Well, just what I say in the title. What is the minimum of forces needed to defeat Operation Overlord? Thank you very much.
How many forces would the Germans have needed in France to defeat Overlord?
- Thread starter Juan de Mariana
- Start date
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
It depends where they are, how good they are (a lot of German forces by this point weren't exactly front-line material), and how keen they are to fight rather than just pack up and go home.
The Germans need to keep finding black dots.
Overlord wasn't going to be defeated.
It was either going to happen and succeed or it was going to fail. I really don't think it would have been tried if it was in the balance.
A better question may be what is the minimum forces required to force overlord to be deferred.
Not sure what the best answer is to that but at a guess I would say that the luftwaffe needs to be in position to reasonably contest (even if it can't win) the sky's above France in the run up to overlord.
If they know where the Allies would land, they would need they wont need extra troops, If they dont they need extra troops to defend the area
Do you mean that if the Germans have in France enough forces to defeat Operation Overlord, then the Western Allies would not launch it?
You would need air parity at the very least, without contesting and not allowing allied air to operate virtually unopposed it does not matter how many forces you try to move to the area as they will be chewed up before they get there and their supply situation will be interesting to put it mildly.
Off course not, why launch an operation you are not certain has a good chance of success? Stalin wanted this launched in 43 or even 42 but after their learning experience at Dieppe as well as the landings in Italy in 43 they waited, built, prepared and shaped the battlefield (not the least by the concentrated wrecking of transportation infrastructure leading into the area), waited for the germans to loose a few more formations in the east and get properly invested in Italy as well as the virtual removal of the Luftwaffe as a factor.
To defeat Overlord, I'd say they'd need airsuperiority at least. Not just over the beaches, but over the whole of France.
But on the other hand: if the allies are facing airsuperiority, they're not going to land, unless they are convinced that they will get airsuperiority during the battle.
More likely they are going to wait until they get airsuperiority, which eventually will happen.
One option in this equation I've seen explored - is what happens if D-day is deferred to July because of the bad weather. The Germans have more time, to strengthen and fortify the beaches. The July date comes - the Germans are ready - because of the fine weather - no Generals off at War Games. The Airborne assault has less darkness to disguise their intent. The
Germans have an opportunity if they can have two problem beaches rather than one - Omaha - as per OTL.
OTOH better weather, gives the Allies better Air Power!!
Germans have an opportunity if they can have two problem beaches rather than one - Omaha - as per OTL.
OTOH better weather, gives the Allies better Air Power!!
If operation Bagration kicks off as OTL (June 23) then I suspect that there would be even fewer reserves as Army Group Centre would be in the process of having its head kicked in (28 out of 34 of its assigned divisions being destroyed by Aug) and the eastern front commanders screaming for whatever reinforcements they could get.
The problem is as follows.
To defeat Overload you need to do it very early on. Think about it the Germans tossed everything they could at them for about 3 months and yet the Wallies continued to expand until the pulled the breakout.
You can only toss so many troops into a given area as more won’t fit or you can’t get them there or you can’t keep them supplied or you just plan don’t have them.. And for those first 90 days Germany was pretty close to this point.
So the only practical way of stopping Overload is on the beaches. And that sounds good. But France has about 4600km of coast all told. And D-Day used 80 km or so if it. So the reality is you are NOT protecting all of it. Even just the more usable locations are not going to be able to be protected this would make the Magenot Line and the Great Wall look easy, and you wouldn’t have the troops even if you did.
So the Wallies will find a place. This problem is again like the Germany wins arguments, that the Wallies just have to much going for them,
The manpower the manufacturing the technology and being able to choose where and when. A dd in air superiority and they are not getting stopped. Because if you put enough defenses and troops in location A they just go to B. And there are not enough people in the world to build an army big enough to stand along the whole coast of France in a force big enough to stop them at the beach.
The reality is Overload is a test of who gets there fastest with the mostest. And the Alies just had that way over Germany,
The only way Overload fails is if by some cosmic accident during the storm Germany moves every man t can right up to the beach and even then I am not sure they can put enough troops there under the cover of the storm. And not have the Wallies figure it out.
To defeat Overload you need to do it very early on. Think about it the Germans tossed everything they could at them for about 3 months and yet the Wallies continued to expand until the pulled the breakout.
You can only toss so many troops into a given area as more won’t fit or you can’t get them there or you can’t keep them supplied or you just plan don’t have them.. And for those first 90 days Germany was pretty close to this point.
So the only practical way of stopping Overload is on the beaches. And that sounds good. But France has about 4600km of coast all told. And D-Day used 80 km or so if it. So the reality is you are NOT protecting all of it. Even just the more usable locations are not going to be able to be protected this would make the Magenot Line and the Great Wall look easy, and you wouldn’t have the troops even if you did.
So the Wallies will find a place. This problem is again like the Germany wins arguments, that the Wallies just have to much going for them,
The manpower the manufacturing the technology and being able to choose where and when. A dd in air superiority and they are not getting stopped. Because if you put enough defenses and troops in location A they just go to B. And there are not enough people in the world to build an army big enough to stand along the whole coast of France in a force big enough to stop them at the beach.
The reality is Overload is a test of who gets there fastest with the mostest. And the Alies just had that way over Germany,
The only way Overload fails is if by some cosmic accident during the storm Germany moves every man t can right up to the beach and even then I am not sure they can put enough troops there under the cover of the storm. And not have the Wallies figure it out.
Then what is that minimum of forces necessary to force Overlord to be deferred?
