10 allied divisions in southern France as the main landing after the failure of Normandy would be a likely invitation to disaster.

Both Alan-Brooke & Churchill were opposing Op DRAGOON right into August. Churchill sent Ike messages begging him to avoid wasting a army on such a certainly bloody operation. When they could be better used for a easy campaign in the Balkans. He put the same treatment on Ike in a face to face meeting. Brook pushed the same line. Guess what? DRAGOON proved the easiest and least costly Allied campaign in 1944.
 
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Since I read that the allies would consider keeping only two out of the five beaches or suffering casualties on all beaches comparable to those on Omaha as success, they would probably find the above scenario still a successful landing.

As long as they keep a MULBERRY operational, and are able to capture Cherbourg in a reasonable amount of time. Its a success of some sort. More so if the German losses are worse.

DRAGOON was not the only option. The transfer of the amphib fleet to the Pacific was not set in stone. Europe First was the policy & if the Joint Chiefs direct a third invasion after DRAGOON that can happen.
 
OTL Op DRAGOON used Naples Algiers, with some embarkation from Tunis, Oran & misc ports. Some of the French had remained on Corsica & Sardinia at the end of occupying those islands, but most of the French had done their prep in Africa.

As for the embarkation points, true, but you are describing an operation that was secondary to the already successful Normandy which (Normandy) in the end attracted 11 of the 12 panzer divisions Germans had in France (with only the 11th Wehrmacht in training staying in the south). A primary landing would however had to have very different parameters. An invasion in Normandy was a logistical race against the clock between the allies and German pace of bringing in troops and supplies. Allies were bringing (after the first mass landing on the 6th) roughly one division a day from a distance of c. 200 km between Normandy and southern England and the race was very tight. If Dragoon was the primary operation, the troops would have to be brought from the smallest distance possible, i.e. Corsica or northern Sardinia. Having to travel 800 km from Naples or Algeria (four times the difference between Normandy and southern England) would reduce the rate of reinforcement to a trickle giving Germans time to bring in forces from the north.

Add to that the fact that you simply don't have the forces to carry out a primary invasion in the south. In August 44 there were some 27 allied divisions in the south of which 8-10 were reserved for Dragoon and the others had to remain just to keep control of Italy. Bringing in more divisions from either UK or USA would take months and let's not even forget that if the invasion was to have any pace at all it would require bringing in as many of the LST and LCT landing ships from Normandy which would however have a likelihood of being detected when passing around Gibraltar giving Germans further warning.

As of January 1944 slightly over 1000 US & French fighters and bombers were based in Corsica. In August between three and four thousand medium bombers and fighters surged into Sardinia/Corsica to support Op DRAGOON. Approx six thousand Allied combat aircraft were operational in the Med & the heavy bombers of the 15th AF also supported the DRAGOON operation. Not as large as the 12,000 aircraft that supported OVERLORD, but this is still larger than the entire German operational AF of 1 June 1944 on all fronts.

As for the numbers of air force, even though we could expect great reinforcement from the north, considering the geography of Corsica and Sardinia there certainly would not be between three and four thousand medium bombers and fighter on these two islands. They would have to operate from airbases in Italy and North Africa. The most important however is the number of fighter planes the allies could keep over the beaches from bases in Corsica and Sardinia used either as primary bases or refueling bases for planes stationed in Italy and Africa. However, they wouldn't be able to keep over the beaches more than a third of the fighter planes at any given moment. Considering the distances, this number would be far lower than the number of fighter planes over Normandy, giving a concentrated strike a la Bodenplatte much better chances, further slowing down the rate of reinforcement of the salient.

This presumes the German have the forces remaining to overwhelm the 6th AG. Aside from losses comparable to OTL incurred destroying the 21st AG in Normandy theres several other considerations. 1. the Red Army had launched Op BAGRATION. I supposed Hitler could keep a panzer army sitting around in France 'Just in Case', but the odds are any units still operational are going to be sent east to deal with the disaster of Army Group Center. 2. Any reinforcements for Army Group G & the 19th Army have to traverse France in the face of Allied air attacks.

