WI: No Atlantic Wall

Delta Force

Banned
What if the Germans had decided not to build the Atlantic Wall? How else could they have defended their coastline, and what else might the resources and personnel allocated to it have been used for?
 
Depends on if they go with Rundstedt's plan of a reserve or Rommel's penny pack the devisions behind the coast plan or go with Hitler's idea he made OTL of splitting the baby in half and taking divisional command for himself.
 
Defense in depth with only a string of observation posts along the coast. Artillery and supply dumps would be concealed a mile or three back from the beach.
Troops are comfortably billeted in local villages with sufficient bicycles and trucks to rapidly deploy them to the-dug defensive bunkers.
Tanks and airplanes slumber under camouflage nets along the edges of the forests and major roads.
Random mine fields that change every week.
 
Depends on if they go with Rundstedt's plan of a reserve or Rommel's penny pack the devisions behind the coast plan or go with Hitler's idea he made OTL of splitting the baby in half and taking divisional command for himself.

Hitler's plan of going half-by-half is by far the worst of all worlds. It completely wrecked the order of battle and made the chain of command utterly confusing. Somewhat effective for preventing coups against yourself, but not for running a war.

To be honest, without an Atlantic Wall, the WAllies might become a lot more reckless in their invasion of France. The extensive preparations in Operation Overlord was primarily in response to the Atlantic Wall. Without it, they might not go the extra mile to ensure its success and simply run headlong into Calais. Might work without the defences to hold them back, but all the same, it might end up with the entire force marching to PoW camps if the Germans respond better. Of course, with the resources saved from the Wall, the Germans might go for other ventures, such as additional tank production or fortifications in the Eastern Front. Give or take, really.
 
Well the ports are still going to be well defended. I think there was a lot of use of local labour (forced or paid) but the steel and concrete? Well maybe the steel could have been used to build more U-boats or more tanks? The concrete? Not sure, maybe the V-weapon facilities could have been finished earlier. Many (Most?) of the guns in the Atlantic wall were obsolete or captured types or types that had no other use (e.g. the 16" guns from the battleships that were never built) so there's not going to be much benefit from not installing them. The troops were mainly 3rd grade or worse (stomach battalions, "Ost" troops etc) other than the troops on leave so putting them somewhere else isn't going to help much - in fact, without the fortifications, better quality troops would be needed instead. Maybe the fortifications could be built on the eastern front, say behind a major river, or the Westwall could be upgraded and extended to join up with the Maginot line? Obviously a better use for the steel and concrete would be to build more secure production facilities.
 

Delta Force

Banned
How much infrastructure could Germany harden if it used the steel and concrete for that instead of fortifying the entire Atlantic coastline?
 
Twice on Italy the Germans tried variations of the outpost/interior battle approach. That is a light guard on the coast and a large counter attack force in reserve in the interior. It did not work either. @ Salerno a powerfull armored corps attacked within 48 hours and was shot to pieces in its repeated attacks. At Anzio a entire army was massed against the landing force as it attempted too move into the interior. That failed too. On Sicilly the coast was fortified (not as well as Normandy or Pas de Calais) & a armored corps attempted to destroy just one isolated beach head, that failed.

In the Pacific the Japanese tried a variety of variations on these and failed. On Luzon & Leyte the had a light beach defense along the coast and placed a large army in the interior to destroy the enemy inland. That failed, and it failed again on Okinawa.

The problem in every case was the Allies came to the battle with more firepower than the defense could cope with. & in several cases better manuverability.
 
How much infrastructure could Germany harden if it used the steel and concrete for that instead of fortifying the entire Atlantic coastline?

The simple answer is quite a lot. Also factor in the labor utilized to build the wall. This could have made difference concerning the existing plans to not only harden but expand (and therefore disperse) their "synthetic" fuel production by building new plants. There were plans that were not executed OTL due to lack of materials and labor. Some expansion was done to existing facilities, but construction of new facilities faltered due to lack of materials and labor. In reality it would not have been that difficult to "harden" a hydrogenation plant due to the fact that Allied bombing inaccuracy limited the amount of "critical" damage done during a raid (most damage was to surface piping and the "critical" parts were too small to hit other than by small statistical chance).

Twice on Italy the Germans tried variations of the outpost/interior battle approach. That is a light guard on the coast and a large counter attack force in reserve in the interior. It did not work either. @ Salerno a powerfull armored corps attacked within 48 hours and was shot to pieces in its repeated attacks. At Anzio a entire army was massed against the landing force as it attempted too move into the interior. That failed too. On Sicilly the coast was fortified (not as well as Normandy or Pas de Calais) & a armored corps attempted to destroy just one isolated beach head, that failed.

In the Pacific the Japanese tried a variety of variations on these and failed. On Luzon & Leyte the had a light beach defense along the coast and placed a large army in the interior to destroy the enemy inland. That failed, and it failed again on Okinawa.

The problem in every case was the Allies came to the battle with more firepower than the defense could cope with. & in several cases better manuverability.

Quite correct. All the more reason not to waste time, materials, money and labor on the wall. Don't immediately recall the source, but "defend everywhere, defend nowhere" certainly applied. It was an expensive, wasteful thin crust.

Does this change the outcome of the war? No. Does it shorten the time to a cross channel attack? Not by much.
 
The simple answer is quite a lot. Also factor in the labor utilized to build the wall. This could have made difference concerning the existing plans to not only harden but expand (and therefore disperse) their "synthetic" fuel production by building new plants. There were plans that were not executed OTL due to lack of materials and labor. Some expansion was done to existing facilities, but construction of new facilities faltered due to lack of materials and labor. In reality it would not have been that difficult to "harden" a hydrogenation plant due to the fact that Allied bombing inaccuracy limited the amount of "critical" damage done during a raid (most damage was to surface piping and the "critical" parts were too small to hit other than by small statistical chance).



Quite correct. All the more reason not to waste time, materials, money and labor on the wall. Don't immediately recall the source, but "defend everywhere, defend nowhere" certainly applied. It was an expensive, wasteful thin crust.

Does this change the outcome of the war? No. Does it shorten the time to a cross channel attack? Not by much.



I would think more fuel due to more and hardened fuel production would be a significant plus to the Nazis.

Not a changing in the outcome of the war, such as who wins, but perhaps later or with different stop lines, (not that it matters due to Yalta).


AND of course the manpower not spent.
 
The Atlantic Wall also consumed a great deal of steel and concrete production, both of which (along with the labor) could have been used for many other things.
 
my thought is they could have built something akin to Berlin U-Bahn under numerous major cities for effort and materials used in Westwall and Atlantic Wall as well as earlier outfitting of caves and mines, if for no other reason than clandestine purposes during rearmament. (that might stall Allied bombing efforts somewhat as a lot of their efforts in this direction were done after sites were already destroyed and they never actually resumed production in buried sites)
 
Wish I'd kept a record of some of the times we had gamed out something like this. 98% of the time it seems the German player piles the maximum number of units on or near the coast to at least restrict the intitial attack. But, occasionally I've seen something like the 1941-43 strategy executed. That is the ports defended to the mximum, while a central reserve counter attacks the Allied invasion well inland. The idea of this strategy was the Allied armies would starve for ammunition, replacements, and reinforcements if they could not capture a port inside a week or two. So, while the entire Normand are might be swiftly overrun by a Allied army Cherbourg would remain in German hands until the Panzers overran unsupplied and tankless Brit and US infantry.

Of course the little carboard chits representing the Mulberries and cross beach supply obviate all that. For the German player a interior defense/counter attack works no better than Rommels coast line defense.
 
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