DDAY lands at Bremen...not Normandy

During the US Civil War, the Union Navy had a large and lethal riverine force. Many Union campaigns were made possible and/or won due to the riverine forces.

So, what if the US Navy in WWII had followed the example of the Union Navy and built large riverine forces, and the DDAY invasion had landed at Bremen, not Normandy, and riverine forces had swept up the Elbe, taken Hamburg, then swept up the Elbe to a point just due west of this little place called Berlin? While one mechanized force made for the Swiss border, and a second mechanized force made for Berlin overland?

Okay, before you flame me with "but you can't land at Bremen..." true, but you can land at Bremer Haven, then use riverine forces to take Bremen. With other riverine forces taking Hamburg and moving on up the Elbe deep inside Germany.

This would have been a complete surprise and if armored forces are sent to the swiss border, the German western armies are trapped west of the Rhine.

Of course a second invasion would have to take place simultaneously in southern france with a subsequent drive to the swiss border to seal the trap. This second invasion, is, of course historic, if badly handled by Patch.

I think the war would have been over by Christmas.

Riverine forces would have been devestating if used correctly in Holland, Denmark, and Germany, so many rivers criss cross that part of Europe.

(Let the flame wars begin! LOL)

Curious

 

Landing in Bremen....

Anyway, the first point to make a successful landing you need to have it unnoticed as long as possible. Going to Bremen would not be a secret for a long way of the troops going for the landing.

Also the Allied supply lines would be a bit too long to make this sound enough tempting for my liking.

The distance to be covered by the Air Force would be huge. In France the demolition of Luftwaffe was a success but now you´d get the defence of Reich planes against you instantly.

Well, just a couple of things that come to my mind.

Excellent place to land I believe but too many obstacles to make it happen.

 

I agree that the Allies made little use of rivers, but they are easily blocked, not least by fallen bridges....

I really don't think that an invasion of Germany by sea would have been 'on'. Too far by sea for a start. There could have been no 'Fortitude' and no Transportation Plan. But worse still, the 'front' would have surrounded the Allies - rather as was the case at Arnhem. In Normandy, the Allies had only to be concerned with one Front - the flanks and rear were not a major concern. And as Kai has quite rightly pointed out, the Luftwaffe made no significant impact - in mid-'44, considerable elements of the Luftwaffe were based in Northern Germany. A fair part of the near-24 hour sea crossing would have also been in daylight ( and across the North Sea - never much fun ! ) and again, the Luftwaffe would have interfered.

No, for many reasons, I don't think the boys would have been home for Christmas.....

 

The Luftwaffe lacked the planes to do much about it. Otherwise they would have used those planes to interfere with Normandy. Besides, the Allies could put enough carrier launched planes into the air at any point they chose to have air superiority.

The distances of the supply lines in the Pacific didn't present a problem. Supplying the large port of Bremerhaven by sea is much more preferable than supplying troops by truck from supplies landed at channel ports.

The misdirection requirement I get. A phony operation would have to be planned for Norway, or Denmark, or Holland, so that the true target of the invasion force could be kept a secret for a long time, even while the force was at sea. As was done at Normandy, Hitler could be led to believe that the Bremen operation was a diversion. The Allies showed repeatedly that they could pull off such phony operations and make Hitler believe what they wanted him to believe.

 

Where was this overpowering Luftwaffe when the DDAY landings were underway? You are attributing way too much fighting strength to the Luftwaffe at this stage in the war. Besides, the Allies could use carrier based aircraft to get air superiority any place they wanted, as they did repeatedly in the later stages of the war.

Why could their be no fortitude? Of course you have to have a version of fortitude. The Germans cannot know until the Allied troops are landing at Bremer Haven that this is their true target. Several ways to do this. Make Hitler believe that the real target is Scandinavia to take control of the iron ore mines in Norway, Sweden and Finland, without which Germany cannot continue the war. Or make Hitler beleive the real target is Holland, further West than Bremer Haven.

No transportation plan? What are you talking about? How about using seaborne and riverborne shipping? Excellent ports litter the entire area. Much easier to send supplies by ship than by truck.

The Allies would not have been surrounded. The landings would have gone like this. Initial landings at Bremerhaven. Riverine forces then move down the Elbe and take Hamburg. Additional forces move down the Weser and take Bremen. Additional forces move down the Ems to take Leer.

Next, armored units, this time rolling across open plain instead of being bogged down by Normandy hedgerows, can move from Leer to Bremen, from Bremen to Hamburg, and from Hamburg to Lubeck.