Eventually, Hitler had 12 panzer divisions in France (ten from the beginning and the 9th SS and 10th SS brought in from Poland in mid June). Considering the overwhelming artillery superiority the allies had (only tanks and StuGs were able to reliably survive the allied artillery fire, the towed anti-tank guns were vulnerable), panzer divisions were the only effective anti-tank forces in France. How many of them would Hitler had left would depends on how quickly Normandy would be defeated and you are certainly right that air attacks would represent a great obstacle in getting them southwards. So once again, it would be a race against allies bringing in forces to Dragoon beaches versus Germany trying to get their forces (not by damaged railway lines) to the south. In favour of the allies speaks the distance between northern and southern France and destroyed railway system, in favour of Germans the limited number of divisions allies have for Dragoon and weaker air force (as described above).

3. The 6th AG can draw on the reinforcements intended for 12 & 21 AG in September/October. The southern French port group were capable of supporting a minimum of fifteen ground divisions plus corps and army overhead and proportional tactical airfares ashore. The more likely outcome is the Allies have a robust army group built up in November.

But that's my point. Either you carry out Dragoon in August against still disarrayed German defense in France, but only with what you have left, i.e. at best ten divisions or you wait for reinforcements till late autumn but then you face already reorganised defense and lower likelihood of an invasion over the channel (because of weather) freeing some defense forces from the north and giving them time to move southwards. Also, if you wanted to carry out reinforcement of the beaches of Dragoon at the same pace as in the north, you would have to bring in as many of the LST and LCT ships as possible through Gibraltar, giving Germany some notice of what is going to come.


Both Alan-Brooke & Churchill were opposing Op DRAGOON right into August. Churchill sent Ike messages begging him to avoid wasting a army on such a certainly bloody operation. When they could be better used for a easy campaign in the Balkans. He put the same treatment on Ike in a face to face meeting. Brook pushed the same line. Guess what? DRAGOON proved the easiest and least costly Allied campaign in 1944.

Eventually, Dragoon was indeed easy. But it happened at the time when Normandy front collapsed (on the 15th August the only issue dealt with in Normandy was when and where the encirclement of the defeated German forces would occur) and by the time Dragoon forces landed the German army was already withdrawing from France. Had Dragoon been the primary operation, the situation would be very different.
 
As long as they keep a MULBERRY operational, and are able to capture Cherbourg in a reasonable amount of time. Its a success of some sort. More so if the German losses are worse.

DRAGOON was not the only option. The transfer of the amphib fleet to the Pacific was not set in stone. Europe First was the policy & if the Joint Chiefs direct a third invasion after DRAGOON that can happen.

I agree with that and I think some sort of repeat in the north would be more likely than Dragoon because of the air force, troop and logistical concentrations that were far better in England than in the Mediterranean area. It would all depend on why it failed. Was it the failure of DD tanks forcing troops without armor protection against machine guns nests? The answer then would be to focus on this issue, perhaps sending lighter tanks (Stuart M5) as DD tanks next time because at half the weight they would have better chance to get ashore. Another answer would be to collect all the LCM available (small boats capable of getting individual tanks on beach reliably) and use them, or even sacrifice some LCTs in getting armour ashore in the first wave.

If the failure was because the landing of paratroopers gave Germans enough warning time, things could be adjusted again.

Anyway, as you say, there were further options for landing in northern France again and I think they would still be more convenient than Dragoon as the primary invasion.
 
Of the three German panzer divisions in Normandy (21st Wehrmacht, 12th SS and Panzer Lehr of Wehrmacht) the Panzer Lehr division was too far to engage on the 6th. Only the 21st and 12th SS (and that one only just) were near enough. Even if Hitler ordered action in say two hours after the first paratroopers landed (they started to land at c. 0.30 am), ie. at 2.30 am, the panzer divisions would not be able to just move towards the beaches, they were not supposed to serve as mobile pillboxes but to attack en masse forces already landed on a beach. For that purpose they needed to know in the first place which beaches the allies landed on, so even if released early, even the nearer 21st (harassed badly by the British 6th paradivision) wouldn't be able to attack earlier than 1-2 hours after the first landings on Sword beach (other beaches were too far). As for the more distant 12th SS division it would be even later and that after big mauling by allied fighter bombers.

As for the impact of the German panzer attacks themselves, considering that with the exception of Omaha the landings went well on all other beaches (casualties on the other four beaches combined were comparable to those on Omaha), the allies would already have a decent number of anti-tank guns ready. Add to that the confusion caused by allied fighter bombers and the panzers supporting German infantry probably stopped by allied naval artillery, the attacks would not be probably shattering. A very optimistic scenario for Germans would be half of the Sword beach lost to the 21st and half of the Gold beach lost to the 12th SS. That all for the price of these two divisions practically eliminated as attacking forces due to high casualties.

