D-day partial failure?

Well sorry if I had a realitve die in Dieppe. I'm not the only Canadian that hates him, our History channel hates him. Saying that he ignored intel and went behind the backs of the greatest leaders in Britsh history Churchill and Montgomery. After Dieppe he was banished to Burma.

Do you want to take this thing about how you hate Mountbatten so much somewhere else? It's utterly irrelevant. Having said that, sorry about your relative. Dieppe was a disaster indeed.
 

bard32

Banned
Yes, it was very plausible. If you remember, we didn't have very much difficulty at Utah Beach. It was at Omaha Beach, known as "Bloody Omaha,"
to the Americans, that the Normandy beachhead almost collapsed. If that had
happened, then American troops probably would have been diverted to the
British and Canadian sectors.
 

Markus

Banned
It was at Omaha Beach, known as "Bloody Omaha,"
to the Americans, that the Normandy beachhead almost collapsed.

No! Omaha was "bloody" by comparison, but it was never, ever in danger of collapsing! It just looked that way to observers who were still on the ships and thus did not see the full picture. Some sectors of Omaha were in fact as quiet as Utah and even on the heavily defended sectors groups of GIs quickly infiltrated the german positions.

A powerful counterattack at an early point in time could have pushed the attackers back, but the 352nd was understrength and and did not have any reserves. Neither had any other unit in the vicinity.
 
what about those panzer divizions that were delaied, at least as the legend goes, becouse hitler was asleep and couldnt give the order
 

Markus

Banned
what about those panzer divizions that were delaied, at least as the legend goes, becouse hitler was asleep and couldnt give the order

Won´t arrive in time anyway. Furthermore the Brits had landed tanks with the first wave, any sucessfull attack runs head-on into naval gunfire and movement in daylight isn´t possible becasue of allied air supremacy.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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what about those panzer divizions that were delaied, at least as the legend goes, becouse hitler was asleep and couldnt give the order


A legend is the correct description. Two were close enough to engage in the first 24 hours (one of which would have had to travel in DAYLIGHT) but only one was close enough to act within the critical first 12 hours. It was understrength and totaled only 89 tanks, hardly enough to throw the invasion into the sea.
 

CalBear

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89 tanks including the actual french tanks from 1940 and the self-made self-propelled AT-guns or 89 Pz.III and Pz.IV?

89 Panzer III & IV combat ready, six of which they lost to air attack as soon as deploying towards the beach. This total includes tanks that were chasing after or engaged with, airborne forces miles inland. The British landed more tanks on D-Day than the Germans had available from 21st Panzer.
 
Originally posted by Markus
Quote:
Originally Posted by bard32
It was at Omaha Beach, known as "Bloody Omaha,"
to the Americans, that the Normandy beachhead almost collapsed.


No! Omaha was "bloody" by comparison, but it was never, ever in danger of collapsing! It just looked that way to observers who were still on the ships and thus did not see the full picture. Some sectors of Omaha were in fact as quiet as Utah and even on the heavily defended sectors groups of GIs quickly infiltrated the german positions.

A powerful counterattack at an early point in time could have pushed the attackers back, but the 352nd was understrength and and did not have any reserves. Neither had any other unit in the vicinity.

It is true that was the valor of the US gis that at the end get that the day of Omaha was a day of victory but it was not as quick as you seem suggest and in a lot of cases were the simple instinct and initiative of officcers and soldiers that organized in small groups made a clear prove of bravery and preparation even under a heavy enemy fire, so it was difficult and "quickly" would be better to being replaced of bravely because it could give the false sensation that Omaha was easier than in the reality it was.

Also instead of "some sectors of Omaha" it would be better to say "few sectors of Omaha".

You are right respect to the understrength of the german defenses not only in men also in reserves of ammunition, this clearly means that if the defenses had been better "Bloody Omaha" had could be "Slaughter Omaha"

References: http://www.6juin1944.com/assaut/omaha/en_index.php
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-A-Omaha/USA-A-Omaha-3.html
http://http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/dday/omaha.aspx
 

bard32

Banned
The reason for Utah being a cakewalk was because the defenders of Utah were
Eastern European "volunteers." The reason why Omaha ALMOST failed was because the bombs from the Allied bombers missed their targets. It took the
destroyers going in dangerously close to take on the German guns. There was
serious talk of pulling American troops from Omaha and transferring them to
either Juno, Gold, and Sword beaches. Why was it so bad on Bloody Omaha?
The swimming tanks, the Sherman Duplex Drive tanks, (or as we called them,
Donald Ducks,) sank. Read Death Traps: The Survival of An American Armored
Division by Belton Y. Cooper. It tells you a lot more about the Sherman tanks
than I can.
 

bard32

Banned
No! Omaha was "bloody" by comparison, but it was never, ever in danger of collapsing! It just looked that way to observers who were still on the ships and thus did not see the full picture. Some sectors of Omaha were in fact as quiet as Utah and even on the heavily defended sectors groups of GIs quickly infiltrated the german positions.

A powerful counterattack at an early point in time could have pushed the attackers back, but the 352nd was understrength and and did not have any reserves. Neither had any other unit in the vicinity.

Point taken. However, there was talk of pulling American troops off of Omaha
and redeploying them to the British and Canadian sectors. It took the destroyers moving into dangerously shallow waters to destroy the German
defenses.
 
To be fair to Mountbatten he was simply the man tapped by Winston Churchill to do something, Anything, to make it seem to the Russians that the Anglo-Americans were trying to help. Advocating him being blown up by the I.R.A is poor sport and not the kind of thing smiled upon the board, by the by, and at any rate while Dieppe was a spectacular failure it has been said that for each death and Dieppe thousands were saved at D-Day. Just FYI.


back to the OP at any rate D-Day by that stage was nearly failure-proof because of (a) Air Supremacy (b) Naval supremacy and (c) the Germans didn't even think the real D-Day landings were in Normandy, and thought they were coming up north for just a few examples
 

Markus

Banned
It is true that was the valor of the US gis that at the end get that the day of Omaha was a day of victory but it was not as quick as you seem suggest and in a lot of cases were the simple instinct and initiative of officcers and soldiers that organized in small groups made a clear prove of bravery and preparation even under a heavy enemy fire, so it was difficult and "quickly" would be better to being replaced of bravely because it could give the false sensation that Omaha was easier than in the reality it was.

In reality Omaha was easier than it has been portrayed afterwards and the GIs just did what they had trained to do for month prior to the invasion: Get off the beach and up the cliff.
 
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