WI: DDay at Cherbourg or Calais?

What if the D Day landings took place at Cherbourg or Calais in France, and Normandy was used as the decoy? Would the outcome be much different?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
What if the D Day landings took place at Cherbourg or Calais in France, and Normandy was used as the decoy? Would the outcome be much different?
The Germans thought that the landing would be around Calais and the other Channel Ports. So the Allies will run into much, much fiercer German resistance.
 
What if the D Day landings took place at Cherbourg or Calais in France, and Normandy was used as the decoy? Would the outcome be much different?

As Wolfpaw said above, Calais was the expected landing point (the First U.S. Army Group under George Patton was said to be preparing to go there), so the vast majority of the mobile forces the Germans could muster was sitting there waiting for them.

As for Cherbourg, I doubt a direct attack on the city itself would have been allowed; the Dieppe raid conducted by 2nd Canadian Infantry Division in 1942 pretty much taught the Allies not to directly hit a port city.

Now, I'm not sure what the coastline at the northern end of the Cotentin Peninsula (where Cherbourg was located on the north end) is like, but I think a lightning pincer strike on both sides to envelop the city before the defenders could get ready and destroy the dockyards MIGHT have helped things. But then again, that all depended on the weather and how the beaches in the area were like (in comparison to the relatively flat, open beaches of the area of Normandy where the Allies had come down on 6 June 1944).

Atop that, what were the Atlantic Wall defences like?
 
Cherbourg seems strategically unwise to me for the simple reason that it's sitting atop a peninsula. To reinforce your troops, you'll be stuck with a harbor you can't guarantee you'll be taking intact, and you'll be giving the Germans enogh time to successfully seal off the peninsula, bring new forces in, and methodically drive you out again. Oh, it'll be bloody, given you've got air superiority, but even if you've got your Mulberries to replace or supplant Cherbourg harbor, you've chosen a location the enemy can and will contain, especially if the faint in Normandy has already drawn troops there.

At least, once you've waded through your own entrails at Calais, you've got a foothold in France proper. Cherbourg, in that sense, not so much.
 
Cherbourg, itself will be a hard nut to crack, do to the fact that the Germans placed significant amounts of Coastal artillery around the Port itself.

Cotentin Peninsula's western side consists of cliffs at the Northern tip and to the south around the port of Granville. In between is a large stretch of nice coast that unfortunately is blocked by numerous rocks and shoals making it impossible for all but the smallest warships to get close enough to provide fire support.

Any assault from the western side would be confined to what fire support could be carried on the landing craft themselves & air support.
 

CalBear

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What if the D Day landings took place at Cherbourg or Calais in France, and Normandy was used as the decoy? Would the outcome be much different?


Cherbourg would have been a disaster. Too far from air bases in England, much longer trip for shipping, no way to lay oil pipe lines with any degree of speed. Even if the landing was successful, which is iffy, the advance would have been far slower.

Calais would have been doing exactly what the enemy expected and had spent a couple years preparing for. IOTL Hitler and most of his closest advisers thought that Normandy WAS a decoy and they kept much of their combat power staked near Calais, waiting for the Allies real attack.
 
If Normandy is used as a diversion, that would probably mean it has to be done on a much smaller scale. Less paratroopers, fewer beaches etc. Would Normandy have been successfull if only half of the troops and resources were used?

In other words, did the Allies have enough men and material to support 2 invasions at the same time? I know they did Dragoon not too lang after Overlord, but hitting Calais is going to take more than hitting Southern France.
 

Cook

Banned
Cherbourg would have been a disaster. Too far from air bases in England, much longer trip for shipping, no way to lay oil pipe lines with any degree of speed. Even if the landing was successful, which is iffy, the advance would have been far slower.
Are we all talking about the same Cherbourg?

Cherbourg is at the Northern tip of the Cotentin Peninsula; it is closer to the South of England than the beaches of Normandy. Due south of the Isle of Wight is the second closest stretch of the English Channel; well within range of air cover and a shorter route by sea.

The beaches of the Cotentin Peninsula were considered during the early stages of Roundup/Overlord but were ruled out because the very narrow frontage that would result from a successful landing was considered too easy for the Germans to contain. Also the Beaches of the Cotentin were wide enough to only allow the simultaneous landing of 4 divisions, whereas the Normandy landings were on a 6 division front.
 
