American domestic implications if D-Day fails

[sillygoose]

The topic is straightforward and as it says in the title. This thread is focused on the implications of D-Day failing within the US, not the military side of things.

The explanation of why it fails is that Eisenhower doesn't listen to the British meteorologists over his American ones and launches D-Day on June 5th, which was when a major storms hit the Channel and would have caused major damage to the fleet and any aircraft aloft (read the transport fleet carrying the airborne divisions and bombers hitting the beaches). Lots of casualties and equipment losses effectively render and another major invasion impossible for at least 12 months and the need to make more invasion equipment eats heavily into war production for other items, so largely the US and British forces are a non-entity in Europe on the ground other than in Italy. An invasion of the Balkans is off the table as well due to equipment and manpower losses. Eisenhower resigns over the debacle.

So how does the British and American publics actually react to this? @History Learner has shown polling in other threads that prior to D-Day US support for negotiations to end the war sooner was rising. Does FDR bow out of the 1944 election (the Democratic convention hasn't happened yet)? If not can he win? Does Churchill face of vote of no-confidence and potential defeat? Does the public double down and want to fight on regardless of cost? What happens when the V-missiles start flying, but now there is no way to defeat them on land after Operation Crossbow effectively has failed?

Going forward how would this shape the Cold War and subsequent politics as well as culture if one of the defining moments of the Wallied war effort turns into a disaster?

As a side question how does Stalin react and does he change his strategy for the rest of 1944?

 

[stevep]

The topic is straightforward and as it says in the title. This thread is focused on the implications of D-Day failing within the US, not the military side of things.

The explanation of why it fails is that Eisenhower doesn't listen to the British meteorologists over his American ones and launches D-Day on June 5th, which was when a major storms hit the Channel and would have caused major damage to the fleet and any aircraft aloft (read the transport fleet carrying the airborne divisions and bombers hitting the beaches). Lots of casualties and equipment losses effectively render and another major invasion impossible for at least 12 months and the need to make more invasion equipment eats heavily into war production for other items, so largely the US and British forces are a non-entity in Europe on the ground other than in Italy. An invasion of the Balkans is off the table as well due to equipment and manpower losses. Eisenhower resigns over the debacle.

So how does the British and American publics actually react to this? @History Learner has shown polling in other threads that prior to D-Day US support for negotiations to end the war sooner was rising. Does FDR bow out of the 1944 election (the Democratic convention hasn't happened yet)? If not can he win? Does Churchill face of vote of no-confidence and potential defeat? Does the public double down and want to fight on regardless of cost? What happens when the V-missiles start flying, but now there is no way to defeat them on land after Operation Crossbow effectively has failed?

Going forward how would this shape the Cold War and subsequent politics as well as culture if one of the defining moments of the Wallied war effort turns into a disaster?

As a side question how does Stalin react and does he change his strategy for the rest of 1944?

sillygoose

I don't see this being the case. Depending on when the storm hits as to how many men and how much equipment is lost but only a relatively small proportion of the forces and equipment was deployed on the 1st day. The most vulnerable are the paratroopers, probably especially those in gliders but if the storms starts hitting during the landings most aircrews will stop the landings and turn for home.

Similarly if it hits later when daylight comes and the ground forces start landing. You might get a few people willing to play Napoleon and send forces out in landing craft but if a number of them get swamped then that will stop pretty quickly. You could get a lot of minor injuries from men being shaken up in the transport ships but that would be it. - This would be the worse case as the paras would already have landed and would as a result be lost alone with any forces landed before the storm hits and the landings are called off.

As such the bulk of the manpower and resources used in the western front OTL will still be available. There might be a shortfall in amphibious stuff but if necessary this could be made up by cutting out some of the wasteful use in the Pacific. The US Army might end up sitting on MacArthur and cutting back/ending his separate invasion route, restricting offensives largely to the naval based advance across the central Pacific.

Also while weather would make landings in the north difficult/impossible for most of a year it would be less of an affect in the Med. Coupled with the need to 'do something' to bounce back from this set-back and also reassure Stalin the obvious thing is to commit forces in the Med. Operation Dragoon probably won't go ahead because breaking out of S France is going to be more difficult but landings on either/both flanks in Italy would enable the turning of the Gothic Line rather than the frontal assaults of OTL. Also with S Italy secured to supply air based landings in the Balkans are a lot more practical. Especially when this reaches Bulgaria your likely to see it defect and others starting to look towards such a path to avoid Soviet occupation. - Tito in Yugoslavia would be an exception here but he's heavily dependent on allied supplies while, while Stalin won't want the allies in the Balkans it would be something he would prefer to them doing nothing. Once Bulgaria is reached Polesti is much easier to attack and also the option opens of L-L going directly through the Med and straits, which is a hell of a lot more effective than via Murmansk or Iran.

In terms of US opinion then we're seen different things from different sources. However at least until November the government will be committed to supporting the war effort. After all Normandy is an embarrassment but losses haven't been that heavy and Eisenhower has openly accepted the blame for his error. You could see more isolationist feeling emerging but successes in the autumn are likely to keep that fairly muted.

As will events on the eastern front as without independent butterflies the Soviets are still going to carve the Germans apart, with Operation Bagration and other impacts. That will both make victory look within reach and also raise fears among those mistrustful of the Soviets that they will become too powerful.

In terms of Britain there is no real alternative as long as the US doesn't duck out of the conflict. Nazi Germany is not a neighbour that Britain can live with and the bulk of the population are fully aware of that. With some work the V-1s can be defeated, or at least limited although little can be done about the V-2's once their launched. The British reaction will be heavier bombing of Germany which will be costly but with growing abilities its becoming more effective, as with the US day-light bombing and now a lot of the strategic bombing force isn't tied up supporting the Normandy campaign.

I know you want to concentrate on the political impacts but their inseparable from the the military ones. As such they will drive the pressure for some action and the probable success of most of those operations will in turn support the continuation of the war to its ending.

Similarly I know you have an interesting in a dystopian world where somehow the Nazis survive in control of most of continental Europe but by this time its too late, in part because too many people of the time know how disastrous for everybody that would be.

Steve

 

[sillygoose]

sillygoose

I don't see this being the case. Depending on when the storm hits as to how many men and how much equipment is lost but only a relatively small proportion of the forces and equipment was deployed on the 1st day. The most vulnerable are the paratroopers, probably especially those in gliders but if the storms starts hitting during the landings most aircrews will stop the landings and turn for home.

From what I've been able to find from historians who've engaged with this what if (including a former CoS of the British military) the specialist equipment losses would have been crippling for years. As it was Eisenhower lost his mind and thought about cancelling the invasion when the Germans managed to ambush LSTs at night and sink two (two more damaged) that were practicing landings on the British coast:

Exercise Tiger - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The attack was reported up the chain of command to Dwight D. Eisenhower on 29 April. Eisenhower was enraged that the convoy was sailing in a straight line and not zig-zagging, that the attack reduced reserves of LSTs, that it indicated to the Germans that the Allies were nearly ready to invade, and that ten American officers with knowledge of the invasion were missing.

Two ships due to how little equipment was available to the invasion.

If they lose 10 times that plus 75% of their airborne divisions and a huge chunk of the air transport fleet it will be at a minimum a year before they could try again due to how costly the equipment was. Politically it would be suicide to increase rationing on civilians at home in the US, so no 'digging deeper' before an election especially when unconditional surrender was not a particularly popular policy before D-Day.

Aircrews were told not to stop and they faced heavy AAA fire IOTL as well as low cloud cover and despite the massive screw up with the drop still kept on with it:

American airborne landings in Normandy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

• a lack of navigators on 60 percent of aircraft, forcing navigation by pilots when formations broke up,
• radio silence that prevented warnings when adverse weather was encountered,
• a solid cloud bank at penetration altitude (1,500 feet (460 m)), obscuring the entire western half of the 22 miles (35 km) wide peninsula, thinning to broken clouds over the eastern half,
• an opaque ground fog over many drop zones,

...

• drop runs by some C-47s that were above or below the designated 700 feet (210 m) drop altitude, or in excess of the 110 miles per hour (180 km/h) drop speed

So they'd have to abort early in the operation or deal with the consequences. If the order is given to go ahead they couldn't stop given that the landings were about to happen and their success without the paras was arguably doubtful and there wouldn't be awareness of drop conditions before they were over target. Plus as it was despite the awful situation IOTL the drop went ahead anyway and resulted in pretty heavy casualties by Allied standards.

Similarly if it hits later when daylight comes and the ground forces start landing. You might get a few people willing to play Napoleon and send forces out in landing craft but if a number of them get swamped then that will stop pretty quickly. You could get a lot of minor injuries from men being shaken up in the transport ships but that would be it. - This would be the worse case as the paras would already have landed and would as a result be lost alone with any forces landed before the storm hits and the landings are called off.

The storm on the 5th, from what I can find, started getting worse after the invasion would have been underway given the timetable on June 6th historically. So by the time they had begun things mission inertia would have forced it ahead until it was too late to avoid the damage. The paradrops were at night between midnight and 2:30 am, which was when things were bad enough, but it only got worse from there. So more likely than not the jump goes in with all the consequences of that and the landings are attempted, but they don't make it to the beaches due to the gale force winds and choppy seas.

As such the bulk of the manpower and resources used in the western front OTL will still be available. There might be a shortfall in amphibious stuff but if necessary this could be made up by cutting out some of the wasteful use in the Pacific. The US Army might end up sitting on MacArthur and cutting back/ending his separate invasion route, restricting offensives largely to the naval based advance across the central Pacific.

Manpower isn't the issue specifically it is the expensive specialist equipment and troops who would be lost. The loss of LSTs and other landing craft would be a disaster since it took years to build up and was competing with similar needs in the Pacific. Politically too it would be impossible to deprive the Pacific of resources to make good losses in Europe; the war in Europe was never as popular as the war against Japan and McArthur (among many others) was (were) extremely influential politically...among the public if not the government. In an election year there is simply no way to risk pissing off the public for fear of getting Dewey elected and the generals/admirals knew that and had no issue leveraging it against politicians. See McArthur vs. Truman in Korea. With a disaster at D-Day FDR's political standing would be at an all time low, which means leverage is not in his hands if it came down to forcing a change in grand strategy.

Also while weather would make landings in the north difficult/impossible for most of a year it would be less of an affect in the Med. Coupled with the need to 'do something' to bounce back from this set-back and also reassure Stalin the obvious thing is to commit forces in the Med. Operation Dragoon probably won't go ahead because breaking out of S France is going to be more difficult but landings on either/both flanks in Italy would enable the turning of the Gothic Line rather than the frontal assaults of OTL. Also with S Italy secured to supply air based landings in the Balkans are a lot more practical. Especially when this reaches Bulgaria your likely to see it defect and others starting to look towards such a path to avoid Soviet occupation. - Tito in Yugoslavia would be an exception here but he's heavily dependent on allied supplies while, while Stalin won't want the allies in the Balkans it would be something he would prefer to them doing nothing. Once Bulgaria is reached Polesti is much easier to attack and also the option opens of L-L going directly through the Med and straits, which is a hell of a lot more effective than via Murmansk or Iran.

Again the issue isn't the weather it is the loss of expensive specialist equipment.

What if D-Day Had Failed? | Armchair General Magazine - We Put YOU in Command!

armchairgeneral.com

On this 61st anniversary I’d like to share with you some rather different thoughts about D-Day, written in 1994 by the esteemed British historian, Alastair Horne in his book, Monty: The Lonely Leader, 1944-1945 (published in the US by HarperCollins and in the UK by Macmillan, 1994).

Consider the consequences of defeat on D-Day. The Allies would have lost their almost irreplaceable fleet of landing craft . . . Britain would have sacrificed her last available army. It would have taken at least another year, well into the summer of 1945, before another invasion could have been mounted . . . largely by Americans . . . Hitler would have been developing his deadly new jet aircraft, and new technology would have enhanced the striking power of his U-boats. Possibly (though improbably) his scientists might have developed an atomic bomb. But, with certainty, Britain would have been hammered unmercifully by Hitler’s V-weapons, constantly increasing in numbers in the Pas de Calais and the Low Countries and largely immune to air attack.

British casualties would have been irreplaceable given that they had already broken up divisions to keep the others up to strength by this point.

Really the only option on the table in that case is to double down on Italy as it is the successful front to that point. No way they try another Anzio though, especially after another failed amphibious operation.

I have no doubt that Churchill would want a Balkan operation, but the US didn't (not just politicians) because they viewed it as another Italy, but with even worse terrain and logistics for breaking out.

AFAIK Stalin did not want the Wallies mucking around in his 'backyard', as Russian foreign policy had always been focused on expanding their realm of influence into the region. Turkey and access to the Mediterranean had been an overriding goal. If the choice is Wallied control over the Balkans and little action outside of Italy Stalin seems to be the type who would have preferred no Wallied action in the Balkans, especially if Bulgarian and Turkey then end up outside his control. Stalin did not trust Churchill on this yet, he only made deals with him over Greece due to Soviet control over the important bits of the Balkans already. As far as Stalin is concerned the Balkans under Hitler are probably preferable to the Allies, as the German would have had a weaker hold and Stalin could undermine Nazi control over the region more easily.

Add in the failed Aegean operation by the Brits in late 1943 and that looks like a dead end as well.

Tito though probably gets a lot more resources.

In terms of US opinion then we're seen different things from different sources. However at least until November the government will be committed to supporting the war effort. After all Normandy is an embarrassment but losses haven't been that heavy and Eisenhower has openly accepted the blame for his error. You could see more isolationist feeling emerging but successes in the autumn are likely to keep that fairly muted.

Were it not an election year I'd agree with your assessment. FDR was not as invulnerable as people like to pretend, it was the successful D-Day, liberation of Paris, and Pacific success that guaranteed his blow out in November IOTL. With this sort of disaster his Europe first and Unconditional Surrender policies are going to be an electoral albatross. In fact, going back to your point about pillaging the Pacific for resources, politically FDR might have to prioritize the Pacific just to have a shot at winning in November, so he could show some success. I'm not arguing that the US would up and quit the war, just that FDR would be under a lot of pressure to drop unconditional surrender as a fixed policy and would have the public backlash leading up to his historical fourth run for president as his health started seriously declining. It might even be possible that the Democratic party leadership refuses to let him run again.

Butterflies from this POD for the US domestic situation are pretty numerous, which is why I wanted to focus primarily on the US domestic situation in this thread, as the topic is quite interesting from an alternate history perspective.

As will events on the eastern front as without independent butterflies the Soviets are still going to carve the Germans apart, with Operation Bagration and other impacts. That will both make victory look within reach and also raise fears among those mistrustful of the Soviets that they will become too powerful.

Not necessarily as much as you'd think. Roughly half of the divisions inn the west would be redeployable east at some point soon, with 4 panzer divisions immediately redeployable and available before June 22nd, when Operation Bagration would happen. Of those 4, 2 were extremely well equipped, trained, and oversized relative to normal full strength panzer divisions.
Those would be the 12th SS and Panzer Lehr divisions. The other two would be the 21st Panzer division, though that one is unlikely to leave France given it's French equipment and anti-invasion training, and 2nd panzer division, a nearly elite division given its long existence and lots of combat experience. It had been rebuilt and was ready to go in June 1944.

So 3 of the divisions were likely to arrive in the East and be operational around June 21st assuming as of June 7th they all depart from France by express train, as they similar transport after Bagration only took 10-14 days.

