D-Day, you redesign the German defence

[TrailerParkJawa]

Had it been at the time, I would probably have retreated to my strongholds, then fought back when the Allies advanced, all the time holding out until I could think of something.

Id rather be a German POW sent to work on an American farm, than get killed fighting for a looney dictator like Hitler.

I guess the world is lucky in regards to dictators, they usually get rid of anyone that can make better military judgements than they do.

[Omega-13]

I watched something ON A&E or something, and they said the Yamato was the only battleship ever sunk, on the open seas by just aircraft,

does that make more sense?
the Bismark was disabled by a torpedo aircraft, but also hit by the Hood, ,was it not? A&E was strictly talking, just aircraft

[Gandalf]

Id rather be a German POW sent to work on an American farm, than get killed fighting for a looney dictator like Hitler.

Whilst I get your point and very much agree with you, I did it from a loyalist perspective.

[TrailerParkJawa]

I watched something ON A&E or something, and they said the Yamato was the only battleship ever sunk, on the open seas by just aircraft,

Mabye on the high seas, and by carrier aircraft, but that still does not explain the Prince of Wales and Repulse.

Also the Tirpitz was destroyed by an aircraft, it was a Lancaster bomber carrying a BIG ASS BOMB, IIRC.

* Big Ass Bomb is my term not to be confused with its real name.

[Omega-13]

Tirpitz, not familiar with that ship, it was a battleship that was destroyed by a single bomb??

[TrailerParkJawa]

She was a German battleship. She was bottled up in a Norwegian fjiord when she was finally done in by the British.

Here is a link to page about the Tirpitz.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/tirpitz/tirpitz_menu.html

She was sunk by a bomb called the Tall Boy. It was 12,000 pounds, of that about 5,000 lbs were explosive.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Forgot to add, it was more than one bomb. She was hit by 3, sorry for giving the impression it was a just a single bomb dropped by a lone aircraft.


12 November 1944
Operation "Catechism"
31 Lancaster bombers from 9 and 617 Squadrons attacked the ship with "Tallboy" bombs. After the first three hits and several near misses the ship capsizes. Of the ca.. 1,700 men on board 971 were lost. 87 crewmembers were rescued by cutting holes in the ship's bottom to compartments where they had climbed. The bombers suffered no losses. The battle to sink the Tirpitz was finished.

[Sea Skimmer]

I watched something ON A&E or something, and they said the Yamato was the only battleship ever sunk, on the open seas by just aircraft,

does that make more sense?
the Bismark was disabled by a torpedo aircraft, but also hit by the Hood, ,was it not? A&E was strictly talking, just aircraft

No, land wasn't a factor in the loss in several other battleships which got put under by air attack.

[Sea Skimmer]

Forgot to add, it was more than one bomb. She was hit by 3, sorry for giving the impression it was a just a single bomb dropped by a lone aircraft.


12 November 1944
Operation "Catechism"
31 Lancaster bombers from 9 and 617 Squadrons attacked the ship with "Tallboy" bombs. After the first three hits and several near misses the ship capsizes. Of the ca.. 1,700 men on board 971 were lost. 87 crewmembers were rescued by cutting holes in the ship's bottom to compartments where they had climbed. The bombers suffered no losses. The battle to sink the Tirpitz was finished.

Mind you, this was after eight thousand pounds of explosives was detonated under or along side her curtsy of the X-craft attack, and after RN carrier air groups hit her with fifteen bombs, though only one got below the armored deck, because the pilots released from too low.

However Tirpitz was combat ineffective and crippled by the X-craft, the Germans never could properly repair her. When she moved to Tromso where the RAF sank her, the Tirpitz's max speed was just 7 knots. She had huge hole in her bottom plugged with concrete, every turbine was permanently damaged, both after turrets had been unseated and the reseating job was poor at best. Shock damage to just about everything

[kheegster]

Forgot to add, it was more than one bomb. She was hit by 3, sorry for giving the impression it was a just a single bomb dropped by a lone aircraft.


