Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
With this and Monty in the Far East, I think the Airborne troops are getting much better luck ITTL. I imagine they'll have an easier time secure their initial objectives for D Day.
Errolwi
Monthly Donor
It's really sad that D-Day memorials don't include people like the Typhoon pilots who took heavy casualties knocking out radar stations all along the French coast in the couple of weeks before June 6th.
One of the more interesting AH D-Day stories in OTL is the short story "Bloody Normandy" by Tim Kilvert Jones, where the Germans, thanks to Rommel's not going on leave, deploy their panzer divisions differently, and manage to repulse the Allies at Omaha Beach--but still lose the battle, thanks in part to the Allies moving the Omaha Beach follow-up forces to Utah Beach...
But the only Panzer division available for an immediate counter attack under his command on D-Day was 21st Panzer division (with a single Panzer regt - the 2nd one had been withdrawn for rebuilding) and that was based around Caen in 3 battlegroups and was quite rightly deployed to prevent the British from doing an end run on the place.
Caen was the most important location in Normandy - pretty much everything from Paris going to Normandy passes through it due to the road and rail network
Thus most German reinforcements ended up being thrown into the 'caldron battle' in an attempt to hold the place.
If they somehow sent their Panzer divisions to Omaha - then Caen falls and the Normandy campaign is lost earlier.
Garrison
Donor
And of course ITTL 21st Panzer has just been bad mauled in the fighting at Kursk and the reserves they do have are being pointed in the worng direction.
Better weather and the complete neutralization of German radar is a huge help, and certain events on the ground will be different.
If the Marquis attack them then an even like Oradour Sur Glane is likely too.
17th July 1943 - D-Day – Part II – The First Wave
Garrison
Donor
17th July 1943 - D-Day – Part II – The First Wave
Having been spared the attention of the Luftwaffe night fighters and anti-aircraft guns the British and American airborne forces were on course to become the first Allied troops to land in France. Even with German radar crippled and their high command focused on the Pas de Calais they were taking an enormous risk in doing so. Eisenhower and his staff at SHAEF knew that if anything went wrong on the beaches, or the invasion force had to be recalled for any reason the paratroopers and glider borne troops would be doomed to be killed or captured, trapped inland with no hope of escape or evacuation. There was only one hope for them survive and the fundamental order for all the airborne units was to take their objectives and hold until relieved, trusting that the armada heading for the beaches would succeed. To the great relief of Eisenhower, and the and the airborne troops, in almost every case that was exactly what they did, though sometimes at considerable cost [1].
The full moon and calm weather allowed most of the paratroopers to hit their landing zones, or at least near enough that they were able to swiftly organize and move onto their targets, though naturally there were exceptions. A small number of paratroopers belonging to the US 101st Airborne Division found themselves landing inside the town of Sainte-Mère-Église rather than near to it as their plan called for. While trying to exit the town two paratroopers were spotted by locals, who seeing a couple of shadowy figures acting furtively called for the police. Confronted by the local Gendarmerie one of the paratroopers chose to surrender rather than open fire on civilians, only to be sent on his way with directions out of town! [2]
Not every soldier who missed their target was so fortunate. A dozen men of the 82nd Airborne found themselves descending towards a barn where a small anti-aircraft post had been established. Owing to all the confusion the soldiers manning the position had been roused and ordered to man their guns, despite the fact that in the absence of searchlights or any other direction there was little they could do even if they heard aircraft passing overhead. They were shocked to see paratroopers descending on them, but they quickly took up their small arms and five of the paratroopers were killed or wounded before they hit the ground. The ensuing firefight was only ended when a grenade landed in the ready ammunition of one of the guns and the explosion created enough chaos for the three surviving paratroopers to make good their escape. They had destroyed one of the anti-aircraft guns and left nine German troops dead or wounded, largely because of the ammunition explosion. These small groups landing off course simply served to add to the chaos and confusion threatening to engulf von Manstein’s HQ, some of his staff concluded that these landings were proof that the Allied operations in Normandy were simply a diversion [3].