Then there were all the other panzer divisions in the west of which there were 6 which were being rebuilt or built for the first time and were getting close to being deployable. IIRC they were 9th, 11th, 116th, 1st SS, 2nd SS, and 17th SS. That's not counting other divisions that were rebuilding which were not available for Normandy like the 6th, 19th, 5th SS, which showed up after Bagration in July. I'm not counting the HG parachute panzer division in Italy, which also did show up there IOTL, but might not here due to the large number of reserves available from France.

Then there are the infantry divisions (including 3 airborne divisions in the II parachute corps and 1 air landing division) and additional brigades like the Tiger and StuGs. There was the equivalent of another Eastern Front army group available to redeploy East if there is no threat to France for the coming 12 months. Also II SS Panzer corps stays in the East too, which is a huge gain, not just from the divisions, but the entire corps support/firepower apparatus on top of the divisions.

Even assuming Bagration succeeds, which is questionable if they have 3 extra panzer divisions ready before Bagration started of which two were extra large and powerful elite ones, there is still enough divisions capable of redeploying in June-August to replace it entirely as well as the replacements not needed in the west which can refill damaged divisions instead. There were about 2200 AFVs committed to Normandy during June-August 1944, >90% in June. Likely German positions are shoved quite far back, but the 3 panzer divisions could prevent the pockets at Minsk and Bobyirusk being closed, which means roughly 60% of the troops/equipment lost in Bagration could be saved.

IOTL only a single full strength panzer division was available and it was a regular sized panzer division, not a extra large elite one like the 12th SS (about 55% larger than a standard army division with lots more firepower that the regular army didn't get while it would also have access to an attached SS Tiger battalion), and a half strength regular army panzer division from army group north, which somehow still managed to rescue something like 50,000 men from the Bobyruisk pocket when they unexpectedly showed up and attacked while the pocket was still being formed. Both the panzer divisions that were send IOTL arrive days later than the Panzer divisions I'm talking about would have when it was already too late to save the majority of troops caught in the pincers.

If 12th SS and Panzer Lehr are sent to confront the Soviet 5th Tank Army they'd be able to stop it cold, especially if committed early in to the battle before the 78th Sturm division is overrun (it actually checked the Soviet advanced in its sector by itself tanks to the strong 2nd line defensive position it held and the massive amounts of firepower attached to it until a cavalry corps managed to move around its flank through a swamp and no further reserves existed to check them. This opened the way for the 5th tank corps to exploit to Minsk). Similarly if the 2nd panzer division is available to counterattack at Bobyruisk earlier than 12th panzer did they'd have kept an escape route open for a much larger number of troops to escape given that it was twice the size of 12th panzer by that point. If reinforced with infantry division they might even check the Soviets quite a bit further east.

Since those three panzer divisions + some number of infantry divisions would be used to support Army Group Center then AG-North and North Ukraine don't have to send troops to help them instead. So when the Lwow-Sandomierz offensive starts they have an extra panzer division and a number of extra infantry divisions (IIRC after Bagration they sent 8 divisions total to Belarus) plus the II SS Panzer Corps not sent to France since there is no Normandy invasion for them to deal with. 10 extra divisions that were missing IOTL. Since that operation was nearly defeated as it was IOTL thanks to very strong defensive positions and counterattack forces well deployed (other than 8th Panzer which somehow got lost during a counterattack and then blundering into a Soviet air attack which compromised their defensive plan when it still had a chance of working), having extra troops solves the problems they had IOTL.

Without the defeat in North Ukraine then AG-South Ukraine doesn't get stripped of the ~7 panzer divisions that helped it crush the Soviet offensive against Romania in April 1944 and the loss of which allowed the Soviet offensive in August to crush Axis forces in Bessarabia and convince Romania to switch sides. So that position can hold and Romania is still in the Axis camp.

Army Group North was able to hold on the Panther Line indefinitely, so should be able to continue to hold so long as their flank isn't turned if Bagration doesn't succeed nearly as much as IOTL. Plus they could keep the 12th panzer division, which even if only half strength still represented a significant mobile reserve. If they hold their position than Finland doesn't get knocked out either, as the loss of the Baltic states in the aftermath of Bagration (July-September) effectively put the nail in the coffin of the Finns, since it meant the Soviets dominate the Gulf of Finland and could start using their navy in the Baltic once again. In fact they did and started using submarines to sink Axis transport/supply shipping in the Baltic sea, which had consequences for trade with Sweden and supply runs as well.

So while Axis forces would still suffer significant defeats in Belarus they'd have more than enough reserves to replace them AND check the other Soviet offensives of Summer 1944. That means the line actually holds other than a shorter withdrawal than IOTL in Belarus. IOTL AG-Center if possible was to fall back on the Beaver Line, which was a prepared defensive position based on a major river east of Minsk. Assuming the Panzer divisions go to AG-Center, which they should given that AG-Center was pillaged of theirs to reinforce AG-North Ukraine in April-June, then Bagration is nowhere near the success it was IOTL and though they probably inflict around 150,000-200,000 casualties on the Germans the Soviets don't wipe out entire armies like they did IOTL, nor do they capture Minsk, so that even with equipment losses AG-Center, thanks to reinforcements from France are able to hold the very strong defensive line east of Minsk. In turn that means AG-North holds and the entire line in the East is able to be maintained through at least Summer 1944 with the Soviets taking very heavy casualties, but not being able to inflict the heavy ones they did historically without a breakthroughs that enabled the smashing of entire Axis armies. Nor do they flip the Axis allied states like Bulgaria and Romania and gain those troops.

Meanwhile the Germans don't lose 400,000 men in France in June-August either; some would be lost in the East when sent as reinforcements (or stayed since they weren't transferred to France like the 9th and 10th SS divisions) of course, but since they are 'extra' compared to OTL that is a net gain. The Soviets are in a bad position if they don't advance and gain all the manpower they did historically in the territory captured from June 22nd and onwards as well as new allies and knocking Finland out of the war allowing for extra reserves to be sent to Poland. So a vicious cycle starts for them rather than the Germans. That doesn't mean the Axis isn't worn down in the East, but relative to OTL they actually 'gain' manpower given that their losses would be so much lower than they were historically in 1944, while Soviet ones would be worse without France as a distraction for German strategic reserves.

In terms of Britain there is no real alternative as long as the US doesn't duck out of the conflict. Nazi Germany is not a neighbour that Britain can live with and the bulk of the population are fully aware of that. With some work the V-1s can be defeated, or at least limited although little can be done about the V-2's once their launched. The British reaction will be heavier bombing of Germany which will be costly but with growing abilities its becoming more effective, as with the US day-light bombing and now a lot of the strategic bombing force isn't tied up supporting the Normandy campaign.

I wouldn't be so sure. Britain did have the ability to make a deal and ask the US to leave, but that is very unlikely even with a disaster on D-Day. However if the V-weapons problem breaks public morale since there wouldn't be a way to overrun the launch sites on land thanks to the invasion forces, that could potentially be enough.

I'm not so sure that the average person in Britain cared as much about geopolitics as the ruling class did and if enough average people demand an negotiated peace deal they could force the ruling class to comply. Strikes would shut down the ability to wage war if enough people got pissed off enough about the course of the war. Churchill and the government were pretty terrified IOTL as of 1944 due to the V-weapons and army casualties of the public demanding a negotiation over total victory.

The V-weapons were only defeated by the land invasion shutting down the launch sites; even with the land invasion there was no way to actually stop the launches until the sites were overrun. Op Crossbow failed despite extremely heavy bombing of the launch sites.

Operation Crossbow - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In fact they were considered by the Allies as a massive gain for Hitler, because 70,000 bomber sorties were diverted from attacking Germany or military targets to bomb the launch sites which were not shut down, just inconvenienced. They'd have to dedicate the bulk of Bomber Command to hitting the infrastructure behind the sites (and piss off the French against the Allies) to even have a small chance of stopping the attacks. What happens when Germany then is able to avoid the worst of the 1944 bombing due to diversion of attacks?

So instead of increasing bombing of Germany instead the Allied bombers are locked down wrecking France to try and stop the V-weapons. How long before Frenchmen opt to start fighting with Germany rather than against it in that case? A lot of French were furious about the OTL bombing:

Bombing of France during World War II - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Between the time of the German victory in the Battle of France and the liberation of the country, the Allied Forces bombed many locations in France. In all 1,570 French cities and towns were bombed by the Allies between June 1940 and May 1945. The total number of civilians killed was 68,778, mostly elderly (including the 2,700 civilians killed in Royan).[1]

The total number of injured was more than 100,000. The total number of houses completely destroyed by the bombings was 432,000, and the number of partly destroyed houses was 890,000. The cities that saw the most destruction were the following:[2]

• Saint-Nazaire (Loire Atlantique): 100%
• Tilly-la-Campagne (Calvados): 96%
• Vire (Calvados): 95%
• Villers-Bocage (Calvados): 88%
• Le Havre (Seine-Maritime): 82%
• Saint-Lô (Manche): 77%
• Falaise (Calvados): 76%
• Lisieux (Calvados): 75%

The bombings in Normandy before and after D-Day were especially devastating. The French historian Henri Amouroux in La Grande histoire des Français sous l’Occupation, says that 20,000 civilians were killed in Calvados department, 10,000 in Seine-Maritime, 14,800 in the Manche, 4,200 in the Orne, around 3,000 in the Eure. All together, that makes more than 50,000 killed. During the year 1943 alone, 7,458 French civilians died under Allied bombs.

Coupled with the failed invasion French public opinion could turn quite hard against the Allies.

Before you say it was connected to the Normandy campaign, much of the bombing was pre-D Day too:

Transport Plan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Add in more Crossbow bombing and the bombing of France is going to continue and escalate without the ground campaign, but it will be concentrated against any area where the V-weapons are located. How the French react to ceaseless bombing by the Allies is up for debate, but the indication wasn't that they'd turn on the Germans, since they didn't really do that until after the invasion was a success and the Germans were being beaten, so resistance was thought to be more politically acceptable.

Antony Beevor's Normandy book cites a number of instances where French civilians attacked Allied troops in Normandy because they were so furious about the bombing.

I know you want to concentrate on the political impacts but their inseparable from the the military ones. As such they will drive the pressure for some action and the probable success of most of those operations will in turn support the continuation of the war to its ending.

Which is why I laid out the military situation in the OP so we could focus on the political/social impacts.

Probably success of what operations?

Similarly I know you have an interesting in a dystopian world where somehow the Nazis survive in control of most of continental Europe but by this time its too late, in part because too many people of the time know how disastrous for everybody that would be.

Steve

I'm interested in alternate history scenarios and WW2 is one the most well studied and impactful times of the 20th century; if you're not interested in exploring alternate worlds these sorts of thread may not be for you.

As to what people of the time knew/understood I think you don't actually understand what people of the time actually thought, let alone would have been able to achieve given the situation. The success of the Allied forces IOTL was extremely hard won even after D-Day succeeded, so even that late things were not a foregone conclusion and there was a lot of concern among top leadership, especially Churchill, of what the consequences would have been had the invasion failed. For good reason, since he actually understood what it would have meant for the alliance and war effort.

 

[Atarlost]

As to what people of the time knew/understood I think you don't actually understand what people of the time actually thought, let alone would have been able to achieve given the situation. The success of the Allied forces IOTL was extremely hard won even after D-Day succeeded, so even that late things were not a foregone conclusion and there was a lot of concern among top leadership, especially Churchill, of what the consequences would have been had the invasion failed. For good reason, since he actually understood what it would have meant for the alliance and war effort.

The Allied leaders didn't know that they were going to win a stalemate by default when Oppenheimer delivered. If Hitler banks on the fecklessness of the western Allies and demands too much for an armistice the war drags on until he gets nuked. Considering his diplomatic history I think it's quite likely he overplays his hand.

 

[ATP]

The topic is straightforward and as it says in the title. This thread is focused on the implications of D-Day failing within the US, not the military side of things.

The explanation of why it fails is that Eisenhower doesn't listen to the British meteorologists over his American ones and launches D-Day on June 5th, which was when a major storms hit the Channel and would have caused major damage to the fleet and any aircraft aloft (read the transport fleet carrying the airborne divisions and bombers hitting the beaches). Lots of casualties and equipment losses effectively render and another major invasion impossible for at least 12 months and the need to make more invasion equipment eats heavily into war production for other items, so largely the US and British forces are a non-entity in Europe on the ground other than in Italy. An invasion of the Balkans is off the table as well due to equipment and manpower losses. Eisenhower resigns over the debacle.

So how does the British and American publics actually react to this? @History Learner has shown polling in other threads that prior to D-Day US support for negotiations to end the war sooner was rising. Does FDR bow out of the 1944 election (the Democratic convention hasn't happened yet)? If not can he win? Does Churchill face of vote of no-confidence and potential defeat? Does the public double down and want to fight on regardless of cost? What happens when the V-missiles start flying, but now there is no way to defeat them on land after Operation Crossbow effectively has failed?

Going forward how would this shape the Cold War and subsequent politics as well as culture if one of the defining moments of the Wallied war effort turns into a disaster?

As a side question how does Stalin react and does he change his strategy for the rest of 1944?

I agree with @stevep - resources could be made,and losses would be no so bad.Italy would be taken in 1944,And at least Hungary and Bulgary waited for chance to surrende to Allies.
In USA nobody would agree to peace with germans,even if Republican win.The same goes for England.
Unless Sralin made peace with Hitler/impossible becouse of Hitler/ war would continue.

Differences - more republican USA less helping soviets.
Soviets take most of Germany and Denmark.Entire Austria,too.
Allies take Bulgary,Hungary and Yugoslavia.

Results - nothing change till 1953.USA save french in Vietnam then.So,free Vietnam,Laos and Cambodia.
Maybe they help Rhodesia and South Africa,too.
After 1989 - much weaker Germany,stronger capitalist Hungary,Bulgary and Yugoslavia.Much better for Europe.

 

[stevep]

From what I've been able to find from historians who've engaged with this what if (including a former CoS of the British military) the specialist equipment losses would have been crippling for years. As it was Eisenhower lost his mind and thought about cancelling the invasion when the Germans managed to ambush LSTs at night and sink two (two more damaged) that were practicing landings on the British coast:

Exercise Tiger - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Two ships due to how little equipment was available to the invasion.

If they lose 10 times that plus 75% of their airborne divisions and a huge chunk of the air transport fleet it will be at a minimum a year before they could try again due to how costly the equipment was. Politically it would be suicide to increase rationing on civilians at home in the US, so no 'digging deeper' before an election especially when unconditional surrender was not a particularly popular policy before D-Day.

Aircrews were told not to stop and they faced heavy AAA fire IOTL as well as low cloud cover and despite the massive screw up with the drop still kept on with it:

American airborne landings in Normandy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So they'd have to abort early in the operation or deal with the consequences. If the order is given to go ahead they couldn't stop given that the landings were about to happen and their success without the paras was arguably doubtful and there wouldn't be awareness of drop conditions before they were over target. Plus as it was despite the awful situation IOTL the drop went ahead anyway and resulted in pretty heavy casualties by Allied standards.



The storm on the 5th, from what I can find, started getting worse after the invasion would have been underway given the timetable on June 6th historically. So by the time they had begun things mission inertia would have forced it ahead until it was too late to avoid the damage. The paradrops were at night between midnight and 2:30 am, which was when things were bad enough, but it only got worse from there. So more likely than not the jump goes in with all the consequences of that and the landings are attempted, but they don't make it to the beaches due to the gale force winds and choppy seas.


Manpower isn't the issue specifically it is the expensive specialist equipment and troops who would be lost. The loss of LSTs and other landing craft would be a disaster since it took years to build up and was competing with similar needs in the Pacific. Politically too it would be impossible to deprive the Pacific of resources to make good losses in Europe; the war in Europe was never as popular as the war against Japan and McArthur (among many others) was (were) extremely influential politically...among the public if not the government. In an election year there is simply no way to risk pissing off the public for fear of getting Dewey elected and the generals/admirals knew that and had no issue leveraging it against politicians. See McArthur vs. Truman in Korea. With a disaster at D-Day FDR's political standing would be at an all time low, which means leverage is not in his hands if it came down to forcing a change in grand strategy.


Again the issue isn't the weather it is the loss of expensive specialist equipment.

What if D-Day Had Failed? | Armchair General Magazine - We Put YOU in Command!

armchairgeneral.com

British casualties would have been irreplaceable given that they had already broken up divisions to keep the others up to strength by this point.

Really the only option on the table in that case is to double down on Italy as it is the successful front to that point. No way they try another Anzio though, especially after another failed amphibious operation.

I have no doubt that Churchill would want a Balkan operation, but the US didn't (not just politicians) because they viewed it as another Italy, but with even worse terrain and logistics for breaking out.

AFAIK Stalin did not want the Wallies mucking around in his 'backyard', as Russian foreign policy had always been focused on expanding their realm of influence into the region. Turkey and access to the Mediterranean had been an overriding goal. If the choice is Wallied control over the Balkans and little action outside of Italy Stalin seems to be the type who would have preferred no Wallied action in the Balkans, especially if Bulgarian and Turkey then end up outside his control. Stalin did not trust Churchill on this yet, he only made deals with him over Greece due to Soviet control over the important bits of the Balkans already. As far as Stalin is concerned the Balkans under Hitler are probably preferable to the Allies, as the German would have had a weaker hold and Stalin could undermine Nazi control over the region more easily.

Add in the failed Aegean operation by the Brits in late 1943 and that looks like a dead end as well.

Tito though probably gets a lot more resources.


Were it not an election year I'd agree with your assessment. FDR was not as invulnerable as people like to pretend, it was the successful D-Day, liberation of Paris, and Pacific success that guaranteed his blow out in November IOTL. With this sort of disaster his Europe first and Unconditional Surrender policies are going to be an electoral albatross. In fact, going back to your point about pillaging the Pacific for resources, politically FDR might have to prioritize the Pacific just to have a shot at winning in November, so he could show some success. I'm not arguing that the US would up and quit the war, just that FDR would be under a lot of pressure to drop unconditional surrender as a fixed policy and would have the public backlash leading up to his historical fourth run for president as his health started seriously declining. It might even be possible that the Democratic party leadership refuses to let him run again.

Butterflies from this POD for the US domestic situation are pretty numerous, which is why I wanted to focus primarily on the US domestic situation in this thread, as the topic is quite interesting from an alternate history perspective.


Not necessarily as much as you'd think. Roughly half of the divisions inn the west would be redeployable east at some point soon, with 4 panzer divisions immediately redeployable and available before June 22nd, when Operation Bagration would happen. Of those 4, 2 were extremely well equipped, trained, and oversized relative to normal full strength panzer divisions.
Those would be the 12th SS and Panzer Lehr divisions. The other two would be the 21st Panzer division, though that one is unlikely to leave France given it's French equipment and anti-invasion training, and 2nd panzer division, a nearly elite division given its long existence and lots of combat experience. It had been rebuilt and was ready to go in June 1944.

So 3 of the divisions were likely to arrive in the East and be operational around June 21st assuming as of June 7th they all depart from France by express train, as they similar transport after Bagration only took 10-14 days.

Then there were all the other panzer divisions in the west of which there were 6 which were being rebuilt or built for the first time and were getting close to being deployable. IIRC they were 9th, 11th, 116th, 1st SS, 2nd SS, and 17th SS. That's not counting other divisions that were rebuilding which were not available for Normandy like the 6th, 19th, 5th SS, which showed up after Bagration in July. I'm not counting the HG parachute panzer division in Italy, which also did show up there IOTL, but might not here due to the large number of reserves available from France.

Then there are the infantry divisions (including 3 airborne divisions in the II parachute corps and 1 air landing division) and additional brigades like the Tiger and StuGs. There was the equivalent of another Eastern Front army group available to redeploy East if there is no threat to France for the coming 12 months. Also II SS Panzer corps stays in the East too, which is a huge gain, not just from the divisions, but the entire corps support/firepower apparatus on top of the divisions.

Even assuming Bagration succeeds, which is questionable if they have 3 extra panzer divisions ready before Bagration started of which two were extra large and powerful elite ones, there is still enough divisions capable of redeploying in June-August to replace it entirely as well as the replacements not needed in the west which can refill damaged divisions instead. There were about 2200 AFVs committed to Normandy during June-August 1944, >90% in June. Likely German positions are shoved quite far back, but the 3 panzer divisions could prevent the pockets at Minsk and Bobyirusk being closed, which means roughly 60% of the troops/equipment lost in Bagration could be saved.

IOTL only a single full strength panzer division was available and it was a regular sized panzer division, not a extra large elite one like the 12th SS (about 55% larger than a standard army division with lots more firepower that the regular army didn't get while it would also have access to an attached SS Tiger battalion), and a half strength regular army panzer division from army group north, which somehow still managed to rescue something like 50,000 men from the Bobyruisk pocket when they unexpectedly showed up and attacked while the pocket was still being formed. Both the panzer divisions that were send IOTL arrive days later than the Panzer divisions I'm talking about would have when it was already too late to save the majority of troops caught in the pincers.

If 12th SS and Panzer Lehr are sent to confront the Soviet 5th Tank Army they'd be able to stop it cold, especially if committed early in to the battle before the 78th Sturm division is overrun (it actually checked the Soviet advanced in its sector by itself tanks to the strong 2nd line defensive position it held and the massive amounts of firepower attached to it until a cavalry corps managed to move around its flank through a swamp and no further reserves existed to check them. This opened the way for the 5th tank corps to exploit to Minsk). Similarly if the 2nd panzer division is available to counterattack at Bobyruisk earlier than 12th panzer did they'd have kept an escape route open for a much larger number of troops to escape given that it was twice the size of 12th panzer by that point. If reinforced with infantry division they might even check the Soviets quite a bit further east.

Since those three panzer divisions + some number of infantry divisions would be used to support Army Group Center then AG-North and North Ukraine don't have to send troops to help them instead. So when the Lwow-Sandomierz offensive starts they have an extra panzer division and a number of extra infantry divisions (IIRC after Bagration they sent 8 divisions total to Belarus) plus the II SS Panzer Corps not sent to France since there is no Normandy invasion for them to deal with. 10 extra divisions that were missing IOTL. Since that operation was nearly defeated as it was IOTL thanks to very strong defensive positions and counterattack forces well deployed (other than 8th Panzer which somehow got lost during a counterattack and then blundering into a Soviet air attack which compromised their defensive plan when it still had a chance of working), having extra troops solves the problems they had IOTL.

Without the defeat in North Ukraine then AG-South Ukraine doesn't get stripped of the ~7 panzer divisions that helped it crush the Soviet offensive against Romania in April 1944 and the loss of which allowed the Soviet offensive in August to crush Axis forces in Bessarabia and convince Romania to switch sides. So that position can hold and Romania is still in the Axis camp.

Army Group North was able to hold on the Panther Line indefinitely, so should be able to continue to hold so long as their flank isn't turned if Bagration doesn't succeed nearly as much as IOTL. Plus they could keep the 12th panzer division, which even if only half strength still represented a significant mobile reserve. If they hold their position than Finland doesn't get knocked out either, as the loss of the Baltic states in the aftermath of Bagration (July-September) effectively put the nail in the coffin of the Finns, since it meant the Soviets dominate the Gulf of Finland and could start using their navy in the Baltic once again. In fact they did and started using submarines to sink Axis transport/supply shipping in the Baltic sea, which had consequences for trade with Sweden and supply runs as well.

So while Axis forces would still suffer significant defeats in Belarus they'd have more than enough reserves to replace them AND check the other Soviet offensives of Summer 1944. That means the line actually holds other than a shorter withdrawal than IOTL in Belarus. IOTL AG-Center if possible was to fall back on the Beaver Line, which was a prepared defensive position based on a major river east of Minsk. Assuming the Panzer divisions go to AG-Center, which they should given that AG-Center was pillaged of theirs to reinforce AG-North Ukraine in April-June, then Bagration is nowhere near the success it was IOTL and though they probably inflict around 150,000-200,000 casualties on the Germans the Soviets don't wipe out entire armies like they did IOTL, nor do they capture Minsk, so that even with equipment losses AG-Center, thanks to reinforcements from France are able to hold the very strong defensive line east of Minsk. In turn that means AG-North holds and the entire line in the East is able to be maintained through at least Summer 1944 with the Soviets taking very heavy casualties, but not being able to inflict the heavy ones they did historically without a breakthroughs that enabled the smashing of entire Axis armies. Nor do they flip the Axis allied states like Bulgaria and Romania and gain those troops.

Meanwhile the Germans don't lose 400,000 men in France in June-August either; some would be lost in the East when sent as reinforcements (or stayed since they weren't transferred to France like the 9th and 10th SS divisions) of course, but since they are 'extra' compared to OTL that is a net gain. The Soviets are in a bad position if they don't advance and gain all the manpower they did historically in the territory captured from June 22nd and onwards as well as new allies and knocking Finland out of the war allowing for extra reserves to be sent to Poland. So a vicious cycle starts for them rather than the Germans. That doesn't mean the Axis isn't worn down in the East, but relative to OTL they actually 'gain' manpower given that their losses would be so much lower than they were historically in 1944, while Soviet ones would be worse without France as a distraction for German strategic reserves.


I wouldn't be so sure. Britain did have the ability to make a deal and ask the US to leave, but that is very unlikely even with a disaster on D-Day. However if the V-weapons problem breaks public morale since there wouldn't be a way to overrun the launch sites on land thanks to the invasion forces, that could potentially be enough.

I'm not so sure that the average person in Britain cared as much about geopolitics as the ruling class did and if enough average people demand an negotiated peace deal they could force the ruling class to comply. Strikes would shut down the ability to wage war if enough people got pissed off enough about the course of the war. Churchill and the government were pretty terrified IOTL as of 1944 due to the V-weapons and army casualties of the public demanding a negotiation over total victory.

The V-weapons were only defeated by the land invasion shutting down the launch sites; even with the land invasion there was no way to actually stop the launches until the sites were overrun. Op Crossbow failed despite extremely heavy bombing of the launch sites.

Operation Crossbow - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In fact they were considered by the Allies as a massive gain for Hitler, because 70,000 bomber sorties were diverted from attacking Germany or military targets to bomb the launch sites which were not shut down, just inconvenienced. They'd have to dedicate the bulk of Bomber Command to hitting the infrastructure behind the sites (and piss off the French against the Allies) to even have a small chance of stopping the attacks. What happens when Germany then is able to avoid the worst of the 1944 bombing due to diversion of attacks?

So instead of increasing bombing of Germany instead the Allied bombers are locked down wrecking France to try and stop the V-weapons. How long before Frenchmen opt to start fighting with Germany rather than against it in that case? A lot of French were furious about the OTL bombing:

Bombing of France during World War II - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Coupled with the failed invasion French public opinion could turn quite hard against the Allies.

Before you say it was connected to the Normandy campaign, much of the bombing was pre-D Day too:

Transport Plan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Add in more Crossbow bombing and the bombing of France is going to continue and escalate without the ground campaign, but it will be concentrated against any area where the V-weapons are located. How the French react to ceaseless bombing by the Allies is up for debate, but the indication wasn't that they'd turn on the Germans, since they didn't really do that until after the invasion was a success and the Germans were being beaten, so resistance was thought to be more politically acceptable.

Antony Beevor's Normandy book cites a number of instances where French civilians attacked Allied troops in Normandy because they were so furious about the bombing.


Which is why I laid out the military situation in the OP so we could focus on the political/social impacts.

Probably success of what operations?


I'm interested in alternate history scenarios and WW2 is one the most well studied and impactful times of the 20th century; if you're not interested in exploring alternate worlds these sorts of thread may not be for you.

As to what people of the time knew/understood I think you don't actually understand what people of the time actually thought, let alone would have been able to achieve given the situation. The success of the Allied forces IOTL was extremely hard won even after D-Day succeeded, so even that late things were not a foregone conclusion and there was a lot of concern among top leadership, especially Churchill, of what the consequences would have been had the invasion failed. For good reason, since he actually understood what it would have meant for the alliance and war effort.

Sillygoose

Don't have time to reply in detail but we disagree on a number of points.
a) The manpower losses would have been minimal and I think, with the way production was ramping up then even loss of say 25% of the specialised stuff could be made up fairly quickly. Even without Washington deciding that the US is a democracy and hence political leaders decide on force allocation rather than rogue generals. Doubly so as forces active in the Med would need overall less equipment and be smaller in scope.

Are you sure that source that mentioned it would take a year to replace lost equipment, as well as assuming all of it was lost, wasn't especially taking about items such as the Murberries which again wouldn't be needed in the Med?

b) There's a difference between aircrews being told not to stop due to heavy AA and realising its impossible to operate in such weather and hence not dropping men, and under those conditions informing the commanders back in Britain. Both that landings don't take place and that the weather is getting that bad, the latter of which they would be increasingly aware of anyway due to reports from assorted shipping, both those in the invasion force and others at sea further west.

Given that the bulk of the paras were widely scattered anyway and probably the biggest impact they had was confusing the Germans because of how scattered the units were I'm not sure how important, a few special cases apart the paras were in the landing.

Similarly with the landing force. You might find a few would be Napoleon's who refuse to acknowledge that landing is impossible but if it obviously it then the bulk of the forces won't be landed.

c) The Armchair general quote I find less than impressive when he's talking about how Nazi Germany might come up with assorted wonder weapons. They were already having serious problems with materials and their jets had major issues that weren't going to be resolved in a hurry. Not to mention the idea of a German nuclear weapon any time before the war ended. I think by that time, although there were still some concerns that they might still pull a rabbit out of an hat, allied intelligence were beginning to realise how far behind the German bomb project was. That makes this source very questionable as anyone will a decent knowledge of what was actually going on wouldn't make such a suggestion, at least if they wanted to be taken seriously.

d) Actually after TTL D Day there would be an actual 'disaster' rather than the failed opportunity that Anzio was. However with forces available its much better turning the enemies flank with ideally landings on both coasts rather than stacking additional forces even deeper and frontal assaults on prepared defences. The US generals weren't that bloody incompetent and would definitely prefer flanking operations with the necessary equipment no longer denied them. German losses would have been smaller than OTL in France simply because there were less forces there but you could have had a victory that rebuilt confidence a good way and further weakened the German forces.

e) Your assuming with the reinforcements going east so rapidly that:
i) They see a need to. OTL those movements only occurred after Bagration had shown Hitler that his tactics in the east had lead to disaster - even then he blamed the party hack he put in charge because the guy obeyed his orders to stand firm. Far more likely that nothing is done until its realised - and accepted by Hitler - that there's a serious crisis.
ii) That the German decide that there is going to be no allied invasion of France that year. Which seems unlikely since even after the OTL Overlord landings for several days if not weeks they believed it was just a feint and that the main landing was coming near Calais. Not to mention if they had any idea of the build up for Dragoon.

