WI: Simultaneous Overlord/Dragoon

OTL, the Allies wanted to invade France from the North and South at the same time, but they lacked the landing craft to do so. How could the Allies fin the resources to launch both operatioNS simultaneously? What would the ramifications be for the Western Front?
 
Sure it could be done. The trick is to figure out what projects make sacrifices to provide the resources.
Slower Oak Ridge development?
Fewer Essex/Iowa/Alaska classes ordered?
B-29?
Lend Lease?

The alternatives tended to be more sexy than tons of Higgins boats and escorts. The POD has to explain why the decision makers felt comfortable enough to shift priorities back in 1941/42.

Possibly major reversals in the early going for Japan could do it. (Botched PH, Wake holds, etc...)
An always interesting option is neutral Italy. No Greece/Africa campaigns let the U.K. Be better prepared in the Pacific. With all German ground forces focused on the Soviets, the wallies feel the need to 'Go Big' on the invasion of France.
 
Given 'Germany First' Landing Craft should have been taken from the South Pacific, and Lend Lease, even though that was only 41 of them to the USSR.
 
Sure it could be done. The trick is to figure out what projects make sacrifices to provide the resources.

Porier's "Results of the German and American Submarine Campaigns of World War II" said that landing craft production was held up by diversion to making ASW escorts. So if either Donitz loses his nerve and pulls back from the Atlantic (which is probably ASB) or the Allies don't (over)load with DEs, it might work, assuming he's accurate.
 
Waiving away the 1943-44 S Pacific offensives, and postphoning the Central Pacific offensive would cover part of the overhead. The problem was more for cargo shipping to move the pre and post invasion material, or build up. Even if enough landing craft are present for the task the global cargo fleet must be rearrigned as well. Things like reducing supplies to China, USSR, ect makes another big chunk of cargo capacity available.

Ground combat forces is not a big issue. Op DRAGOON was executed with units that had been in the MTO since 1943. Perhaps one of the French divisions would not have been ready, but thats a open question.

Nothing changes for air power. IN January 1944 the Allied air forces out numbered the Germans by a incrediblly huge margin. The air bases in Corsica/Sardinia were ready months earlier. Maybe operations over Italy would be reduced a bit to do the air operations supporting a June DRAGOON Op

Note that Eisenhower had badly wanted a ANVIL operation in April. Expanding Op NEPTUNE from three corps/beaches to five made Op ANVIL in the spring impractical, but Ike kept HQ staff at SHAEF & SACMED busy in January & February trying to make it work. He finally canceled Op ANVIL in March, much to Churchills delight, then Ike imeadiatly ordered the operation revived with the name DRAGOON. Churchill was beside himself and argued against Op DRAGOON right to the last moment. Brooke did not seem to care for it either & only a couple of British brigades of commandos & paras participted.

On the game board I extensively tested a earlier ANVIL/DRAGOON operation. Ikes April 1944 target I went through several times, and a January or February date multiple times, plus the May/June window. In all cases I presumed not more amphibious or cargo shipping than OTL, so the NEPTUNE & OVERLORD ops had to be scaled back. If the ANVIL Op came in January February I reduced NEPTUNE to a four beach/corps landing, if ANVIL came in April - June Op NEPTUNE was reduced to a three beach/corps landing, as per the 1943 COSSAC plan for Op OVERLORD/NEPTUNE. In the last case I also moved Op OVERLORD forward to May, as Montgomery originally planned.

To make the January/Feb AVIL op work I assumed the Anzio landing Op SHINGLE was canceled. That made more US forces available for ANVIL, but also allowed some of Kesselrings reserves in Italy to be transfered to France.

Whatever the date of Op ANVIL it benefitted the Allied side. The German player had a array of choices to make, none of which were good. If enough reserves were sent south to deal with the Allied 6th Army Group then north west France was left too weak & even a reduced OVERLORD had a lot less trouble creating a large lodgement in Normandy. If only a holding action is made in the south the Allied player can build 6th AG into a nasty powerfull force and weaken the German position in south France to the point of collapse.

Best course for the German player was to strip Kesselrings Italian front of all reserves and reduce the 10th Army to a delaying force. That gambled losing the Gustav Line in 1944 & the northern industrial region of Italy, but it helped with providing some mechanized and horse mobile corps for France. Still the invariable result was the Allied player being a month or three ahead of the OTL positions in the Autum of 1944.
 
