The Anglo/American - Nazi War
- Thread starter CalBear
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The Sandman
Banned
After the sort of things Germany will have done to Europe during the decade of hell, who's going to care?
So I was thinking about this thread, and I recognized that in a longer world war, the United States would have a few options for dealing with an extended war:
- The United States could start fielding forces from East Asia, namely Korean, Chinese, and depending on the border, "Free Russian" Forces. Given Molotov's complete surrender of the Soviet State, I could easily see the US marching to Irkutsk and building a "Russian State", even putting Alexandr Kerensky in charge of it.
- The United States could begin heavy investment in Latin America--Brazil, Mexico, Venezula could all greatly benefit from improved infrastructure, greater trade ties and superior know-how. This would have interesting impacts on future relationships as well.
- The USA may opt to make new allies with independence movements in Vietnam, Indonesia, and elsewhere. If Europe looks too hard to crack without them, this would also strengthen the hand of the United States.
- Given the low quality of Germany's intelligence services, screwing with Nazi Germany by means of covert action could work. While Hitler is too popular to face a coup, his death is probably imminent (by 1945 he was a wreck), and a strong move might throw Germany into serious internal turmoil. In addition, killing off the most sane members of Germany's government (Speer, Donitz) would lead to even worse economic mismanagement.
Here is the latest update.
Comments very welcome.
“Warm” war and the decision to invade
The Period between the defeat of Japan and its subsequent occupation by the Allies (including the remarkable reclamation of the remnants of the Japanese culture during the period of General MacAthur’s governance) and the final engagement between the Western Allies and Nazi Germany is best described as a quasi-war punctuated by occasional sharp but brief outbreaks of violence between forward deployed forces.
After the wholesale destruction of the A-4 missile launch sites by American fighter bombers and the hellishly costly but markedly successful strike by Bomber Command against the German missile facilities, Berlin made a surprising offer to suspend air attacks against Britain and to exchange prisoners to the Anglo-Americans. There was no formal cease fire offered, the Allied “Unconditional Surrender” mantra, so recently and brutally demonstrated against Japan, was still in place and there was absolutely no sentiment in Allied capitals or in the Allied electorates for making peace with the Reich, but the end of air attacks was very attractive to the British, and the return of tens of thousands of Allied airmen (and British ground troops, many of whom had been in captivity since the spring of 1940) from German custody was very attractive. After extended negotiations brokered by Swedish and Spanish diplomats an agreement was reached that allowed any PoW who wished to remain in the country where they were being held to do so, and also provided for the release of any PoW still held in German custody from its six year old conquests who wished to come to the West to do so (with the offer to be made by Swedish authorities). Coupled with the release of PoWs was a one time deal that effectively purchased the freedom of surviving Jews (virtually all of whom were highly decorated German veterans of WW I) for two freighters of raw rubber, and an agreement to cease air attacks against population centers by both sides.
On February 12, 1947, the initial exchange of prisoners began; by the middle of March nearly 275,000 Allied prisoners and 194,000 German, Italian, and other Axis prisoners (virtually all of them airmen) had made the trip from Calais to England or back. Nearly 2,500 Allied prisoners, and close to 13,000 Axis prisoners (11,000+ of them from “National” militaries) chose to remain in the land of there former enemies. A total of 2,578 Jews were also released, these being virtually all remaining Jews in Conquered Europe that were know to the Nazis (there were still small Jewish populations in Italy and parts of Hungary that the National governments refused to turn over to their Nazi partners but these populations were not included in the exchange agreement). The results of the Reich’s agreement to trade WW I war heroes for raw materials was to, of course, have profound consequences, far greater than anyone involved at the time believed was possible.
This remarkable transfer of personnel was only possible due to the use of Allied, primarily USN amphibious landing vessels that had been transferred from the Pacific Theater for the express purpose of making the exchange both possible and rapid. No one in the west truly expected the Reich to completely fulfill the agreement so speed was considered to be of the essence.
Surprisingly, the de facto cease fire held, at least in the case of air operations, for several years. Combat was generally limited to the North Atlantic and Mediterranean where Allied ant-submarine force still waged a war with the Kreigsmarine U-boats. The courage of the German submarine crews remains a remarkable story, even today. On the wrong side of a technological and cryptographic war (the German penetration of British Merchant Marine codes was revealed via Dutch collaborators to the Allies in late 1944, with a resulting change to full military quality codes for the merchant fleet that blinded the U-Boat force), U-boat crews suffered appalling losses with increasingly little return. Even the introduction of advanced designs like the Type XXI was insufficient to reverse the fortunes of the Kreigsmarine, especially once the Allies began to destroy the supposedly indestructible submarine bases with the specially designed Grand Slam bomb in late 1944 and th elarge scale introduction of the American Type 34 torpedo. Since these “sub pens” were clearly military targets and not located in population centers, even the bomber holiday did not provide them complete safety from air attack (although each Allied strike was very costly and generally responded to by German attacks against British naval and air bases, usually with massive Luftwaffe losses). For over four years, the Sub War was the only ongoing open conflict between the Allies and Axis.