Also I find it hard to see how a failure by the allies in June 44 is going to affect details in April 44 so the Soviet successes in the south will still occur.

f) Attacks on launch sites are likely to take up more missions but there won't be the need for massive air activity in support of the invasion and break out so the strategic forces will be able to hit Germany earlier than they did OTL. This would give some chance to hit production at source, either by attacks on factories or - since some of them were deep underground - on logistics and other supplier. Britain is still going to suffer worse than OTL but possibly not as badly as your thinking and should be able to work through it until victory.

g) I know there is a desire to demonise Roosevelt and a lot of denial about what went on during the 1930's but he was very deeply respected because he had pulled the US back from the brink of possible total economic and social collapse and equally importantly that's how he was viewed by the bulk of the population at the time. As such a relatively small set-back in Normandy would hurt the government but not as much as your suggesting.

h) Stalin didn't want allied forces in the Balkans but he has limited choice in the matter if Washington decides otherwise. Furthermore if its either there or nowhere he could have a drastically different view of the matter. As I've said elsewhere the plan isn't to storm through the Balkans and Hungary to hit Berlin from the south. Its to get allied forces involved in combat and deprive the Germans of men and resources. If you could just keep Bulgaria and Serbia say out of Soviet hands that would be a bonus in hindsight but there are clear advantages of such an operation.

i) I like the idea of AH, which is why I'm here. I however prefer it to be based on probable events and results rather than extremely unlikely combinations of event. By this time, unless you get the total collapse of will in the US your desiring then Nazi Germany is going to go down. I think that is not only both a disaster for the world but also extremely unlikely.

Steve

 

[sillygoose]

a) The manpower losses would have been minimal and I think, with the way production was ramping up then even loss of say 25% of the specialised stuff could be made up fairly quickly. Even without Washington deciding that the US is a democracy and hence political leaders decide on force allocation rather than rogue generals. Doubly so as forces active in the Med would need overall less equipment and be smaller in scope.

Manpower losses would be pretty heavy; the 3 airborne divisions would be at least 20,000 men that were deployed IOTL. Depending on what happens with the aircraft and naval vessels as well as assault troops (I'm assuming only the first wave is actually deployed) could mean at least another 10,000. Hardly crippling in terms of manpower, but certainly so in terms of the quality and training of the manpower. The airborne divisions were built up over 2 years in most cases. Specialist equipment is hard to say for sure, but if all the assault craft and DD tanks were launched then it would probably be in excess of 75% lost given the weather, which was considerably worse than on the 6th.

I cannot find what the losses were for the landing ships as a whole (I did find that the British version of the Higgins Boat did suffer a 25% loss rate historically), but they weren't zero for every landing and the Pacific consumed the bulk of them, so any new production would be spoken for since there wasn't really any substantial landings in Europe after D-Day IOTL. That means you either need new production above and beyond OTL production and since US production was zero sum by 1944 what do you not build instead? Was production maxed out for them? That would probably require a depth of research neither of us is particularly interested in doing. Even then there is the issue of shipping them to Europe, as that would require time and resources as well. Regardless substantial losses will take a while to replace even if not a full 12 months and require extra resources.

The US was a democracy, which meant the people got a major say in things and historical evidence is FDR was heavily influenced by public opinion, which preferred the war in the Pacific over Europe:


The above book has a bunch of public polling charts and FDR's response to them. He tried to nudge the public, but never acted opposite of their preferences until he had built consensus or events allowed him to push his way forward (like Pearl Harbor or the Fall of France). Especially after a defeat in Europe even without it being at the hands of the enemy, politically in an election year the theater with progress would get the resources, since it was only victories that boosted American public polling about Roosevelt. Without question FDR's rather desperate political enemies would ruthless exploit any losses as election tools. IOTL they used his health and post-war plans since the war seemed to be going well.

No question the Mediterranean would get more resources, but remember Anzio, while not a defeat in the traditional meaning, was a defeated plan that locked forces into an attritional battle that dropped US public morale extremely badly. The above book has a chart that shows by April-May 1944 US public support for negotiating with Germany was close to overtaking those willing to continue fighting and it rose quickly after Anzio bogged down (landing started in January) and began costing major casualties by American standards. It was especially embarrassing because the forces in the landing zone outnumbered and out gunned those surrounding them, but was taking heavier losses and were trapped and at one point very nearly overrun. Polling only shifted once Rome fell and D-Day succeeded. Rome being taken on June 5th would instead here be overshadowed in the news by the failure of the invasion of France on the same day. That would mean more resources for Italy, but it is highly unlikely another landing would be tried as the commander in theater who actually was in charge of that, Mark Clark, was soured on such operations.

The only potential thing would have been the invasion of southern France, but without Normandy that would be considered impossible to pull off with only a single British airborne division and air support largely too far away to deal with German reinforcements.

Are you sure that source that mentioned it would take a year to replace lost equipment, as well as assuming all of it was lost, wasn't especially taking about items such as the Murberries which again wouldn't be needed in the Med?

I would doubt it given that the Mulberries weren't deployed on D-Day.

b) There's a difference between aircrews being told not to stop due to heavy AA and realising its impossible to operate in such weather and hence not dropping men, and under those conditions informing the commanders back in Britain. Both that landings don't take place and that the weather is getting that bad, the latter of which they would be increasingly aware of anyway due to reports from assorted shipping, both those in the invasion force and others at sea further west.

IOTL the cloud cover was unexpected and winds were too high in many places, but the entire invasion went ahead despite the horrible scattering and losses that resulted. Radio silence was demanded to avoid giving away the invasion. AFAIK radios weren't used by the air transport fleet at any point due to the risk of compromising the invasion.

Same with the fleet, which despite the rough seas went ahead with the invasion anyway despite the loss of DD tanks and various issues with the landings. They couldn't break radio silence until the landings were underway and the beach teams started reporting back on radio because it would give away the invasion.

Normandy - The Technical Services : Signal Corps

history.army.mil

As the vessels bearing thousands of Allied troops moved out into the channel on the night of 5-6 June 1944, complete radio silence blanketed the armada.

Jargon buster

What is a bogus map? What does BIGOT mean? What was SHAEF? What does BARV stand for? What were hedgehogs doing on the Normandy beaches? D-Day produced thousands of code names, acronyms, abbreviations and many other strange and unusual terms and names! We have compiled a list of some of the

theddaystory.com

Carrier pigeons performed a crucial role in wartime and during the Second World War in particular. On D-Day a pigeon called Gustav was aboard an Allied ship off the coast of Normandy when the invasion fleet was under radio silence to avoid enemy detection. At the appropriate time Gustav was released and he flew 150 miles across the Channel to RAF Thorney Island near Chichester in West Sussex where he delivered, five hours and 16 minutes later, the very first message that the Normandy landings had commenced.

Effectively once the trigger is pulled on the invasion there is no turning back, sink or swim.

c) The Armchair general quote I find less than impressive when he's talking about how Nazi Germany might come up with assorted wonder weapons. They were already having serious problems with materials and their jets had major issues that weren't going to be resolved in a hurry. Not to mention the idea of a German nuclear weapon any time before the war ended. I think by that time, although there were still some concerns that they might still pull a rabbit out of an hat, allied intelligence were beginning to realise how far behind the German bomb project was. That makes this source very questionable as anyone will a decent knowledge of what was actually going on wouldn't make such a suggestion, at least if they wanted to be taken seriously.

You mean the V-weapons? They made a pretty huge impact IOTL for the relatively short period they were in use against Britain. Additionally the added time and space to finish up the Elektroboote and jets without having to waste resources on the invasion and losing the French/Benelux economies would have a huge impact on the availability of such items. Each by themselves is hardly a war winner, but combined plus a failed invasion and effectively at least 9 months before a potential repeat of an invasion of France to allow the V-weapons to operate against all of Southern England would work synergistically to degrade the Wallied war effort considerably. Enough to get them to quit of course is speculation, but it adds a bunch of problems the Wallies have to deal with before they can consider trying to invade again.

In the context of what I was interested in talking about, US public opinion and the domestic political situation (namely the 1944 election), all of those would heap on additional issues for the politicians and public to grapple with as time went on. After all the V-weapons were ready to go a week after D-Day and in fact D-day really overran a lot of what was supposed to be launch areas for them, which reduced their potential before they were even deployed. Had the Cotentin peninsula been available as a launch area England would be in a pretty uncomfortable position and no way to stop it for the foreseeable future; additional the ports where an additional invasion attempt would be launched would be under fire and unable to host an invasion fleet. IOTL the key to the shoot down success, once they built up the AAA belts around London, was having a belt south of the city to intercept the V-1s; fire at the ports wouldn't be able to be intercepted except via standing CAP and lots of AAA ships permanently stationed in the Channel (very expensive and would take a while to build up), but would be vulnerable to S- and U-boats. Of course that doesn't stop the need to still have that AAA belt to defend London as well.

The V-2s would be uninterceptable, so could effectively shut down the Channel ports by themselves. This is precisely were such weapons would be a major problem for the Allies without D-day working the first time.

d) Actually after TTL D Day there would be an actual 'disaster' rather than the failed opportunity that Anzio was. However with forces available its much better turning the enemies flank with ideally landings on both coasts rather than stacking additional forces even deeper and frontal assaults on prepared defences. The US generals weren't that bloody incompetent and would definitely prefer flanking operations with the necessary equipment no longer denied them. German losses would have been smaller than OTL in France simply because there were less forces there but you could have had a victory that rebuilt confidence a good way and further weakened the German forces.

Anzio was more than a failed opportunity, it locked down a lot of Allied forces in a coastal pocket that took 5 months to break out and cost the Allies more casualties and many more resources than the Axis forces. Then it failed to stop a German withdrawal after it did breakout. So it was a pretty substantial strategic and operation defeat even it tactically successful eventually. No one really expected the Axis to be able to hold Rome or Italy anyway given how the Germans were plowing as many resources as they could afford into France and Russia instead. Italy was a strategic sideshow that the Axis just had to prevent from collapsing.

Still the entire operation soured the Wallies on trying another in Italy for the rest of the war. Dragoon wasn't allowed to go ahead until Normandy was already a success and the Falaise pocket was underway. However the Germans would be expecting another Mediterranean operation now and with France secured could reinforce the region with troops. I'd imagine they could/would sent the II Parachute Corps as well as 1 parachute army and 17th SS division as well. Focusing operations in Italy favors the Axis much more than the Allies given the limited options for landings, terrain, and overall limited land needing to be defended.

As to non-incompetent US generals...Mark Clark would beg to differ. The exact guy who was in charge of US operations in Italy and did not want a repeat of Anzio.
The Brits also had their own issues there too:

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT ANZIO on JSTOR

Peter Tompkins, WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT ANZIO, Il Politico, Vol. 50, No. 3 (SETTEMBRE 1985), pp. 509-528

www.jstor.org

The author was in the OSS in Rome gathering intel to help Anzio during the operation, so was clued in to the reality of what went on due to all his contacts during and after the war.

e) Your assuming with the reinforcements going east so rapidly that:
i) They see a need to.

They very much did. Hitler planned on shifting forces East as rapidly as possible as well as reinforcing Italy against just what you suggest as soon as the invasion was defeated. This is in the German planning documents.

OTL those movements only occurred after Bagration had shown Hitler that his tactics in the east had lead to disaster - even then he blamed the party hack he put in charge because the guy obeyed his orders to stand firm. Far more likely that nothing is done until its realised - and accepted by Hitler - that there's a serious crisis.

They only occurred after Bagration because until then they were focused on defeating the invasion in France. Bagration meant they could no longer wait to move forces because an army group was just effectively destroyed. However with the invasion of France off the table they'd rapidly start shifting forces East and later Italy once the necessary units were finished building up and training. Strategically Hitler's scheme to defeat the invasion in France and then focus on the East was strategically sound, the problem is the defense failed and then they were stuck in a two main front war, which meant the East was effectively screwed in the summer of 1944 since Hitler also didn't allow any planned retreats to match the length of front line to the strength of the defending forces.

Why would Hitler keep an entire army group in France if the Allied invasion was defeated? That doesn't make any sense when you look at what the entire plan was for the invasion defense and aftermath of a successful defense. The only reason they were kept off the Eastern Front was due to the need to defeat the landings. If you really want to read about it the Germany and the Second World War series by the Bundeswehr's historical department covers it in detail.

ii) That the German decide that there is going to be no allied invasion of France that year. Which seems unlikely since even after the OTL Overlord landings for several days if not weeks they believed it was just a feint and that the main landing was coming near Calais. Not to mention if they had any idea of the build up for Dragoon.

Also I find it hard to see how a failure by the allies in June 44 is going to affect details in April 44 so the Soviet successes in the south will still occur.

If the invasion fleet is defeated by the weather and the airborne troops are effectively lost then they know they have breathing room for the rest of 1944 since it would be assumed that once the initial landings failed it would make another invasion attempt on that scale impossible and the rebuilding divisions in the area plus the 21st Panzer would be enough to deal with a smaller attempt. It wasn't that Hitler thought the invasion of Normandy was a feint per se, but that there might be a follow invasion of Pas de Calais once German reserves were in Normandy; of course ultimately that didn't stop Hitler committing his entire reserve of Panzer divisions to Pas-de-Calais in June anyway. Since I stipulated only 3 panzer divisions would be heading East in June 1944 anyway since the rest weren't fully ready for redeployment except for 21st panzer which was a permanent 'western' division, there would still be 7 panzer/panzergrenadier divisions in the France until July when some would be ready to deploy elsewhere. In the meantime the launch of the V-1s in mid-June would prevent any further invasion attempt for the foreseeable future given that the Channel ports would be under uninterceptable fire as would London. The counter to the V-1 would take a long time to build up and preclude any further invasion attempt.

f) Attacks on launch sites are likely to take up more missions but there won't be the need for massive air activity in support of the invasion and break out so the strategic forces will be able to hit Germany earlier than they did OTL. This would give some chance to hit production at source, either by attacks on factories or - since some of them were deep underground - on logistics and other supplier. Britain is still going to suffer worse than OTL but possibly not as badly as your thinking and should be able to work through it until victory.

The massive air activity leading up to D-day largely meant there was little to bomb Germany with until after the Transportation Plan was complete, so reinforcing Crossbow would have to compete with the need to bomb Germany and keep bombing France.

Don't forget though that most of the Normandy campaign air support was fighter-bombers and tactical aircraft. The heavies that were used to go after the V-1s were freed up IOTL after the massive carpet bombing against the beaches on D-Day except for the one bombing used in Cobra and mainly used to continue focus on the French infrastructure with some diversions for hitting targets in Germany. So what do you draw resources from? It is a zero sum game and every bomber over the launch sites is one not hitting another target that was historically bombed.

As it was the Allies judged Crossbow to be a very costly failure:

Operation Crossbow - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The crossbow attacks were futile, and every raid against a V-1 or V-2 launch site was one less raid against the Third Reich. The diversion of allied resources from other targets represented a major success for Hitler.[3][15]

Plus if continued it would means neglecting all the other important targets hit from September 1944 onwards.

Over a quarter of the Combined Bomber Offensive's tonnage of bombs were used against V-weapon sites in July and August; many of the attacks were ineffective, as they were against unused sites rather than the launchers themselves. Spaatz unsuccessfully proposed that attacks concentrate on the Calais electrical grid, and on gyrocompass factories in Germany and V-weapon storage depots in France. The gyrocompass attacks, along with targeting liquid oxygen tanks (which the Allies knew the V-2 needed), might have been very effective against the missiles.[16] On August 25, 1944, the Joint Crossbow Target Priorities Committee (established July 21)[4] prepared the "Plan for Attack on the German Rocket Organization When Rocket Attacks Commence"—in addition to bombing of storage, liquid-oxygen, and launch sites; the plan included aerial reconnaissance operations.[33] Following the last V-1 launch from France on September 1, 1944, and since the expected V-2 attacks had not begun, Crossbow bombing was suspended on September 3[34] and the campaign against German oil facilities became the highest priority.

g) I know there is a desire to demonise Roosevelt and a lot of denial about what went on during the 1930's but he was very deeply respected because he had pulled the US back from the brink of possible total economic and social collapse and equally importantly that's how he was viewed by the bulk of the population at the time. As such a relatively small set-back in Normandy would hurt the government but not as much as your suggesting.

Sort of. If you check out that book I linked before his polling numbers were not doing well before D-Day and there was a lot of controversy over his 4 run for president as well as his health. The successful D-Day and capture of Paris is what ultimately solidified his reelection, which wouldn't happen here. IOTL until the liberation of Paris Dewey was actually rapidly closing the gap in polling and was thought to potentially be able to win even with a successful D-day such were the lingering doubts about continuing with Roosevelt by the US public.

The perception of a uninform view of Roosevelt from 1932-45 is simply not accurate, especially considering how much did go wrong during his presidency, such as the 1937-38 recession when the New Deal effectively was proven a failure. As an American who actually has living relatives who lived through the Great Depression and FDR presidency I've gotten an earful about various different perspectives on the man and his presidency. When you also look at the growing labor strikes and unrest in the country in 1944 things are hardly as rosy as you paint them. Much like the later Reagan presidency the post-war gloss over by historians favorable to him have colored perceptions, but when you get into more detailed histories his presidency and relations with the public weren't nearly as perfect as portrayed.

A failed invasion in 1944 of France is not a small setback, that's ridiculous to think; everyone was obsessed with it and arguably the relationship with Stalin did too.

h) Stalin didn't want allied forces in the Balkans but he has limited choice in the matter if Washington decides otherwise. Furthermore if its either there or nowhere he could have a drastically different view of the matter. As I've said elsewhere the plan isn't to storm through the Balkans and Hungary to hit Berlin from the south. Its to get allied forces involved in combat and deprive the Germans of men and resources. If you could just keep Bulgaria and Serbia say out of Soviet hands that would be a bonus in hindsight but there are clear advantages of such an operation.

I don't think you realize just how in thrall Washington was of Stalin. Not just to maintain the alliance, but there were over 300 Soviet spies in the administration including his personal secretary. If you want I can try to find a list, but frankly it would be too long to post here and doesn't include all the Stalin favorable officials as well. If Stalin said no they wouldn't to maintain the alliance; since Stalin had all the military leverage at that point and a failed invasion would likely make him even more powerful politically since the Allies couldn't fulfill their key military promise there is no way they'd risk pissing him off more, especially since in 1943 he opened negotiations with Hitler to end the war as a pressure tactic to get the Allies to open a second front. I have sources on that if you want.

Stalin wouldn't even allow Allied forces to operate from the USSR even though they were repeatedly offered, including bombers.

i) I like the idea of AH, which is why I'm here. I however prefer it to be based on probable events and results rather than extremely unlikely combinations of event. By this time, unless you get the total collapse of will in the US your desiring then Nazi Germany is going to go down. I think that is not only both a disaster for the world but also extremely unlikely.

Steve

Seems like we just disagree on the probability...which I don't know why given that it was highly possible that Eisenhower could make a mistake around the weather when his own staff was telling him the weather would be fine. It was if anything a surprise he sided with the Brits over his own experts.

What is the highly improbably event here?

When did I say I desired a total collapse in US will? My entire point of this thread was to discuss what the impact on US politics and public opinion would be.

 

[stevep]

Silly Goose

Your assuming that only the things you want change. I.e. the Germans immediately gambling on shipping large forces eastwards while their still concerned about landings in France. Whereas the wallies decide to sit on their rears for a year simply because the US had desired a big invasion in France and therefore opposed every other operation in Europe. Now the former isn't possible the latter is more likely to be considered. Similarly that so many in Washington want to keep Stalin in the war and to aid the Soviets is now an incentive to seriously consider a Balkans operation.

I'm also doubtful that the commanders on the ships would be as irresponsible as your suggesting. OTL there was a serious problem with the Shermans on Omaha beach because the people commanding the transports insisted they be launched far further out than initially planned. If bad storms are quickly swamping landing craft then the landings will be stopped fairly damned quickly. Even if the commanders are willing to send people to their death because they can't use their initiative the men themselves are likely to have some say on the matter.

If this means some cutting of the excess materials sent to the Pacific then its definitely possible. Especially since its now pretty much essential for any real action against Germany.

Actually Dragoon was initially intended to occur at the same date as Overlord but due to the hogging of resources, especially landing craft by the Pacific theatres, it was delayed.

By wonder weapons I don't mean as much the V weapons which were developed as things like the Me 262 and the Elektroboote which were so flawed that they were never likely to return the considerable investments put into them. Plus most obviously the idea that Nazi Germany, with a mid-44 PoD could possibly have blundered into a nuclear weapon in time to stop them getting bombed suggests someone who has little idea of the actual facts on the ground. Which is why I feel so dismissive of that source.

I'm no great fan of Roosevelt but he was widely popular in the US because he got it out of a hell of a mess that previous politicians had singularly failed to manage. However given the political and ideological domination of big business since Reagan's rise to power in the US he's been damned because he dared to correct failures in the US economic system.

I'm not talking about Eisenhower making a serious error in June 44. I'm talking about the constraints your imposing on the allies after the event such that their not allowed to change their OTL actions to respond to the failure at D Day.

Steve

 

[ATP]

Even if FDR would lost elections in 1944,republicans would still fight.There were no politicians who supported peace with germany.
Allies would land more troops in Italy,soviets push more - germany and denmark in soviet hands,Bulgary,Hungary and Yugoslavia still free.Better for Europe and world.

 

[Chiron]

If D-Day fails and Bagration flops, Stalin is going to throw in the towel. He is simply losing too many men to justify continuing on and needs to see to getting his economy back up and running. He really needed Bagration to succeed as it gave him a fresh pool of recruits to draw upon for the final pushes forward.

Britain's economy is also melting down. As soon as the war ended, they moved quickly to scrap large parts of their arsenal, including tossing equipment into the sea in order to reduce their costs. They were on rations for years post war due to the strains of the war.

No win, the British are going to negotiate and focus on Japan.

White Peace all around. The US builds up their nuclear arsenal for a future reckoning and ends it later.

 

[ATP]

If D-Day fails and Bagration flops, Stalin is going to throw in the towel. He is simply losing too many men to justify continuing on and needs to see to getting his economy back up and running. He really needed Bagration to succeed as it gave him a fresh pool of recruits to draw upon for the final pushes forward.

Britain's economy is also melting down. As soon as the war ended, they moved quickly to scrap large parts of their arsenal, including tossing equipment into the sea in order to reduce their costs. They were on rations for years post war due to the strains of the war.

No win, the British are going to negotiate and focus on Japan.

White Peace all around. The US builds up their nuclear arsenal for a future reckoning and ends it later.

Sralin was loosing men becouse he used buthers as Zukow as commanders - when he had those who attacked smartly.Like Konev or Rokossowsky.He would just remove Zukow types,that all.
And He try peace with Hitler from 1941 till 1943 - problem is,Hitler do not wonted.You must remove Hitler to get peace here.
Besides,why Bagration should lost ? germans would not get fresh troops to change things,and even if they get,Hitler idiotic "no retreat " order would made it disaster anyway.
Soviets would go through - just like Allies in Italy and later Yugoslavia and Hungary.

 

[Chiron]

Sralin was loosing men becouse he used buthers as Zukow as commanders - when he had those who attacked smartly.Like Konev or Rokossowsky.He would just remove Zukow types,that all.
And He try peace with Hitler from 1941 till 1943 - problem is,Hitler do not wonted.You must remove Hitler to get peace here.
Besides,why Bagration should lost ? germans would not get fresh troops to change things,and even if they get,Hitler idiotic "no retreat " order would made it disaster anyway.
Soviets would go through - just like Allies in Italy and later Yugoslavia and Hungary.

Konev and Rok were little better.

Stalin doesn't have unlimited men, his economy is falling apart as he over mobilized men and women to fight, he already demobilized large numbers of men to get the crop in and fix rail roads. His entire military apparatus lacks sufficient trucks, trained mechanics, and other services vital to sustaining prolonged offensives.

No D-Day drawing off vital resources, especially trucks and aircraft, means the Soviets get their teeth punched in. As it was, Bagration gutted their army for a few months as they had to do wholesale replacement of their own losses and prep to launch a new attack. The Soviets simply do not have a balanced enough military force to do rapid maneuver warfare with minimal losses to keep up a sustained advance.

Also Hitler's stand fast orders are overblown in analysis. He often did authorize retreats. The issue is where his foot bound infantry are supposed to retreat to in the face of a tank push. If they leave their prepared positions to open ground, they risk being cut down. But if they stay in place, they buy time for a mobile formation to break through to them and cover their retreat. There are a lot of factors commanders have to take into account when deciding to order a retreat.

If the Allies don't get France and Belarus in 44, they wind down as the Soviets and British have to gear down before their entire economy breaks and the people turn on them.

 

[sillygoose]

Even if FDR would lost elections in 1944,republicans would still fight.There were no politicians who supported peace with germany.
Allies would land more troops in Italy,soviets push more - germany and denmark in soviet hands,Bulgary,Hungary and Yugoslavia still free.Better for Europe and world.

That I'm not nearly as certain about. Historically the Republicans had to go along with the war because it was being won by the time the election started, so they really had no choice if they hoped to win. They were very anti-Soviet and had been isolationist until that became unpopular, so in Europe after a failed D-Day they'd probably limit commitments and focus on a Japan first strategy while working through Allen Dulles, who was a Republican and kept recommending negotiations and who had cultivated lots of contacts through which clandestine peace could be negotiated.
The OSS generally was also run by Republicans and had been trying to get negotiations going until FDR told them no way in hell.

Remember we are talking about a situation in which D-Day failed, not OTL.

Modern historians have generally come down on the idea that given the lack of chance to really try again for a while in Europe for a variety of reasons there would be a shift of focus to the more popular Pacific War where victories of substance were being won. In an election year after a military disaster victories were needed to keep Americans from losing the will to fight. As it was the book I mentioned to SteveP shows how before Normandy the will to fight out the war in Europe was waning fast in the US and would undoubtedly collapse if the invasion fails and Eisenhower has to resign. Even with Rome falling it would be quickly overshadowed by mass casualties and the MAIN invasion failing. Because after Rome was more stalemate. More troops in Italy solves nothing:

Gothic Line - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Plus the Americans and Brits would be much more casualty sensitive given the heavy losses they'd take just in airborne troops if not the assault divisions for the D-day landings. If they bog down like OTL on the Gothic Line after Rome and the Germans reinforce with divisions freed up from France (fallschirmjager and SS which were both tied down in France historically) then even amphibious landing wouldn't solve the issue, they'd just have another Anzio at best. IMHO when coupled with the V-weapons against England that can now operate virtually unimpeded without a ground campaign it would make it very difficult to stay in the war, more for the British even than the Americans.

Sralin was loosing men becouse he used buthers as Zukow as commanders - when he had those who attacked smartly.Like Konev or Rokossowsky.He would just remove Zukow types,that all.
And He try peace with Hitler from 1941 till 1943 - problem is,Hitler do not wonted.You must remove Hitler to get peace here.
Besides,why Bagration should lost ? germans would not get fresh troops to change things,and even if they get,Hitler idiotic "no retreat " order would made it disaster anyway.
Soviets would go through - just like Allies in Italy and later Yugoslavia and Hungary.

Zhukov was too popular to get rid of. When he was just coordinating Front Zhukov was reasonably skilled, but generally was quite mediocre as a Front commander.

Stalin's peace efforts in 1941-43 were not serious, he was just as much unwilling to quit as Hitler given the terms on offer. It was a two sided problem that might be fixed by Stalin realizing continuing the war was worse than peace with the lines ending where they were as that was what Hitler wanted. So really you just need Stalin to have a reason to think that, which IMHO a failed D-Day and assuming the war even goes on that long failed offensives in Ukraine and Belarus (successful to a point, but not nearly enough) and a Republican victory in the November election. Since Dewey wasn't Stalin friendly and wouldn't allow all the spies Stalin had in the FDR administration to remain in government since the Venona intercepts had revealed the extent of infiltration, likely Stalin would realize he couldn't dictate to America like he did when FDR was in charge and would have to start making decisions about what to do when unconditional surrender is renounced by the new adminstration.

Konev and Rok were little better.

They were quite a bit better. Rokossovsky was the best the Soviets had and arguably one of the best Front commanders of the war. Konev was less skilled, but definitely substantially better than Zhukov by 1944.

Also Hitler's stand fast orders are overblown in analysis. He often did authorize retreats. The issue is where his foot bound infantry are supposed to retreat to in the face of a tank push. If they leave their prepared positions to open ground, they risk being cut down. But if they stay in place, they buy time for a mobile formation to break through to them and cover their retreat. There are a lot of factors commanders have to take into account when deciding to order a retreat.

I beg to disagree, especially in 1944. That was the major reason for the massive disasters the Germans faced in Ukraine and Belarus. Army Group commanders repeatedly warned Hitler about what was going to happen if they stayed put and all their predictions came true. There was plenty of time to retreat during this period especially if a phased retreat given the mud would impede Soviet armor.

 

[Chiron]

They were quite a bit better. Rokossovsky was the best the Soviets had and arguably one of the best Front commanders of the war. Konev was less skilled, but definitely substantially better than Zhukov by 1944.


I beg to disagree, especially in 1944. That was the major reason for the massive disasters the Germans faced in Ukraine and Belarus. Army Group commanders repeatedly warned Hitler about what was going to happen if they stayed put and all their predictions came true. There was plenty of time to retreat during this period especially if a phased retreat given the mud would impede Soviet armor.

1. They still lost large numbers of men and were not able to maintain sustained offensive actions. That is a problem of a military that was poorly organized from the start and never got the right mix of tooth to tail.

2. And where were these foot bound soldiers supposed to retreat to in the face of a more mobile red army at this point? Till you answer this question, Hitler was right to order troops to hold in place to tie down disproportionate Soviet Resources while the front line stabilized. If they break contact and go out in the open, they can be subjected to far more effective artillery and air attack and Tanks can bring their machine guns to bear on them more easily. Then its a route and more Soviet Forces not needed to reduce a pocket can now exploit a breakthrough and widen and deepen it.

It isn't cut and dried as you make it. Pocketed German troops lasted longer and inflicted heavier causalities on their attackers than Soviet Pockets did. This meant the Soviets spent 4 years trying to retake ground the Germans took in just 6 months of combat. If the Germans were constantly retreating, the Soviets would have won quicker as they regained population centers faster and resources they needed faster while denying the same to the Germans.

 

[sillygoose]

1. They still lost large numbers of men and were not able to maintain sustained offensive actions. That is a problem of a military that was poorly organized from the start and never got the right mix of tooth to tail.

Certainly they did lose huge numbers of men even in 1945. That's a function of tactical and operational issues as well as the high casualty rates early on in the war that created a vicious cycle that meant replacements were poorly trained and beyond 1943 increasingly low quality in terms of general health since the best men were expended earlier.

The tooth to tail situation was also a function of lack of production of trucks; as much as the vaunted LL trucks helped the Soviets were largely a horse drawn force and actually had less motorization per soldier than the Germans until late 1944 largely thanks to capturing so many Axis trucks that year. Most of that was outside their control given the loss of industry early in the war, the strategic bombing the Germans did of Soviet industry in 1943 that was much more effective than people realize (I got a translated Russian book on the subject recently) and the need for so many tanks, which mean few resources were left for trucks.

2. And where were these foot bound soldiers supposed to retreat to in the face of a more mobile red army at this point? Till you answer this question, Hitler was right to order troops to hold in place to tie down disproportionate Soviet Resources while the front line stabilized. If they break contact and go out in the open, they can be subjected to far more effective artillery and air attack and Tanks can bring their machine guns to bear on them more easily. Then its a route and more Soviet Forces not needed to reduce a pocket can now exploit a breakthrough and widen and deepen it.

Short distances to switch lines as they pulled back, as was done repeatedly throughout the war. See Army Group North in the pull back from Leningrad in 1944 or Army Group Center when pulling back from Rzhev or Orel in 1943. Manstein wouldn't have demanded it from Hitler if he didn't think he could pull it off and say what you will about the man, but he wasn't an idiot around the conduct of tactical and operational maneuver. Just take the example of the Korsun pocket; it was entirely possible to pull out of the obvious pocket waiting to happen weeks before it happened and Manstein had demanded it over two weeks before the Soviet offensive began. There were a number of short retreats to river lines they could have easily marched back to and avoided any serious threat in the meantime; as you said the Soviets weren't great at sustaining operations and took considerable time building up before every one and were quite a bit more obvious about their intentions than they claim. There was plenty of time to pull back in certain areas or say evacuate Crimea months before it was attacked. Pulling back leap frog style operationally is how it would have been done rather than a disorganized flight for 200 miles.

The Soviet attacks you mention were entirely set piece and intensively prepared, so by actually moving before they could get their ponderous force ready for operations they could dodge those major attacks. Now if they waited until they were already underway then you'd be right, but that is not what I or anyone else is suggesting. Also leaving your very limited number of troops to be destroyed to tie down enemy forces even if disproportionate is not an effective strategy for Germany in the long run as the Soviets got their best casualty ratios in those sorts of battles, not the Germans. Take the Korsun pocket; despite major mistakes by the Soviets and the Germans being very fortunate in having a relief force able to act quickly they still suffered 1 casualty for every 2 the Soviets took, which is actually in the Soviet's favor since they could replace 5 or 6 casualties for every 1 the Germans could. Attrition favored the Soviets unless loss ratios were at least 5:1.

It isn't cut and dried as you make it. Pocketed German troops lasted longer and inflicted heavier causalities on their attackers than Soviet Pockets did.

A meaningless fact without context. See above for the loss replacement rates; since those pockets weren't able to inflict 5:1 casualties on the Soviets, in fact they inflicted less than when the Germans retreated in good order (again see Operation Buffalo, the retreat from Rzhev in 1943 where the Soviets took 9 casualties for every 1 the Germans took). Stalingrad was a situation where the Soviets were close to a 1:1 loss ratio while Korsun was something like 2:1, which given their replacement rates meant that the Soviets were easily winning the war of attrition.

That's not even getting into the loss of most equipment of pocketed forces which was increasingly hard to replace in 1944 due to the bombing. Not that it was easy even in 1941 when 3rd Panzer army lost a huge chunk of its equipment in the retreat from Moscow. But losses like that were completely unsustainable by 1944:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518046.2015.998134?journalCode=fslv20

This meant the Soviets spent 4 years trying to retake ground the Germans took in just 6 months of combat. If the Germans were constantly retreating, the Soviets would have won quicker as they regained population centers faster and resources they needed faster while denying the same to the Germans.

I think you mean 16 months of invasion, as the Germans were advancing from June 1941-October 1942. The Soviet reverse of that was from November 1942 - roughly July 1944. So 21 months on the attack for the Soviets vs. 18 for the Germans.
If the Germans planned their retreats they could have evacuated the useful population and scorched earth what they had rebuilt from the Soviet scorched earth in 1941-42. Retreating to a sustainable defensive line would actually allow the Germans to hold for longer since with a shorter line they'd have reserves and the necessary troop densities per KM of front line to actually be able to either hold or slow the retreat to a crawl and win the attrition war.

 

[Chiron]

Certainly they did lose huge numbers of men even in 1945. That's a function of tactical and operational issues as well as the high casualty rates early on in the war that created a vicious cycle that meant replacements were poorly trained and beyond 1943 increasingly low quality in terms of general health since the best men were expended earlier.

The tooth to tail situation was also a function of lack of production of trucks; as much as the vaunted LL trucks helped the Soviets were largely a horse drawn force and actually had less motorization per soldier than the Germans until late 1944 largely thanks to capturing so many Axis trucks that year. Most of that was outside their control given the loss of industry early in the war, the strategic bombing the Germans did of Soviet industry in 1943 that was much more effective than people realize (I got a translated Russian book on the subject recently) and the need for so many tanks, which mean few resources were left for trucks.

Tank heavy focus was why they had so few trucks and rolling stock as well. Everyone gushes over Soviet Tank production and ignore the fact it came at the expense of trucks, rolling stock, and other gear, and what was produced was no better than target practice due to low quality.

Short distances to switch lines as they pulled back, as was done repeatedly throughout the war. See Army Group North in the pull back from Leningrad in 1944 or Army Group Center when pulling back from Rzhev or Orel in 1943. Manstein wouldn't have demanded it from Hitler if he didn't think he could pull it off and say what you will about the man, but he wasn't an idiot around the conduct of tactical and operational maneuver. Just take the example of the Korsun pocket; it was entirely possible to pull out of the obvious pocket waiting to happen weeks before it happened and Manstein had demanded it over two weeks before the Soviet offensive began. There were a number of short retreats to river lines they could have easily marched back to and avoided any serious threat in the meantime; as you said the Soviets weren't great at sustaining operations and took considerable time building up before every one and were quite a bit more obvious about their intentions than they claim. There was plenty of time to pull back in certain areas or say evacuate Crimea months before it was attacked. Pulling back leap frog style operationally is how it would have been done rather than a disorganized flight for 200 miles.

Manstein is overrated, had an over inflated ego, and his unit diaries like Guderian's paint an entirely different picture on events and its only recently that we are beginning to realize the extent that they deceived post war interviewers.

Ok, they retreat and yield a valuable jump off to the next line that has yet to be built and the Soviets add 200,000 people back into their tally sheets.

At what point do you stop retreating and counter-attack? You are over simplifying the very bad strategic situation the Germans were in at this point.

The Soviet attacks you mention were entirely set piece and intensively prepared, so by actually moving before they could get their ponderous force ready for operations they could dodge those major attacks. Now if they waited until they were already underway then you'd be right, but that is not what I or anyone else is suggesting. Also leaving your very limited number of troops to be destroyed to tie down enemy forces even if disproportionate is not an effective strategy for Germany in the long run as the Soviets got their best casualty ratios in those sorts of battles, not the Germans. Take the Korsun pocket; despite major mistakes by the Soviets and the Germans being very fortunate in having a relief force able to act quickly they still suffered 1 casualty for every 2 the Soviets took, which is actually in the Soviet's favor since they could replace 5 or 6 casualties for every 1 the Germans could. Attrition favored the Soviets unless loss ratios were at least 5:1.

Uh the Soviet Union had at best double Germany's population, and trading 2 to 1 losses, they bleed out. They were throwing women and teens into direct combat in 1942. They spent 20 years breeding like rabbits to get back to pre-war population level. If the US hadn't put boots on the ground and drew large amounts of resources west, the Germans would have won easily.

I think you mean 16 months of invasion, as the Germans were advancing from June 1941-October 1942. The Soviet reverse of that was from November 1942 - roughly July 1944. So 21 months on the attack for the Soviets vs. 18 for the Germans.
If the Germans planned their retreats they could have evacuated the useful population and scorched earth what they had rebuilt from the Soviet scorched earth in 1941-42. Retreating to a sustainable defensive line would actually allow the Germans to hold for longer since with a shorter line they'd have reserves and the necessary troop densities per KM of front line to actually be able to either hold or slow the retreat to a crawl and win the attrition war.

The Soviets checked the German advance in December of 41 and the Germans did not begin advancing again till June of 42 as they had to deal with multiple Soviet Offensives.

As for evacuating a hostile population and scorching the Earth... Just to kill the Jews, the Germans expended an inordinate amount of resources to move them around, expanding that to some 50+ million people they held captive was not possible and these people were performing useful work.

Also Germany is fighting the WA whose Strategic Bombing Campaign is sucking up resources. And Germany has to garrison and guard France till an invasion threat is past.

So retreating as you envision will actually speed up the German collapse, enable the Soviets to preserve more manpower and equipment while gaining critical areas earlier.

Quite simply, Hitler had no real options except the Western Allies massively fucking up and crippling themselves from launching offensives in the Summer/Fall/Winter campaign period.

If as the op suggests occurs, Hitler can now bring to bear substantial resources spent fighting the US/Commonwealth/French forces in France and Low Countries to bear East and check Stalin and bring him to peace out.

At that point its nukes, or peace out for the Wallies.

 

[sillygoose]

Tank heavy focus was why they had so few trucks and rolling stock as well. Everyone gushes over Soviet Tank production and ignore the fact it came at the expense of trucks, rolling stock, and other gear, and what was produced was no better than target practice due to low quality.

Sure, but the point is what was more necessary to the Soviet war effort, tanks or trucks? Apparently tanks, since they were able to win with that doctrine.
Rolling stock was mostly unnecessary since given the loss of large part of their rail system they had a surplus of rolling stock. It was only in 1944 and on that they needed more and got it from the US.
On principle though I do agree with you about the tank production vs. everything else, but in the 1941-42 period when it was about survival and AFV losses were disgustingly high they really had no choice. Later on due to the industrial switch over switching back was difficult and the LL made it unnecessary given that it was higher than what Soviet output could have been anyway.

Manstein is overrated, had an over inflated ego, and his unit diaries like Guderian's paint an entirely different picture on events and its only recently that we are beginning to realize the extent that they deceived post war interviewers.

Examples? I'm not going to disagree outright, but would like to know what you think is the smoking gun on that.

Ok, they retreat and yield a valuable jump off to the next line that has yet to be built and the Soviets add 200,000 people back into their tally sheets.

Uh...they did anyway when the Germans couldn't hold their position and got rolled over. Check out that paper I linked it explains a lot of the consequences of standing and fighting and still losing as a result. The consequences were a lot higher than you apparently think.

At what point do you stop retreating and counter-attack? You are over simplifying the very bad strategic situation the Germans were in at this point.

When you have reserves you can pull out of the line. They couldn't really counterattack or stop retreating because of how worn out their units were by January 1944 in Ukraine. They needed to shorten the line, exploit Soviet logistical vulnerabilities by pulling back far enough to cause them to pause their offensive, regroup, refit, and then counterpunch when the Soviets attacked again. I'm really not given that it had already worked before multiple times in 1943-44. Again see Rzhev in 1943.
Here is the Russian article on it:

Операция «Бюффель» — Википедия

ru.wikipedia.org

Operation "Buffel" ( German: Büffel - buffalo , also "Buffelbewegung" - Buffalo movement and "Buffelstellung" - Buffalo position ) (March 1-30, 1943) - operation of the German troops in World War II to evacuate the 9th and part of 4 th army from the Rzhev salient .

As a result of the operation, the German command reduced the front line from 530 to 200 km and freed up reserves that were used in other sectors.

The retreat freed up enough troops to launch Operation Citadel.

And it caused the Soviets to attack unpreparedly to try and stop them, which did not turn out well for the Soviets:

Opponents
the USSR Germany

Losses
38 862 non- returnable, 99 715 sanitary, total 138 577 [1] 4 and 9 army during 1.3-31.3.1943: 3450 killed, 10,891 injured 926 prop. missing , total 15 267 [2]

The Soviets lost more than twice as many dead alone as the Germans suffered of all types of casualties. Overall ration was 9:1 losses.

So planned retreats to shorten the line worked out very well if conducted in a timely fashion. Holding extended lines ended badly, see August 1943 Belgorod, Bagration, Korsun, Crimea 1944, and Hube's pocket.

Uh the Soviet Union had at best double Germany's population, and trading 2 to 1 losses, they bleed out. They were throwing women and teens into direct combat in 1942. They spent 20 years breeding like rabbits to get back to pre-war population level. If the US hadn't put boots on the ground and drew large amounts of resources west, the Germans would have won easily.

You're ignoring that the Germans were fighting the US and Britain as well, plus occupying most of Europe. So only a fraction of the German military was in the East and repeatedly the reserves or replacements that could have gone East instead were used to form new units to fight the Wallies instead. And don't forget all the losses the Germans took from 1939-41 before invading the USSR as well as the fact that they had a larger industrial workforce than the Soviets even in 1943 as Germany had to focus on high tech production while the Soviets effectively outsourced that to the US and UK via LL.

People make the very common mistake when looking at population stats to ignore all the intensive manpower requirements of production at all levels of the supply chain to make the very expensive gear to fight the strategic air and naval wars; though they had few fighters on the front lines in those campaigns they required massive support networks to make happen, which diverted a huge part of German strength from the East. The book "How the War Was Won" makes a very compelling case that WW2 was a war of machines more than men, but quality machines required a lot of men in the tail part of the tooth to tail ratio; see how the US and UK had large populations but relatively had very small armies because of how much they invested in their navies, logistics, production, and air forces. That applies to the Germans too, as they had actually a quite small combat element relative to the entire logistical supply chain from mines to factory to transport to the front line to mechanics, etc. Relatively much more than the Soviets. So the Soviets fought with blood instead of machines until quite late in the war, which meant that instead of having a large tail they plowed many more men into the front lines instead and rationalized/skimped on logistical support given their limited industrial size after the losses of 1941-42. In that way they were able to generate many more combat replacements than the Germans, but then suffered much more casualties. Post-war (and even with echos demographically today) they paid the price for their expenditure of young men as freely as they did, but it helped them simply overwhelm the Axis forces. Its a brutal way to fight a war, but it worked when coupled with Allied help and German mistakes.

"Breeding like rabbits" is not accurate, their birthrates collapsed after the war and never recovered (partly a function of taking years to demobilize given how much occupation they had to do). It was so bad that it took them 20 years to recover to pre-war levels; after the horrible bloodletting of 1914-1934 Soviet population levels recovered much more quickly because their birthrate didn't collapse, but the huge lopsided population loss of men relative to women (~20.6 million men vs. ~6 million women) was a birthrate disaster.

Not sure I'd say that the Germans would have won easily if the US didn't actively participate in combat, but they would have easily stalemated the Soviets even with British help.

The Soviets checked the German advance in December of 41 and the Germans did not begin advancing again till June of 42 as they had to deal with multiple Soviet Offensives.

More like the weather and logistics yanked the German chain. That allowed the Soviets time to mobilize and counterattack, but that was resolved largely by Spring with huge losses for the Soviets at a rate they couldn't sustain. The first German offensives of 1942 were in May 1942 after several clean up operations and a lot of rehabilitation; what prevented the Germans from doing anything earlier was the weather and logistics/rehabbing forces since Hitler spent most of 1941 and early 1942 building new divisions instead of sending replacements east, though there was a logic to that given the logistic situation in the East that wasn't really resolved to a sufficient degree until Spring 1942.

As for evacuating a hostile population and scorching the Earth... Just to kill the Jews, the Germans expended an inordinate amount of resources to move them around, expanding that to some 50+ million people they held captive was not possible and these people were performing useful work.

I've actually read the opposite. As horrible as it was the Holocaust ended up being cost-effective relative to resources invested since most Jews who were killed never saw the inside of a concentration camp (per Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands") and were actually killed in other circumstances; those who did died in concentration camps were already near them as they were set up where the majority of the Jewish population under Nazi control actually lived, Poland. People who could work were worked to death, those that couldn't were killed off, and the entire population was looted, which generated major resources for the Nazis. See the Nazi gold controversy with Switzerland. The Nazis were sick and evil, not completely stupid.

As to evacuating population and scorched earth...that was largely done IOTL, but not to the extent possible given the lack of planning for major retreats. When the Germans stood and held their ground in the field in late 1943-44 and got rolled over they evacuated very little in time, including people. When the planned they were able to evacuate people and deny resources to the Soviets.
One example:

Операция «Бюффель» — Википедия

ru.wikipedia.org

• To evacuate household goods (cattle, crop supplies, tools, etc.) and military equipment (by rail - more than 100,000 tons of cargo, by transport convoys - 10,000 tons).
• Withdraw 60,000 civilians behind the new line of defense.

A separate stage in the operation was the evacuation of the civilian population. The German general F.V. von Mellenthin in his book "Tank battles of 1939-1945" argued about the voluntary abandonment of Rzhev by the majority of local residents:

The most serious problem was the evacuation of the civilian population, because during the operation "Buffalo" the entire population, old and young, healthy and sick, peasants and townspeople, all insisted on evacuation, so was the horror of the soldiers and commissars of their own country [9]

Soviet and contemporary Russian historiography rejects the possibility of voluntary evacuation of local residents. The civilian population could be withdrawn from the territory of the Rzhevsky performance for a business trip to forced labor and in order to avoid sabotage at the stage of preparation and conduct of Operation Buffel:

Thousands of civilians were sent to the event, allegedly of their own free will [10]

Scorched earth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The process was repeated later in the war by the German forces of Army Group North and Erich von Manstein's Army Group Don, which stole crops, destroyed farms, and razed cities and smaller settlements during several military operations. The rationale for the policy was that it would slow pursuing Soviet forces by forcing them to save their own civilians, but in Manstein's postwar memoirs, the policy was justified as to have prevented the Soviets from stealing food and shelter from their own civilians. The best-known victims of the German scorched-earth policy were the people of the historic city of Novgorod, which was razed during the winter of 1944 to cover Army Group North's retreat from Leningrad.

Incidentally that is where Manstein lied most in his memoirs, since it would have been admitting to being a war criminal.

Also Germany is fighting the WA whose Strategic Bombing Campaign is sucking up resources. And Germany has to garrison and guard France till an invasion threat is past.

Exactly that was why the Soviets could generate so many more replacements than the Germans; the Soviets were all in on a one front war, the Germans were right a multi-front war of varying technical complexity that required them to be a jack of all trades in production and conduct of the war.

So retreating as you envision will actually speed up the German collapse, enable the Soviets to preserve more manpower and equipment while gaining critical areas earlier.

See the Rzhev example, your claims don't hold up to actual historical operations of planned retreats.

Quite simply, Hitler had no real options except the Western Allies massively fucking up and crippling themselves from launching offensives in the Summer/Fall/Winter campaign period.

Agree to disagree. Hitler fucked up badly, which gave the Allies the chance they needed to win. The situation in 1942 is somewhat more understandable given what was known at the time, but by 1943 it was clear that there were nowhere near enough Axis troops to hold the line in the East and Hitler called off Kursk too early before it achieved its goals. Again easier to say in hindsight, but the evidence is now quite clear there based on the release of archival data.

If as the op suggests occurs, Hitler can now bring to bear substantial resources spent fighting the US/Commonwealth/French forces in France and Low Countries to bear East and check Stalin and bring him to peace out.

At that point its nukes, or peace out for the Wallies.

By June 1944 it wouldn't be a full checking as Hitler was still making mistakes, so Bagration would still be able to half work, but could be stalled out east of Minsk and at least half of those lose historically could have been saved with timely reinforcements of a certain combat power that were not available IOTL but would be ITTL.

The question is when does Stalin decide it wasn't worth it to continue.

As to the point of nukes or peace in 1944 and actually even until mid-1945 no one really knew the Atomic bomb would work or when it would even be ready, so effectively it was a non-option. Especially so since without the Normandy campaign working the German air defense system would be intact and the planners for the use of the bomb didn't want to risk it being shot down and captured by the Germans. Even it had been used it wasn't a war winner alone given the numbers available in 1945 and need for use against Japan as well as the lack of effectiveness of the early bombs against German style construction of cities. The Japanese used much more wood which made them quite a bit more vulnerable to a bomb that generated a lot of heat. Without boots on the ground destroying cities wasn't enough to force an end to the war. After all the RAF bombing raids of German cities were the equivalent of a modern nuclear strike in terms of levels of destruction, but despite the destruction of basically every city over 50,000 people in Germany the war was nearly fought until the entire country was occupied on the ground.

 

[sillygoose]

Silly Goose

Your assuming that only the things you want change. I.e. the Germans immediately gambling on shipping large forces eastwards while their still concerned about landings in France. Whereas the wallies decide to sit on their rears for a year simply because the US had desired a big invasion in France and therefore opposed every other operation in Europe. Now the former isn't possible the latter is more likely to be considered. Similarly that so many in Washington want to keep Stalin in the war and to aid the Soviets is now an incentive to seriously consider a Balkans operation.

You're assuming they'd still be concerned about a landing attempt after the storm disaster, why? The Germans had an idea of how many airborne troops the allies had and would knew that they'd lost nearly all of them in the failed invasion. Similarly everyone realized it would take a while to mount a new invasion after a failed one due to the sheer size of the entire operation and planning that went behind it, while in the meantime the V-weapons would be deployed and able to hit the ports where the invasions fleets had to stage out of. Plus as I said the bulk of the panzer divisions would stay in France as they weren't ready to deploy East yet anyway, which would be the hedge they'd need. Deploying 3 of the 10 Panzer divisions east along with some infantry is not an undue plan given the large remaining force.

The biggest element though would be the V-1s being deployed against the Channel ports which makes another invasion for 1944 out of Britain impossible.

The Wallies don't really have much of a choice but to wait given the V-weapon threat, loss of equipment, loss of their airborne (which the Allies refused to invade France without), and loss of faith in their own ability to launch another operation for a while. They were quite over cautious to minimize casualties for political reasons. It isn't outside the realm of possibility that they'd try another landing in the Mediterranean, but more likely due to the fall of Rome and faith in the coming operation in Italy that they'd 'reinforce success' by plowing more resources into Italy. That and support the Partisans in Yugoslavia more. Plus as you mentioned focus more on bombing to deal with the V-weapon threat.

I know you're personally obsessed with the Balkans, much like Churchill, but that doesn't mean Stalin wanted that or the governments in the west would even be thinking about it with the V-weapon threat now front and center. You're making a lot of unsupported assumptions.

I'm also doubtful that the commanders on the ships would be as irresponsible as your suggesting. OTL there was a serious problem with the Shermans on Omaha beach because the people commanding the transports insisted they be launched far further out than initially planned. If bad storms are quickly swamping landing craft then the landings will be stopped fairly damned quickly. Even if the commanders are willing to send people to their death because they can't use their initiative the men themselves are likely to have some say on the matter.

Let's say you're right. They suffer major losses from the first launch and call it off, saving the worst of the losses to the amphibious force. The airborne are still gone and the Allies would like around 20,000 men just from that as well as the ability to launch another invasion as the airborne divisions were a crucial element of that to block reinforcements headed to the beaches. No invasion will be possible for a while then anyway as a result and the V-1s against the Channel ports is an issue as of June 12th.

If this means some cutting of the excess materials sent to the Pacific then its definitely possible. Especially since its now pretty much essential for any real action against Germany.

What excess material? The Philippines operation was the one major victory in the Pacific after D-day and a major morale boost in the US. Zero chance it is cut whatever FDR's desires. More your wishful thinking on the matter than any actual version of US planning.

Actually Dragoon was initially intended to occur at the same date as Overlord but due to the hogging of resources, especially landing craft by the Pacific theatres, it was delayed.

Operation Anvil was. Dragoon was a different operation that evolved out of the proposed Anvil.
Overlord used up what was available in Europe, as both theaters had their allocations of resources planned out far ahead.
It was never planned to be a stand alone operation in case D-Day failed, since the OTL Dragoon and Anvil depended on success in Normandy to be viable.

Given how important airborne troops were to the Dragoon plan if insufficient air transports survived the D-Day attempt they'd not be able to launch it either.

By wonder weapons I don't mean as much the V weapons which were developed as things like the Me 262 and the Elektroboote which were so flawed that they were never likely to return the considerable investments put into them.

You're basing that on...?
The Me262s were a success IOTL despite the disastrous situation by the time they got into significant operational numbers, but events overtook their ability to make an impact; without D-Day they had the time and room to develop into a major threat to bombers, which now have an intact continental air defense system to deal with and no escorts or jammers based on the continent or other safe routes through France into Germany. Similarly the Germans don't have to deal with the loss of their air defense system in western Europe after June 6th.

The Elektroboote were working out their flaws, hence one reason why they took so long to introduce; the other was the loss of economic resources in western and eastern Europe after D-day and Bagration. If they are able to reintroduce the battle of the Atlantic that is yet another diversion of resources the Allies need to make before they can refocus on invasion.

Plus most obviously the idea that Nazi Germany, with a mid-44 PoD could possibly have blundered into a nuclear weapon in time to stop them getting bombed suggests someone who has little idea of the actual facts on the ground. Which is why I feel so dismissive of that source.

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to. I never claimed they would on their own. It is US planners who were fearful if the Germans captured a relatively intact bomb they'd be able to reverse engineer it quickly and figure out their mistakes with their bomb project. I'm not claiming they'd be able to get one ready during the war, but given how opaque Allied intel on the German bomb project was they felt fearful of the possibility.

I'm no great fan of Roosevelt but he was widely popular in the US because he got it out of a hell of a mess that previous politicians had singularly failed to manage. However given the political and ideological domination of big business since Reagan's rise to power in the US he's been damned because he dared to correct failures in the US economic system.

He was popular, but I'd question the characterization of being widely popular as of 1944. He didn't get the US out of the Great Depression as the 1937-38 recession showed and he broke his promise not to get involved in another foreign war. People were also not excited about him running for a 4th term either, but because the war looked like it was nearly over by November 1944 he won easily; ITTL that would not be the case.

I think you're overestimating FDR's economic radicalism, all he did was save capitalism and arguably had a hand in stifling real radicals like Huey Long.

I'm not talking about Eisenhower making a serious error in June 44. I'm talking about the constraints your imposing on the allies after the event such that their not allowed to change their OTL actions to respond to the failure at D Day.

Steve

What OTL actions am I not allowing them to change? I'm saying what is logical given the circumstances based on a lot of planning. There was no back up plan if D-Day failed and it would take a while to come up with one, especially if insufficient landing craft survived. The loss of the airborne was bad enough.

Here is a historian's opinion:

What if D-Day had failed?

If D-day had failed and the troops were pulled off the beaches, what was plan "B"? Where there backup invasion plans of Europe? If so, what were

www.historynet.com

Given the size, scope, location, and timing of D-Day, there was little room for alternate scenarios if Operation Overlord had failed. Calais was closer, but Adolf Hitler expected that to be the landing zone and had the most powerful defenses there (Operation Fortitude had been designed to keep him expecting the landing to be there even as the Allied force was heading to Normandy). The weather was a critical factor—it delayed the invasion for days and failure on June 6 would have held up any further action for two weeks—at which point the Channel would have been experiencing its worst storms in years (June 19-22). Failure was really not an option and nobody, least of all General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was able or willing to consider anything short of success. Everyone involved conducted themselves accordingly, which (combined with virtually complete Allied air superiority) assured that there would not have to be a "Plan B."

 

[Chiron]

Sure, but the point is what was more necessary to the Soviet war effort, tanks or trucks? Apparently tanks, since they were able to win with that doctrine.
Rolling stock was mostly unnecessary since given the loss of large part of their rail system they had a surplus of rolling stock. It was only in 1944 and on that they needed more and got it from the US.
On principle though I do agree with you about the tank production vs. everything else, but in the 1941-42 period when it was about survival and AFV losses were disgustingly high they really had no choice. Later on due to the industrial switch over switching back was difficult and the LL made it unnecessary given that it was higher than what Soviet output could have been anyway.

They didn't win with tanks, they were nothing more than target practice. They won with trucks which got their infantry and supplies to the front.

The rolling stock available was less than they needed and they had to have an emergency shipment in 1941 just to launch their winter offensive. Overall the Soviets built a paltry 411 locomotives and 15,980 freight cars. THe Germans massively out produced them their.

Examples? I'm not going to disagree outright, but would like to know what you think is the smoking gun on that.

Citadel, he agreed to the postponement and the plan and Hitler allowed him free reign to argue alongside Model. When the Allies invaded Sicily, he allowed the Offensive to continue, but the Soviets who had an influx of new trucks were able to launch two offensives elsewhere and threatened to create a big pocket, then Hitler ordered a retreat. This allowed the Soviets to gain Smolensk and Kharkov back.

Uh...they did anyway when the Germans couldn't hold their position and got rolled over. Check out that paper I linked it explains a lot of the consequences of standing and fighting and still losing as a result. The consequences were a lot higher than you apparently think.

Disagree, by holding, they tied down disproportionate resources of the Soviets to reduce the pocket and kept valuable terrain out of their hands as well as resources.

When you have reserves you can pull out of the line. They couldn't really counterattack or stop retreating because of how worn out their units were by January 1944 in Ukraine. They needed to shorten the line, exploit Soviet logistical vulnerabilities by pulling back far enough to cause them to pause their offensive, regroup, refit, and then counterpunch when the Soviets attacked again. I'm really not given that it had already worked before multiple times in 1943-44. Again see Rzhev in 1943.
Here is the Russian article on it:

Операция «Бюффель» — Википедия

ru.wikipedia.org

The retreat freed up enough troops to launch Operation Citadel.

And allowed the Soviets to gain a major road junction and apply uniform pressure all along the front which meant they dictated the flow. The price they paid for that was worth it as they replaced the losses easily from the retaken areas and had an influx of Lendlease.

You're ignoring that the Germans were fighting the US and Britain as well, plus occupying most of Europe. So only a fraction of the German military was in the East and repeatedly the reserves or replacements that could have gone East instead were used to form new units to fight the Wallies instead. And don't forget all the losses the Germans took from 1939-41 before invading the USSR as well as the fact that they had a larger industrial workforce than the Soviets even in 1943 as Germany had to focus on high tech production while the Soviets effectively outsourced that to the US and UK via LL.

Uh no I didn't, I did in fact mentioned the fact the Germans were also fighting the WALLIES which was consuming large amounts of resources.

Not sure I'd say that the Germans would have won easily if the US didn't actively participate in combat, but they would have easily stalemated the Soviets even with British help.

Oh they would have. US entry forced them to pull Luftwaffe assets to Germany, put 10 divisions in Norway and send a PanzerArmee to North Africa and throw large amounts of resources into fortifying France and occupying Vichy France.

All of that added up.

