D-Day Landings

Hi there,

Hope this hasn't been covered before, although it sounds like a pretty standard counter-factual question, so it probably has.

What would have happened if the Eastern front had suddenly "closed down" in late 1944? That's to say, Russia stopped fighting and all German units transferred to France. Could Germany have halted the Allied advance, or pushed it back?

I'm asking because i recently learned that there were only 6 divisions involved in the D-Day landings, and that seems like quite a small number (relatively speaking).

Thanks, Matt

 

Explain please?

At this stage of the war Stalin wanted revenge for what the German invaders had done to Russia. And Hitler was on cause to take everyone down with him.

 

Just speaking hypothetically. I understand that it would never have happened, but just assume that they did, for whatever reason.

Does that make sense? Or have i got the wrong end of the stick?

Cheers, Matt

 

OK by me after all it is the what if situation.

 

Well to start with the German army would push the western allies back, and if the German forces had pushed the Allies back in to France, Allied air power would check the Germans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Americans bought over a number of B29's, which would cause a major problem for the Germans, a stalemate situation may have come about. But by spring 1945 the Allies would start pushing westwards again. America may take the attitude taking Berlin would be to costly and due to the slow push in to Germany they may have threaten to drop the A-Bomb on Berlin.

[ 26. January 2006, 06:57 AM: Message edited by: Richard42 ]

 

This is the most ridicoulus 'what if' I have come across, but fair enough.

1. Forget the number of divs on the D-day. (btw 8 not 6 divs)

A UK/USA division cannot be compared with a German one. They would often have three times more men than a German one. The british and Canadian divisions had an armoured brigade attached. (a british armoured brigade would hold some 276 tanks, more than what a German Armd. Div would.)

2. The Germans had most of their fire brigades in France already.

3. The germans did not have Aerial supremacy, and they could not have acheived it. They would have lost the battle anyways.

4. The arrangements for supply before the battle was superb. The germans could never match the allied logistics. If they did not have the Russians in the rear, they would still loose a lot of materiel on the way to battle.

5. I don't beleive that the Germans could have pushed the Allies back. The only setback the allies had was the Bulge, which ultimatly only served to destroy the reserves of the Wehrmacht. The biggest brake on the allied race across europe was Gen Ike's broad front strategy.

6. 'Hitler missed the Bus'. Check the link FW 190/Panther tanks. By 1944 the germans were out thought and outfought by all allied powers. His strategy was to win the war quickly and it failed when the allies declared war on him in 1939. No wonderweapon could save it for him. The Allies could waste 500 tanks without thinking about it. Loosing 500 tanks would be disasterous for Germany.

 

That's true Germans demanded a high level of workmanship and that would have slowed down production. And half starving your work force dose not help the matter.

 

If the Allies had to face the entire German war machine alone in late 1944, would it have made a difference? There is no doubt about that. Would it have made the outcome different? I don't think so. It would just mean that a lot of the people here on this forum would never have been born. The Allies in the West would have had to kill a lot more German soldiers for every advance they made. This means that a lot more Allied soldiers would have also died. This would have meant a longer war in Europe, but not that much longer. I don't even think that it would have meant any reversal in the advances made up to that point by the Allies. It would just be slower going inside Germany.

 

Lets try and put this into some form of historical plausibility...

Rather than the Eastern Front just 'closing' how about a German victory at Kursk, following on from the German victory at Stalingrad that forces the USSR to make a seperate peace in early 1944. Germany retains the Ukraine and the Baltic states and an uneasy peace remains. Even with Russia out of the war large numbers of troops would have had to be left in the East for anti-partisan and garrison duties... So would it really free up that much?

Possibly. Certainly the Lufwaffe may recieve an injection of personnel and equipment, though whether this would make a great deal of difference is debatable given the state of German air power in the West by early '44. Certainly several more divisions could be re-deployed to the West but its likely they would require a period of rest and re-fit before service. Also the Italian front would also have required more troops as would the fighting in the Balkans.

So the Germans in Normandy may have been a few divisions better off, but this would only have made a significant differenc if the German strategic outlook in Normandy changed along with the numbers of troops. Certainly the war would have gone on for far longer and the efforts of partisan/resistance groups would have incresased in line with Allied pressure on Germany. I would also expect a Russian resurgence at some point with possibly the consequence of war with the West if their surrender was viewed as 'due to the lack of a second fron' by the Soviet propaganda machine...

But its a rather far fetched and extreme 'what-if' to make any vaugly accurate call on...

 

I do think the Germans did rather well with what they got in 1944 in Normandy. More surprising is how they ever got anything through with the allied air power roaming over them. Just think how long a time it took to get out of Normandy for the Allied with all the troops and tanks.

The only problem in my opinion is that Ostfront could not be closed down by any means possible.

For Ike I do think it was a tough decision to make on 5th to 6th June .The weather MIGHT have been totally destructive as well and the whole landing would have failed just due to weather. I´m happy to say the landing army made it.

Just some points of view on the subject.

 

I have to disagree with some points here.

One of the things i disagree is that if the deaths on the allied side is huge, the allied leaders may be more open to a favourable peace treaty with Germany. A very different outcome indeed.

Not to mention, the allies still had Japan to worry about. And the projected death toll in the invasion could also make the allies think twice about "full surrender" policy.

 

Ya, true and all previous attempts in large scale ambitious assaults have been failures...

 

I just don't see Churchill doing a peace deal with Hitler

 

Ya, i agree. But the massive deaths on the western front could change even the most hard-headed.

 

good philosophys guys...

 

Churchill may have been vulnerable to the effects of large scale troop losses. The British manpower pool was getting pretty dried up. The rest of the alliance was not having this problem yet. The British may have shortened their commitments to the conflict as far as front-line fighting personnel, but I don't see them surrendering either.

 

Remember the slogan "Home for Xmas 1944"? If the Germans could have held on to the western border (with the troops used for Wacht am Rhein ) for some, say, 6-8 months, what would have it done to the morale of the Allied troops? Compare this with " the last 50 Spitfires" and Luftwaffe in 1940.

Churchill would never have given up. But would he be replaced like they did 1945 and then what??

 

Thank you Kai-Petri, Churchill saw the Evil in Hitler back in the 1930's and he was given a hard time, for (Rocking the Boat) but he was found to be right. So to the point well Churchill was a fighter, and would not step aside with out putting up one hell of a political fight.

 

Considering how much Churchill hated communism ( just check his actions in WW1 on Russia ) it is evident Churchill hated Hitler even more because he was ready to be friends with Stalin to destroy Hitler.

 

I watched a documentary about the 3 leaders(stalin, Churchill and roosevelt) before, Churchill actually liked stalin personally. but politically they were miles apart.