It is unclear how long the limited war would have continued without the intervention of science and what is now generally accepted as a sudden change in Hitler’s metal state (although there remains a vocal minority who believe that the change in German policy was not Hitler’s idea at all, but that of one or more of his inner circle) that moved the situation from one that was mostly stable, if exceptionally hostile, to the Crusade in Europe.
Comments very welcome.
“Warm” war and the decision to invade
The Period between the defeat of Japan and its subsequent occupation by the Allies (including the remarkable reclamation of the remnants of the Japanese culture during the period of General MacAthur’s governance) and the final engagement between the Western Allies and Nazi Germany is best described as a quasi-war punctuated by occasional sharp but brief outbreaks of violence between forward deployed forces.
After the wholesale destruction of the A-4 missile launch sites by American fighter bombers and the hellishly costly but markedly successful strike by Bomber Command against the German missile facilities, Berlin made a surprising offer to suspend air attacks against Britain and to exchange prisoners to the Anglo-Americans. There was no formal cease fire offered, the Allied “Unconditional Surrender” mantra, so recently and brutally demonstrated against Japan, was still in place and there was absolutely no sentiment in Allied capitals or in the Allied electorates for making peace with the Reich, but the end of air attacks was very attractive to the British, and the return of tens of thousands of Allied airmen (and British ground troops, many of whom had been in captivity since the spring of 1940) from German custody was very attractive. After extended negotiations brokered by Swedish and Spanish diplomats an agreement was reached that allowed any PoW who wished to remain in the country where they were being held to do so, and also provided for the release of any PoW still held in German custody from its six year old conquests who wished to come to the West to do so (with the offer to be made by Swedish authorities). Coupled with the release of PoWs was a one time deal that effectively purchased the freedom of surviving Jews (virtually all of whom were highly decorated German veterans of WW I) for two freighters of raw rubber, and an agreement to cease air attacks against population centers by both sides.
On February 12, 1947, the initial exchange of prisoners began; by the middle of March nearly 275,000 Allied prisoners and 194,000 German, Italian, and other Axis prisoners (virtually all of them airmen) had made the trip from Calais to England or back. Nearly 2,500 Allied prisoners, and close to 13,000 Axis prisoners (11,000+ of them from “National” militaries) chose to remain in the land of there former enemies. A total of 2,578 Jews were also released, these being virtually all remaining Jews in Conquered Europe that were know to the Nazis (there were still small Jewish populations in Italy and parts of Hungary that the National governments refused to turn over to their Nazi partners but these populations were not included in the exchange agreement). The results of the Reich’s agreement to trade WW I war heroes for raw materials was to, of course, have profound consequences, far greater than anyone involved at the time believed was possible.
This remarkable transfer of personnel was only possible due to the use of Allied, primarily USN amphibious landing vessels that had been transferred from the Pacific Theater for the express purpose of making the exchange both possible and rapid. No one in the west truly expected the Reich to completely fulfill the agreement so speed was considered to be of the essence.
Surprisingly, the de facto cease fire held, at least in the case of air operations, for several years. Combat was generally limited to the North Atlantic and Mediterranean where Allied ant-submarine force still waged a war with the Kreigsmarine U-boats. The courage of the German submarine crews remains a remarkable story, even today. On the wrong side of a technological and cryptographic war (the German penetration of British Merchant Marine codes was revealed via Dutch collaborators to the Allies in late 1944, with a resulting change to full military quality codes for the merchant fleet that blinded the U-Boat force), U-boat crews suffered appalling losses with increasingly little return. Even the introduction of advanced designs like the Type XXI was insufficient to reverse the fortunes of the Kreigsmarine, especially once the Allies began to destroy the supposedly indestructible submarine bases with the specially designed Grand Slam bomb in late 1944 and th elarge scale introduction of the American Type 34 torpedo. Since these “sub pens” were clearly military targets and not located in population centers, even the bomber holiday did not provide them complete safety from air attack (although each Allied strike was very costly and generally responded to by German attacks against British naval and air bases, usually with massive Luftwaffe losses). For over four years, the Sub War was the only ongoing open conflict between the Allies and Axis.
It is unclear how long the limited war would have continued without the intervention of science and what is now generally accepted as a sudden change in Hitler’s metal state (although there remains a vocal minority who believe that the change in German policy was not Hitler’s idea at all, but that of one or more of his inner circle) that moved the situation from one that was mostly stable, if exceptionally hostile, to the Crusade in Europe.
Last edited:
wormyguy
Banned
One nitpick: "Waffen-SS" refers to the foreign SS units, not the domestic ones (the "national" units in this TL).
Some comments:
200,000 of the best Italian troops fought in Army Group South during the Battle of Stalingrad. A German victory there is going to be significantly harder without them.
If the Allies had atom bombs, there is no possible way they are not going to be used against Germany. No way. The original purpose of the Manhattan Project was to create atom bombs for immediate use against Germany. Scientists in the Manhattan Project prayed OTL that the bomb would be ready in time to use against Germany. Germany is getting no more mercy ATL than Japan did OTL in terms of whether the atom bombs will be used (most likely against Berlin). If the allies are worried that the bomb will be shot down, then two bombers will carry Little Boy and Fat Man on the same air raid, which was the OTL plan for that scenario.