The Allied front is now anchored by the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the river Ems. Allied air power operating from Britain can wreck havoc on German forces attempting to leave the Calais area (which is historic).

The German army in Denmark can be bottled up at the Kiel canal. Anything moving toward Bremen coming from the East runs into Patton.

The Germans had almost no troops in this area, the Allies could have created a cordon from Lubeck to Leer with no problem and then unleashed Patton, this time moving over open plains instead of Normandy's hedgerows.

Assuming the landings take place on the original DDAY date, Hitler was asleep and had given orders not to be woken, which is historic. There would have been no German reaction to this invasion for at least 12 hours (which is historic). By then it would be too late.
Curious

 

The Luftwaffe were mainly in...erm...Germany, not France.

What I'm talking about is not 'a transportation plan'...it's The Transportation Plan, implemented 15th April 1944 and superseding 'Pointblank'.....

...but hey - I don't know what I'm talking about......

 

It always amazes me how greatly people overestimate the abilities of the Axis in 1944 and underestimates the abilities of the Allies.

so, you are saying that the allies could not have developed a transportation plan for an invasion of Bremerhaven / Bremen / Lower saxony?

 

Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. To carry out low-level, precision raids on key nodal transport points by which the Germans would have moved reinforcements to the invasion area would have, in early 1944 and in the face of German home defence flak, been suicidal. I am, of course, assuming that due to their lack of range the medium bombers would have flown on and off the force of aircraft carriers circling in the North Sea, unmolested by German defensive activity.

Logistics would have been interesting, too - to ship the amount of materiel required, across the North Sea in the often stormy conditions of mid-1944 ( which is historic ) , past the Dutch Coast, through the German coastal minefields and out of reach the shore defences would have been ...challenging.

Along with General Sosabowski, I am amazed at how people continue to underestimate the fighting ability and recuperative power of German armed forces in 1944.....

 

These same nodal transportation points would still be hit. But, now the objective is to keep the units in France from moving east.

What units would these reinforcements be rushing to reinforce at Bremer haven, Bremen and Hamburg? These areas were lightly defended at that. Any units arriving on the scene would be fed piecemeal into a meat grinder. Units attempting to move east from the Atlantic wall would be harrassed by the same air units that harrassed units attempting to move west in the same area in the days after DDAY. Since the Germans had no contingency plans to meet an invasion of Saxony and no reserve units to implement these plans, any "army" thrown into saxony would be a scratch force made up of hastily thrown together units. I'll take Patton on an open field against such a force any day even if they have plenty of supplies.

And, if I have to bet on the Royal Navy being able to get supplies to the best harbor facing the north sea, then I'll bet on that too.

Landing at Bremer Haven, then immediately moving down river to Bremen would put the Allies in a position to disrupt anything the Germans tried to do while cutting their units in France off from resupply and reinforcement, while allied air power makes it difficult for these units to move eastward. Even if these units do pull out of the Atlantic wall defenses, what stops the allies from moving in behind them? The Germans would have been in a very bad situation and their supply problems would have dwarfed the problems facing the Royal Navy of getting supplies across the North Sea.

 

I was wondering how many carriers would have been needed ? The Americans may have been a little wary of stripping their best carriers from the Pacific, so that would seem to leave the RN.....

On D-Day alone, the AEAF flew 3,347 fighter sorties - which doesn't include medium bombers. One wonders at the types of aircraft which could have been used from carriers in June 1944. Seafires ( based on the then-obsolete Mk V Spitfire )....Fairey Albacores ? Swordfish ? Grumman Martlets....? Barracudas ?

None of which were designed for ground attack, much less for tackling even a 'weakened' Luftwaffe. The Allies could have suffered a European version of the 'Marianas Turkey Shoot'......

 

Curious, you under estimate the vulnerabilities of riverine warfare. You are moving long distances that you would not have full control over, against an enemy that would be able to launch ambush attacks using very decent weapons for the task. And it would be very easy to bottleneck the convoys when needed.

I would suggest that you study the riverine activities in Vietnam. Those troops went through some of the worse fighting of the war, and they were well equipped, had excellent communications, solid tactics, and full support. They were going against and enemy with only a few basic weapons. They did and excellent job, but it demonstrated the difficulties of such warfare. And you must remember that one of the problems the south had, was a shortage of heavy guns. Most of the South's ships were built in England or captured. Their main purpose was blockade running and piracy. Even so, the North had no field day with all their armored ships. Look at the attack on Richmond in 1862, or the battles of the Mississippi, especially the loss of the Queen of the West at the mouth of the Red River.