British troops landing by glider hit their target with great precision and taking the defenders by complete surprise seized the Orne River bridge. A top priority having driven off the remaining defenders was to remove the demolition charges believed to have been attached to the bridge. There was some confusion when these were found to be absent, until the charges were located in a shed near the bridge. The explosives had been delivered a few days earlier, but the engineers assigned to the task had never arrived to carry out the work. The charges were hastily thrown into the river to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences if they were hit by a stray round as the Germans attempted to mount a counterattack. This initial German attack was poorly organized and lacking in numbers as they had seriously underestimated the strength of the British troops and they were driven back in disarray. The Germans made repeated attempts to dislodge the British, but despite the increasing ferocity of the attacks the airborne troops held out and were relieved by troops advancing from the beachhead a little after 1000 hours [4].
The operation at the Orne River Bridge, later renamed Pegasus Bridge in honour of the British soldiers who liberated it, was typical of the Allied experience on the night of the 16th – 17th, hard fought battle that denied vital routes to the Germans and ensured they remained open to the Allies. The attack on the Orne River also made its way into popular culture, featuring in the film ‘The Longest Day’ where the British commanding officer was portrayed by Richard Todd, which must have been a surreal experience since as Lieutenant Richard Todd he had been one of the men who took part in the glider assault [5]. The soldiers of the 82 and 101st Airborne had to wait a little longer to be relieved than their comrades at the Orne River, but they too stubbornly held on to their objectives until they linked up with the spearheads moving out from the beaches, much to the relief of everyone at SHAEF [6].
British and American troops were not the only one parachuting into enemy held territory that night, a number of small detachments from the Free French forces were also parachuted in, intended to link up with Resistance groups and carry out acts of sabotage well behind the frontlines of the invasion. The rapid growth and development of the French Resistance could in no small part be credited to the Germans, whose heavy-handed actions in France had rapidly dispelled any idea that Vichy had somehow saved the country. Things had only gotten worse after the mutiny by the Marine Nationale in 1940 and the elimination of the so-called Free Zone after Case Anton. The growth of resistance had also been aided by the SOE and OSS agents who made the perilous journey to France to establish line of communications and supply. All of those involved in the resistance movement risked not only their own lives but those of the innocent civilians targeted in retaliation for acts of sabotage, or indeed simply, for accidents that the increasingly paranoid Germans ascribed to sabotage [7].
These brutal reprisals may have stayed the hand of some, for others it simply fuelled their anger at the Germans and drove them increase their efforts to hasten the day when the occupiers were driven out. By 1943 the Resistance reached even into the heart of those organizations forced to collaborate with the Germans. Officials who publicly were the very model of co-operation with the occupying authorities quietly passed information to comrades in the resistance, to be passed on to the Allies or used to plan their own acts of sabotage. These networks had been breached on more than one occasion, either by the efforts of the Abwehr and the Gestapo or betrayed by their own countrymen, but they had not been destroyed. On the evening of the 16th of July the BBC concluded its broadcast in French with a long list of personal messages, prearranged codes to different resistance groups carrying instructions or warnings and this night the codes told the Resistance forces that the liberation they had waited for three years was about to commence. This set off a series of long planned actions, which ranged from such relatively mundane acts as taking a pair of tin snips to a telephone wire or turning around a road sign to confuse German reinforcements, up to bombing railway lines and power substations. All of this action large and small contributed greatly to sowing yet more confusion and disorder for the Germans. A radar station or radio transmitter putout out of action because the Resistance destroyed an electricity substation was just as effectively out of action as one destroyed by Allied fighter bombers, and often with considerably less collateral damage in the process. These attacks also helped to create a sense of anxiety among the scattered outposts of the occupying forces, who now realized just how isolated they really were in the event of a major assault by the Allies.
Large parts of France were watched over by German troops who fell far short of the Nazis Aryan ideals. Second rate troops considered fit for nothing more than garrison duties and dispatched to what were quiet corners of the Nazi empire to keep an iron grip on what were supposed to be suitably cowed locals. Some of the units deployed in France were still equipped with vehicles and weapons that had been seized from the British and French in 1940. These German soldiers had settled into a dull routine, though one often more pleasant than that to be had back in Germany as the occupation forces reserved the best of everything France had to offer, and for many of them the war had seemed a world away. Now they faced the prospect that Allied paratroopers might suddenly descend on them, or that the docile locals they had lorded it over for so long might produce a hidden gun or knife when their back was turned. In some places these soldiers gave into fear and panic, creating yet more headaches for the superior officers who were supposed to be in overall command of the defence of France, some of whom were having to fight to contain their own anxieties [8].