For this one I used five. 'Fortress Europa' & 'The Mighty Endevor' were the primary. Using two different games to cross check designer assumptions is nice when there is time. For studying questions about a reduced Op NEPTUNE/OVERLORD I got Breakout Normandy, Overlord, and Longest Day on the table.

Games have their limits and pitfalls. I learned something about using them to test ideas during my military service. We hardly did anything without rehearsing it on a map or in a field ex. and spent a lot of time using formal game structures to drill and test ourselves. The classic punch line to the question 'Who won?' was 'Before or after the rules were changed?'
 
For this one I used five. 'Fortress Europa' & 'The Mighty Endevor' were the primary. Using two different games to cross check designer assumptions is nice when there is time. For studying questions about a reduced Op NEPTUNE/OVERLORD I got Breakout Normandy, Overlord, and Longest Day on the table.

Games have their limits and pitfalls. I learned something about using them to test ideas during my military service. We hardly did anything without rehearsing it on a map or in a field ex. and spent a lot of time using formal game structures to drill and test ourselves. The classic punch line to the question 'Who won?' was 'Before or after the rules were changed?'
Wasn't there a famous field exercise where a losing commander changed the rules so that every one of his men's bullets had the destructive power of a nuclear bomb?
 
Specifically I dont know, but I've seen some silly stuff. Also seen some officers who's lack of tactical or staff ability, poor situational awareness, inability to make a decision, was scary. However silly, artificial, scripted, or other defective, high pressure map exercises and games can reveal those guys to commanders.
 
Porier's "Results of the German and American Submarine Campaigns of World War II" said that landing craft production was held up by diversion to making ASW escorts. So if either Donitz loses his nerve and pulls back from the Atlantic (which is probably ASB) or the Allies don't (over)load with DEs, it might work, assuming he's accurate.

A lot of people have quoted or repeated Porier's comment. Not certain if anyone has checked it, and I'm not clear on the exact timing of the relevant decisions to reduce one and increase the other. I've done some back of the envelope calculations & those suggest the cargo ship capacity and amphib lift sent to the S pacific in 1943 could translate to at least one and possiblly two more corps size amphibious landings elsewhere in the second half of 1943. So, US 7th Army landing on Sicilly with two vs one corps in July. Salerno assaulted with five or six divisions vs three. The 8th Army crossing to Italy with a second flanking landing. Landing on Sardinia a month earlier. Anyone of those accelerates the advance in the Mediterranean several months.

Extending that into 1944 a larger more capable attack at Anzio, a invasion of southern France in March or April. Or a even larger OVERLORD operation. I wish I had time to do the real research that would clarify these rough estimates.

Given 'Germany First' Landing Craft should have been taken from the South Pacific, ...

Marshal was severely disappointed by the results of the January 1943 SYMBOL confrence. The 1943 invasion of France was canceled. He regarded the Mediterranean as having enough allocated for the stratigic goals there, so he was casting about for more decisive theatres to support. Exactly why the S Pacific was put on the list for grand offensive ops I cant say. Material and cargo shipping were diverted to other fronts as well, such as LL to China and USSR.

Dill supported the concept of a early invasion of France & while CIGS had several staff studies and plans underway. Perhaps had he remained as CIGS through the SYMBOL confrence Allied stratigic planning may have remained more focused on Germany first during 1943.
 
Getting back to the earlier Anvil op there was the question of concentration on a single point, or breaking the enemy via multiple attacks. The Red Army tended to favor the latter. Attacking at multiple points, with reserves poised to exploit the most sucessful attack. Eisenhower favored this concept as well. ie: his attempt to keep the April 44 ANVIL operation viable & his broad front strategy for attacking into Germany. Churchill & Brooke argued for the cancellation of ANVIL & later DRAGOON, arguing for the concentration of everything with Op OVERLORD. Tho they contradicted themselves with simultaneous proposals for reinforcing Italy, invasions of the Balkans, & whatnot.

Given the German (Hitlers) inability to deal with multiple distractions and focus consistently I'm thinking Ike & Zhukov were correct. Multiple attacks, either simultaneous or rapidly sequenced were the better choice.
 
Has there been any simulation for following up Overlord with a landing on Denmark? I know that it's only slightly "better" than the infamous Frisian Islands, but I'm wondering if anyone has bothered to model such a loopy move.
 
Not that I've seen. Back in the heyday of the board war games folks would remark on it, so i assume a Jutland variant was tried.