Similarly, the Allies are going to be using poison gas on German cities. OTL Churchill lobbied hard for this, but was overruled by the Americans on ethical grounds. With the Soviet surrender and the horrific crimes the Germans are obviously perpetrating on the peoples of Eastern Europe, I doubt any such qualms will exist ATL.
Some comments:
200,000 of the best Italian troops fought in Army Group South during the Battle of Stalingrad. A German victory there is going to be significantly harder without them.
If the Allies had atom bombs, there is no possible way they are not going to be used against Germany. No way. The original purpose of the Manhattan Project was to create atom bombs for immediate use against Germany. Scientists in the Manhattan Project prayed OTL that the bomb would be ready in time to use against Germany. Germany is getting no more mercy ATL than Japan did OTL in terms of whether the atom bombs will be used (most likely against Berlin). If the allies are worried that the bomb will be shot down, then two bombers will carry Little Boy and Fat Man on the same air raid, which was the OTL plan for that scenario.
Similarly, the Allies are going to be using poison gas on German cities. OTL Churchill lobbied hard for this, but was overruled by the Americans on ethical grounds. With the Soviet surrender and the horrific crimes the Germans are obviously perpetrating on the peoples of Eastern Europe, I doubt any such qualms will exist ATL.
There were Italain troops on the Eastern Front, same as IOTL.
Once concern the Allies have is losing a nuclear equipped bomber and having the weapon fall into German hands. One of the realities of TTL is that the Reich still can strongly defend its airspace, at least in late 1945. Only thing worse than not using the Bomb is giving it to the Nazis as wreckage.
Thanks for the comments.
Once concern the Allies have is losing a nuclear equipped bomber and having the weapon fall into German hands. One of the realities of TTL is that the Reich still can strongly defend its airspace, at least in late 1945. Only thing worse than not using the Bomb is giving it to the Nazis as wreckage.
Thanks for the comments.
And all this time the allies are building up BIG stocks of a-bombs....
Grabted, even with carefully designed boobytrapped bombs with multiple fuzes, there is a chance of the Germans getting hold of an unexploded one. Also that some bombers will be shot down.
So get the latest high-altitude bombers in service (less chance of losses, poor accuracy, though that wouldt be important), and drop a 100 or so in a set of raids. Not enough left of Germany to worry about....
The British arent going to allow gas on germany so long as there is any chance the Luftwaffe can retaliate...
Grabted, even with carefully designed boobytrapped bombs with multiple fuzes, there is a chance of the Germans getting hold of an unexploded one. Also that some bombers will be shot down.
So get the latest high-altitude bombers in service (less chance of losses, poor accuracy, though that wouldt be important), and drop a 100 or so in a set of raids. Not enough left of Germany to worry about....
The British arent going to allow gas on germany so long as there is any chance the Luftwaffe can retaliate...
CalBear, MacArthur can yet be a hero!
A brilliant team of chemists manage to isolate, contain(barely) and reproduce his ego. The resulting weapon absolutely shatters the moral of the enemy once it is deployed, not to mention mass episodic retching even decades after the war. Admittedly the side effects were more severe than expected in the European Hell Zone(Europe) but...
truth is life, it's sad but true.
Not a doubt in my mind that if Truman had not used the bomb, the subsequent huge number of Japanese deaths from additional conventional bombing and the probable delay in aid being sent would be held against him because "he didn't care how many died as long as he could keep his superweapon out of Stalin's eye".
A brilliant team of chemists manage to isolate, contain(barely) and reproduce his ego. The resulting weapon absolutely shatters the moral of the enemy once it is deployed, not to mention mass episodic retching even decades after the war. Admittedly the side effects were more severe than expected in the European Hell Zone(Europe) but...
truth is life, it's sad but true.
Not a doubt in my mind that if Truman had not used the bomb, the subsequent huge number of Japanese deaths from additional conventional bombing and the probable delay in aid being sent would be held against him because "he didn't care how many died as long as he could keep his superweapon out of Stalin's eye".
And the Little Boy is so unstable special anti-tamper fuzing might not be necessary either...one thing's for sure, Germany is screwed six ways from Sunday in this scenario. ALL the stops are coming out.
CalBear, MacArthur can yet be a hero!
A brilliant team of chemists manage to isolate, contain(barely) and reproduce his ego. The resulting weapon absolutely shatters the moral of the enemy once it is deployed, not to mention mass episodic retching even decades after the war. Admittedly the side effects were more severe than expected in the European Hell Zone(Europe) but...
truth is life, it's sad but true.
Not a doubt in my mind that if Truman had not used the bomb, the subsequent huge number of Japanese deaths from additional conventional bombing and the probable delay in aid being sent would be held against him because "he didn't care how many died as long as he could keep his superweapon out of Stalin's eye".