12 November 1944
Operation "Catechism"
31 Lancaster bombers from 9 and 617 Squadrons attacked the ship with "Tallboy" bombs. After the first three hits and several near misses the ship capsizes. Of the ca.. 1,700 men on board 971 were lost. 87 crewmembers were rescued by cutting holes in the ship's bottom to compartments where they had climbed. The bombers suffered no losses. The battle to sink the Tirpitz was finished.

I wonder what the 20k lb "Grand Slam" would have done to the Tirpitz. As an aside, 617 Squadron is the "Dambuster" squadron that carried out the bouncing bomb attacks on a few German dams in 1942, and everytime the RAF came up with unusual weapons (Tall Boys, Grand Slam etc), they were tasked to deliver them. Notice that I use the present tense....617 "Dambuster" Squadron is still in existence, flying Tornado IDS I think...

KG

[MKSheppard]

An inland line might buy time, but not much at all. It’s a hopeless situation, by the time you planning to defend France the war was already lost, no clever tactics, planning or super weapons could realistically expect to bring victory.

Actually, fly a recon plane over the invasion harbors a few days before 06
June 44, and then promptly mass what's left of the luftwaffe for a massive
strike, cutting to pieces the landing craft and soldiers all helpless in the harbors...

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Call down massive mustard gas and VX strikes on the beach head to make it completly uninhabitable for all life. VX and mustard are persistent. Very fucking persistent (There are stories of people being hurt by mustard one year after the soil had frozen during winter and thawed out in spring)

[Raxmei]

At this point of the war, I think the best bet would be a negotiated surrender. That'll save a lot of lives and possibly even keep the Reds out of the country.

[NecronLord]

Rommel Was in charge of the western defences IIRC.

Another problem for the germans was the superior allied intel. E.g. when Rommel took over the post he sent a full report on the defences back to berlin using the Lorentz encryption machine. Unfortunately the allies had a computer prototype able to break it.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Just nerve gas the whole place and kill all the troops while landing, see how the Brits like climbing past a wall of dead men. Seriously, Normandy was a chokepoint to the nth degree. One good gas attack and POOF! D-Day becomes Doomsday

[Ted]

Just nerve gas the whole place and kill all the troops while landing, see how the Brits like climbing past a wall of dead men. Seriously, Normandy was a chokepoint to the nth degree. One good gas attack and POOF! D-Day becomes Doomsday

2 things.

1) If they used gas, the RAF would've carpet bombed Germany with gas. It was Churchill's orders that if they were gas attacked, Germany would be soaked in gas.

2)Taranto was the first time a carrier strike sucessfully struck at a BB fleet, about 7 months before Pearl Harbour.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

1) If they used gas, the RAF would've carpet bombed Germany with gas. It was Churchill's orders that if they were gas attacked, Germany would be soaked in gas.

True. But if since I wanted to stop the Allies from landing I would gas the beaches. And the Allies simply could not compete with nerve gas at the time.

2)Taranto was the first time a carrier strike sucessfully struck at a BB fleet, about 7 months before Pearl Harbour.

[/quote]

Unfortunately I don't get this one.

[kheegster]

2)Taranto was the first time a carrier strike sucessfully struck at a BB fleet, about 7 months before Pearl Harbour.

And they did it with Swordfish biplanes as well...no wonder the Japs were impressed...

KG

[tharkûn]

How much control do I have? D-Day is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, the Red Army is a MUCH bigger threat than the Anglo-American forces rolling through France. Russia is pushing through the Ukraine and will soon be in position to hit German oil supplies and factories. Frankly the German armor is better spent on the eastern front bleeding down the Russian forces than trying to fight on the beaches where they become battleship target practice. In short the big threat in D-Day is not that the allies land ... its that you have to divert a crapload of forces away from the eastern front. In short if I was prepping D-Day and had control of the whole of Germany I'd care hellishly more about holding off the Soviets than dicking with the Americans and Brits. Death was coming from the east, the west was just there to suck away troops.

