WI - clear weather over the Channel 3-5 June 1944?

OTL, there was serious bad weather, such that the Allies called off the landings on 5 June. The Germans thought the weather was too bad for the Allies to do anything, so they cancelled air and naval patrols, and Rommel went off to Germany for his wife's birthday.

The weather cleared by the morning of 6 June - which the Allies knew to expect and the Germans could not. The result was that the Germans were taken by surprise. (Remember the scene in The Longest Day: Major Pluskat looking out from his bunker at the misty seas - and suddenly there are hundreds of ships approaching?)

WI that the weather had been clear all along? The Allies had air supremacy over the Channel, but even so they could not prevent a few German recon planes sneaking out to take a look. Nor could the Allies have shut down German coastal patrols.

There was some degree of alarm among the Germans - the heavy bombing of coastal positions, the alert to the Maquis, the dummy paratroopers - but nothing definite.

How does D-Day play out if the Germans know the Allies are coming, hours in advance?
 
More German forces would be mobilized to try and oppose the invasion. There are likely to be more casualties for the Allies, but they are coming ashore regardless, to much naval/air-power concentrated in their favor.
 
The reason Major Pluskat was scanning the sea is because an alert had been sounded shortly after the airborne landing started after midnight. All of Fifteenth Army had been rousted out by 02:30 and we're at their battle stations by 05:00. 7th Army had it's alert about the same time when Allied deception ops started. ie: dummy paratroops & radar spoofing simulating a approaching fleet.

As I understand there was a patrol boat, and a service boat in the Channel. Both ran into the Allied fleet. Any radio messages they sent would have been to the local naval base at LeHrave where they were based.

Earlier months the Germans had become used to seeing the Channel filled with ships. Large scale landing exercises we're frequent along the English south coast, warships were rehearsing, and many others were out and about. The Allies were frequently testing the German radar stations and occasionally spoofing them.

I don't know if the Germans tried to run air recon in late May. The Brits got really aggressive about suppressing them.

The Allied commanders did expect surprise to be lost. The surprise at the upper levels of German command was a bonus in the context of the Allied plan. That is they expected a faster response by the armored reserves.
 

SsgtC

Banned
The Allied commanders did expect surprise to be lost. The surprise at the upper levels of German command was a bonus in the context of the Allied plan. That is they expected a faster response by the armored reserves.
This. A better question to ask would be, "what if Hitler hadn't taken a sleeping pill the night before and ordered the panzer divisions to the beach?"
 
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