Von Manstein and von Rundstedt had both been unceremoniously awakened and dragged into their headquarters as the scale and impact of the Allied jamming operations had become apparent. There were also warnings from the Abwehr that some of the BBC messages to the resistance indicated that an invasion was imminent. This provoked little alarm when the messages arrived in the early hours of the 17th as it was hardly the first time the Abwehr had issued such warnings and repetition had dulled their impact. Indeed, in the aftermath of Operation Jasper some staff officers had confidently predicted that an invasion of Greece was the next item on the Allied agenda and any action against France might not happen until much later in the Summer, or perhaps even be postponed until 1944 if they became bogged down in the Balkans. Von Manstein was every bit as sceptical about such arguments as he was about the reports from the Abwehr and on this if little else von Rundstedt agreed with him. Nonetheless several officers had taken advantage of these dubious conclusions to justify departing on leave during July and it took some considerable time to summon them back, a process made worse by the disruption to communications caused by the Allies and the Resistance.
Reports about the airborne landings began to arrive in the early hours of the morning of the 17th, however just as the Allies had hoped they were drowned in the noise generated by their diversionary efforts, amplified considerably by the general alarm and anxiety their operations had generated among all the German forces on the French coast. Reports poured in, with what had often started out as little more than rumour becoming definite sightings of Allied parachutists landing and engaging with local garrison forces. There were so many reports that when one intelligence officer was asked to pinpoint where the Allies were actually landing, he was allegedly so exasperated that he drew a circle around the whole of France and replied ‘everywhere’. Such feelings were shared by von Manstein and von Rundstedt, with the added issue that the longstanding disagreement over who was ultimately in command of the defences surfaced once more. When reports finally reached him of the radar contacts indicating a force of ships moving towards Le Havre von Manstein was all for having the Panzer reserves moved forward and positioned to counter a landing aimed at seizing the port. Von Rundstedt did not dismiss the radar reports, he simply believed that there might be more than one enemy force out in the Channel and that could be planning to strike in multiple locations at once, counting on drawing off the German reserves in one direction while they struck at some other point. This was uncomfortably close to the truth of what was happening; however von Rundstedt was thinking in terms of Calais or Dunkirk, not the coast of Normandy [9].
The one man who could have settled the matter was not consulted, because Hitler was focused on the false report that had arrived from Norway and was in earnest discussions with the garrison commanders there, micromanaging their preparations to counter a landing and growing increasingly angry as they insisted that there was no evidence of such an attack taking place. Given the equally confused reports of what was going on in France no one was willing to interrupt the Fuhrer, especially as some accounts suggest that he received a visit from Doctor Morell, his personal physician, who administered a cocktail of drugs that left the Fuhrer in no condition to make any decisions. Whatever the truth of the matter Hitler remained off limits during the hours before dawn, leaving the commanders in France to hash out an unhappy compromise. The Panzers were put on alert, their crews ordered to man their tanks and turn over their engines, but they were to remain resolutely in place pending further orders [10].
[1] Decent weather helps both navigation for the aircraft deploying them and of course the paratroopers are less likely to be blown off course, less likely.
[2] Completely made up of course, but if you imagine the lucky paratrooper was John Steele, well I certainly wouldn’t contradict you and I suspect Red Buttons would recreate the incident in film ‘The Longest Day’.
[3] Another event that might have happened but didn’t.
[4] The explosives in the shed are just another little invention…
[5] …but this is not. Richard Todd, well know British actor of the 1960s and 70s, did indeed play his own commanding officer in the film. Was not going to have that butterflied away!
[6] So a lot lower losses for the Airborne and a lot more disruption for the Germans.
[7] The French resistance hasn’t had as long to organize but has been galvanised by the events ITTL.
[8] These aren’t the best of the German army, most of the best units are currently fighting their way clear of the trap sprung by the Soviets at Orel.
[9] The two generals are working at cross purposes and still looking in the wrong direction.
[10] So was Hitler stoned or distracted? I shall leave it to the reader to make their own mind up.
Richard Todd was in 7th Battalion, Parachute Regiment not the 2nd battalion, Ox and Bucks
He was however one of the first Paratroopers who reinforced Major Howards troops in the early hours of D-day so likely fought under his command and did meet him
And was officially the first Irishman to land in Normandy on D-Day - he must have done a good job as he was promoted to Captain 5 days later.
He was however one of the first Paratroopers who reinforced Major Howards troops in the early hours of D-day so likely fought under his command and did meet him
And was officially the first Irishman to land in Normandy on D-Day - he must have done a good job as he was promoted to Captain 5 days later.
