# D-Day fails. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 15, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597 "2011-06-15T20:02:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/21 "2011-06-16T04:11:15Z")
Operation Dragoon was also still in the late planning stage. It might have been upgraded to a heavier assault. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/22 "2011-06-16T04:45:55Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > The Reich dies in an instant, by fire. Well, we only had the 2 nuclear bombs available. We probably could have had a third one in a week to 10 days later. And then another one ever 2 weeks or so. Using them in Europe would have meant there were none available against Japan, which could have led to way more casualties there, if we had gone through with the planned invasion of Japan. Also, would either of those nuclear bombs actually have killed Hitler et. al., in their bunker in Berlin? It was deep underground, and protected by thick concrete. The pictures from Hiroshima & Nagasaki show that even some above-ground buildings survived, so I’d expect people in bunkers would have survived, too. We could have killed a whole lot of German civilians, and the soldiers who were still fighting, but the commanders in the bunker probably would have been safe. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/23 "2011-06-16T05:01:07Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, even the Ukrainians or Belarusians don’t speak Russian. Why would a Red Germany or France do so? Sure they do. Well, at least as well as I speak French (i.e. poorly and remembered from high school). In European schools, some amount of language learning is more or less mandatory and what side of the Iron Curtain you ended up on determined what languages you could take. For example, in East Germany you’d have to take Russian, whereas in the West you’d either take English or French. But I suppose “…they’d all be conversationally familiar with Russian in addition to their respective mother tongues” doesn’t quite capture the intended severity of “…they’d all be speaking Russian”! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Blackhawk441](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/76d3ee/32.png) [@Blackhawk441](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackhawk441)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/24 "2011-06-16T05:23:37Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > We probably could have had a third one in a week to 10 days later. And then another one ever 2 weeks or so. > > Using them in Europe would have meant there were none available against Japan, 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/25 "2011-06-16T05:48:21Z")
> [@Blackhawk441](#): > > 😕 What’s difficult to understand? In 1945, A-bombs took time to produce and there wasn’t a stockpile. Being able to crank out one every two weeks was quite an achievement, and U-235 was in such short supply that Little Boy wasn’t even tested before use (they figured the design was simple enough not to need it: it’s easier to explode U-235 than plutonium). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/26 "2011-06-16T06:58:27Z")
I think Blackhawk’s point was that we could have built more atom bombs to use against Japan if they didn’t surrender otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/27 "2011-06-16T07:41:08Z")
Would the Soviets have advanced as fast as they did if a Western front hadn’t opened up after D-Day? I would think the Germans would have had more resources for the Eastern front. I also wonder how much of Japan would have been left after the war if we had continued conventional bombing of Japan through the rest of 1945. As I recall, the bombing raids on Tokyo alone killed more people than than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/28 "2011-06-16T11:27:52Z")
Actually, if D-Day failed, Hitler would have been able to fully concentrate on the Eastern Front. You have to keep in mind, in June 1944, Germany still controlled the Balkans, most of Italy and still had troops in Soviet territory. D-Day overloaded German defenses and caused the thing to collapse rather rapidly. If D-Day failed, the war would have dragged on for years, and perhaps ended in a negotiated peace, as no one really wanted the Soviets in Paris. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/29 "2011-06-16T15:21:55Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > read from time mag decades ago that, if the ground offensive at germany failed, radioactive poisoning of much of germany was approved (roosevelt/truman or just stimson/marshal?) Robert Heinlein, _Solution Unsatisfactory_ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/30 "2011-06-16T15:47:35Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Well, we only had the 2 nuclear bombs available. We probably could have had a third one in a week to 10 days later. And then another one ever 2 weeks or so. Yeah, but what if the Germans don’t know that? ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/31 "2011-06-16T15:54:27Z")
