# Operation Overlord fails - now what ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684 "2011-08-30T22:21:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/21 "2011-08-31T22:58:15Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Absolute rot, old boy. Look at how [Germans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#cite_ref-Overmans_1-0) were killed on the Eastern Front vs. the west. By 31/12/44 (and that’s after D-Day and before Berlin) casualties on the west were 12.39% of those on the east. The Soviets had stomped the Germans at Kursk, the largest armoured engagement in history, in 1943 while D-Day was a year away. So you appear to be agreeing with my premise that wars are won by killing, not dying. Ideolo > [@](#): > > gically the eastern front was the main point of the war in German eyes, the western allies were a bit of an inconvenient afterthought. Again, I’m not saying the Eastern Front wasn’t the larger of the two wars by far, but these threads invariably descend into the most ridiculous oversimplifications. To suggest that the West was an ideological afterthought is in staggering denial of the plain facts. How often did Hitler and his minions cite the humiliation of Versailles as a motivator? A million? A zillion? “An afterthought” is just absurd; the defeat of France was a huge, huge motivator for the Nazis and, to be honest, a great part of the German people. > [@](#): > > You also ignore the implications of transferring divisions in the west to the east. They were still needed there, as the western allies were still a threat. In the imaginary scenario whereby D-Day never happens, history does not proceed as it really did. The Allies simply would not have been in a position to launch another attack in force anytime soon after June 6, and probably not in 1944 at all. It would have been a horrifying loss for the Allies (in part because of its improbability, but we’re playing with history here.) Dragoon wouldn’t have happened. The Germans had as many troops in France as they did specifically to repel Overlord; once it was repelled they would have been yanking divisions out of the West as fast as they could, especially after the Bagration disaster, when the men were most needed. Could that have made a difference? Sure, it would have really slowed the Soviets down. The Germans fought with remarkable tenacity from July 1944 to May 1945; the addition of significant forces to reinforce the centre in the East was just what the Germans needed. But they didn’t have those forces because they were being crunched up in France. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/22 "2011-08-31T23:23:58Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > That’s actually one of the angles I was shooting for - I was wondering if the slow, gruelling push through Italy and Dragoon alone would have been enough to still be able to race the Soviets to Berlin, and if those forces would have been able to cross the Rhine by themselves. > > And then, assuming the answer to that is “meh, not likely”, then I get to wonder whether Stalin would have stopped at the Rheinland… or figured that since he was halfway there, he might as well shoot for Amsterdam too, maybe a slice of Alsace, perhaps even Brest while he was at it (though I daresay the re-conquest of France was pretty much in the bag by the end of '44 no matter what - sandwiched between the RAF bombers and the armies coming from Provence, and with maquisard/FFI activities bolstered by the Allied invasion to boot I don’t really see Hitler’s French contingent resisting overly much). Hard to say; and it depends on how quickly Overlord fails. Even if they end up stuck on the beaches, and never get much more than a mile inland, I would expect the Allies would have tried to make an extended go of it and funnel more men and material into Normandy for weeks. It may well be the end of July before they finally give up and pull back out. By that point Dragoon would be ready to go and they would be able to get right back into France. And this time Dragoon could draw from units in the UK that were designated for France anyway instead of stealing them from Italy. So the US 5th and the British 8th armies may well be able to break the German defense in Italy and achieve the line of the Po Valley before winter. However Dragoon would not be a great line to advance onto the Rhine. But at the very least the Allies would have a beachhead with depth. Paris would likely have to wait until '45 to be liberated. I expect the Allies would end up shaking hands with the Soviets at the Rhine. Soviets probably get a much bigger slice of Germany. But I think the Allies would still get some occupation zones and western nations like Belgium and Denmark are given back to their governments in exile. ---
**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:** [August 31, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/23 "2011-08-31T23:26:51Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > So you appear to be agreeing with my premise that wars are won by killing, not dying. Yes, and the Russians did the majority of both. > [@](#): > > Ideolo > Again, I’m not saying the Eastern Front wasn’t the larger of the two wars