Indiana Beach Crow
Monthly Donor
Well the first usually leads to the second. It's just being distracted with extra steps.
Last edited:
Garrison
Donor
Clearly the source I read was also making choices for dramatic effect
Well its certainly possible, and it was still an upgrade over the early draft that featured Eva Braun
German radar has been blinded, and German nightfighters decoyed away to Pas de Calais.
But the Germans still have ears. And the thousands of planes of MILLENIUM would make a lot of noise.
Years ago, I saw a quote from someone who had known a man who had lived through the war in the Netherlands. The Dutchman had told him how on many occasions, sunset would be followed after a few hours by a roaring sound coming from the west. This sound got louder and louder until houses quivered and windows rattled in their frames. He had always been very gratified to hear it - the sound of hundreds of Lancasters, B-17s, Stirlings, B-24s, and Halifaxes heading to Germany.
The MILLENIUM air armada would be comparably noisy. Every German AA battery would be manned and shooting; guided by searchlights, if not radar.
Correction added per downthread response.
David Niven is reported to have shouted to his men at D-Day: "Come on lads! You only have to do this once, but I shall have to do it all over again - with Douglas Fairbanks!"
Last edited:
Garrison
Donor
They are a lot thinner than OTL and of course they don't know the direction or altitude of the aircraft and even with radar AA wasn't great at hitting targets.
I just wanted to comment to say how much I've been enjoying this timeline. When it first started I couldn't really see the POD or understand how the butterflies were stacking up, but now as we're halfway through 1943 its great fun reading about such a vastly different world. You write in a style which is very engaging, knowledgeable while remaining easy to read. I look forward to every update and this is currently one of my favourite timelines on the forum. The quantity of your output and reliability of your posting is also very impressive. Every time I log on to AH.com there always seems to be something new to read on here!
Thank you for all your work thus far! I've been greatly enjoying it.
Thank you for all your work thus far! I've been greatly enjoying it.
17th July 1943 - D-Day – Part III – The Beachhead
Garrison
Donor
17th July 1943 - D-Day – Part III – The Beachhead
For the German soldiers manning the defences along the Normandy coast the early hours of the 17th of July had been spent staring out into the blackness, while receiving demands for information from their HQs and warnings that the enemy might be planning diversionary actions along this stretch coast. These warning were reinforced by the occasional sound of aircraft flying overhead and distant sounds of combat, or what might just be decoys and distractions being dropped somewhere behind the coast. Any commando landings were expected to take advantage of the cover of darkness and as the dawn approached the surviving accounts from those soldiers speak of a sense of relief that the night had passed without incident. Many of them were thinking of food and a chance at a few hours of sleep when the dawn broke over Normandy, which was when the German soldiers discovered there would be no rest this day. Filling the horizon was an armada of ships, all headed directly for the beaches of Normandy. The Allies had transported one hundred thousand men across the Channel in a single night and had achieved complete strategic surprise in the process. The German troops had little time to make sense of what they saw before them as the dawn also illuminated the defensive position along the five beaches designated for the landings and the naval taskforce accompanying the amphibious assault opened fire, creating mayhem for the defenders [1].
From east to west the five beaches were Juno, assigned to the Canadians, Gold and Sword, assigned to the British, and Utah and Iowa [2], assigned to the American forces. Owing to the variance of time, tide and sunrise the attacks along the British and Canadian sectors would be launched first, with the Americans having to wait almost an hour to begin their attack. When the big guns of the warships went into action so did the numerous landing craft outfitted as rocket launching platforms. These carried the same 4.5in rockets as the calliope system and they rained down on the beaches. The rockets did significant damage to the defences but perhaps their greatest contribution was cratering the landing zones, creating foxholes the troops could use for cover as they fought their way forward. In the midst of the bombardment frantic calls went out from the defenders reporting that the invasion was happening right in front of them. Many of these never got through as phone lines were jammed with the volume of calls or the lines had been cut. Where the calls did get through, they were met with remarkable scepticism. After a night of false alarms and diversions there was a strong belief at both von Manstein’s and von Rundstedt’s headquarters that the Allies were trying to get the Wehrmacht to commit its reserves before they launched the real assault, and this was fully in accord with the view in Berlin. Such assurances were of little comfort to the troops in the beach defences, acutely aware that they represented a very thin line between the Allies and the Normandy countryside, and that many of the fortifications that the defenders were counting on were far from complete [3].