Ah, McArthurs ego...truly a weapon of mass destruction...
altamiro
Banned
Churchill wasn't "overruled on ethical grounds". Churchill just knew very well that the German C-weapons development was well ahead of the British one, and that he would not be able to protect British civilians if he opened this particular Pandora's box. Chemical weapons, even nerve gas (and Nazi Germany had quite large stocks of Tabun and Sarin in 1945) were not of much military use in the WW2 any more, but used against "soft" targets they would generate enormous civilian casualties on both sides. And willingly sacrificing a couple of tens of thousands of British civilians to kill a couple of tens of thousands of German ones will NOT sit well with the constituency.
But once you have more than a handful of bombs, you don't care if you lose one, because the glow-that-was-Germany isn't going to be in a position to do anything with it. Besides, I believe there are technical solutions that make the bomb not immediately reusable in case of an abort, even though it might give Germany material, and pointers on how to construct their own bomb.
Also, I know you've posited that the KGB has fed the Narsties with false info, but the longer you push things beyond 1945, the more likely it is that rumors that the Allies are building a stockpile of city-killers is going to get out, which should have at least some effect on the Nazi leadership, not to mention their puppet allies.
terence
Banned
One has to agree. Additionally, without a major troop presence in Europe or N Africa, Britain would not be so much a junior partner as they had become in OTL. The Manhatten project up to late 1944 was considered a joint American-British-Canadian enterprise. Churchill would have gone BATS if there was any hesitation to use the weapon. 67,000 British civilians had died in the bombing and half the capital wrecked. (Churchill helped Truman write the 'prompt destruction' speech and in his first few months of office Truman was in thrall of Churchill.
But please continue-this really puts some flesh on the bones. BTW, I remember hearing of an MI6 wartime study on the atomic bombing of Germany. They were recommending Dussedorf as the first target. If you hit the capital first, there's no one to call up and say "I give in."
On the subject of MI6. When they received intelligence of the imminent attack by A4 rocket, they threatened retaliation with 'uranium bombs'-- a full year before such a thing was available.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/dec/02/germany.artsandhumanities
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Hendryk
Banned
So, Japan is brought to surrender sometime in 1946. With the USSR defeated by Germany, we don't see any analog to Operation August Storm and the Chinese Communists don't get the opportunity to turn Manchuria into a stronghold. That means they remain holed up in Yan'an, where presumably the Nationalists will be able to finish them off. Whatever happens in Europe, at least China will be spared the totalitarian madness of Mao, even if with Jiang in charge it will remain a corrupt dictatorship for some time. But at least it will be a corrupt dictatorship with potential, and one that the Americans will be able to do business with, in both senses of the word.
Now, if you want to give China a brighter situation to balance out the complete dystopia of a Reich-dominated Europe, maybe you could find a way to put a more honest and competent GMD officer in charge rather than Jiang. Accidents happen, after all, especially in despotic regimes.
Is there any proxy wars that Germany could use to keep his Armed Forces fine tuned? I know of the ongoing passive defence of Russian partians, but are there any other places where conflict is to be had?
Another point, what of the colonies such as India which would have gained indepence after "WW2"? Is independence slowed or rushed as a effect on the ongoing and earlier war with Germany and Japan, respectively.
and maps never hurt
Another point, what of the colonies such as India which would have gained indepence after "WW2"? Is independence slowed or rushed as a effect on the ongoing and earlier war with Germany and Japan, respectively.
and maps never hurt
Here is the latest update.
Comments very welcome
Forces and equipment
Finally, it is worthwhile to review the two sides, both in equipment and in military philosophy at the time of the final conflict of the Second World War. It is here, in the weapons and methods utilized that the greatly divergent lessons learned by the two opponents is most clearly seen.
The Reich had been almost unimaginably lucky in the first year of the European Phase, with every action seeming to work perfectly, while every action of the British & French failing against all common sense in Norway and during the Blitzkrieg against France and the Low Countries. This remarkable string of luck continued into the initial drive against the USSR, with the first setback to the Nazi wave of success being caused by an early snow. The remarkably destructive and vicious fighting that followed the Spring ’42 and resulted in the final destruction of the USSR as a European power was also marked by several instances of good fortune, including the success in taking the Crossing at Stalingrad in an engagement that could so easily have gone the other way. The Leadership in Berlin never recognized the hand of Chance in any of the successes it had achieved, believing everything to be proof of the superiority of the German Volk and of the National Socialist system. Both of these beliefs were reflected in the design of the Greater German military structure at the time of the Invasion.
German troops were, by far, the best equipped of all the nominally independent “National Forces” in post conquest Europe. There is still a degree of argument in military circles regarding the reasoning behind the disparity of equipment, specifically around how much was a conscious decision to hold down the military quality of the other Axis members, including Italy, and how much was simply arrogance on the part of the SS military decision makers. The differences, in any case, were dramatic.
