More conservative German tank designs in WWII (RAR!)

[Thanas]

No you don't, as the Soviets would be out.

[Elheru Aran]

No you don't, as the Soviets would be out.

...a temporary lapse of memory. Whoops.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Britain would insist on a military withdrawal from western Europe, but the countries though sovereign would be economically linked to Germany. That is the likely outcome of a situation where the Soviet Union isn't invaded and the US doesn't enter the war--eventually the deteoriating economic situation in Germany would make a coup likely. Britain would almost certainly come to some kind of agreement with Italy and the Iberian countries to economically counterbalance Germany, because the British always prop up whomever is left against their main continental rival, but it would be a very weak counterbalance.

The new German government would be in something of a bind over the Jews; I could imagine one agreement being that Germany withdraws its demand for the restoration of its colonies in exchange for the British enabling their settlement in East Africa. Forced expulsion and resettlement seems really the least a German government could get away with in the circumstances.

[Eternal_Freedom]

In regards to an attempted German invasion of Britain being a disaster, I'll leave this summary here. It's a summary of a 1974 wargame played at Sandhurst with British and German officers and umpires. Things emphatically don't go well for the Germans.

[Adam Reynolds]

OTOH, England does not gain much from it either. It keeps the supply lines open, but beyond that...nothing. I guess it is always possible that Italy fails spectacularly and the Brits take Sicily due to their naval superiority, but that is a much lower possibility with the Germans being able to commit much more to the fight. In OTL sicily and lower Italy was a near catastrophe to the alllies in terms of casualties and expended resources anyway.

I recently read Second Front Now--1943: An Opportunity Delayed and it was striking just how much the Allies wasted in Sicily and Italy. They could have easily attacked France in 1943 had they not thrown away everything they needed getting bogged down in Italy.

Though the primary reason for the American commitment to the Southern front was political. FDR needed to commit combat troops to Europe immediately so that the Europe first strategy could survive American domestic politics, who had a strong desire for revenge against the Japanese. Waiting to attack France directly a year later would have been political suicide. The British had the historical strategy of attacking the "soft underbelly" of Europe which by the 1940s no longer existed, if it ever did.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A 1943 operation would have been a freaking disaster. We were not ready for it. We did not have the amphibious operations art to carry it home. I don't agree with the conclusions in that book and I don't think most people do, for good reason, in that it completely ignores the very real issues of operational art, planning, logistics preparation, and strategic situation (i.e. excellent the Germans call off Kursk and throw us back into the sea with the reserves they still have) that existed in 1943. D-Day succeeded as well as it did--and it did very well--by being quite well timed.

[Simon_Jester]

Though the primary reason for the American commitment to the Southern front was political. FDR needed to commit combat troops to Europe immediately so that the Europe first strategy could survive American domestic politics, who had a strong desire for revenge against the Japanese. Waiting to attack France directly a year later would have been political suicide. The British had the historical strategy of attacking the "soft underbelly" of Europe which by the 1940s no longer existed, if it ever did.

The 'soft underbelly' definitely existed in the Napoleonic era, and British dominance of the Mediterranean remained in place throughout the 19th century for a reason- the major powers around the Mediterranean were simply second-tier in military and economic power, when compared to Britain, France, or eventually Germany and the USSR.

By the 1940s, there was still sort of a 'soft underbelly' in that a relatively modest Allied force could accomplish useful objectives in the face of Italian/German opposition, because only a limited amount of Axis forces could be brought to bear, and because the Italians were lousy fighters.

The main problem was that if you struck into the soft underbelly of Europe there was nowhere to go but flab. Even if you managed to drive the Germans out of Italy or Greece or whatever, there was really no way to actually cause significant damage to the vital centers of Germany's power from there. At most it would divert effort from somewhere else, which is nice but not usually decisive.

[Sidewinder]

The main problem was that if you struck into the soft underbelly of Europe there was nowhere to go but flab. Even if you managed to drive the Germans out of Italy or Greece or whatever, there was really no way to actually cause significant damage to the vital centers of Germany's power from there. At most it would divert effort from somewhere else, which is nice but not usually decisive.

I remember commenting that Italy's defeat- or even its victory- would have MINIMAL effect upon Germany's ability to wage war. Others have commented that, while the Germans lost a lot resources trying to defend Italy, the Allies lost (read: WASTED) even more during their invasion.

