Could the Nazis have repelled the D-day invasion?

[Hurin_Rules]

I'm interested to see what you all think. The scenario is this: the war proceeds as it did until the end of May, 1944. The Nazis know an invasion is coming, but they don't know exactly where. Are there any decisions, deployments or strategies that they could have adopted in the few weeks leading up to D-day that would have allowed them to repel the invasion?

[Lonewarrior]

Well u know that britain is your enemy and the US is sure to put some troos there, so I would put submarines in the coast, and reinforce my beaches, but you know that is what I would have done, but still it was a massive force that attacked so no way it could have been stoped.

[TinCow]

Well u know that britain is your enemy and the US is sure to put some troos there, so I would put submarines in the coast, and reinforce my beaches, but you know that is what I would have done, but still it was a massive force that attacked so no way it could have been stoped.

First, submarines would be next to useless. The Allies controlled the Channel and any attempts to interdict with U-Boats would have been detected and the boats sunk.

Second, there is really only one thing that needs to be done to stop the Allied invasion... don't let Hitler make any of the decisions. While I personally think Rommel's plan of keeping the armored forces near the beaches would have worked better, a full commitment to either plan would have worked much better than the compromise that Hitler ended up with. In addition, the release of the Calais forces would certainly have helped. A strong armored attack on the beachs within a day or two of the landing could have pushed the Allies back into the sea. Tough but easily possible.

[Accounting Troll]

The allies managed to fool Hitler into thinking that Normandy was a decoy and the main thrust would be an attack on Calais. He didn't realise he was wrong until some days after the invasion.

If Hitler had been more competant and he had advance warning that the attack would be on Normandy, he would doubtless have stregnthened his defences there, which would have made things far tougher for the allies.

Personally I doubt that Hitler would have been able to amass the resources needed to throw the Allies back in the sea as Germany was already overstretched by the fighting in Italy and the Russian fron, the need to keep the occupied territories beaten down and the need to guard against allied seabourne attack elsewhere.

[Michiel de Ruyter]

Simply put:

A snowball has more chance of surviving in hell, then the Germans had of repelling D-Day.

There is only one reason for that: Allied air and naval superiority. The Germans could have made it more difficult, if Rommel had had a free hand.

Simply put, the Germans could hardly move their troops before half of it would be bombed away. Just look at the statistics. Something like 3 to 4 out of 5 German tanks were either destroyed from the air, or abandonded/destroyed because of lack of supplies (due to air interdiction and strategic bombing). See any pic taken of an armored column after May 1944 in the West, and odds are you see at least on of the soldiers looking at the sky. As soon as the Germans came closer, their forces were disrupted, if not outright shelled into oblivion by naval bombardments. As a matter of fact, 21st Panzer's assault was stopped because of the naval bombardments.

IMHO, the Germans could have had more success against the British/Commonwealth forces. But the American zones could not be reached in time. For that, their deployment was wrong.

Deploying the troops closer to the beach would have made them a likely target for mass bombings. The initial fighting might have been more difficult, but, IMHO the result would have been the same.

At least that is my opinion...

[TinCow]

Deploying the troops closer to the beach would have made them a likely target for mass bombings. The initial fighting might have been more difficult, but, IMHO the result would have been the same.

At least that is my opinion...

Bombardment of troops was always notoriously ineffective. The only targets that the Allies managed to hit with any real effect were the transportation system and large cities. The massive bombing of the Normandy defenses in the lead-up to Overlord did not achieve much in weakening the defenses there. It would certainly have been impossible to dislodge the Allies once they secured the beachhead, there was a very good chance of repelling them before this time (namely within a couple days of the landing). Keep in mind that Omaha beach was within hours of being abandoned due the casualties inflicted by a handful of German defenders. A prompt counter-attack by armored divisions within two days or so of the landing would have been nearly irresistable.

At the same time, this would have required near omniscience from the Germans. The Allies were aware of the early vulnerabilities, hence the tremendous efforts they undertook to disguise the time and place of the landing. Realistically, it would have been nearly impossible though a theoretical reality certainly exists. Another thing to think about is whether repelling the invasion would have been in Germany's best long-term interests. If that had happened, the Soviet Union would almost certainly have achieved total victory on their own, resulting in a complete envelopment of Germany and western Europe in the Communist Bloc.

[Lonewarrior]

Simply put:

A snowball has more chance of surviving in hell, then the Germans had of repelling D-Day.