I have had sucess on the game board invading the Netherlands as the primary invasion. It does not require a '170,000 men on the first day' effort to make it stick. Which leaves a fair amount for secondary invasions to confound unprepared German players. Not sure if it had any connection to the realty of 1944 but it was fun when it worked.
 
Just a brief comment on wargaming. In more exercises than I care to mention, because of available assets and/or failure to adequately plan, you had casualties pile up in the system - not getting rearward to more capable facilities, inadequate medical facilities to handle the PLANNED casualties, etc. The solution was "reset the board". When the exercise was rerun the next year, guess what happened... Rather than say existing assets were inadequate to handle the results we expect (forget being able to handle things if we were optimistic) and then addressing the real problem (how to do that would require 20 pages at least), handwave it away. My personal and direct experience is with medical, but this also held true for other CSS elements.
 
Yep, logistics often was not even on the bus, let alone the back seat of these exercises. That was one of the values in the combined arms live fire exercises we regularly ran. The log guys actually had to deliver ammunition and fuel. Even if the unit was short vehicles and reduced ammo allotments were fired it separated the capable planners & operators from the inept.
 
MickeyM said:
OTL, the Allies wanted to invade France from the North and South at the same time, but they lacked the landing craft to do so.
Given that Overlord was delayed so that an extra month's landing craft would be available, we are looking at even more landing craft than available historically. Is building them really a realistic scenario and just ofr one double operation.
GTStinger said:
Sure it could be done. The trick is to figure out what projects make sacrifices to provide the resources.
Slower Oak Ridge development?
Fewer Essex/Iowa/Alaska classes ordered?
B-29?
Lend Lease?

The alternatives tended to be more sexy than tons of Higgins boats and escorts.
Agreed. Also not all the materials not used are suitable for landing craft, eg aircraft aluminium and warship armour plate.
 
Another limiting factor is that a facility that was turning out Liberty Ships can't simply crank out Higgins boats the next day or LSTs. You can shift what you are producing but that means a certain downtime where you are producing nothing, retraining workers, etc and this goes all the way back to every kind of supplier who now needs to produce different parts for product B as opposed to end product A. Sure, some commonality but lots of differences too.

The question is could a smaller Dragoon been done a week or two after Overlord - large enough to not get pushed in to the sea but smaller than OTL with existing resources. This would have presented the Germans with the same dilemma of dividing forces, and as long as the Dragoon forces got a decent lodgement and were not trapped like Anzio...
 
...
The question is could a smaller Dragoon been done a week or two after Overlord - large enough to not get pushed in to the sea but smaller than OTL with existing resources. This would have presented the Germans with the same dilemma of dividing forces, and as long as the Dragoon forces got a decent lodgement and were not trapped like Anzio...

OTL enough amphib lift was left in the Med for a 'one division' operation. Several of the reasons were: to Give Alexander the ability to take advantage of any "opportunity" the Germans left open; to support the several deception ops in the MTO, training - the French wanted a amphib training package for the reequipped army they were standing up. Devers wanted the same for his future 6th Army Group.

Judging from a all the other ops that seems to mean enough to assault with a brigade or US regiment size group, and follow up with another 15,000 men and assorted equipment in the next 20 hours. That does not sound like nearly enough. By the time a German armored corps assembled there'd only be a couple reinforced infantry divisions in the lodgment. To make any headway the landing force would have to secure one of the southern ports imeadiately so that follow on units could be landed across docks. Coup de mains against defended ports seldom work & I'd not even consider that. So, you would end up with a Anzio like situation where the landing force is out numbered on the ground and has to mark time under cover of naval and air support. If the lodgment did not suffer some sort of catastrophe it would eventually grow to army size and advance.

OTL the Germans started June 1944 with three armored & one motorized inf divisions in Army Group G. Two static or fortress, three training & five horse mobile infantry divisions. IIRC two of the three armored div & one infantry div had been transfered to Normandy by mid August 1944. So, a tiny lodgement of a single Allied corps may pin down a couple German armored divisions in the opening weeks.

Keep in mind the effects of the Allied deception ops. One of those aimed at Bourdeux kept the 11th Pz & a couple infantry divisions facing the Biscay coast into mid August.

On the plus side the Allies had over 7,000 operational aircraft in the MTO in early 1944. The Germans were hard pressed to show 1000 in Italy and south France. Possiblly a lot less by June 1944.
 
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