Since I read that the allies would consider keeping only two out of the five beaches or suffering casualties on all beaches comparable to those on Omaha as success, they would probably find the above scenario still a successful landing.
This opens up the interesting scenario. The Allies were fully expecting a scenario where the Germans throw everything they had at them. As noted they had substantial anti tank formations and TDs in the beach head, supported by an entire battlefleet and literally thousands of fighter bombers and bombers.

Would it not have been better for the British / Canadian forces if the German mobile formation were activated and moving earlier instead of bedding down and taking up defensive positions around Caen. By coming to the British, these formations become subject to massive assault instead of themselves later lying in prepared positions for the British advance. Might this not have been a much better scenario for the Wallies in this area?
 
This opens up the interesting scenario. The Allies were fully expecting a scenario where the Germans throw everything they had at them. As noted they had substantial anti tank formations and TDs in the beach head, supported by an entire battlefleet and literally thousands of fighter bombers and bombers.

Would it not have been better for the British / Canadian forces if the German mobile formation were activated and moving earlier instead of bedding down and taking up defensive positions around Caen. By coming to the British, these formations become subject to massive assault instead of themselves later lying in prepared positions for the British advance. Might this not have been a much better scenario for the Wallies in this area?

What you suggesting makes sense in terms of the tactic of letting the enemy to attack, expose himself and suffer heavy casualties. However, it would require a very bold commander, who still remembered the fiasco of Dieppe, to expose his forces (and let's keep in mind that had the DD tanks failed as they did on Omaha, the situation on other beaches could have easily been the same as on Omaha, where very few anti-tank weapons arrived until later in the day), having to face two German tank divisions despite being mauled by fighter bombers and naval artillery, which can't stop tanks themselves, only the supporting vehicles and infantry, would be a nightmare.
 
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@petr Carl said it all better but i would just like to add that a failed invasion of Normandy would both mean casualties for the Germans and loss in productivity and efficiency in the west whilst you can bet a lot of panzers and veteran divisions will be diverted to the east to fight the Soviets right after that victory over the wallies. This all makes Dragoon easier to do and you can bet the Allies will put more emphasis on Dragoon and send more initial forces as well as increase the reinforcement rates to keep the front up and running. Once they are able to secure Toulon and Cannes they would have ports available equal to Cherbourg(together) and no doubt they'd aim for Nice as quickly as they can before going for Marseille. I'd say they have a decent shot at it, but it depends on why Normandy failed though, if its something they could learn from, if the germans did, etc.

The point is, they would do it.
 
This presumes the German have the forces remaining to overwhelm the 6th AG. Aside from losses comparable to OTL incurred destroying the 21st AG in Normandy theres several other considerations. 1. the Red Army had launched Op BAGRATION. I supposed Hitler could keep a panzer army sitting around in France 'Just in Case', but the odds are any units still operational are going to be sent east to deal with the disaster of Army Group Center. 2. Any reinforcements for Army Group G & the 19th Army have to traverse France in the face of Allied air attacks. 3. The 6th AG can draw on the reinforcements intended for 12 & 21 AG in September/October. The southern French port group were capable of supporting a minimum of fifteen ground divisions plus corps and army overhead and proportional tactical airfares ashore. The more likely outcome is the Allies have a robust army group built up in November.


On the second thought, the idea of stronger Dragoon in November or later is good on the condition that allies would by the time capture northern Italy and build airbases in the northwest (Torino area) adjacent to the landing area. That would enable enough fighter force to operate to protect the beaches (greatly aided by German lack of fuel caused by damage of synthetic fuel plants, loss of Romanian oil fields and general weakening of Luftwaffe).
 
@petr Carl said it all better but i would just like to add that a failed invasion of Normandy would both mean casualties for the Germans and loss in productivity and efficiency in the west whilst you can bet a lot of panzers and veteran divisions will be diverted to the east to fight the Soviets right after that victory over the wallies. This all makes Dragoon easier to do and you can bet the Allies will put more emphasis on Dragoon and send more initial forces as well as increase the reinforcement rates to keep the front up and running. Once they are able to secure Toulon and Cannes they would have ports available equal to Cherbourg(together) and no doubt they'd aim for Nice as quickly as they can before going for Marseille. I'd say they have a decent shot at it, but it depends on why Normandy failed though, if its something they could learn from, if the germans did, etc.

The point is, they would do it.

