The Whole Hog:D Day landings on Germany itself!

nonnny

Banned
Normandy, even though 100 miles from the UK was chosen in OTL, because Calais, although only 20 miles away, was too heavily defended. But Normandy was 850 miles from Berlin & it was a hard slog.

WI the Allies decide to land on Germany itself? Using Harwich, Yarmouth & Grimsby as embarkation ports, three massive armadas set sail on 6 August 1944 (by which time the Russians were at the gates of Warsaw) to cross 300 miles of the North Sea to land 60,000 men on the first day on the Friesland Coast near Emden, or more safely, on the Friesland Islands of Langeoog & Norderney; and 300,000 by the first week. Much heavier close-in tactical bombing, aircraft carrier, submarine, anti-submarine and ship battery support would be needed than in OTL. Most of the troops & supplies slated for the Pacific would have to be diverted, and it would require a constant ship supply train across the North Sea. As well as several sacrificial airborne drops on France, Holland and Norway to ensure that the 1 million German soldiers there don't rush back too soon to the Fatherland. Would it have been another Anzio or even Dieppe? Or could it have worked, being only 150 miles from Berlin? Was such a plan even considered? The German defences would certainly have been galvanised, as would the Russians in their assaults, knowing that their Anglo-American allies were only 300 miles away!
 
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nonnny said:
Normandy, even though 100 miles from the UK was chosen in OTL, because Calais, although only 20 miles away, was too heavily defended. But Normandy was 500 miles from Germany & it was a hard slog.

WI the Allies decide to land on Germany itself? Using Harwich, Yarmouth & Grimsby as embarkation ports, three massive armadas set sail on 6 August 1944 (by which time the Russians were at the gates of Warsaw) to cross 300 miles of the North Sea to land 60,000 men on the first day on the Friesland Coast near Emden, or more safely, on the Friesland Islands of Langeoog & Norderney; and 300,000 by the first week. Much heavier close-in tactical bombing, aircraft carrier, submarine, anti-submarine and ship battery support would be needed than in OTL. Most of the troops & supplies slated for the Pacific would have to be diverted, and it would require a constant ship supply train across the North Sea. As well as several sacrificial airborne drops on France, Holland and Norway to ensure that the 1 million German soldiers there don't rush back too soon to the Fatherland. Would it have been another Anzio or even Dieppe? Or could it have worked, being only 150 miles from Berlin? Was such a plan even considered? The German defences would certainly have been galvanised, as would the Russians in their assaults, knowing that their Anglo-American allies were only 300 miles away!

I don't think it would have worked. The German North Sea coast is an amphibious operations nightmare. Tidal range is rather small (under 6 feet in many places), but the land is so flat that the shoreline recedes for miles. You have a very small number of places where capital ships can approach to within striking range of the coast, and even destroyers will risk getting stuck in shifting and treacherous waters. We still lose a few ships on sandbanks every year, and that's peacetime & with radar and GPS (and drunk Russian skippers, but that's 'nother story) :) Imagine American LCIs stuck in waist-deep water with the coast 500 yards away. The German defenders face them across a mile of mudflats before they reach the dyke, which provides natural cover for indirect-fire artillery. Tanks and trucks get bogged down in the mud. Support ships hit sandbanks and mined channels. And when you break through, the Germans dynamite the dykes and you can swim all the way to Emden...

The North Sea is a harsh mistress
 

nonnny

Banned
Did the Germans have any sizeable armoured or rapid response divisions at that time within 50 miles of Frieseland? Was a landing on the Dutch coast, although less ambitious, more plausible?
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
Nonny, you were just kicked (for the second time). Now I see that you have signed on again after being kicked (second time you did that as well). I'm tired of you trolling and then totally ignoring me.

As of now you're permanently banned. If you try and sign on again (and believe me I will know, I get an email every time someone signs up for an account), I will have to ban your IP and then you won't be able to so much as read any part of the web site.
 

Chris

Banned
As far as I knew, there were german occupying forces in Denmark and new units being worked up in germany itself. However, it wouyld symplify matters for the germans considerably as they could contast the sky far better than they did on D-Day.

