What do the British do in late 1942 if the Americans refuse to do 'Torch'?

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it doesn't make much sense to have to completely retrain the armoured division on small arms etc, and anyway what would they do with the tea ration?
True, but not shipping small arms means the division could arrive faster. A rifle is a rifle. And attempting to ensure that the Americans eat American rations would be ridiculous; if you are advancing though hundreds of miles of desert then the Soliders eat whatever they can get.
 
True, but not shipping small arms means the division could arrive faster. A rifle is a rifle. And attempting to ensure that the Americans eat American rations would be ridiculous; if you are advancing though hundreds of miles of desert then the Soliders eat whatever they can get.

Sorry, a rifle is not a rifle; and vehicles, radios etc will be different and would require significant re-training. Rations could be fudged, although there will be grumbling...
 
Sorry, a rifle is not a rifle; and vehicles, radios etc will be different and would require significant re-training. ...

A minimum of 5-6 months from my experience. During my active service in the Marines we acquired a large batch of new equipment from howitzers to pistols during the mid 1980s. The largest difficulty was on the maintinance side, with learning new tactics and operational methods a close second. It only takes a few days to learn to shoot a new rifle or a cannon, but for a company leader cadre or division artillery staff to adjust tactics requires far more time.

Of course the odds are the US 1st Armored Div would be sent into combat after just three months, with all the attendant problems of short preparation.
 
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Or, on the other hand, well. Depends if there's any German heavy units in France when they make the crossing.

The SS Corps that was near combat ready in Nov 1942 had departed for the east in January 1943. There was another army Pz Corps present in Nov but I dont know what its status was. Remnant mechanized units from the east replaced the SS Corps in Jan, but I dont know their mid year readiness status either. Note that the Pz & mech units in France mostly trained with French kit, with limited amounts of new German kit for maintiance and gunnery training. They picked up new German kit in final training for the east, often when transiting Germany.

Field service infantry divisions in France varied from month to month in 1943. There were generally not more than a dozen and their condition depended on how long since they had rotated back from the east. There were another 25 - 30 Static and third rate security or training 'divisions' in France and Belgium during 1943. Those were mostly useful for garrisoning fortified port cities, and stalking partisans.
 
Cross channel invasion cannot be undertaken until the BoA is won and OTL that was May 1943 before a serious buildup can be made in the UK

Some very easy pods to win it earlier - say late 1942 but this would require fewer bombs being randomly dropped over Germany and instead the aircraft no longer dropping them flying long boring patrols across the Bay of Biscay and Western approaches upsetting the Uboat skippers among several.

But that another discussion
 
Cross channel invasion cannot be undertaken until the BoA is won and OTL that was May 1943 before a serious buildup can be made in the UK

Some very easy pods to win it earlier - say late 1942 but this would require fewer bombs being randomly dropped over Germany and instead the aircraft no longer dropping them flying long boring patrols across the Bay of Biscay and Western approaches upsetting the Uboat skippers among several.

But that another discussion
If Churchill has to agree to Roundup (or a Roundup like operation) to keep the Americans interested in Europe, would using bombers that way to get U-Boats under control occur to them in 1942?
 
If Churchill has to agree to Roundup (or a Roundup like operation) to keep the Americans interested in Europe, would using bombers that way to get U-Boats under control occur to them in 1942?

well it had occurred to lots of people but the Bomber barons managed to convince the leaders that randomly dropping bombs over germany was more important

Coastal command was grudgingly given a single squadron of LR Liberators in late 41 (with little access to spares) with those LR Liberators assigned to the USN deployed to anywhere there was not a U-boat threat and it took 18 months before significant aircraft would be deployed - I believe that 50 LR Liberators would eventually be deployed by May 1943 and had a massive impact on reducing merchant losses and increasing u-boat sinkings.

Its not quite as simple as deploying more AC = Victory (A number of factors had to align - Better radar, better ASW Weapons, Improved Decryption, The RCN escort groups maturing, the USN escort groups Maturing and escort carriers) but it was something that could easily be done far earlier given the number of bomber airframes being built and would have had a massive impact.
 

PlasmaTorch

Banned
Let's say that for domestic reasons, in June 1942, just after the fall of Tobruk, President Roosevelt tells Churchill that it's now absolutely out of the question that the Americans participate in any landings in French North Africa that year.

And let's assume that Churchill decides that for political reasons, if the Americans aren't along with it and leading it, the British Empire can't do it, in case it causes Vichy to throw-in with the Axis.