YEP YEp YEp

[TheSilverKnight]

YEP YEp YEp

...but wouldn't the snowball melt?

[DemonArchangel]

Well, according to Dante, hell is quite cold.

[Rayaleh]

Seriously though, a few months after his rather moronic invasion of Russia , the Allies could have sent troops to Calais and even if the Nazis were waiting for them there, at first it'd be a standoff but then since the Allies had WAY WAY more ressources and manpower than the Germans, they would have pushed back. The Russians would have started to push back too...and eventually stuff as it happened would have happened, with some minor changes.....At the EXTREME most, it'd have taken the Allies a few months, heck maybe even a year more.


But let's think about it this way, the war was a couple of countries against the rest of the freaking world...Sure, the Axis had a huge headstart, but eventually their momentum would have slowed down, and came to a halt...and thus the eventual lost.


Seriously a war can be TRULY undecided if the manpower/training/technology/commitment/support is roughly the same in both sides. The Cold War, if it actually came down to an outright war would have been this, but both World Wars lasted that long because the "Attackers" had momentum. But momentum doesn't last forever.

[Quietus]

The war was basically over when they couldn't beat Russia and their armies were completely stalled. Remember, Hitler's main objective was really was to obtain the "living space" in the East. In the short term, for its resources for the war effort.

The only reason he invaded the West first is to prevent a two front war. With France taken and the british driven back, they proceeded to take on the East with Operation Barbarossa. One other thing is that they couldn't invade the British Island, they don't have a good enough navy to do that. Remember, the Versailles treaty and such limited their military.

In addition to delays in the Invasion because they had to attack Yugoslavia first, their Army was spread thin and Hitler was making decisions on a whim and he's not giving in to his Generals.

I don't think they would have any chance at all to repulse the D-Day invasion, even if they picked the invasion site right. They lacked the resources and are already spread too thin.

[Lazul]

If Rommel was the commander of all the western troops the D-day would have been a disaster.
"Thanks" (really thanks) to Hitler the SS panzers didnt move towards the beaches... well accualy it was thanks to Hitlers retarded staff that didnt dare to wake him.
Imagen what would have happened if the germans would have had full panzer support on the beaches! I mean the machineguns themselfs in the bunkers was almost enough (in some places).

And if Hitler wasnt in charge... Stalingrad could have been avoided and the war against russia... ehr... accualt if Hitler wasnt in charge the attack on russia wouldnt have taken place.

hmm... lets all thank god or someone that hitlar was an idiot.

[TinCow]

Seriously though, a few months after his rather moronic invasion of Russia, the Allies could have sent troops to Calais and even if the Nazis were waiting for them there, at first it'd be a standoff but then since the Allies had WAY WAY more ressources and manpower than the Germans, they would have pushed back. The Russians would have started to push back too...and eventually stuff as it happened would have happened, with some minor changes.....At the EXTREME most, it'd have taken the Allies a few months, heck maybe even a year more.

Are you kidding me? You're suggesting that a European invasion would have been successful in spring of 1942? When the Allies had practically no manpower nor equipment based in Enland. When few landing craft were even available for use in the Channel. When the Allies lacked air superiority over the Continent? If you really think and Allied invasion would have worked in spring 1942, I think you need to re-analyze the situation. I would recommend that you look at the results of the Dieppe Raid as an example.

[Rayaleh]

Ok, so let's say more than a few months, but even by mid-1943 had the Allies decided to attack, they might have very well suffered huge loads of casualties in the initial battles, but after then the number of men would just be too much for the Nazis, and their technology wouldn't have made much difference. I mean how many Allies were there for each German soldier?

[Quietus]

Well, Rommel was supposedly part of the many plotters whose plot didn't materialize. They found this out later and had him eat poison (since he's a war hero).

[nokhor]

let's look at an extreme scenario. let's say the Nazis annihilated every man that came ashore during the D-Day invasion and sunk the fleet and destroyed the air armada. let's say, they also managed to kick the western allies out of italy.

would fdr and churchill have gone " allright, hitler, you got us good this time, you certainly showed us, so we're gonna sit back here and demobilize and wait for you to come occupy us"

there would have been another invasion attempt, years if not months later. if all else failed, the western allies could still theoretically have put troops on the eastern front alongside the soviets, though that would have been a logistical nightmare.

[TinCow]

let's look at an extreme scenario. let's say the Nazis annihilated every man that came ashore during the D-Day invasion and sunk the fleet and destroyed the air armada. let's say, they also managed to kick the western allies out of italy.

would fdr and churchill have gone " allright, hitler, you got us good this time, you certainly showed us, so we're gonna sit back here and demobilize and wait for you to come occupy us"

there would have been another invasion attempt, years if not months later. if all else failed, the western allies could still theoretically have put troops on the eastern front alongside the soviets, though that would have been a logistical nightmare.

Indeed, by that point it was a foregone conclusion whether D-Day succeeded or not. The Allied estimate at the time was that if D-Day failed a follow-up invasion would not have been possible until 1946. Even with the increased manpower Germany could have thrown at the Soviets due to the lack of a second front, the war would have been over by then. The only real effect of D-Day would have been that the war would have been a bit longer and all of Western Europe would have been occupied by the Soviets and fallen under the Iron Curtain. This would have had HUGE consequences for the Cold War, but that is another topic. At the same time, the extension of the conflict into 1946 would have resulted in the deployment of many of the German prototype aircraft as well as other general vehicles and equipment. The atom bomb would also have had its first targets on German soil rather than Japanese.

[Del Arroyo]

Well, you all seem to have very much confidence in the inevitability of Allied victory. Most historians that I've read, however, think it was close than that.

Remember-- Eisenhower was scared sh!tless that D-Day wouldn't work. Before the invasion he had TWO speeches ready-- one apologizing for a massive failure, and the one that he (thank goodness) ended up reading.

Rommel theoretically could have beaten the invasion. If the war would have lasted only a year longer, Germany could easily have gotten the bomb, and there were a slew of brand new Aircraft technologies that could have given them a shot at the skies. If the Allies had suffered any extreme setbacks, the most likely outcome would have been peace. US/Britain weren't fighting for their lives and would not have continued if their soldiers started to die like the Russians.

..

Here's a good question-- what if Germany had defeated us at D-Day and we were still fighting them come late '45? Would we have used the Bomb in Europe?

DA

[Del Arroyo]

Furthermore, if Allied success was inevitable whether or not D-Day succeeded, why not drop out of the war altogether? If the Russians could have won on their own, why not just let them do it? We could have gone in at a much later date to mop up, liberate France and Belgium and Western Germany, all with much less cost to us and much higher cost to our soon-to-be foes.

If victory was so damned inevitable, none our actions at the time make ANY strategic sense.

DA

[Sethik]

But coming in after All of Europe became part of the Communist Bloc would have turned the Cold War really, really hot. I highly doubt that the Soviet Union would have just allowed France, West Germany, etc. to be liberated.

[Degtyarev14.5]

Furthermore, if Allied success was inevitable whether or not D-Day succeeded, why not drop out of the war altogether? If the Russians could have won on their own, why not just let them do it?

Because long before the war began, almost immediately after the Bolsheviks seized Russia, the Americans and British were already growing suspicious of the Soviets and their governmental system.

The Red Scare 1919-20

Of course, everyone was happy to call a truce and help each other out with material supplies and technologies while they had a common enemy (the Axis, of course) but they also knew that once the war was over, there would be a massive stand-off.

This is why both the US-Commonwealth and the USSR were determined to push forward into German-held land as far as possible before they met. The Soviets wanted to extend their influence over as much of Germany as they could (as well as Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc.) and the Western powers wanted to deny them this.

A.

[Del Arroyo]

Let's assume that D-Day has NO effect on eventual allied victory. The Russians have enough steam to plow through anyway.

Why invade?

Without the Second Front, it will take the Russians at least an extra year to get to Berlin.

All we would have had to do is charge into France about a year later. The Russians still would have been in Ukraine or Hungary, and there would have been close to zero resistance in Western Europe.

I predicted that you would give the Cold War answer, but my point still stands. If Nazi defeat was inevitable, my way still makes more sense.

..

Or are you saying that Tanks and Troops devoted to defending the Western Front, and later to the Ardennes Offensive, would have had absolutely no effect the Russian advance?

..

I'm interested to know where you guys are getting your ideas, because all of the historians that I've ever read always painted WW2 as a bit of a closer game than what you say.

DA

[Ludens]

If the war would have lasted only a year longer, Germany could easily have gotten the bomb, and there were a slew of brand new Aircraft technologies that could have given them a shot at the skies.

