# 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:** 3
**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, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/41 "2011-09-01T18:15:09Z")
Fair enough **Malthus** fantasy was a strong word. But it was already a historically bad storm, expecting it to get worse is pushing the limits of potential weather phenomena for the area. It was already about as bad as it could get. And yes there is little the storm could have done to knock out the British harbor. The American harbor was assembled incorrectly **and** hadn’t been secured to the seabed. The British harbor had been assembled properly and secured. To wreck it would have required a storm a magnitude greater than the already historically bad storm. Any storm big enough to do that would stop German movement and resupply anyway. And by and large the Germans had worse supply problems than the Allies. You could have a Cat 5 hurricane sweep Normandy, and given the supply trains, the Allies would probably recover faster than the Germans. ---
**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, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/42 "2011-09-01T18:20:45Z")
> [@Bartman](#): > > Fair enough **Malthus** fantasy was a strong word. But it was already a historically bad storm, expecting it to get worse is pushing the limits of potential weather phenomena for the area. It was already about as bad as it could get. And yes there is little the storm could have done to knock out the British harbor. The American harbor was assembled incorrectly **and** hadn’t been secured to the seabed. The British harbor had been assembled properly and secured. To wreck it would have required a storm a magnitude greater than the already historically bad storm. Fair enough. Any prospect for German success would require the assembly of both Mulberries to be muffed. > [@](#): > > Any storm big enough to do that would stop German movement and resupply anyway. And by and large the Germans had worse supply problems than the Allies. You could have a Cat 5 hurricane sweep Normandy, and given the supply trains, the Allies would probably recover faster than the Germans. As to this, I dunno. A storm at sea is far more disruptive to supply than a storm on land - and a storm on land would bring a welcome respite from the true cause of Germany’s supply build-up problems - allied air power, that bombed and strafed anything that rolled on its way to Normandy with relative impunity. ---
**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:** [September 1, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/43 "2011-09-01T18:32:09Z")
> [@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? 1920 was the year when the territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles went into effect. ---
**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, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/44 "2011-09-01T18:37:02Z")
I’d love to see a coin expert discuss that coin. It’s an interesting relic to be sure. ---
**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, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/45 "2011-09-01T18:43:09Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Fair enough. Any prospect for German success would require the assembly of both Mulberries to be muffed. > > As to this, I dunno. A storm at sea is far more disruptive to supply than a storm on land - and a storm on land would bring a welcome respite from the true cause of Germany’s supply build-up problems - allied air power, that bombed and strafed anything that rolled on its way to Normandy with relative impunity. OK, agreed. But how bad do things have to suck when you are praying for near hurricanes to \*improve \*your transportation system. ---
**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, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/46 "2011-09-01T18:51:38Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I’d love to see a coin expert discuss that coin. It’s an interesting relic to be sure. According to [this site](http://www.germaniainternational.com/army28.html): > [@](#): > > The history of the French occupation of the Rhineland is replete with horrific stories of cruelty and wanton murder of the German population. But by far the most often repented crimes of those savages was rape. French use of Black Troops was nothing short of a national insult cast at a nation that the French hated with a passion. Rage was so rampant that it seemed to influence the NS initiative to at least sterilize the Black children of the Rhineland occupation. > > … > > The medal is called The Black Watch on the Rhine (Die Schwarze Wacht am Rhine). It was struck by the great medalist Karl Goetz as a protest to the sending of the Black Colonial Troops to occupy the Rhine territory, and the sexual depravity. The inscription on the obverse is ‘Liberty, Fraternity, Equality 1920.’ This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the French national motto. On the back is a description of a nude female figure tied to a phallus that has a French helmet at its tip. The all-seeing eye of French masonry within the triangle seems to overlook and direct the savage scene. The initials for Karl Goetz are seen at the bottom. The words around the edge are Die Schwarze Schande (The Black Shame!). The Negroid soldier on the front looks much like the ones lined up as prisoners in the German WWII film. I would take this site’s summary with an enormous grain of salt because they’re selling Nazi paraphernalia and are speaking to the kinds of people likely to seek out and buy this stuff (Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, etc.). They make mention of an incident involving the shooting of civilians in Frankfurt by colonial troops, but other sources I’ve read consider the symbols on the coin to be mostly metaphorical. ---
**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, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/47 "2011-09-01T19:03:50Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > According to [this site](http://www.germaniainternational.com/army28.html): > > I would take this site’s summary with an enormous grain of salt because they’re selling Nazi paraphernalia and are speaking to the kinds of people likely to seek out and buy this stuff (Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, etc.). They make mention of an incident involving the shooting of civilians in Frankfurt by colonial troops, but other sources I’ve read consider the symbols on the coin to be mostly metaphorical. The desription on that site is the most virulently racist thing I’ve read in ages. :eek: What it doesn’t say, as far as I can see, is when the metal was struck. ---
**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:** [September 2, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/48 "2011-09-02T00:36:21Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > According to [this site](http://www.germaniainternational.com/army28.html): > > I would take this site’s summary with an enormous grain of salt because they’re selling Nazi paraphernalia and are speaking to the kinds of people likely to seek out and buy this stuff (Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, etc.). They make mention of an incident involving the shooting of civilians in Frankfurt by colonial troops, but other sources I’ve read consider the symbols on the coin to be mostly metaphorical. When the “Indigenes” movie got out, seven years ago, I heard a very good documentary on the radio about the subject (had never heard of it before). Very interesting (and the foremost reason why I think Hitler or no Hitler something like Nazism would have appeared in Germany, no matter what). There’s a fairly good wiki page on it, but it’s in French (curiously no German version): [Honte noire — Wikipédia](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honte_noire) Basically it shows that Germany was incredibly racist at the time, what a surprise (there’s no documentation to back the claims of rapes by African troops, and the French frequently used colonial troops. But, no, for some Germans of the time, it was a design by the French to take down the purity of the German race). The massacre of POW Senegalese Tirailleurs by the German Army after the fall of France is linked to that (curiously the Nazis didnt have the same urges against North African troops). It is amusing to see a site still supporting “the Legend”, if the rest of the site didnt convince you you were on Nazi apologists’ territory, that little rant of them about the Black Shame should. P.S: I had been tempted to start a thread about this subject but never did find very good sources on it. They’re mostly French as well, so kind of limiting for a debate on the Dope. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/49 "2011-09-02T00:57:09Z")
I never would have known anything about it if my grandpa hadn’t brought back that medal (it really is more of a medal, though the material is very thin and hollow), but yes, it certainly looks like another grievance cited by the Germans to be placed on top of all their other grievances against the French. I may have to check out that Indigenes movie. ---
**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:** [September 2, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/50 "2011-09-02T01:02:52Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > I never would have known anything about it if my grandpa hadn’t brought back that medal (it really is more of a medal, though the material is very thin and hollow), but yes, it certainly looks like another grievance cited by the Germans to be placed on top of all their other grievances against the French. > > I may have to check out that Indigenes movie. Meh, Indigenes is not a great movie, it’s basically Saving Private Ryan with North Africans. But that radio channel does those really interesting one-hour historical documentaries (lots of rare radio archives). And they used the release of the movie to justify doing one of their shows on the Black Shame. I thought it was far more interesting than the Indigenes movie itself (which doesnt deal with that subject at all). They also had done one about antisemitism in Vichy France, one of their best shows, quite chilling. ---
**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 2, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/51 "2011-09-02T01:17:55Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Meh, Indigenes is not a great movie, it’s basically Saving Private Ryan with North Africans. It might be a meh war movie, but it did remind us French (or sometimes, inform us) of something we forgot (or would have liked to forget ?), namely that most of “our” war effort was performed by Algerians, Moroccans, Ivory Coastians, Senegalese and the like. Truth be told, my history classes never said anything about that, which is unforgivable. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/52 "2011-09-02T05:36:25Z")
> [@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. No. The Germans lost the war in Russia towards the end of 1941, after that it was all mopping up. If the Germans take both Moscow and Leningrad in 1941 they almost certainly defeat Russia; either one and it’s a close-run thing; neither and they lose. That simple. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Is there any chance The Bombs would have been dropped on Germany instead of Japan? In my opinion, no. I continue to believe that the A-bomb was dropped on Japan for a conflation of two reasons; sheer racism and as payback for the utter barbarism of the Japanese day-to-day conduct of the war. > [@Sailboat](#): > > I agree that was the turning point, but let’s not forget Germany retained enough strength to be very dangerous in 1943 at Kursk. Not at all. Due to the Lucy spy ring and Ultra the Soviets knew exactly where, when, and how strongly the Germans were attacking at Kursk, they never stood a chance. That they got as far as they did - arguably around 1/3 of their goal on one flank and 2/3 on the other - was a testament to their military prowess and determination. > [@RickJay](#): > > This is often said and totally false. The effort in the West was quite considerable and it is not a coincidence that Operation Bagration was timed to occur AFTER Overlord, so that the Germans might draw forces from the East to deal with the problem in the West (which in fact they did.) Of course, the Russians not being stupid they planned that operation accordingly. That does not mean that, absent Overlord (or Overlord failing, which is the premise of the thread, after all) that Bagration doesn’t destroy the Germans’ main instrument of resistance, Army Group Centre. There has never been a defeat like it in modern warfare, and the fact that the Germans hold out for another year is again a testament to their astonishing flexibility and resilience. > [@](#): > > The Eastern front was certainly a much larger battle in scope, but it’s silly to say the Western front wasn’t significant, and it’s absurd to say the Soviet effort would have gone precisely as it did had the Allies failed in Normandy. Does anyone say either of those things, precisely? > [@](#): > > A total failure in France would have freed up a huge number of Nazi troops - dozens of divisions. the fighting was still pretty ferocious in the East; another few hundred thousand men would have made a significant difference. Only to the location of their graves. > [@](#): > > I don’t doubt the USSR would have won, inasmuchg as Bagration was going to be an awful disaster for the Germans no matter what, but the end of the war might well have been delayed a long time. > > Of course, if the Soviets are slowed down, what happens is pretty simple and has already been mentioned; in August 1945, Berlin gets nuked. You contradict yourself, unless May-\>August is considered “a long time”. > [@](#): > > As a side note, why do people always bring up the fact the Soviets lost many more men as evidence of their greater contribution? You don’t win wars by having YOUR guys killed. You win wars by killing the other guys. The Russian kill ratio exceeded their force ratio. > [@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. If anyone is suggesting that, it would be indeed asinine. But anyone who knows anything of the topic does not; any analysis of the war effort available to the respective powers in, say, early 1944 can see that the Germans were doomed in 1945; D-day allows Stalin to ease off at various points (eg the approach to Warsaw) but makes virtually no difference to the outcome of the war. > [@](#): > > 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. The Germans figured that the Allied war effort in Italy made no difference to them; their commitment to that front would have been roughly the same whether the Allies has invaded or not. The case in France was similar; they patently had to guard that huge frontier no matter what the Allies did. The invasion served a purpose for them, which was to crystalise the Allies’ intentions. They lost a bunch in Normandy but on the other hand were able to withdraw forces from the rest of France, Holland, Belgium, and so on. Remember that at the close of the war the Germans have 250,000 men in Norway - utterly wasted. > [@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. Nope. It went about as badly as could reasonably have; when you guard your main battlefront with significant numbers of Polish and Russian prisoners you get the result you deserve. People confuse the hard fighting in some parts of the landings with a possibility of them failing overall. The losses the US suffered in Utah beach were lower than in the practice landings beforehand - 200 out of 23,500. Omaha was the outlier, not Utah. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/53 "2011-09-02T07:14:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > 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! I’ve read the same, but its just looking for the silver lining in a huge clusterfuck. Troop Carrier Command was pretty much at the bottom of the list when it came to assigning trained pilots, and they were asked to perform an extremely difficult task in night airdrops. It never turned out well, the airdrop in the invasion of Sicily fared [just as badly](http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-Sicily/USA-MTO-Sicily-6.html) > [@](#): > > The greatest problem was getting the paratroopers to ground, not so much on correct drop zones as to get them out of the doors over ground of any sort. The result: the 3,400 paratroopers who jumped found themselves scattered all over southeastern Sicily–33 sticks landing in the Eighth Army area; 53 in the 1st Division zone around Gela; 127 inland from the 45th Division beaches between Vittoria and Caltagirone. Only the 2d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry (Maj. Mark Alexander), hit ground relatively intact; and even this unit was twenty-five miles from its designated drop zone. One glider wound up landing on an airfield on Malta and wasn’t aware they had missed Sicily entirely until a jeep sent to investigate came upon them. > [@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. I agree that an even worse storm could have resulted in failure, but most likely a failure in the sense of a shallow bridgehead that the Allies couldn’t manage to break out of, not a complete failure and being driven back into the sea. Even the worst channel storm in years that destroyed one of the Mulberry harbors didn’t cause much of a blip on the slow but steady advance inland. > [@xtisme](#): > > 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. > … > > 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. I think you’re misreading me. I’m not trying to assign Russians a mythical superhuman status, just a realistic appreciation of where things were on the ground in mid 1944 on the Eastern Front. Once Barbarossa failed to crush the USSR in a knockout blow, Germany was grappled to a foe in a war of attrition that it was on the losing side of. As horrific as Soviet casualties were, they could sustain it. Germany couldn’t, and had reached the point that it was calling the young, the elderly and the unfit to arms because there was nothing else left. ---
**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 2, 2011, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/54 "2011-09-02T08:35:05Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > It never turned out well, the airdrop in the invasion of Sicily fared [just as badly](http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-Sicily/USA-MTO-Sicily-6.html) FWIW, the Nazi parachute assault on Crete was just as chaotic. The Fallschirmjäger managed to salvage it, but it’s telling that Germany never tried another massed air drop again. ---
**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:** [September 2, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/55 "2011-09-02T13:35:58Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > It might be a meh war movie, but it did remind us French (or sometimes, inform us) of something we forgot (or would have liked to forget ?), namely that most of “our” war effort was performed by Algerians, Moroccans, Ivory Coastians, Senegalese and the like. > Truth be told, my history classes never said anything about that, which is unforgivable. Reminding the French about Monte Cassino while making a point of not mentioning the horrfying rape of the valley by the North African troops is utter hypocrisy. Dont give lectures with your zipper open. And I’m older than you and didnt have to wait for Indigenes to come out to know that the only way France managed to stay in the picture is by use of its colonial troops. Learned that in school. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/56 "2011-09-02T15:35:16Z")
I have read the posts here and although I may have missed some detail, I do have some questions- a lot of these for **Bartman** (Waves to **Bartman** ). Firstly, my position is that I don’t think that Overlord was in danger of failing entirely- one beach may have not worked out but overall the air and naval power would have over whelmed the Germans. I also believe that the Soviets already had the Germans at a stage where they couldn’t hope to recover. Without Overlord the USSR wins and Europe becomes subject to Communist control. Franc had been a basket case for Govts for years- remember the [Paris Commune](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune)? So the landscape of Europe could have been pretty different. Now a couple of questions- Operation Dragoon. It was said that all the landing craft were readily available after Overlord. However, I would have thought that a significant amount of shipping would still have been tied up in bringing in supplies. And then to have them sent to Africa- granted, not a long trip time wise- they would virtually have needed to know that Dragoon was to be undertaken, send the vessels on their way and hope that all meshed. Or would their have been suffiecient shipping already available in that theatre after Torch and the