While the Waffen SS, which had fully replaced the Heer as the Reich’s Wehrmacht ground component by 1948, comprised only 56 of the 235 divisions that defended “Fortress Europe” it operated 47 of the 78 armored divisions on the continent (with an additional 9 of these divisions being under the control of the Luftwaffe) and the various German infantry units were the only fully motorized divisions in Europe (Italy did operate 22 so called “mobile” infantry formations, as well as 9 armored divisions, but each unit only had sufficient transport to move 75% of the total troops in the TOE by truck or tracked vehicle). The remaining ground forces inside the German command structure were mainly basic infantry or fortress troops (a designation that was entirely missing from Allied command structures), with many of the troops trained exclusively to fight from fixed defensive positions. Nearly 70% of the fortress troops lacked personal weapons beyond revolvers as they were artillery or machine gun bunker crews (who the SS high command believed would never need to fight in any role besides servicing heavy weapons and who could not be expected to have any worthwhile fighting skills since they were not German) while many of the pure infantry National units were used as skirmishers in the ongoing low intensity war along the generally lawless German/Russian frontier.
While the SS armored formations made up only a small fraction of the total European defense force, they made up a significant element of the combat power facing the Allies. The Waffen SS operated the world’s finest tanks, with the Panther Mk III forming the core of its fighting strength. The Mk III was the direct result of the lessons learned by the Heer on the Eastern Front. Heavily armored, reasonably fast at 35 kph on gravel roads, and armed with a high velocity 105mm rifled gun it was, by far, the best tank on the planet. Supported by the heavy armored panzerwagen SD halftracks and Tiger assault guns, the Mk III was a formidable opponent in anywhere in Europe with the mobility to serve as a striking force where ever needed (the Reich spent years reinforcing bridges continent-wide to allow the movement of the massive tanks and their supporting vehicles)
The Greater German air forces were an interesting mixture of the extremely advanced and the “experienced”. German interceptors were extremely fast and heavily armed bomber killers, with many carrying cannon as large as 57mm. They were generally larger than their allied counterparts, but with fairly limited range, being mainly designed as “point interceptors”. (The German B&V P.320 held the absolute time to 10,000 meter from standing start climb record until 1961). Germany had also developed a number of “schnell” jet bomber designs that saw use in the on/off air war against the UK and in occasional action as anti-shipping attacks in the Mediterranean Sea as well as the infamous Fw-688 heavy bomber. The Luftwaffe also operated a number of ground attack aircraft based on the Fw-190 and the Me-110 designs; these aircraft had been developed in the immediate aftermath of the defeat of the USSR to battle the partisans and remaining Red Army units that had not accepted Molotov’s orders. While older designs they were proven in the ground attack role and were expected to soldier on in this vital if unglamorous role for years to come. Many of the National air forces operated squadrons of these aircraft, as well as a few home designed fighters/interceptors.
The Kriegsmarine, while the most active of the Reich’s armed forces during the Warm War, was also a study in contract. While its submarines fought an increasingly losing battle in the North Atlantic it also had, at Hitler’s direct orders, constructed a significant surface fleet (it is far from coincidental that this order came down shortly after the death of Admiral Karl Donitz in a British air attack). The surface fleet, with the exception of one cruiser action in the Eastern Mediterranean had not been battle tested but was of considerable size with three large carriers, two light carriers, seven 45,000 ton battleships, two Bismarck class BB, two BC, 6 armored cruisers (a unique German design, also known as panzershciffs), 16 CA, 14 CL, 58 DD and 38 frigates on the rolls. It was however, a fleet of two parts, with a fleet in the Black Sea consisting of 2 45,000 BB, 2 CVL, 5 CA, 5 CL, 15 DD, and 21 FF with the rest of the fleet in the Baltic Sea.
While the construction of the Black Sea force made sense in many ways, it, along with the Italian Agean Sea fleet, tied down nearly half of the RN and was a serious enough threat that the USN maintained TF 68 (centered on USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise, USS Essex, and all four South Dakota class BB in 1952) in the Mediterranean throughout most of the Warm War, with ships being relieved on regular, albeit unpredictable, rotation that always kept the U.S. 6th Fleet superior in number to any possible German sortie attempt, in others is was a significant waste of resources, even if most of the labor was supplied by Ukrainian and Polish slave workers. The Royal Navy and, especially, the USN was able to maintain the Allied Mediterranean force without serious strain elsewhere, while the German Black Sea squadron was a substantial drain on experienced German naval personnel and units constructed there were of no use in defending Europe from the Allies.
The entire effort to construct a serious blue water navy remains one of main debates surrounding Nazi war planning. What Hitler was actually thinking when he effectively over ruled all of his advisors and demanded a “Navy as good as the British have” has never been explained. Had the war ended, and any German Navy had full access to the open sea to train and to “show the flag” a small fleet would have been called for, but in the Warm War Allied forces struck at Kriegsmarine units whenever possible, to the point that German naval pilots were sent to the Crimea for flight training and deck qualification so training operations would not result in an unwanted battle.
The build-up of the surface fleet, much like the dismantling of the German General Staff and Army, is an enduring mystery of National Socialist Germany.
While Germany was building a very powerful armored ground force and strong defensive air force as a result of their experience in 1939-43, the Allies were going in a very different direction. While Allied ground formations did feature armored divisions, especially in the last few years before the Invasion, neither the U.S. nor British Armies were built around them to the exception of lighter formations. This was, of course, a product of the war that the Anglo/Americans had fought, just as the Waffen SS was the end result of the lessons learned in Europe.