[LaCroix]

The main problem was that if you struck into the soft underbelly of Europe there was nowhere to go but flab. Even if you managed to drive the Germans out of Italy or Greece or whatever, there was really no way to actually cause significant damage to the vital centers of Germany's power from there. At most it would divert effort from somewhere else, which is nice but not usually decisive.

The problem is that these pesky alps were a significant problem to the "underbelly" line of thinking. It is a massive force multiplyer, even able to neutralize air superiority. You could take italy, but you won't get further. It's like stabbing a very obese man in the gut with a pocket knife - it's not pleasant, but you won't do any real damage.

[Zinegata]

A 1943 operation would have been a freaking disaster. We were not ready for it. We did not have the amphibious operations art to carry it home. I don't agree with the conclusions in that book and I don't think most people do, for good reason, in that it completely ignores the very real issues of operational art, planning, logistics preparation, and strategic situation (i.e. excellent the Germans call off Kursk and throw us back into the sea with the reserves they still have) that existed in 1943. D-Day succeeded as well as it did--and it did very well--by being quite well timed.

Actually, it was proved by Dunn that a 1943 invasion was possible and that the amphib shortage was a myth. And this isn't just paper calculations. He simply pointed to the fact that Operation Husky landed more Divisions on the first day than were actually landed by ship during Overlord.

An early Second Front in France was in fact possible if they had started planning for it in 1942 instead of Sicily then Italy. They would land as many Divisions as they did during Overlord, and they would land against much weaker German defenses. The only real issue is the follow-on forces, which would be fewer in 1944, but given that Husky coincided with Kursk (just as Overlord coincided with Bagration) the chances of a swift German "switch" from the East Front to the West was virtually nil. In fact had they done so the Soviets would have had a much easier time smashing through Kursk since they wouldn't have lost so many tanks trying to counter-attack the German deep tank penetrations in the south.

There's really just a lot of Churchillian mythology around D-day (since it was primarily his fault that the Second Front was delayed) which is why the standard narrative is that a Second Front was impossible; when in reality they landed more troops in Husky over a longer sea route while under enemy air attack.

====

As for the original question, what's important to realize is that aside from crummier reliability the Panther consumed roughly twice as much fuel as the MK IV; and the logistical tail of a Tiger battalion of 45 tanks was apparently 130 trucks, a dozen recovery vehicles, and 3 gantry cranes. By contrast a Sherman battalion of 60 tanks only needed 30 trucks for its supply component. The new tanks were in fact enormously logistically intensive - a Tiger battalion had almost as much tail as US Armored Division!

Germany still wouldn't win if they expanded production of the cheaper and easier-to-produce types, but they at least would have more working tanks available for the frontline troops, which was really the critical issue for the Germans. On average, a German Infantry Division was lucky to have a company (10 or so) of self-propelled tank destroyers (Marders or Stugs if really lucky). An American Infantry Division by contrast had a battalion of Shermans and a battalion of M10s - around a hundred armored vehicles in total! The German army for the most part was thus fighting a losing battle wherein their infantry fought an enemy that had both tanks and infantry.

As for which tank should have been produced... the Stug's actually the best in my book. The MK IV was good but it was suffering some weight problems with all the added armor. The Stug by contrast worked fine even without a turret - there's in fact very little to support the idea they were much worse off in the attack - and the lower profile helped it remain unspotted for longer which is more important than any frontal armor. Indeed, some of the Sturmgetchutze Abteilungs had actually notched a claimed kill count of 1,000 or more... which is higher than most Tiger battalions and equalled the very best ones.

A small number of slightly heavier tanks - possibly based on the VK3002 (Daimler Benz) - would possibly be useful too, but it would really depend on how their doctrine is developed.
As it stood the Tigers were resource-intensive but they at least had a decent doctrine in 1943, which led to a fairly effective year for the Tiger. The Panther by contrast ended up in awful Panzer Brigades which were actually completely annihilated by the US Army in the largest tank battles in the West (fought primarily around the Lorraine region - featuring the battle of Arracourt), despite all the stupid "five Shermans are lost for every Panther" mythology.

Oh, and it may be good to point out that the Luftwaffe was consuming twice as much fuel as the entire German Army in 1943, so reducing the number of Luftwaffe sorties may also help the ground situation much. Airstrikes weren't really that effective anyway especially in the East.