Calls were put out for the Luftwaffe to engage with whatever forces they had available to attack the invasion fleet approaching Normandy, the Luftwaffe however had their own problems. The day fighters might not require radar to home in on an enemy, they did however require it provide early warning of Allied air activity and combined with the disruption of so much of German communications in Normandy many were caught on the ground and took heavy losses in a series dawn fighter bomber sweeps by the Allied air forces, and this was a full concentration of every aircraft the USAAF and RAF could muster, there was no consideration of deception in this phase of the air operation. The problem was exacerbated by the decision taken in early June to disperse Luftwaffe fighters to smaller secondary airfields, intended to make them less vulnerable to Allied air attacks. In the end it had the opposite effect as Allied reconnaissance had pinpointed most of these dispersal fields and some Luftwaffe squadrons were still trying to reorganize after their moves, with ground crews and planes in different locations and arrangements for the delivery of fuel and supplies lagging badly behind the needs of the fighters. The Luftwaffe aircraft that made it to the beaches soon drew the same conclusion as the troops on the ground, this was a full-blown invasion, with the fighter cover to match. They came under heavy attack from prowling allied fighters, with the Ju 87 dive bombers trying to target the landing craft attracting special attention and suffering heavy losses. The Luftwaffe did inflict somewhere between one and two thousand casualties in the first two hours of the battle, but they were unable to make a decisive intervention and their sortie rate declined rapidly as the day went on. The air battle was important, the outcome of the landing would however be decided between the soldiers on the landing grounds, and things were not going well for the defenders in that regard [4].
An astonishing sight greeted some of the invading troops as they waded ashore, in the shape of what had been taken for concrete pillboxes blown to smithereens by shellfire. In amongst the real concrete structures a number of dummies had been erected, a temporary expedient to make the defences appear stronger than they were and deter any sort of raid on the Normandy coast while von Manstein worked to get the real fortifications completed, a process that had been repeatedly delayed while other sectors were given priority [5]. These weak points in the defensive line created openings for the invading troops to drive through and the Canadians and British were able to take full advantage on Juno and Sword. Unfortunately for the American troops the defences at Utah and Iowa were far more solid and they would need heavy supporting firepower to breakout, which was where the DD tanks came into their own. As if the defending Heer soldiers hadn’t endured enough shocks, they had to contend with the sight of tanks swimming out of the sea and trundling forward to provide cover and support for the troops on the beach. Under the driving influence of Patton those put ashore at Iowa were particularly aggressive, taking heavy casualties but with the survivors getting in amongst the bunkers and pill boxes in several spots. This allowed them to engage the much weaker rear of these positions and put them out of action. Further armour was put ashore from landing craft and as well as helping to clear mines and beach obstacles some also carried the Calliope rockets, which proved devastating when launched from what amounted to point blank range. This did not prevent the tank crews from ditching the racks as soon as possible, fuelled by tales of malfunctions that detonated the entire rack of missiles and destroyed the tank carrying them, though no such instances can be confirmed on D-Day [6].
By around 1130 hours despite stoic resistance from many of the Heer defenders the Allies were beginning to break out on all five beaches, and the question that many of the beleaguered Germans must have been asking themselves was, where were the reinforcements? The local reserves available had been ordered to the beaches at around 0800 hours, as the high command finally grasped this was something larger than a diversionary raid, however between the Allied airborne forces and the sabotage efforts of the Resistance many of these troops were still bogged down far from the battlefront, besides what was really needed was the intervention of the available armoured reserve, the 7th Panzer, also referred to as Panzer Division Rommel (to the annoyance of von Manstein) and the 22nd Panzer. The latter had been rebuilt from scratch after its destruction in North Africa, with a suitably heroic myth about how it met its end, and while its manpower was inexperienced it was at least better equipped than its previous incarnation as it no longer depended on French and Czech leftovers. It did have a higher proportion of assault guns to tanks than any of the other Panzer divisions at the time, with many StuH assigned to its companies, and its tank strength was heavily weighted towards the Panzer III. It had received a few of the Pz III Chimäre, as well as the Panzer III Ausf.N a model equipped with the short barrelled 75mm howitzer that had graced the early Panzer IV models. This version of the Panzer III was of little use in tank warfare but given that the first priority for the Wehrmacht was stopping the Allied infantry pouring ashore it would have proved highly useful, if the 7th and the 22nd had been anywhere near the Normandy beaches [7].