The assumption (however unlikely) of this scenario was failing of the D-Day landings, that is at the very beginning, perhaps within a few days of D-Day. That would mean that no more than the three German panzer divisions available in Normandy would get involved and therefore depleted. That would still leave further seven panzer divisions untouched in France (plus remnants of the said three), though arrival of the extra two SS panzer divisions from Poland might not take place.

As for weakening of German defences in France after failure of Overlord and due to Bagration, I don't think it was likely. Germany must have expected repetition and couldn't withdraw much to the east. Furthermore, Bagration was more or less over by the beginning of August (Varsaw reached) and from then on Hitler again focused much of his effort on the west (resulting into Ardennes).

As for the panzer forces available in southern France, Germany had there two full divisions (2nd SS and 9th Wehrmacht) and one in training (11th Wehrmacht). The first two were sent northwards very early after D-Day, but with the built-up of allied forces in the south and worsening weather in the north it's likely that at least these divisions would be returned.

For reasons stated above, I don't think Dragoon would be a convenient solution as a primary invasion in summer 44, had Normandy failed. However, with better preparations and in particular if northern Italy was captured (which was probably feasible) and turned into an air force and logistical base, it could serve as a primary invasion site in late autumn or winter of 44-45. There would be however many more variables to take into consideration (southern France now being obviously a target, considering weather in the channel and movement of landing ships to the Mediterranean vs. e.g. Germany lacking fuel, French communications destroyed even more.

My point was not that much whether failure in Normandy would mean the end of hopes for a successful invasion in 1944, my argument was that a repetition somewhere in northern France still in summer of 1944 (because of concentration of ground forces, air forces, logistical bases as well as invasion fleet in southern England) was more likely than a Dragoon as a primary invasion in summer of 1944 as in OTL. That's it. It would depend very much on why D-Day would have failed.
 
As for the embarkation points, true, but you are describing an operation that was secondary to the already successful Normandy which (Normandy) in the end attracted 11 of the 12 panzer divisions Germans had in France (with only the 11th Wehrmacht in training staying in the south). A primary landing would however had to have very different parameters. An invasion in Normandy was a logistical race against the clock between the allies and German pace of bringing in troops and supplies. Allies were bringing (after the first mass landing on the 6th) roughly one division a day from a distance of c. 200 km between Normandy and southern England and the race was very tight. If Dragoon was the primary operation, the troops would have to be brought from the smallest distance possible, i.e. Corsica or northern Sardinia. Having to travel 800 km from Naples or Algeria (four times the difference between Normandy and southern England) would reduce the rate of reinforcement to a trickle giving Germans time to bring in forces from the north.

Add to that the fact that you simply don't have the forces to carry out a primary invasion in the south. In August 44 there were some 27 allied divisions in the south of which 8-10 were reserved for Dragoon and the others had to remain just to keep control of Italy. Bringing in more divisions from either UK or USA would take months and let's not even forget that if the invasion was to have any pace at all it would require bringing in as many of the LST and LCT landing ships from Normandy which would however have a likelihood of being detected when passing around Gibraltar giving Germans further warning.

The Allied OB & reinforcement schedules were not set in stone. If a decision is made to execute Op DRAGOON in August, or whenever, the shipping schedules would be redone. It took a bit over 45 days for a Liberty Ship, the slowest transport, to make the round trip from a US port to Algiers, & less than two weeks to make the one way trip from Liverpool to Algiers. OTL reinforcements intended for the French Atlantic ports that were redirected to Marsailles arrived with a few weeks, or in some cases days delayl. Not months.

The other half of this is the state of the German ground forces after this Normandy victory. I suspect the Allied Joint Chiefs are not going to order up this if they don't have have assurance the Germans are badly attritioned. 10+ fresh Allied divisions can deal with worn enemy formations trickling down from the north.

As for the numbers of air force, even though we could expect great reinforcement from the north, considering the geography of Corsica and Sardinia there certainly would not be between three and four thousand medium bombers and fighter on these two islands.

Ah, but DRAGOON of OTL was supported by 3000+ aircraft. The US had over eight months to lay out airfields, and prepare for a invasion surge of additional temporary units. As I mentioned earlier, between the securing of Corsica in November 1943 & early January 1944 close to 1,100 fighters and bombers, along with some reconissance & ASW aircraft were permanently based on Corsica alone.

Beyond that the heavy bombers of the 8th AF & their escorts were ranging further in 1944. Fghters from the UK can be attacking German airfields in south France similar to Germany.