The island hopping campaign in the Pacific, along with the jungle fighting in Burma and in the Dutch East Indies, had taught the Allies the usefulness of light formations and of the need to be able to construct vehicles that could handle being landed from sea directly against enemy defenders. It is, in hindsight, fortunate that the Japanese armies in Manchuria and China had chosen to fight on, at least for as long as they could, after the fall of the Home Islands. The fighting in Formosa, Manchuria and Korea, while it was against a poorly supplied and disorganized, if fanatically brave, force, did demonstrate to the Allies that tanks like the Sherman and Crusader were no match for the occasional German supplied Panther or T-34/85 or for the fearsome, if rarely encountered, 88mm DP gun that was sometime found in Manchuria. Had the defeat of the Soviet Union not allowed the Reich to ship some weapons to their nominal Japanese ally it is an open question if the Allies would have ever turned away from the “tank destroyers kill tanks, tanks support infantry” mindset that was the U.S. Army’s guiding principal through most of the Pacific War. Even with the experience against the German designs in Manchuria, the Allied tanks were not the heavily armored beasts that the Waffen SS operated, but they were far better than the Shermans that would otherwise have faced the Nazi forces.
The Allies, especially the Canadian and Australian armies, were early adopters of what later became known as air envelopment. While early helicopters were limited in range and lift, they rapidly proved to be a better way to land troops and light vehicles behind enemy lines as replacements for the despised glider. The helicopter was also ideal for the deployment and supply of small Ranger or Chindit units, a commando style unit that had become very popular in Burma and then in China and that Allied planners believed would be extremely useful in the Liberation of Europe. American Marine units also found the helicopter to be a natural extension of the landing craft, despite the early helicopter’s reliability and lifting limitations (one Marine Officer is famously quoted as saying that in an attack of a heavily defended enemy position “the damned chopper ride is the safest thing I do all day”). What was not known was how well helicopter would fare in heavy flak environment that characterized Nazi dominated Europe.
The Allied air forces had also gone in a different direction than the Luftwaffe. Allied aircraft were almost all designed to be fighters AND attack aircraft. Fighters virtually all had some sort of bombing capacity this extended to the point where there were few “medium” bombers in the Allied inventories except those left from earlier in the war, virtually all of these aircraft had been converted to “gunships” sprouting as many as 20 heavy machine guns or cannon that were used against light shipping traffic or in close ground support roles. One result of the mixed use role of the Allied fighter was that, overall, they were markedly more maneuverable than their Luftwaffe rivals while having greater range, although at the cost of maximum dash speed. The Allies had also long maintained, and had continued to develop the heavy long ranged bomber in much greater numbers than the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe had nothing to equal the American B-47, much less the newly accepted B-52.
One area where the Allies had a dominant position was in the Atom Bomb. While the existence of “The Bomb” had been rumored often enough that many Luftwaffe officers accepted that some such weapon did exist, the German science community was widely split. Thanks to the continued efforts of deep penetration Soviet agents and the actions of resistors among the “loyal” workers in France and across Western Europe, the German nuclear weapons effort had sputtered. Nazi political beliefs helped the Allies in this regard as there existed a deep distrust of “Jewish” sciences and any product of such an unclean source. Unbeknownst to the Allies the Reich had, of course, developed its own “ultimate weapon”.
The Allied navies were a vast overmatch for the Kriegsmarine. This is only to be expected, as the American and British shipyards had been producing at wartime levels for more than a decade, and both Allied fleets had massively outnumbered the Kriegsmarine before the war began. The Allied navies included 45 fleet carriers (including 7 of the massive Midway class angled deck ships), 36 battleships (this, of course, included the old ships of the amphibious fleet Gun Line, which also featured the unusual USN “Cruiser, Large” ships, as well as the more modern “Fast BB”), 110 CVE, 5 CB, 85 CA, 126 CL, and well over 700 destroyers. The Amphibious fleet numbered well over 2,000 vessels that deserved the title of “ship” as well as thousands of landing craft that would ferry the Allied armies back to Europe.
With the background now established, it is time to review the events of D-Day themselves.
We begin…
Comments very welcome
Forces and equipment
Finally, it is worthwhile to review the two sides, both in equipment and in military philosophy at the time of the final conflict of the Second World War. It is here, in the weapons and methods utilized that the greatly divergent lessons learned by the two opponents is most clearly seen.
The Reich had been almost unimaginably lucky in the first year of the European Phase, with every action seeming to work perfectly, while every action of the British & French failing against all common sense in Norway and during the Blitzkrieg against France and the Low Countries. This remarkable string of luck continued into the initial drive against the USSR, with the first setback to the Nazi wave of success being caused by an early snow. The remarkably destructive and vicious fighting that followed the Spring ’42 and resulted in the final destruction of the USSR as a European power was also marked by several instances of good fortune, including the success in taking the Crossing at Stalingrad in an engagement that could so easily have gone the other way. The Leadership in Berlin never recognized the hand of Chance in any of the successes it had achieved, believing everything to be proof of the superiority of the German Volk and of the National Socialist system. Both of these beliefs were reflected in the design of the Greater German military structure at the time of the Invasion.
German troops were, by far, the best equipped of all the nominally independent “National Forces” in post conquest Europe. There is still a degree of argument in military circles regarding the reasoning behind the disparity of equipment, specifically around how much was a conscious decision to hold down the military quality of the other Axis members, including Italy, and how much was simply arrogance on the part of the SS military decision makers. The differences, in any case, were dramatic.
While the Waffen SS, which had fully replaced the Heer as the Reich’s Wehrmacht ground component by 1948, comprised only 56 of the 235 divisions that defended “Fortress Europe” it operated 47 of the 78 armored divisions on the continent (with an additional 9 of these divisions being under the control of the Luftwaffe) and the various German infantry units were the only fully motorized divisions in Europe (Italy did operate 22 so called “mobile” infantry formations, as well as 9 armored divisions, but each unit only had sufficient transport to move 75% of the total troops in the TOE by truck or tracked vehicle). The remaining ground forces inside the German command structure were mainly basic infantry or fortress troops (a designation that was entirely missing from Allied command structures), with many of the troops trained exclusively to fight from fixed defensive positions. Nearly 70% of the fortress troops lacked personal weapons beyond revolvers as they were artillery or machine gun bunker crews (who the SS high command believed would never need to fight in any role besides servicing heavy weapons and who could not be expected to have any worthwhile fighting skills since they were not German) while many of the pure infantry National units were used as skirmishers in the ongoing low intensity war along the generally lawless German/Russian frontier.
While the SS armored formations made up only a small fraction of the total European defense force, they made up a significant element of the combat power facing the Allies. The Waffen SS operated the world’s finest tanks, with the Panther Mk III forming the core of its fighting strength. The Mk III was the direct result of the lessons learned by the Heer on the Eastern Front. Heavily armored, reasonably fast at 35 kph on gravel roads, and armed with a high velocity 105mm rifled gun it was, by far, the best tank on the planet. Supported by the heavy armored panzerwagen SD halftracks and Tiger assault guns, the Mk III was a formidable opponent in anywhere in Europe with the mobility to serve as a striking force where ever needed (the Reich spent years reinforcing bridges continent-wide to allow the movement of the massive tanks and their supporting vehicles)
The Greater German air forces were an interesting mixture of the extremely advanced and the “experienced”. German interceptors were extremely fast and heavily armed bomber killers, with many carrying cannon as large as 57mm. They were generally larger than their allied counterparts, but with fairly limited range, being mainly designed as “point interceptors”. (The German B&V P.320 held the absolute time to 10,000 meter from standing start climb record until 1961). Germany had also developed a number of “schnell” jet bomber designs that saw use in the on/off air war against the UK and in occasional action as anti-shipping attacks in the Mediterranean Sea as well as the infamous Fw-688 heavy bomber. The Luftwaffe also operated a number of ground attack aircraft based on the Fw-190 and the Me-110 designs; these aircraft had been developed in the immediate aftermath of the defeat of the USSR to battle the partisans and remaining Red Army units that had not accepted Molotov’s orders. While older designs they were proven in the ground attack role and were expected to soldier on in this vital if unglamorous role for years to come. Many of the National air forces operated squadrons of these aircraft, as well as a few home designed fighters/interceptors.
The Kriegsmarine, while the most active of the Reich’s armed forces during the Warm War, was also a study in contract. While its submarines fought an increasingly losing battle in the North Atlantic it also had, at Hitler’s direct orders, constructed a significant surface fleet (it is far from coincidental that this order came down shortly after the death of Admiral Karl Donitz in a British air attack). The surface fleet, with the exception of one cruiser action in the Eastern Mediterranean had not been battle tested but was of considerable size with three large carriers, two light carriers, seven 45,000 ton battleships, two Bismarck class BB, two BC, 6 armored cruisers (a unique German design, also known as panzershciffs), 16 CA, 14 CL, 58 DD and 38 frigates on the rolls. It was however, a fleet of two parts, with a fleet in the Black Sea consisting of 2 45,000 BB, 2 CVL, 5 CA, 5 CL, 15 DD, and 21 FF with the rest of the fleet in the Baltic Sea.
While the construction of the Black Sea force made sense in many ways, it, along with the Italian Agean Sea fleet, tied down nearly half of the RN and was a serious enough threat that the USN maintained TF 68 (centered on USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise, USS Essex, and all four South Dakota class BB in 1952) in the Mediterranean throughout most of the Warm War, with ships being relieved on regular, albeit unpredictable, rotation that always kept the U.S. 6th Fleet superior in number to any possible German sortie attempt, in others is was a significant waste of resources, even if most of the labor was supplied by Ukrainian and Polish slave workers. The Royal Navy and, especially, the USN was able to maintain the Allied Mediterranean force without serious strain elsewhere, while the German Black Sea squadron was a substantial drain on experienced German naval personnel and units constructed there were of no use in defending Europe from the Allies.