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Cook

Banned
If Normandy is used as a diversion...
Logically if the Pas de Calais is the site of the invasion and Normandy were the diversion then the Fortitude deception operation uses Normandy as its basis; false plans showing the Beaches of Normandy fall into German hands, large fake ammunition dumps are built in Southern England and radio messages from a fictitious Army Group commanded by General Patton are transmitted from Cornwall and other parts of South-West England. No troops would step ashore in Normandy.
 
Logically if the Pas de Calais is the site of the invasion and Normandy were the diversion then the Fortitude deception operation uses Normandy as its basis; false plans showing the Beaches of Normandy fall into German hands, large fake ammunition dumps are built in Southern England and radio messages from a fictitious Army Group commanded by General Patton are transmitted from Cornwall and other parts of South-West England. No troops would step ashore in Normandy.


The question the becomes would the german leaders believe such intel or would they suspect that it was false?
One of the main reasons why the deception worked was because it fed directly into the paranoia of the german command. They already thought an invasion would come through calais, so when evidence turned up that suggested exactly that then it was far easier for them to accept.
If they start to see suggestions that the invasion is coming in Normandy then how easily would they be swayed by it given that it was so different from what they thought?

It might lead to a situation where more mobile forces were moved down towards Normandy but leaving the pretty heavy fixed defences in Calais alone, an attempt to cover both possibilities. That way wherever the invasion actually came they would have forces to meet it.
I doubt that any amount of intelligence etc would convince the germans to effectively dismantle their defences around the calais area, it was just far to obvious a target for them to take that risk.

So even without some of the tanks and mobile units, any invasion via calais would be a harder fight for the allies and doesnt really gain them much of a strategic advantage.

Deceptions always work better when your enemy already believes something and you are simply reinforcing that belief. Trying to get them to change their mind completely is much harder and less certain of success.
 

Cook

Banned
Deceptions always work better when your enemy already believes something and you are simply reinforcing that belief. Trying to get them to change their mind completely is much harder and less certain of success.
Definitely.
Plus Geography is working against you; the Germans were naturally reluctant to move troops south to reinforce the front in Normandy and strip the Fifteenth Army away from Pas-de-Calais if there was the possibility of a second invasion because then they’d have the enemy between them and Germany, but if you are losing ground in Calais and have troops sitting in Normandy you’d move them because a second landing further away is less damaging than a breakout in Calais would be. And that’s pretty much what happened with the South of France; the Germans pulled out to strengthen the collapsing line in the North before the Americans and Free French even landed in the South.
 
Definitely.
Plus Geography is working against you; the Germans were naturally reluctant to move troops south to reinforce the front in Normandy and strip the Fifteenth Army away from Pas-de-Calais if there was the possibility of a second invasion because then they’d have the enemy between them and Germany, but if you are losing ground in Calais and have troops sitting in Normandy you’d move them because a second landing further away is less damaging than a breakout in Calais would be. And that’s pretty much what happened with the South of France; the Germans pulled out to strengthen the collapsing line in the North before the Americans and Free French even landed in the South.

Yep. And all of this was considered by the allied high command when they were choosing the location for the landings.

For a variety of reasons Normandy was the best choice for the d-day landings. There is really no advantage of trying to go into Calais (or god forgive me for mentioning it, the Ferisian islands) as it will mean a more complex operation, a harder fight and an overall lower chance of success.

I cant actually think of a plausible reason as to why the allies would try anything different without a massive change to the OTL.
 
Cherbourg does have the advantages, as with any port, of having a break-water, which would provide the Mulberry Harbours with shelter. As it was of course, Cherbourg was captured by the end of June anyway (although it was mid-August before it was actually in commission due to demolition by the Germans).
 

Cook

Banned
although it was mid-August before it was actually in commission due to demolition by the Germans.
Which was anticipated, hence the Mulberries. And if some idiot says they were only 50% efficient because one of them was destroyed by storms I am going to go postal on them.
 
Actually, the Mulberries were deployed off Normandy, not in Cherbourg. Rommel had realised what they were, but hadn't figured the audacious use to which they'd be put (he figured they'd be deployed in Calais after they captured it, to replace the facilities the Germans would have demolished).
 

Cook

Banned
Actually, the Mulberries were deployed off Normandy, not in Cherbourg.
Yes thankyou, we know. They were built so that the invasion would not be dependent on the immediate capture of a port, as previous amphibious invasions had been.
 
However, the Mulberries would have worked just as well in Cherbourg had they decided to go down that road.
 
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