[Tribble]

Would the Germans have been able to copy and mass-produce the T-34? If I remember correctly, some of the German high-command seriously considered it.

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, it was proved by Dunn that a 1943 invasion was possible and that the amphib shortage was a myth. And this isn't just paper calculations. He simply pointed to the fact that Operation Husky landed more Divisions on the first day than were actually landed by ship during Overlord.

Does this translate into sustained combat operations? Remember, Overlord was planned on the assumption that the Allies would have to continue supplying a growing number of troops over the beach and via temporary harbors (the Mulberries) for weeks after D-day. It's not just about sealift.

With Husky, the Allies could be confident of physically isolating the island and preventing any significant reinforcement formations from being thrown in or heavily resupplied- protracted combat would be impossible. And I'd think it was reasonable to assume that the Allies would have captured ports capable of resupplying their forces within the first week or two of the landings. With Overlord... not so much. Thus, the operation would place a far higher demand on the Allies' ability to sustain an amphibious landing, and sealift capability could still be a bottleneck for Overlord without being one for Husky.

An early Second Front in France was in fact possible if they had started planning for it in 1942 instead of Sicily then Italy. They would land as many Divisions as they did during Overlord, and they would land against much weaker German defenses.

But they would also land against a Germany still capable of mobilizing larger forces from its rear areas and with a less damaged transportation infrastructure. Germany was simply more able to shift forces to contain a landing in France in 1943 than in 1944.

The only real issue is the follow-on forces, which would be fewer in 1944, but given that Husky coincided with Kursk (just as Overlord coincided with Bagration) the chances of a swift German "switch" from the East Front to the West was virtually nil. In fact had they done so the Soviets would have had a much easier time smashing through Kursk since they wouldn't have lost so many tanks trying to counter-attack the German deep tank penetrations in the south.

The Western Allies could not possibly have planned for that. The Germans themselves didn't know when Citadel would happen until some time in March 1943, and the British and Americans would have had to plan their big amphibious offensive starting well before that time. If they picked the wrong month to stage the landings, they'd gain no real advantage from being simultaneous with Kursk.

There's really just a lot of Churchillian mythology around D-day (since it was primarily his fault that the Second Front was delayed) which is why the standard narrative is that a Second Front was impossible; when in reality they landed more troops in Husky over a longer sea route while under enemy air attack.

Again, Overlord was meant to be the spearhead assault to create a beachhead for a score or more of divisions to pour into France, while assuming the Germans could neutralize port infrastructure, which they in fact did. Husky was a far more 'compact' operation in terms of time, space, and the size of forces that were due to be committed.

A small number of slightly heavier tanks - possibly based on the VK3002 (Daimler Benz) - would possibly be useful too, but it would really depend on how their doctrine is developed.

Without some kind of heavy tank development, the Soviet focus on upgunning their armor could get problematic for the Germans- although what was really needed was something with the Tiger's excellent optics and 88mm antitank gun to pot enemy armor from extreme range. Otherwise they get swarmed under by the Red Army, which will outproduce them in any event.

Would the Germans have been able to copy and mass-produce the T-34? If I remember correctly, some of the German high-command seriously considered it.

Yes, but it wouldn't have helped them very much in a lot of ways. Producing a functional copy of the T-34 (maybe not identical under the hood but functionally similar) would have been straightforward enough. And it would have seemed like a good idea in 1941, because the T-34 was a pretty nasty tank by 1941 standards- as I recall, they were immune to German 37mm antitank guns from almost any angle, and 37mm guns were a large fraction of the Wehrmacht's total inventory.

But there were some serious hidden defects in the T-34 of this time period:

http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the- ... rformance/

When one considers the apparent superiority of the T-34, the question has to be asked: why did the T-34 consistently suffer [heavy losses] against ‘inferior and obsolescent’ enemy tanks in tactical combat, i.e. when actually shooting at each other? Either the German’s combat proficiency was supernatural, the Soviet’s combat proficiency was unbelievably incompetent, or there were design flaws inherent in the T-34 as a complete weapon system which are not apparent in a cursory analysis of combat power based on armour and gun penetration. I believe the latter to be the case. The T-34/76’s one great weakness was its fire control efficiency. It suffered from the same two-man turret syndrome as other Soviet tanks in this period, namely that the tank’s commander, gun aimer, gun firer and platoon commander (if a platoon leader), were all the same person. Exacerbating this was the fact that the T-34/76 had relatively poor main gun optics quality, no turret basket, a very cramped and low turret (the gun could not depress more than three degrees severely restricting use on a reverse slope or at close range), poor turret drive reliability, no radios, and generally poor target observation and indicator devices (including no turret cupola and only one vision periscope for the tank’s commander). All these factors are considered in detail in calculating a tank’s Fire Control Effect (FCE) factor detailed in Part II-‘The Barbarossa Simulation’s Resource Database’. The T-34 is discussed here as a case history.(8) In summary, the T-34/76’s inherent fire control efficiency was so bad that even well trained and experienced tank crews were put at a severe disadvantage. For inexperienced tank crews, with no radios and probably no organised combined arms support, it was a disaster.

So what was the result of the T-34/76’s two man turret, weak optics and poor vision devices (that is a poor overall FCE factor)? German tankers noted “T34s operated in a disorganised fashion with little coordination, or else tended to clump together like a hen with its chicks. Individual tank commanders lacked situational awareness due to the poor provision of vision devices and preoccupation with gunnery duties. A tank platoon would seldom be capable of engaging three separate targets, but would tend to focus on a single target selected by the platoon leader. As a result T-34 platoons lost the greater firepower of three independently operating tanks”.(9) The Germans noted the T-34 was very slow to find and engage targets while the Panzers could typically get off three rounds for every one fired by the T-34.(10)

A combat account from Operation Barbarossa highlights the problem with the T-34/76’s fire control systems and also why its overall combat power is so overrated. “Remarkably enough, one determined 37mm gun crew reported firing 23 times against a single T-34 tank, only managing to jam the tank’s turret ring”.(11) In this engagement T-34 proponents will highlight the impunity of the T-34 to the 37mm Pak 36 AT gun. However this is hardly surprising against a gun that can only penetrate 29mm of 30 degree sloped armour at 500metres with ordinary AP ammunition. What is really important in this story is that the AT gun managed to get 23 shots off, and it turns out that the T-34 in this report didn’t even manage to hit the AT gun. Once better AT guns appeared, which they rapidly did, T-34s would be lucky to survive 2-3 rounds. Contemporary German tank crews would have been be appalled* if they let enemy AT guns get more than two rounds off before they took defensive action. This example highlights the difference between tanks designed to optimise all their fire control related systems and hence maximise their firepower, and those that weren’t.

*[and quite possibly dead- footnote by Simon_Jester]

So basically, had the Germans made an exact copy of the T-34 in 1941-42, they would have been deliberately copying a tank with serious design defects that could easily get the crew killed, by making it hard for the tank crew to spot the enemy, aim at them, and fire on them in a timely manner. Since the Germans really cannot afford to build tanks they expect to lose without taking a comparable or greater number of enemy armored vehicles with them, this is a bad plan.

Ease of manufacture would not compensate for this drawback in German hands. Arguably it didn't compensate in Soviet hands either, but the T-34/76 was the best tank design the Russians had available at the time so they weren't in a good position to do anything about it.

What the Germans desperately needed was a tank with the good ergonomics, optics, and so on that they historically included in all their tanks... but which was not such a massive, stupidly excessive burden on their manufacturing and logistics as the Tiger and Panther. For that purpose, Panzer IVs and variants of same (including tank destroyers and assault guns) would do rather well.

[Zinegata]

Does this translate into sustained combat operations? Remember, Overlord was planned on the assumption that the Allies would have to continue supplying a growing number of troops over the beach and via temporary harbors (the Mulberries) for weeks after D-day. It's not just about sealift.

With Husky, the Allies could be confident of physically isolating the island and preventing any significant reinforcement formations from being thrown in or heavily resupplied- protracted combat would be impossible. And I'd think it was reasonable to assume that the Allies would have captured ports capable of resupplying their forces within the first week or two of the landings. With Overlord... not so much. Thus, the operation would place a far higher demand on the Allies' ability to sustain an amphibious landing, and sealift capability could still be a bottleneck for Overlord without being one for Husky.

They didn't need the Mulberries ultimately and this would be against a Cherbourg with a worse garrison and fewer completed defenses. Sustained operations were supportable, since Husky ended up as a protracted battle regardless.