 

Aside from severe problems in providing aircover, weather, fighting adjacent to the Germans best supply routes and near the origin for their reinforcements, the presence of the Luftwaffes reserve in Germany there are also the shoals and mines.

The North sea coast of Holland, Germany and Denmark is not open sea. It is shallow and the coasts protected by shoal water for a considerable distance. The navigation channels are limited, and the Germans protected them with mines. For a amphibious force to approach the rivers it must stay along routes well know to the German navy, and it must clear minefields of unknown size and location. Either problem will slow to the Allied fleet to the point where discovery is guarnateed, and to where it will extremly vulnerable to air and surface attack. By the time all that is dealt with the German land forces have adaquate time to reinforce the Friesia/Bremen/Hamburg/Jutland areas.

 

'Curious' likes to refer to MacAurthur a lot. Back in the 1930s when Mac was US Army Chief of Staff there were a series of studies of the problems of attacking Europe amphibiously. Some were done at the Army War College by the students. Others at the school at Ft Levenworth. Another group at Levenworth headed by Maj Gen Krueger conducted its own analysis. Krueger used these to write the stratigic level doctrinal document for the US Army.

In these studies the conclusion was that the French coast, particularly that adjacent to Britian, was the best location for attacking the continent. Bremen was rejected for all the reasons I placed in the previous post; poor sea approaches, ease with which the sea lanes could be mined, piss poor weather, good communications for enemy reinforcements. MacAurther took interest in these studies and exercises, ultimatly endorsing the results in Kruegers doctrine manual.

So if Mac did not buy off on a attack at Bremer-Haven, or elsewhere along the North Sea coast I'm wondering why 'curious' does.

 

It's easy in the 'Why didn't the Allies do this or that in 1944?' argument to overlook the depth of planning required for Overlord. Sir Frederick Morgan's book 'Overture To Overlord' ( Hodder, 1950 ) is fascinating in the detail it gives to this. Morgan ( who was COSSAC ) describes commencement of drawing up the plan from May 1943 when every piece of coastline from Spain to the Arctic Circle was considered. The Bremen area is quickly dismissed as ' a combination of almost every ( military ) disadvantage' ( p.140 ).

The #1, over-riding factor for the Overlord planners was the provision of overwhelming air cover. In 1943, this relied on the range ( or lack of...) of the Spitfire.

 

" Morgan ( who was COSSAC ) describes commencement of drawing up the plan from May 1943 when every piece of coastline from Spain to the Arctic Circle was considered. The Bremen area is quickly dismissed as ' a combination of almost every ( military ) disadvantage' ( p.140 )."

That seems to sum up the opinion of the Levenworth Staff & Comand school class circa 1935-36. Some sources say Normandy was much favored by the officers attending. Wish I had time to read through those old papers my self.

 

It would have been nice to land at Wilhelmshaven. But not practicable.

Had an invasion here even if secondary by riverine forces been possisble it might have been considered. Had this happened every boat on the river would have been gone in a few weeks time. Several 88s at key points could have made short work of any river craft that were presenting problems, and if that was not pheasible for the Germans in 44 then perhaps they could have floated several hundred mines down the rivers.

Northern Germany too far from England to be seriouly considered A great Idea curious but nothing more. Please keep posting.

Oh and by-the-way I think the word riverine is annoying.

 

Deployment of aircraft carriers into the North Sea would be suicide.

 

Certainly was a bad place for the Glorious

 

If the Germans simply , if necessary, bombed the harbour installations useless, the supplies would stay in the cargo ships. End of operation.

And wasn´t Dieppe exactly the learning point for not making any direct attacks in order to capture a harbour?

Also the Germans did have quite a number of divisions elsewhere that Ostfront and Western France:

By D-Day 157 German divisions were stationed in the Soviet Union, 6 in Finland, 12 in Norway, 6 in Denmark, 9 in Germany, 21 in the Balkans, 26 in Italy and 59 in France, Belgium and the Netherlands ( statistics are somewhat misleading since a significant number of the divisions in the east were depleted ).

Battle of Normandy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

mind you, your in Germany not France. You wouldn't be seen as liberators, and I think the information on the landscape + perhaps strong points would be a little tougher to be known. AND: Arn't you closer to the heartland, perhaps troops could be quickly drawn from relief somewhere and throw there lives against the amphibious assault?

I'd rather argue about a landing on Brest