> [@treis](#): > > (1) The Soviets will still beat the Germans. By D-Day, this was essentially inevitable. > > (2) Once the Soviets enter Germany, German control over Western Europe will likely collapse. > > (3) With the collapse of German forces in the West, the Free French and probably the rest of the allies take control of France and the Low Countries. > > At that point, it would be very difficult to see the Soviets continuing to roll into Western Europe. That would be a tremendously long supply line, over hostile territory. It’s doubtful that they could have maintained the necessary air superiority. If they did attack, they probably would successfully take Western Europe, depending on how much men and material the Western Allies had in France. End result? Moscow gets nuked in 45 and the USSR negotiates a partial surrender. > > If Moscow stops at Germany, there would be no East/West Germany, just a communist puppet Germany. The biggest effect is probably the lack of access to German scientists by the West, but that is probably overblown. I imagine things would progress essentially as they did, subject to the butterfly effect of course. Don’t underestimate Stalin’s greed/resolve. He could easily have ‘bypassed’ Germany to some extent while swinging South (South Germany/Northern Italy) and around into France. Even if the French resistance had liberated an area, that wouldn’t have mattered…the Russian armies would still have rolled in. Hitler, being who he was would still have defended the Atlantic Wall. Only after Stalin had taken as much as he could would he have finished off Germany. France, Germany, The Low countries, Denmark would all have been in the Eastern bloc. The old saying that D-Day saved Western Europe from the Soviet Union is not really wrong. By June 1944, The Soviet Union did not need any more help taking out Germany. We would not have nuked Russia. France and others have been liberated. It is just that they are very pro- Soviet Union. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/32 "2011-06-16T16:01:49Z")
Would it have been so bad? U.K. and U.S. would have been economically even stronger into present day. No Marshal plan…Western Europe would have been like Eastern Europe economically. Europe (Outside of England) would be much more eclipsed instead of the powerhouse it is now ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/33 "2011-06-16T19:11:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Would the Soviets have advanced as fast as they did if a Western front hadn’t opened up after D-Day? I would think the Germans would have had more resources for the Eastern front. > [@](#): > > Actually, if D-Day failed, Hitler would have been able to fully concentrate on the Eastern Front. > > You have to keep in mind, in June 1944, Germany still controlled the Balkans, most of Italy and still had troops in Soviet territory. D-Day overloaded German defenses and caused the thing to collapse rather rapidly. If D-Day failed, the war would have dragged on for years, and perhaps ended in a negotiated peace, as no one really wanted the Soviets in Paris. The Soviets didn’t need any help in winning the war by 1944. Look at Operation Bagration - the Red Army basically eliminated the entire center of the German line. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/34 "2011-06-16T19:35:23Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, even the Ukrainians or Belarusians don’t speak Russian. Why would a Red Germany or France do so? I’m going to amaze you, but during German occupation, people didnt magically switch to German neither. That phrase is especially funny regarding the French who have never mastered any other language but their own. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/35 "2011-06-16T21:10:04Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > Actually, if D-Day failed, Hitler would have been able to fully concentrate on the Eastern Front. > > You have to keep in mind, in June 1944, Germany still controlled the Balkans, most of Italy and still had troops in Soviet territory. D-Day overloaded German defenses and caused the thing to collapse rather rapidly. If D-Day failed, the war would have dragged on for years, and perhaps ended in a negotiated peace, as no one really wanted the Soviets in Paris. It is unlikely. Germany was concentrated on the Eastern Front by about 150 divisions to 60 in the West. Those in the East were generally higher quality as well. Possibly if Germany had all those divisions in the East, they would have won that front, but by the time of D-Day it was too late. The Soviets had smashed the center of the German army, and it didn’t look like a manageable situation even if they had sent every division in the West to the East. Even if D-Day failed, they still needed to defend Western Europe. > [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Don’t underestimate Stalin’s greed/resolve. He could easily have ‘bypassed’ Germany to some extent while swinging South (South Germany/Northern Italy) and around into France. Even if the French resistance had liberated an area, that wouldn’t have mattered…the Russian armies would still have rolled in. Hitler, being