by far, but these threads invariably descend into the most ridiculous oversimplifications. To suggest that the West was an ideological afterthought is in staggering denial of the plain facts. How often did Hitler and his minions cite the humiliation of Versailles as a motivator? A million? A zillion? “An afterthought” is just absurd; the defeat of France was a huge, huge motivator for the Nazis and, to be honest, a great part of the German people. My point is that Germany’s primary ire was directed towards the communist east. The contribution of France towards the war effort…well, let’s not go there, but they were knocked out pretty quicky and bar the Free French I’m very hard pressed to call them an integral part of the western allies. For instance, in July 1940 Hitler made a peace offering to Britain - could you imagine the same thing being offered to the Soviets? Even up to the end the Nazis were talking about a separate peace with the western allies whilst fighting savagely against the Reds. > [@](#): > > In the imaginary scenario whereby D-Day never happens, history does not proceed as it really did. The Allies simply would not have been in a position to launch another attack in force anytime soon after June 6, and probably not in 1944 at all. It would have been a horrifying loss for the Allies (in part because of its improbability, but we’re playing with history here.) Dragoon wouldn’t have happened. The Germans had as many troops in France as they did specifically to repel Overlord; once it was repelled they would have been yanking divisions out of the West as fast as they could, especially after the Bagration disaster, when the men were most needed. As pointed out this scenario is simply not plausible and we’re talking about a completely different universe. If mecha-Hitler killed every single man of the invasion force and destroyed all the materiel maybe, but in reality if the invasion started to go south Eisenhower would have simply recalled the rest of the force then resigned to keep the rest of SHAEF command intact. What else were they going to do with the manpower assembled for the operation? Send them home? We would have lost the element of surprise, but this would have meant that manning the Atlantic Wall and keeping manpower in the area to repel the second attempt - or a reinforced Dragoon coming from the south - becomes more important, not less. What else were the western allies going to do? Giving up would be out of the question. Sitting back and doing nothing is as good as giving up. We’d have taken more casualties, but at some point the western allies would have made another serious attempt on the continent. > [@](#): > > Could that have made a difference? Sure, it would have really slowed the Soviets down. The Germans fought with remarkable tenacity from July 1944 to May 1945; the addition of significant forces to reinforce the centre in the East was just what the Germans needed. But they didn’t have those forces because they were being crunched up in France. This assumes the western allies do absolutely nothing following the failure. If the western allies dropped out totally from the war the Soviets would still have won by 1944, and even then I don’t think it would have taken them \*that \*much longer. Remember that D-Day was pretty late on in the war, after the Sixth Army’s destruction, after the Germans lost the initiative at Kursk, after they’d lost over 200,000 square kilometers to the Dnieper-Carpathain offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/24 "2011-08-31T23:46:56Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The Allies simply would not have been in a position to launch another attack in force anytime soon after June 6, and probably not in 1944 at all. It would have been a horrifying loss for the Allies (in part because of its improbability, but we’re playing with history here.) Why not? The Allies had a lot more soldiers in the UK than those that directly engaged in Overlord. They would still have the navies, the landing craft, the air forces, the massive quantities of materiel. And if something was missing, they would pull them from the Pacific. The failure of Overlord would be a much bigger blow to McArthur’s planned invasion of the Philippines than Dragoon. One way or another the Allies were going to be in France, in force, in August. Sure they would be shaken, and maybe heads would roll (I can imagine that Eisenhower would be shuffled elsewhere for example), but the western front was going to reopen in '44 come hell or high water. There is simply no way in hell, they don’t try again somewhere and soon. > [@RickJay](#): > > Dragoon wouldn’t have happened. The Germans had as many troops in France as they did specifically to repel Overlord; once it was repelled they would have been yanking divisions out of the West as fast as they could, especially after the Bagration disaster, when the men were most needed. > > Could that have made a difference? Sure, it would have really slowed the Soviets down. The Germans fought with remarkable tenacity from July 1944 to May 1945; the addition of significant forces to reinforce the centre in the East was just what the Germans needed. But they didn’t have those forces because they were being crunched up in France. And if they pull the troops out, then the Allies come back all the easier. The existence of a million and a half soldiers sitting in the UK means the Germans simply can’t pull units out of France. They were pinned there by the existence of the western armies. If they leave France unprotected than they lose France. Like I said earlier. This undoubtedly extends the war. The Soviets would undoubtedly have a harder slog. But in my estimation it is a matter of 3-9 months not years. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/25 "2011-09-01T02:16:46Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > The Germans lost the War at Stalingrad, not at D-Day, but without American and British support during WWII, the Soviets probably would have Bern beaten. That’s highly debatable. Lend-lease aid to the USSR was certainly of great importance, but US lend-lease to the USSR only began in November, 1941 and was initially a small trickle; the floodgates didn’t open up until mid 1942. The USSR weathered the German invasion, brought it to a halt and put the Germans on the strategic defensive for the first time in the war with the start of their front-wide winter offensive in December 1941 entirely on their own devices. > [@xtisme](#): > > In the end they most likely would still have lost, but it might have taken a extra year or even more, and the Soviet and German causalities would have been that much greater…and possibly the Germans could have stabilized a defense that would have broken the teeth of a Soviet advance. The rate at which the Soviets were losing mean and material, especially in their final push into Germany (and WITH the US and other allies putting significant pressure on them from the west and diluting their ability to defend and support), I don’t see how they could sustain such an effort indefinitely. If the Germans could have hurt them a lot more in '44, I think it’s possible that Germany hangs on into '46 or even '47, assuming the US doesn’t drop an atomic bomb on Berlin and ends it the same way we ended things against Japan. The Soviets were in no danger of being unable to sustain their operations due to losses, Germany was the one facing this problem. They were destroying enormous amounts of German men and material in exchange for their losses; the Germans were down to resorting on Volksgrenadiers and Volksstrum formed from teenagers, 50-60 year olds and those previously declared unfit for service. There was no chance of breaking the teeth of the Soviet advance. As soon as Bagration wound down in mid-Poland due to the length of the supply line after destroying Army Group Center and cutting off most of Army Group North in the Baltics, the Soviets turned their attention to the north and south, rapidly overrunning the Balkans and knocking Finland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary out of the war in the process by September. The loss of Romania meant the loss of the Ploesti oilfields, Germany’s largest source of oil. Notably the goal of the Lake Balaton offensive was to recover the nearby oil wells. Even if the Western Allies disappeared in a puff of smoke following a complete failure of Overlord, I can’t see the length of the war being extended by more than months, not years. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/26 "2011-09-01T03:20:45Z")
Again, I disagree. The Russians weren’t some sort of superhumans, able to shrug off staggering losses AND have magical logistics at their beck and call, regardless. When they pushed into Germany in our real, actual history, it cost them big time, and it took an all out effort for them to do it. It was no cake walk…far from it. And that was with Germany caught between two fires, having to send troops and supplies west as well as east. The Russians paid for every step, and the final assault was a nightmare for them and took everything they had to make it happen. This myth that the Russians could have done it all themselves and that the rest of the allies were just sort of along for the ride is just that…a myth. It took the concerted effort of all of the major and minor allies to make it happen as it did. Take away any part of that and history would be very different. Oh, it’s likely that if D-Day had been a total failure that the Russians would still have managed to bull their way into Germany, but it wouldn’t have been a cake walk, and it would have wrecked their army and stressed their logistics and industry to the breaking point. It might have cost them another million casualties, and that would be a million of their best and toughest veterans…and I think that it’s possible that a Germany fighting on just one front (or two if you count the stalemate in Italy) might have been able to fort up and drag things out into '46 or even '47, when the other allies might have been in a position to try another invasion in the west. -XT ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/27 "2011-09-01T04:38:21Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Again, I’m not saying the Eastern Front wasn’t the larger of the two wars by far, but these threads invariably descend into the most ridiculous oversimplifications. To suggest that the West was an ideological afterthought is in staggering denial of the plain facts. How often did Hitler and his minions cite the humiliation of Versailles as a motivator? A million? A zillion? “An afterthought” is just absurd; the defeat of France was a huge, huge motivator for the Nazis and, to be honest, a great part of the German people. My grandfather served in WWII, and among other things, he brought back [this coin](http://www.muenzen-hardelt.de/S86-15.jpg), which was a propaganda piece given to the soldiers to remind them of the French occupation of the Rhineland (a significant part of the French occupation force was soldiers from their African colonies). ---