They would have to operate from airbases in Italy and North Africa. The most important however is the number of fighter planes the allies could keep over the beaches from bases in Corsica and Sardinia used either as primary bases or refueling bases for planes stationed in Italy and Africa. However, they wouldn't be able to keep over the beaches more than a third of the fighter planes at any given moment.

Even under fairly conservative estimates that adds up to some 300 fighters available for CAP in any particular daylight hour.

Considering the distances, this number would be far lower than the number of fighter planes over Normandy, giving a concentrated strike a la Bodenplatte much better chances, further slowing down the rate of reinforcement of the salient.

As with the ground forces one has to consider the state of the German air forces after a battle in Normandy. Through restriction to night operations they managed to peak at a bit over 1,300 bomber sorties in early July, but operational losses alone ran that down swiftly. That peak number was reached by removing bombers from Italy, the Balkans, Norway, & the replacements from Germany. Whats left OTL in late July was unimpressive. By the time of MARKET-GARDEN in September surge strength of 200+ bombers at night were about all that was practical. To return to the BODENPLATTE example the initial strength was under 500 bombers, and between undertrained pilots, worn out or badly built new aircraft accident rates were reaching above 40% of sorties. The necessity to attack at night to avoid combat losses meant abysmal accuracy for the undertrained German aircrew.

Eventually, Hitler had 12 panzer divisions in France (ten from the beginning and the 9th SS and 10th SS brought in from Poland in mid June). Considering the overwhelming artillery superiority the allies had (only tanks and StuGs were able to reliably survive the allied artillery fire, the towed anti-tank guns were vulnerable), panzer divisions were the only effective anti-tank forces in France. How many of them would Hitler had left would depends on how quickly Normandy would be defeated

It may be the Germans are still mopping up in Normandy come mid August. There is also the question of how Hilter decides to deal with the concurrent disaster of Operation Bagration. A victory in July may very well lead to the remaining combat worthy mechanized forces being rushed east.

Unless the Allied Joint Chiefs go collectively crazy they are not going to execute a second innovation in 1944 unless they have some assurance it has a chance. This leads us back to the unanswered question of why Op NEPTUNE or OVRELORD fails.

and you are certainly right that air attacks would represent a great obstacle in getting them southwards. So once again, it would be a race against allies bringing in forces to Dragoon beaches versus Germany trying to get their forces (not by damaged railway lines) to the south. In favour of the allies speaks the distance between northern and southern France and destroyed railway system, in favour of Germans the limited number of divisions allies have for Dragoon and weaker air force (as described above).

But that's my point. Either you carry out Dragoon in August against still disarrayed German defense in France, but only with what you have left, i.e. at best ten divisions or you wait for reinforcements till late autumn but then you face already reorganised defense and lower likelihood of an invasion over the channel (because of weather) freeing some defense forces from the north and giving them time to move southwards. Also, if you wanted to carry out reinforcement of the beaches of Dragoon at the same pace as in the north, you would have to bring in as many of the LST and LCT ships as possible through Gibraltar, giving Germany some notice of what is going to come.

OTL the Germans had information on the Amphib fleet returning to the Med during July. Allied deception ops had them attempting reinforcing Italy from Genoa southwards, the Adriatic coast, Dalmatia, and Greece. They also took the Allied deception op aimed at Bourdeux seriously. Hence their Pz corps in AG G being out of position to deal with the landing on the Riviera.

Eventually, Dragoon was indeed easy. But it happened at the time when Normandy front collapsed (on the 15th August the only issue dealt with in Normandy was when and where the encirclement of the defeated German forces would occur) and by the time Dragoon forces landed the German army was already withdrawing from France. Had Dragoon been the primary operation, the situation would be very different.
 
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Anyway, as you say, there were further options for landing in northern France again and I think they would still be more convenient than Dragoon as the primary invasion.

The idea of a southern invasion becoming the "primary" is distorting this. The port capacity there while robust is not enough for the main effort. Executing a late summer or Autum invasion there is a enabler for a new main effort in the north. thats where the largest port and transport capacity is & the main effort has to be made through there. In terms of Grans Strategy a southern invasion is a diversion, a supplement, & a enabler to a main effort elsewhere. Only if the Germans leave the west incredibly weak could a southern invasion be the primary.
 
