One thing just struk me. Why's this in the weapons section?

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Kursk, enough said.

No. The original plan wasn't bad at all. Keep the initiative, lop off a salient to shorten the lines, bag another few hundred thousand POWs, show who's boss, etc.

Problem started when the Sovs understood where the attack was going to fall, decided to make a stand and screw the Germs with a counter-offensive. We know the rest of the story

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After thinking more about this, I would have to say it would the US landing at Omaha. Casualties at the landing could've have been minimized if the planners had done a few things differently. Fortunately in the end, the landing was successful but at a heavy price.

Companies that landed at the "right" beaches were almost wiped out to a man. These were the units that landed right in front of the fortified draws.
But the units that landed in the "wrong" sectors barely suffered any casualties and made it off the beach in good order. They had accidently landed away from the fortified draws.

Also US Army planners in Europe disregarded the advice from veterans of amphibious landings in the Pacific Theater. The attitude was that Europe was the big league while the Pacific was the boondocks.

Not really a dumb 'attack',but a dumb 'defense'. Hitler shouldn't have ordered German Troops to stand fast in Normandy. He should have authorized units to retreat and get organized. Another of Hitlers dumb orders was to make the Panzers under his control only. That pretty much made the outcome of Overlord inevitable.

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the most dumbest attack would be where the soviets used dogs to blow up tanks lets say they didnt go for the germans.

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Market garden was viable but over ambitious if they had gone for one less bridge or the middle bridge had been captured by the US paratroopers intact then the operation might have worked in its entirety. The sheer bad luck of a whole tank division being rested near a key objective was some what an act of god though decent intelligence and analysis should have spotted it and dealt with the issue. The russians would have considered it a succes only the western allies who cared about losses a lot more see it as a disaster. The Soviets would simply see the fact that the Germans had gutted critical and irreplacable units to overun the Paratroopers and hold the advance whilst losing critical ground most of market garden worked and the allied losse were a tiny fraction of those of the German army in the Ardennes. The allied losses were made good in a few months the german losses were never fully replaced.

Russia had room if it was the size of France it would have fallen in 1941 its poor road infrastructure made supply impossible and rapid advance over 300 miles impossible. Most of russias roads were mud tracks uselss for armoured advance most of the year. The retreating soviets destroyed their railways in the captured zones to deny them to the Germans yet retained them in their core territories allowing russian reserves to be moved relatively rapidly to face developing threats. Invading russia was a bad idea but invading russia without a safe maritime supply route via the mediteranean and black sea to the crimea meant tha in the war of logistics the Germans never really had a hope.

The Dieppe raid.

My vote for the dumbest attack would be any time the Japanese yelled Bonzai and charged a machine gun front on.

Though it did work on occasion....kind of

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I am not very sure about Omaha beach being the "dumbest" attack of the war. The Germans were well-dug in at commanding heights, previous recon flights over the German positions failed to identify their location, and the loss of amphibious tanks due to rough seas were all factors that were out of Eisenhower/Montgomery's hands. The German counteroffensive at Mortain and (to a lesser extend) Ardenness however were very poorly concieved attacks.

I agree with Joe's previous post that the Pearl Harbor attack ranks high on the list. The Axis clearly did not coordinate their strategy. Pearl was the beginning of the end for each of the Axis powers. If Japan had turned West instead of East, the USA might have stayed out of the war for a bit while Germany and Japan took on the Soviet Union. Indeed, given the concessions made to the Soviet Union after the War, I wonder whether the USA and Great Britain would have bartered with the Axis to take back Western Europe in exchange for Eastern Europe and Russia. (Not sure what would have happened to China.)

From German point of view I would vote for the attack on Poland. Hitler could should have known about Churchills unwillingness to give in. As such a war with England ment that sooner or later the US would get involved.

Hitler could have persuaded Stalin and even Slovakia to do the whole job for him - the borders of his mortal enemy comming just next to his, which would have promted of the attack by Hitler sooner or later, but no support for Russia from England and the USA.

But Hitler was more of an impatient poker player then a cool strategist.

Should this be in the "what if' section?

Regards
Kruska

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Post the retaking of Kursk, Bielgorod and Kharkov in Feb '43 in the roll-up after Stalingrad, the Soviet attack was overoptimistically extended with depleted and unsupported forces. This led to the famous von Manstein's 'backhand slap', or Third Battle of Kharkov, resulting in the destruction of 6th Army (the Soviet one this time) and Mobile Group Popov and re-loss of kharkov, setting the stage for the future battle of Kursk.

The Soviet command did not repeat this error See here for a summary.

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Hardly, at least they weren't back at their start line with a month or so.

Omaha was a diificult target but there were mistakes made at all levels

The launching of the tanks so far from the beach was a predictable disaster at a staff level rather than senior commanders as was the short launching of bombardment rockets so they missed the beache entirely. The Airforce missed both the defences and the beach. One of the main reasons for the rockets and bombing was to crater the beach and provide cover for the infantry advancing across open beaches.

The total refusal to acccept specialist armour when it was offered was a hubristic and expensive mistake it was accompanied by a refusal to accept the British Firefly design using US made 17 pounders and both descisions seem difficult to understand.

There were a lot of brave men on Omaha but they were not well served by the planning.

I'd have to give it when barbarossa came around and when Stalin went into a shock and when the Russians had no idea what to do they just counter attacked, but being bypassed by the panzer divisions great encirclements happened and large defeats occurred for Russia.

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the rommel attack on medenine.a total balls up.afterwards rommel went home,he was sick ,poor boy.cheers.

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mikegb,

Was the launch distance for the amphibious tanks significantly different from the four other beaches? And how do you reckon that the 17 pdr. tanks made impact on the fighting in general, since the defending German formation was an infantry division and had little armored support?

On the actual beach the 17 pounder would have been inferior to the usual gun since its HE shell was poor but afterwards a US manufactured 17 pounder in a sherman would have been very handy against tigers and panthers in paticular. The US had adopted the six pounder as a standard infantry TA gun in the form of the 57mm at gun in 1942 but by mid 1944 the US felt it didn't need help from any body and refused any British help including Hobbarts Funnies.

This was hubris as cooperation on Radar, Aeroengines jet and piston engines in many areas had benefited both sides. The British took any equipment they thought would help ranging from Shermans to Liberators.

What about the Japanese landings on the Aleutians? Seemed pretty ill-conceived and poorly suported.

The DD Shermans were launched far further out to sea at Omaha, consequently all but 3 or 4 sank before they reached the beach. The US had no 17pdr tanks.

I am also under the impression that the sea was particularly rough at Omaha. The utility of the 17 pdr in the immediate assault feels dubious to me.

That was a confusion of grammar.