**Author:** ![wedgehed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wedgehed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wedgehed)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/28 "2011-09-01T12:57:54Z")
If Overlord had failed ( & aside from the fact that this delay would probably result in Germany being nuked) wouldn’t the Germans have been able to produce more jet aircraft & V-2s to use against the Russians? Speaking of, did they ever use these weapons on the Eastern Front? ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/29 "2011-09-01T13:04:11Z")
**xtisme** , no one is claiming that the Soviets were supermen. Nor is anyone claiming that they wouldn’t take additional horrific casualties. I find your estimate of an additional million men to be quite plausible. So no cake walk at all. But they were a bit better off than the Germans in that regard. As a country with a 130 million plus people, the Soviets were simply better equipped to absorb the losses than the 80 million odd Germans. And yes the Soviets would be devastated (they already were really). But the Soviets engaged in a type of total war that goes leaps and bounds beyond what everyone else did. They were in a death match and had finally gotten the Germans by the throat, Stalin wasn’t going to ease up, and damn the casualties. He would worry about the damage done to the USSR only after the Germans lay prostrate before him. > [@xtisme](#): > > …and I think that it’s possible that a Germany fighting on just one front (or two if you count the stalemate in Italy) might have been able to fort up and drag things out into '46 or even '47, when the other allies might have been in a position to try another invasion in the west. So now we have a claim that the western Allies aren’t going to invade until '46 or '47? Why do you expect it would take that long? I think this may be the biggest point of divergence between you and me. For some reason you think that a failed Overlord means the western Allies would simply drop out of the war. That seems implausible to me. Politically they would have to try somewhere else, and soon. Maybe the old Churchill Balkans plan would be dusted off. Maybe a sequel in Normandy. in Maybe an up-sized Dragoon (this seems most likely to me). But they have to try somewhere. Churchill said his government would fall if they were kicked out of Europe a fourth time unless he had a success to balance against it. Politically he would have to try again in '45. They would still have the better part of 100 divisions in the UK and all the materiel for this army already stockpiled. They would use it somewhere that summer. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/30 "2011-09-01T13:35:39Z")
> [@wedgehed](#): > > If Overlord had failed ( & aside from the fact that this delay would probably result in Germany being nuked) wouldn’t the Germans have been able to produce more jet aircraft & V-2s to use against the Russians? Speaking of, did they ever use these weapons on the Eastern Front? Not much, the V-2s were entirely focused on the west. And the Me 262s were dedicated to anti-bombing missions. So they only had limited engagements with the Soviets. Most of the V-2s were fired at Belgium, with the UK coming in a close second, and a handful fired at France, the Netherlands, and occupied Germany (all at Remagen to be precise). But the V-2s were terrible weapons, averaging 2 deaths per shot, while being quite expensive. They were intended as terror weapons. But after years of bombings, they weren’t all that terrifying (comparatively, I certainly wouldn’t want to be caught under one). And while the Germans produced 1400 Me 262s only around 200 entered operational service, mostly due to lack of fuel. So this is a place where I would expect to see some real differences, depending on what alterations were made in the bomber plans, and how quickly the Soviets take Ploesti. It is possible that the Germans could field a much more robust air defense in '45 than they had historically. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/31 "2011-09-01T13:40:06Z")
