Things looked different in late 1942 than they do now. There were still worries about the Japanese invading Australia by the general populace. Not to the extent of early 1942 but it was still there.
D-Day in 1943: Plausibility and operations in France
- Thread starter Bougnas
- Start date
Maybe not THE something they wanted but it was still better than the nothing that happens without Op Cartwheel.
ferdi254
Banned
Hard to change anybody’s mind.
I still think an invasion could be possible even getting out of the beaches but the allied force would then face all troops that OTL went to Italy, the troops from the Balkan not used for occupation duty plus all the troops that can get freed if the Red Army receives much less LaL.
Plus with a US army approaching the Rhine and the Red Army still east of Kiev Germany might change priorities.
And then you still have a LW that still has a fight in it. And you miss all those Mustangs and Lightnings that were so effective in killing Germans. Plus a German war industry that gets seriously less damaged.
So my final conclusion is that it could have been possible, Germany will of course loose but the one year to Berlin, sorry
I still think an invasion could be possible even getting out of the beaches but the allied force would then face all troops that OTL went to Italy, the troops from the Balkan not used for occupation duty plus all the troops that can get freed if the Red Army receives much less LaL.
Plus with a US army approaching the Rhine and the Red Army still east of Kiev Germany might change priorities.
And then you still have a LW that still has a fight in it. And you miss all those Mustangs and Lightnings that were so effective in killing Germans. Plus a German war industry that gets seriously less damaged.
So my final conclusion is that it could have been possible, Germany will of course loose but the one year to Berlin, sorry
Is the 5th Air Force going to have the power to fight Bismarck Sea if all these assets are pulled into Roundup? What bases are they going to be flying out of, if the Allies are only holding on to the SE corner of New Guinea?
Being completely written off would've made them feel better?
The US could still execute a mini-Cartwheel with the forces in-theater - many of the islands captured didn’t involve divisions transferred after June 1942. Not to mention that half the forces involved to begin with were Australian/NZ. The 3 Army and 2 Marine Divisions already in-theater are more than sufficient to neutralize Rabaul, especially of that (Rather than capturing it) is decided as the objective from the start.
I mean the Battle of the Atlantic is won earlier
I agree a lot of landing craft capacity could be delivered to the ETO in 1943 if the PTO was stripped but unless the BotA was won earlier then a 1943 DDay is not possible
No but they needed landing craft to capture bases for aircraft to use. Would they even have the aircraft with a world wide drain of men, ships, and aircraft into Roundup?
They can't do anything without landing craft. They also need aircraft that will be sucked into Roundup. In late 1943 your going to have the Big Blue Fleet all dressed up with no place to go. Admiral King, the pro navy FDR, and the American public would never support pulling the plug on the Pacific War. Despite Europe First, no one could forget that the Japanese had attacked America on the Day of Infamy.
marathag
Banned
existing Airforces needed to remain in place. That need to defend against Japanese counterattacks hasn't changed.
PLUTO is irrelevant.
US planners were not relying on it (see Ruppenthall Vol 1 p 324) and the impact was minimal. Delivery in December was 1300t/day; the British had over 245,000 tons of POL in stock on the Continent.
Assuming the invasion goes ahead in '43 and also assuming that Hitler is overthrown, were the WAllies still committed to unconditional surrender by this time, or would there be some wiggle room (however small that room may be)?
The Allies were committed to eliminating Germany as a independent power. They each had a different vision of what the end state would look like, but it was the common goal. Unconditional Surrender was a means to that end & a clear statement that Germanys ability to act independently as a economic or military threat was to be removed.
Sure there was a modicom of "wiggle room". The UcS policy applied to all the Axis nation's, & the others got a few concessions. But in the end each lost its independace & became a client state for a a couple generations or more.
The SE corner of New Guinea & Australia is where the 5th AF was based from for that battle. It was fought with material scheduled for the S PAC before Marshals Jan 1943 decision to reinforce the S PAC & support MacArthurs proposals. It took 6-8 months for that decision to bear full fruit.
With a decision for Op ROUNDUP in 1943 there would already be the lesser material committed to S PAC & enroute, which could support a more limited consolidation in the S PAC.
Of course the 'plug' would not be pulled. Existing US planning for consolidating in S PAC and the Central Pacific offensives accommodated ongoing US planning for Op ROUNDUP. OTL MacArthurs grand offensives did not get rolling until the autumn of 1943. & other than consolidation in New Guinea & the Solomon's not a lot happened for six months in the Pacific.
January 1943 there were barely enough operational amphib assets in the US portion of the Pacific for a corps size op. Nothing to 'drain'. Even less in the Brit theatre of the Indian Ocean. The difference is in material not sent for the S PAC offensives of latter 1943.
Grigg, Atkinson, Pogue, & others outline exactly what changed. The short version is Brooke came convinced the 1943 offensives had to happen in the Mediterranean. He persuaded Churchill & between the two the US leaders ran against a immoveable object. Roosevelt saw, after a few days of argument he had lost this one decided to cut it off & move on.
The more I learn about Churchill the more duplicitous he appears.
David French in his writings about the British Army in WW2 notes that the key bottleneck for its expeditionary capacity was the lack of “tail” formations (Signals, transport, ordinance, etc.), which in 1940 had been stripped from divisions to free up additional manpower and establish more formations oriented for Home Defense. Creating new “tail” formations was heavily curtailed even into 1942. After 1st Army deployed for Torch the UK was at the bottom of the barrel, and it was clear that it would take longer than Summer 1943 to form enough “tail” formations to deploy a 20-division force to the continent.
The UK had numerous divisions deployed for Home Defense, but they were stripped of the logistical capabilities needed to deploy abroad. Recreating these capabilities requires either that they not be stripped at all or the process starts earlier in 1941-42. Entirely achievable with the right PODs/strategy.