The idea of a southern invasion becoming the "primary" is distorting this. The port capacity there while robust is not enough for the main effort. Executing a late summer or Autum invasion there is a enabler for a new main effort in the north. thats where the largest port and transport capacity is & the main effort has to be made through there. In terms of Grans Strategy a southern invasion is a diversion, a supplement, & a enabler to a main effort elsewhere. Only if the Germans leave the west incredibly weak could a southern invasion be the primary.

I'll start here first. If you carry out Dragoon in summer 44, instead of trying again in the north at the same time, you restrict your capacity to land forces in the north later because of weather. Weather was a crucial factor and carrying out a large scale northern invasion post September was something the allies planning for it in June would dread a lot, especially considering that their first June (nearly summer) landing in Normandy has just failed.
 
The Allied OB & reinforcement schedules were not set in stone. If a decision is made to execute Op DRAGOON in August, or whenever, the shipping schedules would be redone. It took a bit over 45 days for a Liberty Ship, the slowest transport, to make the round trip from a US port to Algiers, & less than two weeks to make the one way trip from Liverpool to Algiers. OTL reinforcements intended for the French Atlantic ports that were redirected to Marsailles arrived with a few weeks, or in some cases days delayl. Not months.

Ok, you are right that more can be brought in. You can e.g. get a convoy at 10 knots from England to southern France in about ten days. The problem is that when you do it, along with bringing in some 200 LST ships and hundreds of LCT boats from the north, if you want to keep some pace of reinforcement, you have to get through Gibraltar and when allies did that, Germany immediately learned about it. So no surprise there.

The other half of this is the state of the German ground forces after this Normandy victory. I suspect the Allied Joint Chiefs are not going to order up this if they don't have have assurance the Germans are badly attritioned. 10+ fresh Allied divisions can deal with worn enemy formations trickling down from the north.

That's the point. They wouldn't be trickling from the north, they would already be in the south. The scenario (though unlikely) was a rather quick defeat of the landings, so not much attrition of German panzer forces (the only really effective anti-tank forces) except for the three panzer divisions available in Normandy on the D-Day repelling the landings. Considering that if Overlord was defeated quickly, there would be no need to transfer the two panzer divisions from the south. I.e. Dragoon probably faces at least the three German panzer divisions (9th and 11th Wehrmacht and 2nd SS) in the south which were located there on the D-Day.


Ah, but DRAGOON of OTL was supported by 3000+ aircraft. The US had over eight months to lay out airfields, and prepare for a invasion surge of additional temporary units. As I mentioned earlier, between the securing of Corsica in November 1943 & early January 1944 close to 1,100 fighters and bombers, along with some reconissance & ASW aircraft were permanently based on Corsica alone.

My argument was not against the overall number of planes available for Dragoon. My argument was that there were not those numbers available in the same vicinity to the landing beaches as they were to Normandy. The only airbases with comparable distance to the invasion area would be those on Corsica (Even Sardinia is already nearly twice as far from southern France as Normandy is from southern England).

Beyond that the heavy bombers of the 8th AF & their escorts were ranging further in 1944. Fghters from the UK can be attacking German airfields in south France similar to Germany.

Well, that's true but that is a completely different pattern of aerial operations. They flew there, saw the heavies bomb and returned. They didn't spent there hours of loitering over invasion beaches to repel a possible German attack. The point of fighter cover over the landing area is not to allow enemy bombers and fighter bombers attack your invasion fleet and since it is the enemy that chooses when to attack, you have to patrol all the time during the day. Even in Normandy with far shorter distances (and 3-4 thousand fighter planes) the allies were not able to keep above the beaches more than one third of the time and that with great exhaustion for the pilots (remember how many sorties Clostermann flew on D-Day?).

Even under fairly conservative estimates that adds up to some 300 fighters available for CAP in any particular daylight hour.

I agree with that but that would still not be enough. Even if the allies really operated 1.100 fighter planes from Corsica and hundreds more using Corsica just for refueling, they wouldn't be able to keep more than a third over the beaches at any time. That would be indeed be the number of fighter planes over the beaches you say (perhaps even more). That is a lot but not enough and it would have great problems against a concentrated German air attack of the Bodenplatte style. Notwithstanding that if you use all Corsican and Sardinian bases for fighter planes providing CAP over the landing area, you don't have space for fighter bombers which were crucial for the success of the Overlord. Because of distance, they can't simply operate from mainland Italy or north Africa.