German technological progress at the end of the war has been rather overestimated. I have read a book (I believe the English version is called 'Neurenberger Trials') that contains interviews with the top Nazi's during their trials. Goring, the minister of the Airforce, was always boasting about German scientifical progress, but the man who was in charge of that (Speer, I believe) claimed Goring knew nothing of science and the German Atom Bomb project was years behind the Americans.

The new planes Germany had were jet fighters, but the Korean war proved that these new jet fighters were not that much superior to prop planes. BTW, the western Allies already had their own jet: the Gloster Meteor.
Hitler, encouraged by Goring, seemed to have placed an extraordinary amount of faith into new inventions, like giant mortars, rockets, jet fighters, and so on, all in the hope that one such invention would win him the war. Yet in the end, they were with too few to change the outcome. I even doubt they delayed it.

[NagaoKagetora]

On D-Day there was a very slim chance for the Germans to significantly effect the outcome. Whether they could have stopped the Allies dead in their tracks on all the beaches is unlikely, but better use of 21st Pnz. Div. could have had serious consequences for the whole right flank of the invasion force.

"The 21. Pnz Div. , the only armoured formation immediately available could have decisively influenced the course of the invasion, was robbed of its combat power in the initial phase of the fighting. Instead of moving like lightning into the massed concentration of landed enemy forces the division was condemned to be burnt out in dribs and drabs. It had remained inactive around Caen until 0630 hours, only attacking the air-landed division at Troarn. The enemy main effort was not at Troarn, however. It was north of Caen. Elements of the division were not employed north of Caen until the afternoon.
In the hands of an experienced tank commander - like Rommel in 1940 and many commanders after him - the 21st. Pnz. Div. would have been able to create a difficult situation for the Allies, provided the commander had led from the front, advancing in his own tank. Guderians proven rule - Klotzen nicht kleckern! - had been flagrantly disregarded." - Kurt Meyer "Grenadiers"

Meyer is probably being over optimistic though as he doesnt seem to be taking into account the fact that Allied close air support ruled the battlefield. If 21st Pnz. could halt progress from any of Gold/Sword/Juno beaches it was probably only going to buy the Germans time. Movement of German vehicles became very difficult/restricted to night time given the fact that the Luftwaffe was now virtually non-existent as a fighting force in N.France and the Allied fighter bombers had free rein.

[Del Arroyo]

None of us are trying to say that more effective use of the 21st Div alone could have changed the outcome. What we're saying is that there were MANY panzer divisions in positions far from the coast which were grounded by Hitler.

If Hitler had released all of them for a counterattack in time, it could have repelled the invasion.

This isn't an issue of one measly division.

DA

[TinCow]

Hitler, encouraged by Goring, seemed to have placed an extraordinary amount of faith into new inventions, like giant mortars, rockets, jet fighters, and so on, all in the hope that one such invention would win him the war. Yet in the end, they were with too few to change the outcome. I even doubt they delayed it.

If anything, they probably made the war shorter. A significant part of German's equipment problems resulted from the excessively large number of different weapons and equipment they used. Unlike the Americans and Soviets, the Germans didn't use very much standardized parts. German companies were encouraged to compete and develop their own systems to produce the new weapons. This meant the many many different plants were required to produce all of the parts required to build and maintain the various weapons.

At the same time, the Allies largely standardized the process with the mass-production assembly-line style. Ammunition from one gun could be used in another if necessary. Parts or fuel from one vehicle could be used in another. In addition, the smaller variety of tanks, planes, weapons, etc. allowed them to be produced in greater numbers. The US may have lost 4 tanks for every 1 German tank they knocked out, but they out-produced the Germans 10-1. This leaves an extra 6 tanks. Had the Germans specialized in a few high-quality models in each area and limited their experimental insanity, the war may well have had a different result.

[lonewolf371]

Not to mention I believe the type of A-bomb the Germans were experimenting with was using Heavy Water (water in which the Hydrogen atoms have a neutron as well as a proton). I'm not sure of the exact reaction the Germans were trying to produce, I know fission cannot be easily produced by anything other than a very heavy radioactive element (such as Uranium, the type used has a mass of 235). Fusion, in which I think Heavy Water might be a useful component (can't remember), requires very special conditions, conditions which even still by today's scientists have not been perfected to create an efficient bomb. The point of all this is the German bomb either would not have been developed or it would have been much less effective than those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.