It takes time to build up an invasion force and all of the logistics you would need to support such a force. It takes time to plan the details of such an invasion. You don’t do it in a couple of months timeframe. Look at how long it took the US to prepare for the First Gulf War. IIRC, preparations for Overlord started in 1942, with a projected invasion in '44. Assuming a failed invasion, my guess is that much of the command staff would be sacked. Then they would go through another planning and training cycle, with a huge build up of logistics. They would want to make this invasion even bigger, depending on what the reasons were for it to fail, and try and analyze the problems and do gap analysis. I’d say that getting another invasion in the same 2 years would be a huge task. Another aspect here is how it would have failed. Did the Germans force the troop to surrender? Were we able to evac any of them? What about the equipment? The Germans were pretty good about taking captured equipment and using it, and they would have had quite a windfall in allied equipment, especially trucks, artillery, tanks and earth moving equipment if they managed to capture large stores before we could destroy them. They would also have a lot of allied prisoners, men who had been trained for this task and men who would need to be replaced by training new ones. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/32 "2011-09-01T14:55:11Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > The paratroop landings did in fact screw up catastrophically, the landings were scattered all to hell. On average each ‘stick’ (planeload) missed its intended drop zone by several miles, some by as much as 25 miles. The drop patterns of the [101st](http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-4/~MapVIII.htm) and [82nd](http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-4/~MapIX.htm) from the official US Army history shows just how badly fucked up it was. Interestingly, I have read that the screw-up of the paratroop drop actually _favoured_ the Allies in a sense - as it completely confused the Germans as to the Allies’ battle plan in the initial hours of the invasion! ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/33 "2011-09-01T14:59:47Z")
I disagree that the invasion “could not have failed”. It is often forgotten that right after the invasion, horrible weather in the channel (the worst storm in years) grounded allied air support and wrecked on of the two mobile harbours the allies had brought with them. Had the storm wrecked both, and continued for longer grounding allied air cover, the Allies would have been in a bad way for supplies and would not have been able to interdict German mivements, and a determined and coordinated resistence, unimpeded by the “Bodyguard” deception that kept a whole army cooling its heels covering Calais, could well have smashed the invasion. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/34 "2011-09-01T15:59:17Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > It takes time to build up an invasion force and all of the logistics you would need to support such a force. It takes time to plan the details of such an invasion. You don’t do it in a couple of months timeframe. Look at how long it took the US to prepare for the First Gulf War. IIRC, preparations for Overlord started in 1942, with a projected invasion in '44. Assuming a failed invasion, my guess is that much of the command staff would be sacked. Then they would go through another planning and training cycle, with a huge build up of logistics. They would want to make this invasion even bigger, depending on what the reasons were for it to fail, and try and analyze the problems and do gap analysis. I’d say that getting another invasion in the same 2 years would be a huge task. Planning doesn’t take that long. Here are some examples: Operation - Time from initiation of planning to invasion Husky (Sicily) - 67 days Baytown (Italy) - Less than 64 days (my source simply says “July” as the start of planning) Avalanche (Italy) - Less than 67 days (my source simply says “July” as the start of planning) Shingle (Anzio) - Around 30 days Dragoon (Southern France) - 15 days (although it had been looked at before, so planning was much easier) Toenails - less than 50 days (my source simply says “May” as the start of planning) Chronicle - less than 52 days (my source simply says “May” as the start of planning) Watchtower - less than 90 days (again my source simply says “May” as the start of planning) Chromite (Inchon) - 70 days Planning start times aren’t always documented well (or at all) but I think my point is made. Most amphibious operations took around 2 months to go from vague idea to invasion. And Dragoon only took 15 days once it was decided to actually plan it. Obviously operations like Overlord are more complex, and require more planning. But not a whole lot more. Neptune (the D-day part of Overlord) involved 10 divisions plus two brigades. Dragoon involved 7 divisions plus some additional units. And it had the advantage of being already mostly planned. So it could be implemented almost immediately in the case of an Overlord failure. The reason Overlord took so long to gear up was the need to build up materiel and train men. And it had to be done in more adverse conditions than existed in '44. By '44 the sea lanes were vastly safer, and the Allies had a lot more shipping. And that initial build up and training included a lot more than just the initial invasion force. So what happens if it fails utterly? Lets suppose total destruction of every piece of equipment that lands and total capture of every man that lands in the first