As stated by 0800 hours von Manstein and von Rundstedt were finally convinced that the attack in Normandy was a major Allied operation and had to be contained, regardless of other potential threats. Even as von Rundstedt was calling Berlin to ask permission to send in the Panzer reserve a report from the Abwehr was also being delivered, containing the details of an urgent message from the man who was regarded as their most valuable and dependable agent in Britain, Juan Pujol. The message stated in no uncertain terms that the main Allied invasion force had yet to depart and that its target was the Pas De Calais, it also warned that the Germans should expect large scale diversionary operations in the 48 hours before this force set sail. This was the ultimate test of the long patient months MI6 and Pujol had spent building Agent Garbo’s fictitious network of agents and making him into the indispensable man for the Abwehr, and it paid off handsomely [8].
When Hitler was finally informed of what was happening in Normandy, or at least the patchy accounts von Manstein and von Rundstedt were able to provide, he was also presented with Pujol’s warning. The message played on all the preconceived notions of Hitler and of the General Staff and even in the face of the hard reality of what was happening on the ground as the Allied forces overwhelmed the beach defences in Normandy, they chose to believe what they wanted to believe. Hitler did not merely refuse to release the Panzers to Manstein, he wanted to have them dispatched to the Pas de Calais immediately to meet whatever force the Allies sent there as they reached the shore. This was a step too far even for von Kleist, who was receiving more and more reports from the front in Normandy as the morning wore on that made the scale of the assault crystal clear. For once acting in unison von Manstein and von Rundstedt both pleaded for a reconsideration of this decision, even as the 7th and the 22nd were making preparations to depart. The order was finally rescinded around 1700 hours on the 17th and the Panzers would not be directed to intervene until 2100 hours. They did arrive in in time to block the British and Canadian drive towards Caen on the 18th, this however was the only success for the Germans. Attempts to push back the Allied perimeter around Normandy failed miserably, with Pz III Chimäre of the 22nd Panzer having the dubious honour of being the first to engage with the A24 Churchill in combat, which the Germans soon began to refer to as the ‘British Tiger’ [9].
Despite the setback at Caen the fact was that the landings had succeeded and with far lower casualties than the more pessimistic projections. The Allies had lost thirty-seven hundred men in the fighting to establish the beachhead, but the fact was that they had established it and were already working to expand and extend it. In the absence of Cherbourg or Le Havre, they would have to rely on the Mulberry harbour, a modular structure built in British shipyards and floated across the Channel to create a temporary mooring for ships to unload. Its capacity was limited, it was though a step up from trying to offload supplies and equipment off the beach and it played a crucial role in the Allied operations in Normandy. Failure would have meant heads had to roll, perhaps even reaching as far as 10 Downing Street. As it was a week after D-Day Eisenhower found the letter he had written taking full responsibility for a failed landing in the pocket of a uniform jacket, having forgotten all about it [10].
For the Germans D-Day was another defeat and coming on the heels of the failure of Operation Citadel it had serious impact on morale and drove more officers into the Valhalla cabal as they realized that survival for Germany, and themselves meant that Hitler had to go. Even those who remained loyal to Hitler, or were merely too afraid to risk plotting against him, now began to desperately seek some way to hold off the prospect of defeat, either by means of diplomacy, or embracing Hitler’s belief in the power of ‘wonder weapons’. The impact of D-Day would not only be felt in France and Germany, but the shockwaves also reached as far as Rome [11].
[1] It only goes downhill for the German defenders from this point onwards.
[2] A small butterfly in the naming.
[3] The Atlantic Wall has a lot of holes in it, and lot of them are in Normandy ITTL.
[4] The Luftwaffe is putting up more resistance than OTL of course, but its coming at steep price.
[5] It’s not just that Allies who can use dummy vehicles and buildings, its just that the German ones have backfired badly.
[6] Better weather and Patton in command see the US forces making much better use of the DD tanks, there will be no equivalent of ‘bloody Omaha’ ITTL.
[7] Nazi propaganda is still holding to the line that Rommel died in France, and no on was going to deny Hitler when he gave 7th Panzer its new name.
[8] So I may be indulging a little poetic license.
[9] Because of course they did. 😊
[10] Higher casualties than OTL and only one Mulberry owing to time constraints, but the beachhead is established.
[11] Valhalla and the wonder weapons to be discussed shortly, as will the events in Italy, where things can always get worse.
Last edited: