Hitler was awake D-Day night

What if Hitler was awake D-Day night. Hitler was sleeping that night and no one dared to wake him why was this a bad idea Hitler was in control of the SS Panzer davisons in the area due to Rommel the desert fox and a other officer fighting to keep the tanks on or behind the beaches so Hitler took control of them. but when the landing happened he was sleeping and who would wake him. so the US British and Canadians could set up camp and dig in by the time Hitler was awake and briefed. So what if he was awake and deployed the SS tanks to fight the allied invaders.




Sorry for my grammar problems.

 

This one, or variations of it, have been on the discussion boards before. To sum up:

Initially a lot more tank or mechanized units reinforce the defenders on the first two days.

The Allied asualt force increases the volume of Naval Gunfire on the defending positions and coutner attacking mechanized battalions.

Initially the Allied advance is slowed. The defending mechanised forces suffer losses sooner, and higher losses if they attack, from the ships guns. Air strikes are more disruptive where the Germans concentrate for counter attacks.

If the Germans continue large scale counter attacks with the earlier arrived tank/mechanized corps their casualties pile up faster and while they intitially slow the Allied advance they risk a much earlier collapse of the defense.

Examples of how this worked can be found in Sicilly & Italy. On Sicilly a green US Army divsion was coutner attacked on D Day by a German mechanized corps reinforced with a Tiger tank battalion. The attack was shot to pieces by the guns of the crusiers and battleship just off shore. half the Tiger tanks were lost that day and many of the medium tanks. Casualties amoung the German and Italian motorized infantry were heavy as well. The German commander canceled the attack and canceled the plans for the next days attacks, taking up a defense instead.

At Salerno a German tank divsion was actually defending the beach when the Allied landing occured. It was pushed back off the beaches by US and British infantry using NGF. A few days later a massed armored attack with full infantry and artillery support was organized. After inital sucesses the lead tank units were shot apart by NGF.

In Normandy Rommel saw imeadiately the Allied naval guns squashed every major attack he attempted. He refered to this in his reports and personal writing he left. In the early hours a German regiment tried to assemble for counter attacking the US Omaha beach. It was interdicted by the NGF and a air strike, and canceled. Similar events occured in the British sectors. After the first couple days Rommel ordered the large scale armored attacks to cease as they were too costly and unsucessfull.

If he takes the same decison with the earlier arrivals and ceases counter attacks in the first days then the result is a slightly slower Allied advance. If he trys to continue massed armored attacks in the first week he accelerates the attrition rate that ultimatly lost him the battle of Normandy.

Tiger and Panther tanks resisted the common 57mm & 75mm guns the British and US used. But, their armor was useless vs the 127mm 203mm or 350mm naval rifles.

 

No difference. Hitler firmly believed that the landings at Normandy were a diversion and that the real invasion was destined for the pas de calais.

 

I have to agree with PzJgr. A major reason would be Glimmer and Taxable the Allied deception operations. These historically caused radar operators in the Calais area to report an invasion fleet headed directly for them. These reports went up the chain of command and as they did they became concrete fact rather than just possible indications of an invasion.
Thus, by the time such reports had reached Hitler and the OKW their likely decision would have still been that Normandy was a secondary invasion or diversion from the main attack to fall at Calais. Again, this historically was what Hitler believed and for the exact reasons given along with his own pre-conception that the invasion would occur at Calais.
Thus, no difference in outcome.

 

Even after the initial reports reached Hitler he still refused to believe that Normandy was the main invasion. Nothing would have really changed if he had been woke up earlier. And BTW not all the armored units in OKW Reserve were SS.

 

If Hitler was awake the night before, he would have been mighty tired by the time the Allies landed in the morning. LOL

 

That was probably part of the problem actually, he had been up all night the 5th and into the early morning of the 6th off on one of his diatribes (probably unable to stop due to the Previtine injections of Dr. Morell), and had taken a sleeping powder (or tablet) dose before retiring. His aides and such were afraid to disturb the "Great Man" when the new of the invasion reached his headquarters for fear of his reaction.

As mentioned by others, even if one or more of them had awakened Hitler, he would have still refused to believe Normandy was anything but a diversion. After all, his most trusted and decorated spy in Great Britain had also sent a warning of the Normandy landings (too late to be of use), but confirming they were a diversion and the main landing would be at Calais.

"Garbo" was a double agent from Spain (Juan Puhols [sp?]), and had been an allied agent from the start, but his information had been so "good" he was even awarded an Iron Cross by the Nazis.

 

I'll add my two cents worth with an unlikely senario.

On the wee hours of that morning German U-Boat patrols report that a large invasion force was heading for the Normandy area, subsequent patrols particular in the Dover Straits report virtually nothing of subsequence. Rommel and other commanders believe that Normandy is the place of the Allied invasion and not Calais. Hitler is awoken just before dawn that day on the 6th June 1944.

Reports from the OKM say that Normandy will be invaded this startles Hitler as he was convinced Calais was the intended invasion area, realising that he has made a mistake Hitler orders that mobile armoured units held in reserve to be sent to the beaches, Rommel and other commanders put their plan into effect, every U-Boat within the area are sent and that every aircraft of the Luftwaffe are put on alert.