week. We’ll even throw in the complete destruction of all landing craft. That means that the Allies still have 80% of their strength and more than half of the landing craft (with around 1000+ more being produced a month). So here the Allies would be, with 80% of their strength trained and ready to go, enough landing craft to repeat D-day. And they have a plan mostly sketched out (that in the real timeline only took 15 days to complete planning). Why wouldn’t they use it? There is no reason to wait… all the waiting has already been done. The men and supplies for a multi-year campaign have already been provided. There is no need to wait until '45 let alone '46 or '47. Sure there would be a need to move around troops and equipment. But nothing outside the Allies capabilities in '44. > [@xtisme](#): > > Another aspect here is how it would have failed. Did the Germans force the troop to surrender? Were we able to evac any of them? What about the equipment? The Germans were pretty good about taking captured equipment and using it, and they would have had quite a windfall in allied equipment, especially trucks, artillery, tanks and earth moving equipment if they managed to capture large stores before we could destroy them. They would also have a lot of allied prisoners, men who had been trained for this task and men who would need to be replaced by training new ones. It doesn’t much matter. The Allies had a dozen plus divisions already in the Med who had already completed amphibious landings. And the 80 odd divisions sitting in the UK are combat trained. Remember Dragoon actually took place, without needing any of the men involved in Overlord. The Seventh would kick the door down and the rest of the troops would disembark in Marseille much the way they did in Cherbourg or Arromanches. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/35 "2011-09-01T16:25:33Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I disagree that the invasion “could not have failed”. It is often forgotten that right after the invasion, horrible weather in the channel (the worst storm in years) grounded allied air support and wrecked on of the two mobile harbours the allies had brought with them. Had the storm wrecked both, and continued for longer grounding allied air cover, the Allies would have been in a bad way for supplies and would not have been able to interdict German mivements, and a determined and coordinated resistence, unimpeded by the “Bodyguard” deception that kept a whole army cooling its heels covering Calais, could well have smashed the invasion. Let’s change that to “was extraordinarily unlike to fail” if you like. That storm as described as “the worst channel storm in 40 years.” So I think making proposals that require it to be even worse or longer, borders on fantasy. And the only reason it wrecked even one harbor, was that the Americans screwed up in assembling theirs. The British harbor was never in danger of being wrecked. And the Allies never planed on the Germans hanging out in Calais as long as they did. They always expected to have to engage them in Normandy. As it was I don’t think the Allies ever enjoyed less than a 2:1 advantage in men or tanks, after the first few hours. And Salmuth had what, 8 divisions between the Somme and Belguim? Even if the Pas de Calais had been entirely emptied and shipped during the storm of the 19-20th they would only achieve rough parity with the Allies, hardly enough to “smash” the Allied forces. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/36 "2011-09-01T16:50:49Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > My grandfather served in WWII, and among other things, he brought back [this coin](http://www.muenzen-hardelt.de/S86-15.jpg), which was a propaganda piece given to the soldiers to remind them of the French occupation of the Rhineland (a significant part of the French occupation force was soldiers from their African colonies). Is that… is that a German mädchen tied to a giant black dick ? They didn’t fuck around when it came to propaganda back then, did they ? [QUOTE=Bartman] And while the Germans produced 1400 Me 262s only around 200 entered operational service, mostly due to lack of fuel. So this is a place where I would expect to see some real differences, depending on what alterations were made in the bomber plans, and how quickly the Soviets take Ploesti. It is possible that the Germans could field a much more robust air defense in '45 than they had historically. [/QUOTE] Which is a reason I’m skeptical about the nuke threat, even if we forget that Fatman and Little Boy were it and the whole of it - there were no other bombs to drop at the time, and making new ones took around a month each. The Germans had the best bomber hunter in the war by a large margin, and assuming they get the Hiroshima heads up, they were probably going to ramp it up some more. They also had radar by then. Which leaves the fuel woes, but if we assume Overlord fails catastrophically, they can possibly bring back all of the French supplies back home in a somewhat orderly fashion, easing the burden somewhat. So really, I don’t think “we just drop a nuke on Berlin” is all that automatic an assumption. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/37 "2011-09-01T17:20:12Z")