who he was would still have defended the Atlantic Wall. Only after Stalin had taken as much as he could would he have finished off Germany. I think the greed of Stalin is overblown. Remember, WWII was the second time in 30 years that Germany had invaded. They wanted a buffer, and to permanently crush Germany’s ability to make war. Besides, don’t forget that the US was advancing through Italy, and would have had an easy path into France. It’s difficult to believe that the USSR could have permanently held France. Rolling into France almost certainly means war with the US and the UK, and that almost certainly means a loss for the USSR. Stalin may have been a lot of things, but astonishingly stupid isn’t on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/36 "2011-06-16T22:56:00Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > Actually, if D-Day failed, Hitler would have been able to fully concentrate on the Eastern Front. > > You have to keep in mind, in June 1944, Germany still controlled the Balkans, most of Italy and still had troops in Soviet territory. D-Day overloaded German defenses and caused the thing to collapse rather rapidly. If D-Day failed, the war would have dragged on for years, and perhaps ended in a negotiated peace, as no one really wanted the Soviets in Paris. Nonsense. The schedule of advance fell rapidly behind pre-landing plans after the landings, a result of bitter fighting and grindingly slow advances in the Normandy bocage. The Allied breakout didn’t begin until the end of July. Operation Bagration was going to be launched on June 22 (the anniversary of Barbarossa) regardless of success or failure in Normandy, and as can be seen on [this map](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/BagrationMap2.jpg) it threw the Germans out of the last bits of Russia and half-way across Poland by August 19th, destroying Army Group Center in the process. By mid-1944 Germany was going to lose to the USSR with or without the Western Allies. Regarding the Normandy landings, it had no realistic chance of failing. The Allies were landing in far too much force, on too many beaches, and with far more support for the Germans to be able to stop them on the beach. At least Ambrose doesn’t rely on the invasion failing on the beaches; instead it relies on the divine intervention of a storm appearing without warning just as the landings begin. The more likely result would be the storms being detected and the invasion fleets being recalled before the landing begun. A much more reasonable possibility for a ‘failure’ would be the Germans managing to contain the Allies in a shallow beachhead resulting in a prolonged stalemate ala Anzio. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/37 "2011-06-16T23:53:09Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Robert Heinlein, _Solution Unsatisfactory_ Ironically the story was written before the US entered World War II (in 1940 I think) ---
**Author:** ![Sablicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Sablicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sablicious)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/38 "2011-06-17T03:00:20Z")
- Hilter’s military ineptitude, hubris and Napoleonic disregard for the Russian winter would have still had the same affect it ultimately did, only it might have taken the conclusion of WWII past Sept. 1945. - The US would have ceded more territory to the Pinkos, which in turn would have put the West more behind the Cold War 8-ball. - The Japs might have hit Pearl earlier with more or less the same results, depending on what targets were on offer at this time. **Unknown factor:** How further along Nazi development of the A-bomb would have gotten before their demise. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/39 "2011-06-17T03:30:23Z")
> [@Sablicious](#): > > - The Japs might have hit Pearl earlier with more or less the same results, depending on what targets were on offer at this time. Eh? The IJN attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941; D-Day and the point of divergence happen in 1944. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597/40 "2011-06-17T16:46:31Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Operation Bagration was going to be launched on June 22 (the anniversary of Barbarossa) regardless of success or failure in Normandy, and as can be seen on [this map](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/BagrationMap2.jpg) it threw the Germans out of the last bits of Russia and half-way across Poland by August 19th, destroying Army Group Center in the process. By mid-1944 Germany was going to lose to the USSR with or without the Western Allies. It is perhaps difficult for us to conceptualize the enormous scale of _Bagration_. The Soviets no only had large numbers of men, tanks, planes, and artillery shells, but the tanks and artillery (at least) were pretty high-quality, _and_ Soviet doctrine was well-suited to a set-piece offensive, _and_ they were motivated by intense ideological hatred. The results were one-sided. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-day-fails/585597.md?page=3)