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Eisenhower had awesome resources at his disposal and many allied lives could have been saved with more common sense. While Hitler invaded the USSR using fewer than 2,000 planes (none of them with 4 engines) on the first day along a 3,000 km front, the allies concentrated 12,000 planes (several thousand with 4 engines) and the artillery of hundreds of warships along a few kilometers (far more resources along far fewer kilometers than in Sicily).

The preinvasion bombing was a huge waste (reminescent of Lee's completely inefficient waste of artillery in Gettysburg).
Hundreds of American paratroopers drowned in the flooded fields because they took minutes to take off their harness, while British paratroopers had a quick release buckle and could remove their harness in seconds.
In Utah Beach the destroyers' artillery engaged German ground forces only after hundreds of men had been shot for hours and the attack was about to fail.
After many paratroopers had died securing a large area, no more paratroopers were sent to that area.
Dozens of expensive, stupid floating tanks in a fragile and shallow canvas vessel sank, killing hundreds of invaluable, extremely well trained crews, but not a single armoured barge or escort destroyer was intentionally beached before the landing in order to provide artillery and cover for the men.
The men had to enter relatively deep water with a heavy load and a cotton uniform that would absorb several lbs of water, so many drowned or were shot as they struggled slowly to reach the beach.
So although there were thousands of naval guns and 12,000 planes available, a few machine guns in pill boxes shot men for hours.
The slow landing in the American and Canadian beaches and the slow advance after the landing by the British provided several golden hours for the Germans to move in and reinforce Caen, etc, which would require a very long time and thousands of casualties to be taken, despite heavy air and naval support.
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