> [@Bartman](#): > > Let’s change that to “was extraordinarily unlike to fail” if you like. That storm as described as “the worst channel storm in 40 years.” So I think making proposals that require it to be even worse or longer, borders on fantasy. And the only reason it wrecked even one harbor, was that the Americans screwed up in assembling theirs. The British harbor was never in danger of being wrecked. > > And the Allies never planed on the Germans hanging out in Calais as long as they did. They always expected to have to engage them in Normandy. As it was I don’t think the Allies ever enjoyed less than a 2:1 advantage in men or tanks, after the first few hours. And Salmuth had what, 8 divisions between the Somme and Belguim? Even if the Pas de Calais had been entirely emptied and shipped during the storm of the 19-20th they would only achieve rough parity with the Allies, hardly enough to “smash” the Allied forces. I would not relegate the (in fact, quite real) storm wrecking both, as opposed to only one, harbour, or lasting another day, as “fantasy”. Seems eminently possible to me. And a numerical advantage would count for less if supplies where unavailable, as modern warfare depends to a great extent on supply (having a 2:1 advantage in tanks isn’t enough - those tanks must have shells, parts, gas, etc.). If supplies had been interdicted, a narrow beachead could have been ‘smashed’ by a numerically inferior force - and certainly by one with rough parity. Really, two elements were needed for a German victory, once the landing had been made: (1) something that would prevent supplying the beachead; and (2) seeing through the “Bodyguard” deception plan. They came close to (1) via the massive storm; they never came close to (2), and in fact, the deception worked even better than its planners had thought. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/38 "2011-09-01T18:01:12Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Which is a reason I’m skeptical about the nuke threat, even if we forget that Fatman and Little Boy were it and the whole of it - there were no other bombs to drop at the time, and making new ones took around a month each. > The Germans had the best bomber hunter in the war by a large margin, and assuming they get the Hiroshima heads up, they were probably going to ramp it up some more. They also had radar by then. Which leaves the fuel woes, but if we assume Overlord fails catastrophically, they can possibly bring back all of the French supplies back home in a somewhat orderly fashion, easing the burden somewhat. > > So really, I don’t think “we just drop a nuke on Berlin” is all that automatic an assumption. Yes it was far more of a danger than bombing Japan. But crew loss per sortie went down every year for the Allies. While the Germans were still shooting down lots of planes, the odds of shooting any particular plane down were continuing to drop even as the me 262 came online. Bury your bomber in the safest part of the formation and you can be fairly sure it’ll reach its target. But you are wrong about the number of bomb the US had. They had more than just Fat Man and Little Boy. There was a third already being assembled for an estimated delivery date of the 19th. With 3-4 more expected each in September and October. [cite](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/72.pdf) And rates of production were expected to increase after that. Finally, there would be no Hiroshima heads up. If Germany was still in the war after Trinity, all the initial targets would have been German. Germany was always the intended target. Japan was just the target we had left when they became available. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/39 "2011-09-01T18:02:29Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > My grandfather served in WWII, and among other things, he brought back [this coin](http://www.muenzen-hardelt.de/S86-15.jpg), which was a propaganda piece given to the soldiers to remind them of the French occupation of the Rhineland (a significant part of the French occupation force was soldiers from their African colonies). If that coin is Nazi propoganda, why does it have the date 1920 on it? And on the other side, is that woman (presumably representing France) tied to a giant dick? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/40 "2011-09-01T18:09:51Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > If that coin is Nazi propoganda, why does it have the date 1920 on it? And on the other side, is that woman (presumably representing France) tied to a giant dick? I would have thought the woman represents Germany. The title ‘Black Shame’ I would think is supposed to refer to the “shame” of Germany being “raped” by France, in the form of the Rhineland being occupied by (Black French) soldiers. Sexualized and racialized “national humiliation”. The 1920 date, seems to me, makes of pre- or proto-Nazi German origin, though it may I suppose be simply intended to remind Nazis of the occupation ahnd actually have been made much later. An interesting piece. Never heard of anything like it before. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684.md?page=3)