Stopping Allied forces on June 7th (Overlord) is different then keeping them out of Europe in the long-term. The first is doable with some luck and weather. The latter isn't happening unless the entire context of the war is different.
Indeed. The issue is that the allies control the sea and the air, so they are going to get across somewhere, and will keep pouring resources into that somewhere.
Take out the control of the air, and the Germans may have a chance of stopping Overlord. But for that I refer to my previous post.
Take out control of the sea and Overlord is not going to happen. But the Germans gaining control of the sea is not going to happen either.
So the allies are going to get on land, except if the weather curbstomps then. But even then, they're just going to try again. Because they will always have control of the sea, and be able to control (or get control) of the air.
If the LW has anything close to air parity something has been going wrong for years.
To Quote Wiki
To have enough aircraft to match the Allies over France - and given the demands of the Eastern front they would needs 10,000's of extra Aircraft.
How are they going to find the fuel for all those?
If the Allies had not been winng the Airwar in late '43 early '44 they would have sought to ramp up aircraft production and crew training until they were. Germany can not hope to match Allied production capability.
To Quote Wiki
To have enough aircraft to match the Allies over France - and given the demands of the Eastern front they would needs 10,000's of extra Aircraft.
How are they going to find the fuel for all those?
If the Allies had not been winng the Airwar in late '43 early '44 they would have sought to ramp up aircraft production and crew training until they were. Germany can not hope to match Allied production capability.
Werent the allies running great intelligence on Germany to the point that they basically would not execute this unless it was a guaranteed success? They waited until they had 3:1 troop parity, 70:1 air superiority and essentially had obliterated the KM. I just don't see the allies attempting this unless they have 99.99 percent confidence of success. Even in the unlikely event Russia drops out of the war the allies would not attempt this without Russia tying down the bulk of the axis forces.
A). Yes if you have enough troops close enough to the D-Day landing locations you can toss them back into the sea.
B). Yes if you can bring enough troops to the beachhead you can toss them back
C). If in the long run up to the breakout you can bring in more then the Wallies you can contain them and maybe push them back.
But those are HUGE ifs.
The reality is ”A” is not happening. The allies would not land in a location were the Germans parked that big an army. And you can’t hide that many troops from the Air and the Wallies had control of the air so you can’t stop the recon flights. And if you could then as I said the Wallies go elsewhere.
And no you can’t fill France so full that the whole cost is covered with enough troops to repel the landings. You. Don’t have enough troops for that and you couldn’t supply them if you did.
As for “B”. You are limited by methods of transportation. And frankly the Wallies could land and support more troops via shipping for Tthe short term then Germany can rush to the line. This is made worse by the damage the Alies did to the transportation system in the lead up to D-Day. This is a result of the abilities of the Wallies as far as logistical. Support went. Germany was not even in the same league.
And as for pre-staging to counter this. You would have to pre-stage so much you are back to ”A”s problem in that you don’t have that many men that much equipment or that much support.
”C” is much more doable in theory. But in reality Germany didn’t have enough troops for this. So this is you best bet with this goal in mind. But if you have more troops at this point and can bring them in faster then the Wallies then yes you win. This also has the advantage that once the troops are on the ground for a while they can’t move 50miles up the coast so they are stuck in one place and you know the location and have time to move your troops there. Issue is how good is your transportation to. get these troops from a ways away to the battlefield and to keep them supplied.
So the problem is in the early stages of Overload when a reasonable number of troops could drive the Wallies back into the sea it is easy for the Wallies to just go elsewhere. And you can’t protect that many thousands of kilometers of shore to that high a level.
So in realty unless the Wallies get extremely unlucky you are not stopping Overloard. You may stop the Barack out but not the landings.
B). Yes if you can bring enough troops to the beachhead you can toss them back
C). If in the long run up to the breakout you can bring in more then the Wallies you can contain them and maybe push them back.
But those are HUGE ifs.
The reality is ”A” is not happening. The allies would not land in a location were the Germans parked that big an army. And you can’t hide that many troops from the Air and the Wallies had control of the air so you can’t stop the recon flights. And if you could then as I said the Wallies go elsewhere.
And no you can’t fill France so full that the whole cost is covered with enough troops to repel the landings. You. Don’t have enough troops for that and you couldn’t supply them if you did.
As for “B”. You are limited by methods of transportation. And frankly the Wallies could land and support more troops via shipping for Tthe short term then Germany can rush to the line. This is made worse by the damage the Alies did to the transportation system in the lead up to D-Day. This is a result of the abilities of the Wallies as far as logistical. Support went. Germany was not even in the same league.
And as for pre-staging to counter this. You would have to pre-stage so much you are back to ”A”s problem in that you don’t have that many men that much equipment or that much support.
”C” is much more doable in theory. But in reality Germany didn’t have enough troops for this. So this is you best bet with this goal in mind. But if you have more troops at this point and can bring them in faster then the Wallies then yes you win. This also has the advantage that once the troops are on the ground for a while they can’t move 50miles up the coast so they are stuck in one place and you know the location and have time to move your troops there. Issue is how good is your transportation to. get these troops from a ways away to the battlefield and to keep them supplied.
So the problem is in the early stages of Overload when a reasonable number of troops could drive the Wallies back into the sea it is easy for the Wallies to just go elsewhere. And you can’t protect that many thousands of kilometers of shore to that high a level.
So in realty unless the Wallies get extremely unlucky you are not stopping Overloard. You may stop the Barack out but not the landings.
Yeah, even if Overlord is somehow repulsed, Italy will still be increasingly in Allied hands and I expect Dragoon to go off as well.