More like the weather and logistics yanked the German chain. That allowed the Soviets time to mobilize and counterattack, but that was resolved largely by Spring with huge losses for the Soviets at a rate they couldn't sustain. The first German offensives of 1942 were in May 1942 after several clean up operations and a lot of rehabilitation; what prevented the Germans from doing anything earlier was the weather and logistics/rehabbing forces since Hitler spent most of 1941 and early 1942 building new divisions instead of sending replacements east, though there was a logic to that given the logistic situation in the East that wasn't really resolved to a sufficient degree until Spring 1942.

The weather and logistics also impeded the Soviets as well who had worse trucks for the roads they had and fewer of them. So this proves my point. Also OKH was the one building the new Divisions, Hitler did not involve himself in that and OKH post war was busy blaming Hitler instead of admitting they were grossly overconfident and were doing things on the cheap. Read Nigel Askey's works on this. They kept some 2,000 AFVs in reserve stocks that could have been sent east as replacements during Barbarossa as well as kept 2 Panzer and 2 Motorized divisions that could have formed a powerful punch in reserve as well. But that is another thread.

I've actually read the opposite. As horrible as it was the Holocaust ended up being cost-effective relative to resources invested since most Jews who were killed never saw the inside of a concentration camp (per Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands") and were actually killed in other circumstances; those who did died in concentration camps were already near them as they were set up where the majority of the Jewish population under Nazi control actually lived, Poland. People who could work were worked to death, those that couldn't were killed off, and the entire population was looted, which generated major resources for the Nazis. See the Nazi gold controversy with Switzerland. The Nazis were sick and evil, not completely stupid.

And those camps consumed a lot of resources to make. A better plan for Hitler would have been to draft the Jewish men and form them into Forlorn Hopes and sent them into battle first to soak up bullets and Aryanize the children, send the women to the front to do clerical tasks in exposed positions. It would be hard to prove anything and given the common Soviet Citizen also hated Jews, he could have gotten Jewish Soldiers to fight Soviet Partisans to mutual destruction while laughing his ass off.

To be clear, we are horrified at the Nazis, not for killing Jews, but for mass murder of women and children instead of raping the women and raising the children as their own while killing the military aged males.

As to evacuating population and scorched earth...that was largely done IOTL, but not to the extent possible given the lack of planning for major retreats. When the Germans stood and held their ground in the field in late 1943-44 and got rolled over they evacuated very little in time, including people. When the planned they were able to evacuate people and deny resources to the Soviets.
One example:

Операция «Бюффель» — Википедия

ru.wikipedia.org

Scorched earth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Incidentally that is where Manstein lied most in his memoirs, since it would have been admitting to being a war criminal.

Ok you now have people you have to feed, and you yielded valuable jump off points to the Soviets with which to leverage more combat power on a wider front. It was a no win situation regardless.

By June 1944 it wouldn't be a full checking as Hitler was still making mistakes, so Bagration would still be able to half work, but could be stalled out east of Minsk and at least half of those lose historically could have been saved with timely reinforcements of a certain combat power that were not available IOTL but would be ITTL.

Uh, the German Generals were well known for ignoring Hitler's orders and getting away with it, plus getting into screaming matches with Hitler. Anyone doing that to Stalin wound up dead.

Once its clear the Allied invasion threat is done which will be rather quick, the Panzer Elements will be sent East and that will be enough to stop the offensive if Stalin doesn't halt it instead which is entirely possible as well.

And if Stalin pauses the offensive, in light of the WALLIES losing their D-Day force, and goes on the defensive to see if Hitler counter-punches, we enter entirely new lines of speculation.

Stalin did carefully time Bagration after all in anticipation of the Normandy Landings drawing off reserves.

As to the point of nukes or peace in 1944 and actually even until mid-1945 no one really knew the Atomic bomb would work or when it would even be ready, so effectively it was a non-option. Especially so since without the Normandy campaign working the German air defense system would be intact and the planners for the use of the bomb didn't want to risk it being shot down and captured by the Germans. Even it had been used it wasn't a war winner alone given the numbers available in 1945 and need for use against Japan as well as the lack of effectiveness of the early bombs against German style construction of cities. The Japanese used much more wood which made them quite a bit more vulnerable to a bomb that generated a lot of heat. Without boots on the ground destroying cities wasn't enough to force an end to the war. After all the RAF bombing raids of German cities were the equivalent of a modern nuclear strike in terms of levels of destruction, but despite the destruction of basically every city over 50,000 people in Germany the war was nearly fought until the entire country was occupied on the ground.

A chance of the Germans getting a bomb by shooting it down, that is nonsense. It would either go off or be wrecked and spread radioactive contamination around that would not be immediately useful. It would certainly cause the Germans to crash build a large scale bomb production center from their mostly theoretical scale research which was further along than most people realized as it was so compartmentalized that the Allies didn't learn about 4 Heavy Water Plants till well after the war was over or about Dr. Harteck's successful enrichment programs. But none of it got out of laboratory level research with Harteck being closest to becoming industrialized.

For the Allies, with B-29s coming online the bombing route is still open, and they have big conventional bombs and 1st Generation PGMs they want to try first. The bomb was always in the plan once it was finished. The question is:

Can the British Public keep a stiff upper lip and see things through long enough? If not, peace out. If yes, bombs away.

 

[sillygoose]

They didn't win with tanks, they were nothing more than target practice. They won with trucks which got their infantry and supplies to the front.

The Germans would beg to differ. David Glantz also makes the case by 1944-45 the Soviet infantry went nowhere that the tanks didn't exploit first and in fact the Soviets had integrated tank regiments into the armies...which were equivalent to reinforced corps. Infantry tried to chop the whole that the motorized infantry and tanks exploited; it was the tank armies and mechanized corps which did the actual damage, the infantry did the dying. In terms of supplies it wasn't the trucks that largely did that it was the trains and panje horse carts.

The rolling stock available was less than they needed and they had to have an emergency shipment in 1941 just to launch their winter offensive. Overall the Soviets built a paltry 411 locomotives and 15,980 freight cars. THe Germans massively out produced them their.

I don't know what your sources is for the 1941 claim, but it is not accurate. The reason the Soviets built so few was they had a rolling stock surplus in 1941-43 due to losing so much of their rail network and having evacuated so much east. The Germans had no choice but to outproduce all the Allies combined in locomotives and rolling stock given their enormous losses of both during the war. Winter 1941 was a disaster for the German rolling stock given the loss of locomotives to the extreme cold.

Citadel, he agreed to the postponement and the plan and Hitler allowed him free reign to argue alongside Model. When the Allies invaded Sicily, he allowed the Offensive to continue, but the Soviets who had an influx of new trucks were able to launch two offensives elsewhere and threatened to create a big pocket, then Hitler ordered a retreat. This allowed the Soviets to gain Smolensk and Kharkov back.

There were several postponements, I was in favor of the early ones given the state of the panzer divisions, but did not support the later ones and in fact pushed the 'back hand blow' mobile defense instead.

Hitler did not let the offensive continue after Sicily was invaded, he shut things down and gave them a few days to disengage and fall back so the 1st SS division could go to Italy instead. That was not a continuance since the main corps that was to conduct Operation Roland, the SS panzer corps, had to lose one of its vital divisions.
The Soviets didn't have an influx of anything, they committed their last reserves and were getting nowhere; had Hitler really let Manstein launch Roland he would have destroyed several Soviet armies in a pocket. The Soviets were in no position to stop him and their last reinforcements would have bogged down or been caught up in the pocket Manstein was going to form. Given how little damage the SS corps had taken at Prokorhovka and how much damage they had inflicted on the Soviets the weak Soviet reinforcements were going to get slaughtered.

The Mius offensive could have been left alone until Roland was complete and then the SS corps could have gone to clean it up after a Soviet breakthrough had been achieved, as they were consistently unable to actually stop that particular corps from defeating them in flank attacks. Since the Soviets advancing over the Mius river would have had a limited supply line and could be trapped on the Sea of Azov (like in 1941) they didn't need more than the SS corps and some infantry to pull off the destruction of another several armies.

Smolensk was a different situation that was completely irrelevant to what happened with Manstein's units on the south face of the Kursk bulge and 4th Kharkov could have been prevented had Operation Roland gone through since the vital forces involved would have been destroyed rather than left alive and allowed to be reinforced.

Disagree, by holding, they tied down disproportionate resources of the Soviets to reduce the pocket and kept valuable terrain out of their hands as well as resources.

Ok, pick a major pocket battle in 1944 that resulted in better than 2:1 casualties for the Germans. Defensively with retreats the Germans got 4:1 losses normally and needed 6:1 to stay ahead of the Soviet replacement advantage.

How did Hube's pocket or Korsun keep valuable terrain out of Soviet hands? Crimea wasn't valuable to the Germans or Soviets either.

And allowed the Soviets to gain a major road junction and apply uniform pressure all along the front which meant they dictated the flow. The price they paid for that was worth it as they replaced the losses easily from the retaken areas and had an influx of Lendlease.

Didn't really help them much having that road in the end, not for the casualties the Germans took defending it. The Soviets didn't dictate the flow after retaking Rhzev, the Germans did at Kursk. The Soviets after the Citadel offensive were able to go on the offensive, but then failed at Orel as the Germans retreated to prepared switch lines and inflicted incredibly heavy losses on the Soviets:

Operation Kutuzov - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

5:1 casualties only to shorten the German front lines and anchor it on a fortified position at Orel. More than 2500 Soviet AFVs were lost.

Uh no I didn't, I did in fact mentioned the fact the Germans were also fighting the WALLIES which was consuming large amounts of resources.

Then how did you not realize that is what gave the Soviets a numerical advantage that exceeded the simply population ratio between Germany and the USSR?

Oh they would have. US entry forced them to pull Luftwaffe assets to Germany, put 10 divisions in Norway and send a PanzerArmee to North Africa and throw large amounts of resources into fortifying France and occupying Vichy France.

All of that added up.

Of course.

The weather and logistics also impeded the Soviets as well who had worse trucks for the roads they had and fewer of them. So this proves my point. Also OKH was the one building the new Divisions, Hitler did not involve himself in that and OKH post war was busy blaming Hitler instead of admitting they were grossly overconfident and were doing things on the cheap. Read Nigel Askey's works on this. They kept some 2,000 AFVs in reserve stocks that could have been sent east as replacements during Barbarossa as well as kept 2 Panzer and 2 Motorized divisions that could have formed a powerful punch in reserve as well. But that is another thread.

Not as much since they were falling back on their supply hubs and could rely on their established rail lines that the Germans could not. Also the Soviet trucks of 1941 (which were knock off US 1920s models) were still decent for operating in the mud, hence why the Germans used them whenever they could, they just weren't as good as the later US LL trucks.

Nonsense, Hitler ordered all the divisions built up. I have multiple sources on that if you want, including Askey! He says the opposite of what you're claiming! Despite his massive flaws David Stahel does source from German records that it was Hitler not allowing all that reserve equipment to head east instead of being used to build up new divisions. If you think Hitler didn't meddle in OKH before taking over official control, you need to read more about the history of 1939-41.

The 2 panzer divisions in reserve lost all their equipment when being shipped out of Greece and were torpedoed on their way to Italy. They did appear in Operation Typhoon in October. The 2nd and 5th Panzer divisions. I don't know what 2 motorized divisions you are referring to however.

And those camps consumed a lot of resources to make. A better plan for Hitler would have been to draft the Jewish men and form them into Forlorn Hopes and sent them into battle first to soak up bullets and Aryanize the children, send the women to the front to do clerical tasks in exposed positions. It would be hard to prove anything and given the common Soviet Citizen also hated Jews, he could have gotten Jewish Soldiers to fight Soviet Partisans to mutual destruction while laughing his ass off.

Not compared to what they produced. Remember they were also major labor centers used for production, the death camp aspect was to remove the 'useless mouths' that could not work. Also remember Europe was in famine due to the blockade and thanks to the war disruptions and flooding in 1940-41 so there was not enough food to feed everyone and the Nazi leadership came up with the 'Hunger Plan' to figure out who would get food and who wouldn't. The Jews and Soviet PoWs were chosen as the people who would starve so that the rest of the 'desirables' could eat enough to work.

To be clear, we are horrified at the Nazis, not for killing Jews, but for mass murder of women and children instead of raping the women and raising the children as their own while killing the military aged males.

I'm not touching that even with a 50 foot pole.
We're horrified at the Nazis for committing mass murder and torture. We should be similarly horrified at those who do the same.

Ok you now have people you have to feed, and you yielded valuable jump off points to the Soviets with which to leverage more combat power on a wider front. It was a no win situation regardless.

Uh, they were feeding them prior to all of this and there were areas they could be resettled to work farms and do other labor, but now under Nazi control rather than simply working in villages for themselves.

The Soviets were going to get those jump off points regardless, though given the scorched earth policies it would be a while before they could be used and it would cost the Soviets resources while a better defensive line is built. Might as well save your soldiers for when you can properly defend a line. This is an attrition war, you win by sparing as many of your troops as possible and killing as many of theirs as possible, as it was the pocket strategy was a proven failure in that regard and we know this thanks to having access to records that the participants of the time did not.

Uh, the German Generals were well known for ignoring Hitler's orders and getting away with it, plus getting into screaming matches with Hitler. Anyone doing that to Stalin wound up dead.

Ok?

Once its clear the Allied invasion threat is done which will be rather quick, the Panzer Elements will be sent East and that will be enough to stop the offensive if Stalin doesn't halt it instead which is entirely possible as well.

And if Stalin pauses the offensive, in light of the WALLIES losing their D-Day force, and goes on the defensive to see if Hitler counter-punches, we enter entirely new lines of speculation.

Stalin did carefully time Bagration after all in anticipation of the Normandy Landings drawing off reserves.

The 3 panzer divisions wouldn't stop the offensive, but they'd be a massive help for making sure it didn't get anywhere near as far and inflict as much damage. The rest of the Panzer divisions were still forming or rebuilding.

Agreed about Stalin pausing to see what happens. You might be right that Bagration might be delayed, but I think Stalin would use that as a test case to see if he could still pull off an offensive before German reserves arrive. Time wouldn't be on his side at that point.

A chance of the Germans getting a bomb by shooting it down, that is nonsense. It would either go off or be wrecked and spread radioactive contamination around that would not be immediately useful. It would certainly cause the Germans to crash build a large scale bomb production center from their mostly theoretical scale research which was further along than most people realized as it was so compartmentalized that the Allies didn't learn about 4 Heavy Water Plants till well after the war was over or about Dr. Harteck's successful enrichment programs. But none of it got out of laboratory level research with Harteck being closest to becoming industrialized.

For the Allies, with B-29s coming online the bombing route is still open, and they have big conventional bombs and 1st Generation PGMs they want to try first. The bomb was always in the plan once it was finished. The question is:

Can the British Public keep a stiff upper lip and see things through long enough? If not, peace out. If yes, bombs away.

Given that the bomb was only to be armed close to the target it is entirely possible that enough of it survives that the design can be discerned, much like how the V-1 was quickly reverse engineered by the Allies based on the wreckage. In fact that is how the Germans finally got a cavity magnetron in early 1943, they shot down a British pathfinder and recovered a damaged example they figured out quite quickly. So wrecked can still be highly useful.
It would be extremely useful to figuring out that Heisenberg's calculations were way off about uranium requirements. It didn't take much for him to figure that out while in captivity IOTL when he heard the report and details about the bombing of Japan.

https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/sites/default/files/Preprints/P467.pdf

What's your source on Harteck? Seems there is some dispute about his success.

Ultimately I doubt the bomb would factor in at all given the V-weapons campaign and morale hit of a failed D-Day.