Sicily/ Italy invasions. Secondly, and I have touched on this in a previous thread a few years back- how much material was actually supplied to the Soviets from the west? If the real deal began from the USA in November 1941, then a month later any direct transit would be blocked by Japan. So it would come down to the convoys from Britain- and really in the scheme of things and the huge battles the Arctic Convoys were really piss all. And also, the reference to Bastogne above and the Battle of the Bulge. While great theatre, Bastogne was not ever going to change the world. If it falls, nothing changes. Patton and Montgomery combine to eradicate the Germans - especially when the weather clears and the air force can start really taking toll. (Please note in this post I am not denigrating any of the men who fought in these encounters- I am just trying to place them in context with the huge battles on the eastern front). ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/57 "2011-09-02T18:10:07Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > Secondly, and I have touched on this in a previous thread a few years back- how much material was actually supplied to the Soviets from the west? If the real deal began from the USA in November 1941, then a month later any direct transit would be blocked by Japan. So it would come down to the convoys from Britain- and really in the scheme of things and the huge battles the Arctic Convoys were really piss all. It was quite substantial, providing ~7-10% of total Soviet war materials. There’s a good breakdown of what was provided [here.](http://www.theeasternfront.co.uk/lendlease.htm) The Northern route across the North Atlantic to Murmansk was the least safe and the least used because of this. Most was sent via the Persian corridor and the Pacific route to Vladivostok, the Pacific route accounting for about half of the total. When Japan entered the war the US ships used on the Pacific route were reflagged as Soviet. Since Japan and the USSR weren’t at war and Japan wasn’t in any hurry to antagonize them the shipments went along uninterrupted. ---
**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 2, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/58 "2011-09-02T18:42:16Z")
[QUOTE=Dissonance] I think you’re misreading me. I’m not trying to assign Russians a mythical superhuman status, just a realistic appreciation of where things were on the ground in mid 1944 on the Eastern Front. Once Barbarossa failed to crush the USSR in a knockout blow, Germany was grappled to a foe in a war of attrition that it was on the losing side of. As horrific as Soviet casualties were, they could sustain it. Germany couldn’t, and had reached the point that it was calling the young, the elderly and the unfit to arms because there was nothing else left. [/QUOTE] That the Soviets were superhuman is implicit in all of the statements about how they could just bull through regardless of loss. The Soviet army was a fine fighting force, extremely formidable by '44-45, no doubt about it. But they were able to roll through eastern Europe and Germany during that time period because the Germans were fighting on multiple fronts and being hard pressed. They were having to divide their logistics efforts between multiple army groups in the east and in the west as well as in Italy. By allowing the Germans the ability to simplify their logistics and remove one of those commitments would have meant that the Red Army wouldn’t have had nearly the same ability to ram through eastern Europe or into Germany as they did when Germany’s attentions and commitments were divided. There is a point at which losses, especially of veteran combat troops and key logistics would have caused the Russians to pause, refit, retrain, and bring up new supplies. Even in our universe where the Germans WERE fighting on multiple fronts the Russians had to do this several times before their final push into Germany and especially into Berlin. If Germany could retask a large percentage of the forces committed in the west AND to re-direct and simplify their logistics toward the east I think that anyone saying that the Soviets could just have smashed that as well DOES think of the Soviets in superhuman terms, able to shrug off huge losses in men and materials at the wave of a hand…which seems to be the majority of the posters in this thread. In the end I think it would be moot…Germany would have lost, unless they could inflict staggering losses on the Soviets and sue for some sort of peace. At the least the Soviets would have recaptured all of their lost territory and probably most of eastern Europe as well. But I don’t think this would have happened until '46 or '47 unless the other allies could have launched another invasion to split Germany’s defense and draw off men and material…and the losses on both the Russian and German side would have been MUCH higher. I could see another million+ on both sides pretty easily. Anyway, that’s my take. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/59 "2011-09-04T09:43:00Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > That the Soviets were superhuman is implicit in all of the statements about how they could just bull through regardless of loss. Nonsense. If superhuman status is being granted to anyone, it’s to the Germans by you. All that is implicit in it is that the USSR had the upper hand in a war of attrition and that by mid '44 Germany’s situation was irrecoverable and would have remained so regardless of the success or failure of the Western Front. Germany was a spent force, still able to prolong the war by sheer tenacity, but the writing was clearly on the wall. Again, they weren’t starting to throw 16 and 60 year olds and those with flat feet or other problems on the front lines for the hell of it. They were derisively referred to as [Ear and Stomach](http://books.google.com/books?id=gPnjXC1lEJ8C&pg=PA408&lpg=PA408&dq=volkssturm+ear+stomach+battalions&source=bl&ots=UxSUqBna7Z&sig=0Rf75NF_QO3WnDcSswrcq4iDENs&hl=en&ei=LTZjTrHoGMnm0QGisoX1CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=volkssturm%20ear%20stomach%20battalions&f=false) battalions due to these common physical ailments. After the foolish waste at Kursk the Soviets were on an uninterrupted series of offensives for the rest of the war. Kursk was an extremely limited offensive compared to the ones launched in the previous two summers by the Germans. Even if Kursk had miraculously been a success for Germany, all it would have done is remove a salient and shorten the length of the line, though the Soviets still had the uncommitted reserves that historically attacked north of Kursk in the Orel strategic counter-offensive on July 12th and south of Kursk in the Belograd-Kharov counter-offensive on August 3rd. Notably, much as at Stalingrad the Germans had weakened these flanks of Kursk in order to support the Kursk operation. From then on the Soviets were continuously on the offensive on some part of the front line. This all happened **before** [Führer Directive No. 51](http://www.go2war2.nl/artikel/1021/F%FChrer-Directive-No-51-03-11-1943.htm) of November 1943 which laid out plans to build up strength in France to face the impending invasion. > [@](#): > > The Soviet army was a fine fighting force, extremely formidable by '44-45, no doubt about it. But they were able to roll through eastern Europe and Germany during that time period because the Germans were fighting on multiple fronts and being hard pressed. They were having to divide their logistics efforts between multiple army groups in the east and in the west as well as in Italy. This doesn’t explain why they were able to roll the Germans back hundreds of miles inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties from mid '43-44 when these weren’t such large issues. > [@](#): > > By allowing the Germans the ability to simplify their logistics and remove one of those commitments would have meant that the Red Army wouldn’t have had nearly the same ability to ram through eastern Europe or into Germany as they did when Germany’s attentions and commitments were divided. There is a point at which losses, especially of veteran combat troops and key logistics would have caused the Russians to pause, refit, retrain, and bring up new supplies. How were the Germans going to cause the loss of key logistics for the Soviets? The Luftwaffe certainly wasn’t up to the task by this point in the war and was never well equipped or trained for it in the first place; it was designed as flying artillery for direct support of the ground forces. Even their medium bombers were required to be designed able to dive-bomb, regardless of if it made sense or not, even the 4 engine He-177 had this as a requirement which only magnified its failure as a 4 engine bomber. Germany’s veteran troops had long since been grounding down in the meat grinder of the Eastern Front. > [@](#): > > Even in our universe where the Germans WERE fighting on multiple fronts the Russians had to do this several times before their final push into Germany and especially into Berlin. No, they didn’t. Whenever one part of the front had to pause to due to supply issues, they would shift to another part of the front. I’ve mentioned the turn to the north and south of Bagration once it petered down, but this is what they had been doing non-stop since mid-43 as can be seen on this [map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1943-08_to_1944-12.png) They were able to do this because they always maintained a large STAVKA reserve, which the Germans continually underestimated the size of. > [@](#): > > If Germany could retask a large percentage of the forces committed in the west AND to re-direct and simplify their logistics toward the east I think that anyone saying that the Soviets could just have smashed that as well DOES think of the Soviets in superhuman terms, able to shrug off huge losses in men and materials at the wave of a hand…which seems to be the majority of the posters in this thread. Again, nonsense. There is nothing superhuman about it. They could shrug off losses in men and material much more easily than Germany could; they had been able to do this throughout the war, and by mid '44 Germany was down to the most desperate of measures trying to replace their losses. The Soviets were not anywhere close to this, and the liberation of so much Soviet territory was increasing their pool of able bodied men. Soviet output of war materials had long ago buried what Germany was manufacturing. From Earl F. Ziemke and Magna E. Bauer’s [Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East (Army Historical Series)](http://www.amazon.com/Moscow-Stalingrad-Decision-East-Historical/dp/0880292946) > [@](#): > > Nevertheless, in 1942, Soviet output had already surpassed that of Germany in tanks and other armored vehicles (24,400 Soviet; 4,800 German), in aircraft (21,700 Soviet; 14,700 German), in infantry rifles and carbines (4 million Soviet, 1.4 million German), and in artillery (for which no comparable figures are available). > [@](#): > > In the end I think it would be moot…Germany would have lost, unless they could inflict staggering losses on the Soviets and sue for some sort of peace. At the least the Soviets would have recaptured all of their lost territory and probably most of eastern Europe as well. But I don’t think this would have happened until '46 or '47 unless the other allies could have launched another invasion to split Germany’s defense and draw off men and material…and the losses on both the Russian and German side would have been MUCH higher. The Soviets recaptured all of their lost territory by July '44, a good half of Eastern Europe by August/September '44, and all of the Balkans in September '44. A failure of Overlord in June '44 was not going to push these dates back into '45, much less '46 or '47. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684/60 "2011-09-04T16:10:05Z")
Well I’m back, “a day late and a dollar short” as they say… > [@Cicero](#): > > Now a couple of questions- Operation Dragoon. It was said that all the landing craft were readily available after Overlord. However, I would have thought that a significant amount of shipping would still have been tied up in bringing in supplies. And then to have them sent to Africa- granted, not a long trip time wise- they would virtually have needed to know that Dragoon was to be undertaken, send the vessels on their way and hope that all meshed. Or would their have been suffiecient shipping already available in that theatre after Torch and the Sicily/ Italy invasions. The shipping are different types. For amphibious assaults they used landing craft of various types ranging from the DUKW (2 tons displacement) to the LSD or Landing Ship Dock (3000 tons displacement). Once ashore and with port facility of some type, they would switch to standard shipping (which by this stage in the war largely meant 15,000 ton displacement Liberty ships). Generally this switch would take place as soon as possible into the assault. “To beach” shipping was a lot less efficient than regular shipping. And once they switched over to standard shipping all the landing craft types become available again. There was a “shortage” of landing craft throughout the entire war. But that was mostly because of the extreme demand for the things; with both the Pacific and European Theaters demanding as many as they could get (as well as in theater competition, every DUKW Nimitz had was one less that McArthur didn’t). In June of '44 the Allies had something in the neighborhood of 40-50 million tons of shipping capacity. From D-day on the concern wasn’t shipping, or materiel, so much as port capacity. Which is why capturing ports like Marseilles and Antwerp were such important considerations. There were several times where the ports would have have ships lines up for days waiting for their turn to unload. > [@Cicero](#): > > Secondly, and I have touched on this in a previous thread a few years back- how much material was actually supplied to the Soviets from the west? If the real deal began from the USA in November 1941, then a month later any direct transit would be blocked by Japan. So it would come down to the convoys from Britain- and really in the scheme of things and the huge battles the Arctic Convoys were really piss all. **Dissonance** already posted a link to some of numbers of the Lend Lease. And the Allies did provide some significant armaments (for example the Allies provided around 14,000 aircraft to the Soviets, or nearly 15% of the aircraft the Soviets operated). The Allies also provided things that the Soviets didn’t have, and couldn’t produce at the time, including state of the art machine tools and high octane aviation fuels. Things like this made Soviet manufacturing more productive, and their planes more effective. The Allies also almost completely replaced some production classes entirely. The US manufactured 90% the Soviets locomotives, rolling stock, and railroad track between '42 and '45 allowing the Soviets to convert existing factories to weapon production. And the key to all this was that for several reasons, the Japanese never did block US ships from Vladivostok. Basically Japan was hoping to avoid war with the Soviets. So the US re-flagged nearly 200 ships with Soviet flags, although the crews remained American. Although this was a fairly obvious ruse the Japanese went along with it, so as to avoid provoking a war with the Soviets. In the end 49% of Lend Lease went through Vladivostok, four times what went through Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. The rest went through Persia. So the Arctic Convoys were only a fraction of the total. But it was an important fraction, because it could reach the front faster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-overlord-fails-now-what/594684.md?page=4)