Would there have been any operations that the British and their (imperial) allies could have carried out either on their own or working with the Russians in the remainder of 1942 with forces in the UK that would have otherwise been used in Operation Torch? Would an attempt to liberate the Channel Islands or an effort in Norway have had any chance of success? Or would there have been something else that forces based in the UK could have tried, given potential limitations to distance coverable by shipping and/or air-cover?

If operation torch was called off, the allys would put more effort into the dieppe raid. No question about it. The british and canadians wanted to make a stand somewhere, and this was where it would happen. They needed to gain experience in naval landings, test the atlantic wall, and see whether or not they could take and hold a port city. If the raid had been better planned, and gotten REAL fire support, then it may actually have been a success.

Historically, there were four flanking attacks made to support the main landing at dieppe. Two of those (orange and green beach) were completely successful, and the other two (blue and yellow beach) had been partially successful. [1] What doomed the entire operation was the complete failure at the main landing site, on white and red beach. The planners mistakenly assumed that if the flanking attacks were successful (or at least not unsuccessful), then the main attack was certain to successful as well. Amphibious operations are difficult affairs by nature, but launching an attack against a fortified port is beyond difficult.

Its like walking into the jaws of defeat and trying to snatch victory. The lack of naval gunfire at dieppe was crippling: Unsupported infantry, no matter how brave, cannot succeed against an entrenched enemy on high ground. If there had been a couple of cruisers to bombard white and red beach, many more soldiers would have been able to cross the sea wall and enter dieppe than IRL. If the engineers had been able to get up to the sea wall, and demolish the obstacles blocking the streets into the city, the tanks would have actually been able to enter dieppe and support the infantry. [2] The inclusion of paratroops (which was cancelled) to land behind german lines would also help.

mapdieppe.png


Things would have went even better if the canadians weren't forced to adhere to an unrealistic and flawed exploitation plan, which included surrounding and capturing the entire city (!), before sending the tanks to link up with the soldiers at green beach... And then penetrating 10 km inland to over run a german HQ... And then landing the royal marines into the harbor to seize the german landing barges, and sail them back to england, before they mounted a major counterattack. Yeah. Whoever thought up this part was a moron. :mad: Check out the map and see how difficult such a foray would be.

Anyway, the point is that a better planned, better executed raid could have been successful. They would have achieved most of their major objectives, which included seizing a radar station, capturing an enigma machine, and demolishing the port facilitys. Giving the germans a bloody nose at dieppe would have been a moral victory for britain, and would keep the soviets from complaining about the lack of action in the west. It wouldn't have as much impact as operation torch, but it would be something.


[1] But even with those isolated victorys, there were still problems. The overall plan for dieppe was too rigid and inflexible: The flank attacks had to be completed before the main landings took place. If they were completed after the main landings, their impact would be negligible.

[2] As it was, the engineers were stuck with their open topped scout cars (which they never wanted), and were picked off by the germans before they could cross the beach.
 
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If operation torch was called off, the allys would put more effort into the dieppe raid. No question about it. The british and canadians wanted to make a stand somewhere, and this was where it would happen. They needed to gain experience in naval landings, test the atlantic wall, and see whether or not they could take and hold a port city. If the raid had been better planned, and gotten REAL fire support, then it may actually have been a success.
mapdieppe.png


....

As you wrote; landing directly into a fortified port was stupid. Taking such a objective from the flank or inland rear is the correct way to do it. thats been known at least Roman times, probablly Sumerian. The Brits who made the final plan for this threw away several centuries of Brit experience of sucessful amphibious or littoral operations. They also dropped the original plan which included far better naval air air support.

The 'Madeline' plan written the same summer as the Dieppe plan was aimed at the permanent capture of Cherbourg. It utilized classic littoral operational methods such as landing on a under defended coast. Used the nature of a penensula to isolate the target. Used the airborne and air transport available in the UK to help isolate and reinforce the landing. Was aimed at a relatively isolated and weak enemy garrison.
 
Trials often end in failure. That is why one tries them. If they went well you didn't have to make the trial. More was learned from the failures of Dieppe than would have been were it successful. It encouraged the Germans to think an open beach landing would be a feint and a port capture would form part of a genuine invasion. There were some foolish notions that should have been dismissed beforehand but it was a 1942 invasion in miniature rather than an oversized raid.
 
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