The biggest surprise was the German decision to make a stand of it in Normandy.
Some German generals did advocate a withdrawal to a defense line along the Orne in mid-June. Hitler, naturally, wouldn't hear any of it.
The biggest surprise was the German decision to make a stand of it in Normandy.
Some German generals did advocate a withdrawal to a defense line along the Orne in mid-June. Hitler, naturally, wouldn't hear any of it.
That looks like a problem unlikely to be ignored. TTL, tho (given no Italy), there might be enough lift to carry it off even with a southern op.Carl Schwamberger said:Monty wanted a "Colossal Crack" as some folks would put it. Since there were in the end enough boats for a five corps/beach assault that's what he & Ike went for. Trivia note: The original 'Monty plan unveiled in January was a four corps/beach assault. The Cotintien site or Utah beach as not in at that point. Monty had taken Morgans older three corps plan and squeezed in another Commonwealth landing site. That was also targeted for a early May landing, which fit the amount of amphib lift estimated to be ready at the end of April. The fifth beachhead was added after map exercises showed difficulties in the US first Army wheeling right and advancing to Chebourg. The terrain around Carentan & further inland enabled a infantry/artillery blocking force to stall a heavily mechanized attack for a week or more. The solution was to outflank Carentan with a fifth landing to the northwest, and to rearraign the airborne objectives. That required more amphib lift, which delayed the attack by a month.
IMO, it's a bit much to expect, when even after Anzio, they didn't expect an immediate "hold on the beach" response.Carl Schwamberger said:The biggest surprise was the German decision to make a stand of it in Normandy....It is a large streatch, but maybe if the problem of a German stonewall defense in Normandy was understood Ike may have gone with a smaller Op Neptune in order to draw part of the Germans reserves south. Maybe.
The main bottleneck for successfully pulling off both OVERLORD and DRAGOON at the same time is the numbers game; getting enough shipping together to transport enough troops to the beaches to overrun the defenses, plus enough warships to provide fire support, plus enough shipping to both supply the initial divisions and land additional divisions and supplies to expand the beachhead, ....
The easy answer to the problem is to not invade Italy,... So where else but Italy?