The entire effort to construct a serious blue water navy remains one of main debates surrounding Nazi war planning. What Hitler was actually thinking when he effectively over ruled all of his advisors and demanded a “Navy as good as the British have” has never been explained. Had the war ended, and any German Navy had full access to the open sea to train and to “show the flag” a small fleet would have been called for, but in the Warm War Allied forces struck at Kriegsmarine units whenever possible, to the point that German naval pilots were sent to the Crimea for flight training and deck qualification so training operations would not result in an unwanted battle.
The build-up of the surface fleet, much like the dismantling of the German General Staff and Army, is an enduring mystery of National Socialist Germany.
While Germany was building a very powerful armored ground force and strong defensive air force as a result of their experience in 1939-43, the Allies were going in a very different direction. While Allied ground formations did feature armored divisions, especially in the last few years before the Invasion, neither the U.S. nor British Armies were built around them to the exception of lighter formations. This was, of course, a product of the war that the Anglo/Americans had fought, just as the Waffen SS was the end result of the lessons learned in Europe.
The island hopping campaign in the Pacific, along with the jungle fighting in Burma and in the Dutch East Indies, had taught the Allies the usefulness of light formations and of the need to be able to construct vehicles that could handle being landed from sea directly against enemy defenders. It is, in hindsight, fortunate that the Japanese armies in Manchuria and China had chosen to fight on, at least for as long as they could, after the fall of the Home Islands. The fighting in Formosa, Manchuria and Korea, while it was against a poorly supplied and disorganized, if fanatically brave, force, did demonstrate to the Allies that tanks like the Sherman and Crusader were no match for the occasional German supplied Panther or T-34/85 or for the fearsome, if rarely encountered, 88mm DP gun that was sometime found in Manchuria. Had the defeat of the Soviet Union not allowed the Reich to ship some weapons to their nominal Japanese ally it is an open question if the Allies would have ever turned away from the “tank destroyers kill tanks, tanks support infantry” mindset that was the U.S. Army’s guiding principal through most of the Pacific War. Even with the experience against the German designs in Manchuria, the Allied tanks were not the heavily armored beasts that the Waffen SS operated, but they were far better than the Shermans that would otherwise have faced the Nazi forces.
The Allies, especially the Canadian and Australian armies, were early adopters of what later became known as air envelopment. While early helicopters were limited in range and lift, they rapidly proved to be a better way to land troops and light vehicles behind enemy lines as replacements for the despised glider. The helicopter was also ideal for the deployment and supply of small Ranger or Chindit units, a commando style unit that had become very popular in Burma and then in China and that Allied planners believed would be extremely useful in the Liberation of Europe. American Marine units also found the helicopter to be a natural extension of the landing craft, despite the early helicopter’s reliability and lifting limitations (one Marine Officer is famously quoted as saying that in an attack of a heavily defended enemy position “the damned chopper ride is the safest thing I do all day”). What was not known was how well helicopter would fare in heavy flak environment that characterized Nazi dominated Europe.
The Allied air forces had also gone in a different direction than the Luftwaffe. Allied aircraft were almost all designed to be fighters AND attack aircraft. Fighters virtually all had some sort of bombing capacity this extended to the point where there were few “medium” bombers in the Allied inventories except those left from earlier in the war, virtually all of these aircraft had been converted to “gunships” sprouting as many as 20 heavy machine guns or cannon that were used against light shipping traffic or in close ground support roles. One result of the mixed use role of the Allied fighter was that, overall, they were markedly more maneuverable than their Luftwaffe rivals while having greater range, although at the cost of maximum dash speed. The Allies had also long maintained, and had continued to develop the heavy long ranged bomber in much greater numbers than the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe had nothing to equal the American B-47, much less the newly accepted B-52.
One area where the Allies had a dominant position was in the Atom Bomb. While the existence of “The Bomb” had been rumored often enough that many Luftwaffe officers accepted that some such weapon did exist, the German science community was widely split. Thanks to the continued efforts of deep penetration Soviet agents and the actions of resistors among the “loyal” workers in France and across Western Europe, the German nuclear weapons effort had sputtered. Nazi political beliefs helped the Allies in this regard as there existed a deep distrust of “Jewish” sciences and any product of such an unclean source. Unbeknownst to the Allies the Reich had, of course, developed its own “ultimate weapon”.
The Allied navies were a vast overmatch for the Kriegsmarine. This is only to be expected, as the American and British shipyards had been producing at wartime levels for more than a decade, and both Allied fleets had massively outnumbered the Kriegsmarine before the war began. The Allied navies included 45 fleet carriers (including 7 of the massive Midway class angled deck ships), 36 battleships (this, of course, included the old ships of the amphibious fleet Gun Line, which also featured the unusual USN “Cruiser, Large” ships, as well as the more modern “Fast BB”), 110 CVE, 5 CB, 85 CA, 126 CL, and well over 700 destroyers. The Amphibious fleet numbered well over 2,000 vessels that deserved the title of “ship” as well as thousands of landing craft that would ferry the Allied armies back to Europe.
Chapter 1
With the background now established, it is time to review the events of D-Day themselves.
We begin…
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