Disaster at D-Day

Take my comment with fist-fulls of salt, because a victory will be at best a Pyrrhic Victory that'll do nothing but open them up for another invasion a few weeks down the line, and requires more competence on the German Front. As someone noted, the bombardment will pay a big role, even if you mobilize the Panzers, so the best possible chance for a victory at Normandy is for their to be more of a buildup in regards to personal and defense, and that will require a fuck up in Operation Bodyguard and more competence on the part of Hitler. And even then the WAllies would choose somewhere else to land.

Though I will defend my comment that a victory at Normandy will be nothing but a disaster for Germany.

And the specific scenario stated by the OP does reek of ASB.

And that doesn't even take into account Dragoon......
 
The Nazis don't mysteriously vanish into thin air. They tend to get blown up or put against the wall.

So magic. Because the only reason Valkyrie was even attempted IOTL is because Germany was so flagrantly losing. A more successful German defense reduces the likelihood of it succeeding (or even being attempted), it doesn't increase it.

Churchill doesn't get ousted for no particular reason his army just got mauled
Which amounts to nothing more then a minor setback given the overall strategic situation. So, again, no reason.

and the British public happen to be sick of the war and they were at that point much more then the US and the Soviets.
The British public are vastly more sick of the Germans. Their perspective is if they let any German government off the hook with a negotiated peace then a new stab in the back myth is created and the Germans start another war 20 years down the road. Hence, they were solidly behind the policy of unconditional surrender.

If he's reassigned East if he wins, instead of being told to stay put in France in case the WAllies try this again (which they would), Rommel at Kursk isn't going to stop the single largest offensive in human history. And it's even more unlikely he'll be sent to Kursk if he's demoted to the East, he's likely to up somewhere in Estonia.

Uh... the Battle of Kursk was in 1943. By June 1944 the Eastern Front had moved something like 600 miles to the west of it.

Hitler is assassinated prior to Kursk and instead of attacking the Germans lay a trap, and the Soviets are the ones gutted at Kursk.
I know of that one and I will say while it's fun and all, the background isn't at all realistic. German strategic intelligence on the Soviets was complete shit and you can't manage any kind of successful defense without that. That's okay in the specific case of "NATO, Nukes, and Nazis" since the game is just trying to justify it's setting but it should not be taken as a realistic development.
 
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So magic. Because the only reason Valkyrie was even attempted IOTL is because Germany was so flagrantly losing. A more successful German defense reduces the likelihood of it succeeding (or even being attempted), it doesn't increase it.

No it really doesn't when Hitler decides in the story not to offer terms to the British and fight on and the army wants to be able to throw its forces East for one desperate move to grind the Red Army's march to a halt.

Its easier discussing the matter if one reads the book.

Bah, I am done discussing the matter. For those who want to believe its ASB without reading the book that is fine with me. But, the events in this book while basically being a German wank were also laid out very very well down to the order of battle for each division for all sides far better then any poster here has done a Normandy timeline.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Uh... the Battle of Kursk was in 1943. By June 1944 the Eastern Front had moved something like 600 miles to the west of it.

I got the dates confused and I've edited it because of that confusion, but my point stands, Rommel on the Eastern Front will do jack all to the overall outcome. He might be able to hold a pocket, but that's about it. Rommel ends up another General in a Gulag.
 
I got the dates confused and I've edited it because of that confusion, but my point stands, Rommel on the Eastern Front will do jack all to the overall outcome.

No, but all the German forces in France and the Low countries, Italy, the Baltic's, Norway and all the weapons going to the Eastern front including the considerable number of 88s to stop American and British bombers and the Americans killing Lend Lease to Stalin could make quite the difference and that is what we are talking about with the WAllies out of the war at that point in time.
 
No it really doesn't when Hitler decides in the story not to offer terms to the British and fight on and the army wants to be able to throw its forces East for one desperate move to grind the Red Army's march to a halt.

And given the historical precedent, the German army would go along with that. The British would not offer any terms for what is basically a setback. And the war would go on.

But, the events in this book while basically being a German wank were also laid out very very well down to the order of battle for each division for all sides far better then any poster here has done a Normandy timeline.
I suppose an overcomplicated obsession with technical details would impress most amateur armchair generals as they handily obscure the more important systemic issues that dictate the bigger picture, but actual realistic military professionals are not that easily distracted.

No, but all the German forces in France and the Low countries, Italy, the Baltic's, Norway and all the weapons going to the Eastern front including the considerable number of 88s to stop American and British bombers and the Americans killing Lend Lease to Stalin could make quite the difference and that is what we are talking about with the WAllies out of the war at that point in time.

A difference of a few months before the red flag flies over the Reichstag. The Red Army by 1944 was the most powerful ground force on the planet, not the bludgeoning simplistics that Tsouras made them out to be. The American's and British getting brainwashed by the ASBs to forgive the Germans about everything that had happened in the previous 5-years, ignore the fact that they have the upper-hand, and decide to abandon both their casus belli and basic war aims ends with the iron curtain on the Rhine... not a surviving Germany.
 
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jmc247 said:
I don't recall them discovering Enigma was broken in the book Disaster at D-Day. I do recall that basically the British get really overconfident with greater then OTL success on the first day or two on their beaches and the Americans have worse luck and get sort of bogged down on their beaches and then the British Army gets mauled during the big storm since Von Rundstedt on the first day convinced Hitler because the WAllies were doing so well in Normandy that is where they are landing and to send all the divisions in the West there.