This is the momment that would either make or break the Germans, so Operation Sturmschlact is inacted, while the Allies naval units begin to marshall the U-Boats are sent in to attack en masse the large naval units specifically the Battleships and Cruisers, they are not to engage transports, the Luftwaffe are ordered to to attack troop and supply transports and all the while the panzers, panzer destroyers and assault guns as well as hundreds of artillery peices are to attack the incoming landing ships and landing barges.

During the point of execution of Operation Overlord the battleships and cruisers begin their shore bombardment, but within minutes heavy naval units are struck by a massed torpedo attack, many battleships and cruisers suffer major damage some are sunk, dozens of capital shisp are forced to withdraw back to Britain for repairs, subsequent naval gunfire falls dramatically.

Then as the allied heavy units begin to withdraw, the Luftwaffe launch their attacks creating havok amongst the transport, dozens and dozens of transports are sunk and several hundred are heavily damaged, at this point the landing ships and landing barges begin to assault the shores of Normandy to face a massed artillery attack at point blank range. Hundreds of landing barges are blown out of the water and the Landing Ships are set upon by 105mm to 155mm artillery peices.

Allied planning begins to fall apart, co-ordination breaks down, communications are in a mess, thousands of troops refuse to follow orders, finally the allied commanders having been so comprehensively beaten call off the invasion. The cost of the invasion is terrible over 160,000 allied personel are killed thousands are missing and those that survived the landings are now off to POW camps.

Materiel losses are staggering 10 battleships, 15 cruisers, 400 transports, 200 landing ships, 1,000 landing barges and several hundred "other craft" are sunk or are flaming wrecks on the beaches while hundreds are returning heavily damaged to British ports for repairs, the cost to the Germas is also heavy, 40 U-Boats, 100 fast torpedo boats and dozens more are sunk, 250 aircraft are shot down, 30% of the armoured and mechanized units are destroyed and 40,000 troops are killed or wounded.

And as the 6th June 1944 comes to an end the Allies have suffered a major defeat, Hitler has won the day. Allied planners announce that with the defeat of Operation Overlord that they have cancelled all future allied landings via North-Western Europe and concentrate it's efforts via Italy.

v.R

 

Altogether, the tactical air forces had 2,434 fighters and fighter- bombers, together with approximately 700 light and medium bombers available for the Normandy campaign. This force first struck against the Germans during the preparatory campaign prior to D-Day. At D minus 60 days, Allied air forces began their interdiction attacks against rail centers; these attacks increased in ferocity and tempo up to the eve of the invasion itself and were accompanied by strategic bomber raids against the same targets. The bridge campaign, which aimed at isolating the battlefield by cutting Seine bridges below Paris and Loire bridges below Orleans, began on D minus 46. Here, fighter-bombers proved more efficient than medium or heavy bombers, largely because their agility enabled them to make pinpoint attacks in a way that the larger bombers, committed to horizontal bombing runs, could not. The fighter-bombers also had the speed, firepower, and maneuverability to evade or even dominate the Luftwaffe. Though ground fire and (rarely) fighters did claim some attacking fighter-bombers, the loss rate was considerably less than it would have been with conventional attack or dive bombers. By D minus 21, Allied air forces were attacking German airfields within a radius of 130 miles of the battle area and these operations too continued up to the assault on the beachhead.


During the June 6 D-Day assault itself, a total of 171 squadrons of British and AAF fighters undertook a variety of tasks in support of the invasion. Fifteen squadrons provided shipping cover, fifty-four provided beach cover, thirty-three undertook bomber escort and offensive fighter sweeps, thirty-three struck at targets inland from the landing area, and thirty-six provided direct air support to invading forces. . "Despite a massive series of attacks by Eighth Air Force B-17s, B-24s and medium bombers in the early hours of June 6, the invading troops were hung up on the beach."
D Day: Assembling the Allied Tactical Air Forces

 

It sounds like to me, that this young one has been getting his knowledge from games. Yah another one.

 

Why is it always that when anyone who is prepared to answer these types of question that has a probable German victory is accused of being of with the faries or gained their knowledge of WW2 only by playing WW2 games.

Why is it always stipulated that the allies no matter what the senario or POD is they always triumph they make no major mistakes and in the great style that is a Hollywood production the gallant allies always win.

I have read no matter what the senario is, that Germany had jets in 1942, capture Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Caucasus oilfields, defeat the British in North Africa, had a Navy comparible to the Royal Navy in size and power, had a stratwegic heavy bomber force as large as RAF even developed nuclear weapon first that the Germans can't win.

v.R

 

knowing what hitler was like i think it would have been better for us if he was awake!

 

As pointed out my myself and others, awake or not, it would not have made any difference. Hilter still believed it was a diversion far after the landings.

 

soz i didnt read that & it was only a joke

 

if hitler was awake on d-day night it would be a different story than the one we know now about the subsequent normandy breakout