Chris
 
Speer in his memoirs tells this story. After some bombing he had bombings photographed, specially where bombing trails were visible (craters created by one bomber). Then they were superimposed on pictures of Rhine (?) bridges. Result was that bridges over Rhine could be destroyed followed by Allied landing inside Germany as forces in France would be cut off. One result was Valkyre (with results as we know but that's another story). Is this feasible? It would require large airborne landings as well.
 
Dunash:
This is what I got when I clicked your link:

Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
 

Dunash

Banned
Go to "Members List", click on "N", then "Nonny", then "Find all posts by Nonny". Unfortunately the same useful search facility on the old board
is inoperative.
 
I saw one post on the "Third Temple 1967" thread which I found very offensive. But the rest of his posts seem to be "normal" (at least as much as I've dug into them...have to leave in a couple minutes), maybe slightly off topic or overly sharp at worst. I understand people have different religious views and sometimes post something a little off or foot-in-mouth, and I wouldn't expect Noony to be banned for a week myself. He was banned permanently, if I understand, for sneaking behind Ian's back, however, which is over the line.
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
He frequently makes posts in the main forum (and he did on the old board as well) that are basically 99% guaranteed to start a political flamewar. I long ago discovered that threads started by Nonny were far more likely to produce flamewars than threads started by other people. I also find he doesn't tend to contribute much - starts an incendiary discussion then skips out.

Anyway I warned him numerous times not to post troll threads. Yesterday he posted another blatant troll and got kicked for it. Today, despite being kicked, he immediately just signed up for a new account and continued to post. Which he ALSO did on one occasion before on the old board. THAT, I have absolutely NO patience for, and it was the last straw.
 
Hey, in view of what he did this time around, I would have banned his IP as well (he can always read the forum from a library terminal). Signing up again under a different name was totally too much, and I didn't even know about him doing that before.
 

Susano

Banned
Nonny was indeed one of the "usual suspects", and long known for trolling. But, meeh, some of his screwed ideas were actually somewhat funny, lol.
 
and he disguised himself so cleverly... Nonnny, 3 n's instead of 2 after the o... so sneaky... don't know how Ian caught on to that one :)
I had a goofy idea once that someone should post a thread titled "AH Challenge: the most offensive POD", where everyone would post deliberately insulting PODs about cultures/countries/ethnic groups they don't like. Then, maybe the flame wars would be restricted to a single thread. Hmm.. maybe I should.. nah, Ian would never let that one stand... :cool:
 
David Howery said:
I had a goofy idea once that someone should post a thread titled "AH Challenge: the most offensive POD", where everyone would post deliberately insulting PODs about cultures/countries/ethnic groups they don't like.
Meh, that'd be waay too easy. Have your POD as "what if the holocaust actually happened and wasn't just an elaborate set up created by the Jewish Liberal Media". There, the skeleton of the most offensive POD (you could embelish it, of course).

Just to clarify, I, of course, don't adhere to that idea. But it would be offensive.

Edit: Oh, and I the only one that finds it ironic that he actually created a fairly neutral and non-flame worthy post, after he got banned? :D
 
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David Howery said:
I had a goofy idea once that someone should post a thread titled "AH Challenge: the most offensive POD", where everyone would post deliberately insulting PODs about cultures/countries/ethnic groups they don't like. Then, maybe the flame wars would be restricted to a single thread. Hmm.. maybe I should.. nah, Ian would never let that one stand... :cool:

The worst that could happen is the tread being closed.
 

Dunash

Banned
So why exactly was the "Death Penalty Enforced Wordwide"
thread closed and removed after four pages? It was quite interesting and the original posting didn't seem to be "blatantly off-topic flameworthy trolling"?
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=1448

As for Nonnny's idea of D Daying Germany itself, to me an immediate forcing of the Scheldt Estuary and taking Antwerp is more plausible, initially landing at Knokke or Walcheren: no need for an Arnhem or a Battle of the Bulge. The Germans in the Eiskens Pocket in fact were encircled & held to the end of the war. Despite Antwerp being liberated on September 5th, because of Horrock's blunders, Antwerp wasn't functioning as a port until December: "Antwerp is an arrow pointing at the heart of England" (Napoleon) - "and at Berlin!" (Montgomery).
 
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