There isn't much of a schism between the U.S. and Britain as I recall either given Churchill gets ousted in a no confidence vote with Lord Halifax fine with the outcome because it returns the balance of power to Europe and the Nazis are gone and FDR has a massive stroke several months early because of the stress of the battle not going well and his VP taking over for a few months and pushes his domestic agenda in the campaign and then quickly getting dumped by the public in the general for Dewey on a platform of focusing on beating the enemy who attacked us.

Its called the only way Germany can win at Normandy a combination of overconfidence on someone like Monty's part, the Germans doing things smarter as in getting the divisions chugging there from the start and Hitler releasing divisional control which he kept for himself, the weather complying, basically the dice of lady luck hitting at all the right spots.

OTL, Lady Luck broke in nearly every way toward the WAllies favor in June of 1944. Here Lady Luck breaks in nearly every way towards Germany's favor.
We are apparently talking past each other... I took "the book" to be a ref to Fatherland.
aktarian said:
Point is POD and althist serve as background for crime story. And as such I'm willing to tolerate less developed and explained POD that are still within real of possible, even if on the edge of it.
Yeah, if you overlook the flaws in the setup, it's not a bad book. The trouble was the "smack" it gave me.:eek: It breaks the "fictive dream" (if I can get fancy;)). It also makes me wonder what else he handwaved...
 
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A difference of a few months before the red flag flies over the Reichstag. The Red Army by 1944 was the most powerful ground force on the planet, not the bludgeoning simplistics that Tsouras made them out to be. The American's and British getting brainwashed by the ASBs to forgive the Germans about everything that had happened in the previous 5-years, ignore the fact that they have the upper-hand, and decide to abandon both their casus belli and basic war aims ends with the iron curtain on the Rhine... not a surviving Germany.

I actually disagree with Tsouras that with the WAllies out of the war Stalin would go all out. When Stalin went all out OTL it was when he had German forces divided onto two fronts. He would be cautious at first for awhile worrying that perhaps the British and Germans are allying against him and wondering what the new government has up its sleeve and then grow bolder with time.

I honestly see given the Soviets OTL were running really low on manpower with LL cut off and if they haven't decisively broken the German lines by the time Trinity occurs that Stalin may very well calculate that he can have nukes in 2-3 years and rebuild and plan for a second round in a couple years that starts off with nukes falling on the Germans.

Stalin very well might agree in such a situation to an armistice that gives him most of Poland and puts him in a position in his mind to knock the Germans out of the war within months of the next round and be on to Paris and Rome if he so decides shortly thereafter. The situation in Europe from mid 1945 assuming like in the book when the armistice gets signed and the next five years with Germany and the USSR staying mobilized as all get out.

Here is a question for people (and hopefully it doesn't get into the argument of if a Reich/Soviet Cold War was possible) what weapons conventional and unconventional would a German military government focus on developing in the interwar years as I think such a peace would be lucky to last to 1953?
 
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I actually disagree with Tsouras that with the WAllies out of the war Stalin would go all out. When Stalin went all out OTL it was when he had German forces divided onto two fronts.

"Roosevelt has given his word that extensive action will be mounted in France in 1944. I believe that he will keep his word. But even if he does not, our own forces are sufficient to complete the rout of Nazi Germany."
Stalin said that to Zhukov in December 1943, right after returning from the Teheran Conference. Given how far the Red Army had come and how far the Wehrmacht had fallen by then, he was probably right.

I honestly see given the Soviets OTL were running really low on manpower
Not quite. Soviet losses in 1944 were quite comfortably below their replacement capacity. When Operation Bagration began, for example, the Soviets had a half-million replacements who had finished training and were waiting assignment to formations. And they ultimately suffered only 2/3rds that in irrecoverable losses.

Compare this to the Germans, who had dropped the age of conscription to 16, were now contemplating forming militia units with children as young as 12, and were still finding themselves constantly lacking any pool of men to draw upon, and it is exceedingly clear that the Red Army isn't really facing that much of a manpower crisis. Their not in the position of 1941-1942 where they could lose several million men in a month and increase the size of their army, but they are perfectly capable of replacing the vastly lower loss rates of 1943-1945.

with LL cut off
Given the timing, this amounts to an annoyance for the Soviets at most. Their domestic industry and agriculture have been recovering since the start of '43. By mid-1944, they are well beyond the point where lend-lease is necessary for their victory.

and if they haven't decisively broken the German lines by the time Trinity
They definitely will have. By 1944-45, the Red Army as a military force was not just superior to the Wehrmacht quantitatively but qualitatively as well.
 
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The Op has offered no POD or scenario for how this is supposed to happen, if they want to skip that part then they should just say 'ASBs cause the Aliies to fail on D-Day' and be done with.

If I recall the book mentioned by the OP correctly (and I slammed it back onto the shelf of the bookshop with a snort of disgust) the scenario turns on a total mindmelt on the part of Monty who, after a successful capture of Caen on D-Day, decides to sent British armoured divisions out in a series of attacks that Rommel gleefully responds to. Despite the fact that this means that Monty would have had to throw away the strategy that he had always planned to carry out, namely the strong shield at Caen and the American right wheel. Total rubbish. :mad:
 
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