Unless you acquire first the nearer airbases in north-western Italy, you will not be able to recreate the same degree of air support the allies had in Normandy. It's an issue of distance and availability of nearby bases. On the other hand, capturing northern Italy was in allied powers in the fall of 44, so why not trying it in August 44 instead of Dragoon? With that you could carry out a much stronger Dragoon in say November 44.


As with the ground forces one has to consider the state of the German air forces after a battle in Normandy. Through restriction to night operations they managed to peak at a bit over 1,300 bomber sorties in early July, but operational losses alone ran that down swiftly. That peak number was reached by removing bombers from Italy, the Balkans, Norway, & the replacements from Germany. Whats left OTL in late July was unimpressive. By the time of MARKET-GARDEN in September surge strength of 200+ bombers at night were about all that was practical. To return to the BODENPLATTE example the initial strength was under 500 bombers, and between undertrained pilots, worn out or badly built new aircraft accident rates were reaching above 40% of sorties. The necessity to attack at night to avoid combat losses meant abysmal accuracy for the undertrained German aircrew.

Well, the premise of the scenario is a quick defeat of the landings, therefore neither Luftwaffe nor ground forces worn out by a prolonged two-month fighting. If the allies were still being mopped up in Normandy in August as you mention, it would be a very different scenario and Dragoon in August against German forces still engaged in the north would make sense, but then we are both describing different situations.

So with relatively low exhaustion on the side of Luftwaffe, you have a possibility of a German concentrated air attack against the Dragoon landing fleet. Hundreds of German fighters sent against the 300 or more allied fighter planes providing CAP over the beaches would be a big distraction and the 500 bombers you mention, despite suffering heavily from AA fire, would be a serious threat for the LST ships. The LST ship was a logistical bottleneck for the allies, as they were the only means of delivering substantial numbers of vehicles ashore over the beaches. In Normandy there were some 230 of them bringing in vehicles from the distance of 200 km. The distances in the south would be far greater and any incapacitated LST ships would reduce the speed of reinforcement substantially.

Concerning the possibility of bringing soldiers directly through the ports of Toul and Marseilles, well, you have to have them first and undamaged. In OTL they were captured in the end of August against already withdrawing forces whose main panzer elements were sent to Normandy in June. In the ATL the advance would not be that fast, Germans substantially stronger on the ground and allied fighter and bomber forces weaker. There is a reasons to assume that both ports would end up rather like Cherbourg. As a consequence, most of the troops and vehicles would still have to be brought as in Normandy over the beaches by LSTs which themselves would load the troops either in Corsica, Sardinia, North Africa and Italy with the port capacity in Corsica and Sardinia being rather limited. That creates the LST bottleneck mentioned above.

Unless the Allied Joint Chiefs go collectively crazy they are not going to execute a second innovation in 1944 unless they have some assurance it has a chance. This leads us back to the unanswered question of why Op NEPTUNE or OVRELORD fails.

I agree that the reason of failure of Overlord would be paradigmatic for whether or not they would try again in summer of 44. If it was very unlucky weather, that could be corrected. If failure of amphibious tanks, that too. However, they couldn't wait for ever and the window of opportunity in the north (unlike in the Mediterranean) would close around September. Again, it's hard to imagine a failure drastic enough to warrant a complete withdrawal from Normandy, but this is a theoretical search for plan B for a critical scenario.

OTL the Germans had information on the Amphib fleet returning to the Med during July. Allied deception ops had them attempting reinforcing Italy from Genoa southwards, the Adriatic coast, Dalmatia, and Greece. They also took the Allied deception op aimed at Bourdeux seriously. Hence their Pz corps in AG G being out of position to deal with the landing on the Riviera.

The reason why the two of the three panzer divisions were sent northwards was Normandy landing. If that failed quickly, there would be no reasons for them to continue northwards, or not to return. Attacking in the Bay of Biscay would represent even greater problem from the perspective of fighter cover of the invasion fleet than Dragoon (in fact even northern Brittany would be a nightmare for the allied fighter forces). Also, bringing hundreds of LSTs and LCTs (without which there would not be a major invasion in the south other than the one of the size and low speed of Dragoon landings in OTL against weakened and already withdrawing forces) plus hundreds of cargo ships full of soldiers (in Torch one division minus non-combat personnel required a whole convoy) would alert the Germans overlooking Gibraltar. The cover up you describe was only possible because in OTL there was no such massive transfer of forces from north to south. Dragoon was carried out with forces already available in the Mediterranean.
 
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