In any event there are numerous simple things you can do to make life worse for the allies:
1. Do a better job of remining the channel.
2. More mines, Belgian gates, etc. to prevent landing.
3. Have mobile infantry to go to hot spots to kill the allied demolition crews.
4. Use lots and lots of phosporus shells to burn out the attackers.
5. Many, many more pillboxes and concealed machine gun nests.
6. If possible get something akin to the Japanese Fukuryu, divers with bombs who would blow transports in the water.
7. Once the beech is hit, commit your armor and push through, if the allies actually landed at Pas de Calais ... well then you are just as screwed and can fall back to the Rhine. You want the battle lines as intermixed as possible (less chance for naval support and air support), and so you can enjoy the advantage of area effect strikes. Frag grenades become a royal bitch at close range.

All told it was meaningless. The Germans were dying on the eastern front, and even if they held the whole northern coast, the Rivera was open game to hop troops to from Italy. Your best gamble (and its a whopping big one) is to screw the west and try for a BIG push into the Eastern front, and cut a deal with Stalin. Diverting the air power and armor needed to hold the whole north coast is just a good way to watch the East crumble and die. Too much coast to defend, an active land front in the east, and the great unsinkable aircraft carrier off the coast of Europe all make life miserable. Yes the Germans could have easily tripled the body count, hell possibly delayed the invasion for a good while, but they were doomed.

Now a seriously brilliant (in an insane sort of way) defense plan is Ketsu-go. Cracking that nut would have been an absolute bloodbath.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Mind you, this was after eight thousand pounds of explosives was detonated under or along side her curtsy of the X-craft attack,

The X-craft was the little submersibles used in a covert operation against the Tirpitz right? Or were they kayaks? I remember somebody sinking/damaging ships with limpit mines being placed by commandos in kayaks.

[Sea Skimmer]

An inland line might buy time, but not much at all. It’s a hopeless situation, by the time you planning to defend France the war was already lost, no clever tactics, planning or super weapons could realistically expect to bring victory.

Actually, fly a recon plane over the invasion harbors a few days before 06
June 44, and then promptly mass what's left of the luftwaffe for a massive
strike, cutting to pieces the landing craft and soldiers all helpless in the harbors...

By June 6th 1944 the only recon aircraft that got over the UK where the ones the Allies let through to see the decoy areas.

Germany had less then 350 conventional and torpedo bombers total in all of France, Germany and the Low countries. Maybe 100 more where in northern Norway. They would be faced with a vast array of radar stations, thousands of fighters flying standing patrols, thousands of shore based guns, thousands of guns on the invasion shipping. Not to mention constant bombing and strafing of the bases they would need to use.

Really, even without defenses knocking them down, the bombers would need weeks to do sufficient damage to an armada of the size of Overlord. They simply can't haul the tonnage to do significant damage.

Italy will yield only a few hundred more aircraft total, bombers and fighters. Stripping the Eastern front of aircraft is insane, and still won't bring you much. The total German conventional and torpedo bomber fleet was only something like 1250 machines at this point.

The British faced worse in 1940, with about 1/10 the defenses.

[Sea Skimmer]

Mind you, this was after eight thousand pounds of explosives was detonated under or along side her curtsy of the X-craft attack,

The X-craft was the little submersibles used in a covert operation against the Tirpitz right? Or were they kayaks? I remember somebody sinking/damaging ships with limpit mines being placed by commandos in kayaks.

You are correct, the X-craft where small 3 man subs with charges they dropped under the target.

The British conducted limpet mine attacks with kayak's against meerchant shipping at Bordeaux and merchant shipping at Singapore. They hit a few other places as well. IIRC, there was later a second attack at Singapore in which a IJN cruiser was badly damaged.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

IIRC, there was later a second attack at Singapore in which a IJN cruiser was badly damaged.

Too bad it didn't save us from the Japanese...

[Sea Skimmer]

IIRC, there was later a second attack at Singapore in which a IJN cruiser was badly damaged.

Too bad it didn't save us from the Japanese...

Given that it happened in late 1944....

[Thunderfire]

Hmm sending the allies back into the sea is not
a good idea. The russians will still kick german
butt in the east and using more resources to
beat the western allies only means the iron
curtain will be farther west. I abandon france,
italy and the lower countries and ask for a
seperate peace with the western allies.