But they would also land against a Germany still capable of mobilizing larger forces from its rear areas and with a less damaged transportation infrastructure. Germany was simply more able to shift forces to contain a landing in France in 1943 than in 1944.

Not really. The Wermacht was much deeper inside of the Soviet Union at this point, and as with anything related to bombing the damage done wasn't enough to stem what flow of reinforcements was possible to begin with even in 1944.

The Western Allies could not possibly have planned for that. The Germans themselves didn't know when Citadel would happen until some time in March 1943, and the British and Americans would have had to plan their big amphibious offensive starting well before that time. If they picked the wrong month to stage the landings, they'd gain no real advantage from being simultaneous with Kursk.

The Allies knew about Citadelle. ULTRA intercepts, remember? And as it stood Husky happened right after Kursk got underway.

Again, Overlord was meant to be the spearhead assault to create a beachhead for a score or more of divisions to pour into France, while assuming the Germans could neutralize port infrastructure, which they in fact did. Husky was a far more 'compact' operation in terms of time, space, and the size of forces that were due to be committed.

Again, Churchill was simply plainly wrong. They didn't need the Mulberries or the ports. They didn't even need them at Husky and you're talking about shipping from crummy North African ports to crummy Sicilian ports instead of the short hop across the Channel. And all this while under potential air attack no less.

Churchill and the Brits simply massively overstated the requirements for a successful invasion. And in the meantime the Germans actually built up far more defenses in the interim. A 1943 landing in Normandy would look much more like Husky - largely unopposed since there were no real beach defenses yet in July 1943.

Without some kind of heavy tank development, the Soviet focus on upgunning their armor could get problematic for the Germans- although what was really needed was something with the Tiger's excellent optics and 88mm antitank gun to pot enemy armor from extreme range. Otherwise they get swarmed under by the Red Army, which will outproduce them in any event.

The Red Army never cared for the German heavies in the first place. Only the Tiger really gave them pause, and that was because the Tiger was employed successfully in early 1943 when the Soviets still mainly had T-70 lights instead of T-34s. This is why the only "big cat killer" on the Soviet side was officially the SU-152, followed by the SU-100. The IS-2 and T-34/85 were developed for infantry support, not anti-tank roles.

Moreover, the Germans already had 20,000 guns of the 88mm flak type to kill any Soviet heavies. Germany had a ridiculous glut of very heavy anti-tank guns.

But there were some serious hidden defects in the T-34 of this time period:

http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the- ... rformance/

When one considers the apparent superiority of the T-34, the question has to be asked: why did the T-34 consistently suffer [heavy losses] against ‘inferior and obsolescent’ enemy tanks in tactical combat, i.e. when actually shooting at each other? Either the German’s combat proficiency was supernatural, the Soviet’s combat proficiency was unbelievably incompetent, or there were design flaws inherent in the T-34 as a complete weapon system which are not apparent in a cursory analysis of combat power based on armour and gun penetration.

The vast majority of those numbers cannot be trusted because it posits total loss figures from 1942 and 43 as representative of T-34 losses, when in reality the T-34 was not yet majority tank of the Red Army in those years. During this period as much as 40% of the tank park was in fact T-60s and T-70s, not counting the SU-76 assault guns.

Moreover, as has been found in Soviet records, the Soviet method for counting losses differed from the Germans. The Germans counted total losses only. The Soviets counted any operational loss. The T-34, being designed for annual overhaul, was thus automatically "lost" at the end of every year for overhaul. This is why the Soviet tank park suddenly seems to vanish near the thaws only to reappaer after it.

Ease of manufacture would not compensate for this drawback in German hands. Arguably it didn't compensate in Soviet hands either, but the T-34/76 was the best tank design the Russians had available at the time so they weren't in a good position to do anything about it.

What the Germans desperately needed was a tank with the good ergonomics, optics, and so on that they historically included in all their tanks... but which was not such a massive, stupidly excessive burden on their manufacturing and logistics as the Tiger and Panther. For that purpose, Panzer IVs and variants of same (including tank destroyers and assault guns) would do rather well.

The ergonomics were honestly not that big of a deal. The problem with the early actual Soviet combat losses was poor employment due to bad training and maintenance, plus overambitious attack targets. The German tanks were in fact only slightly less cramped than the Soviet ones.

[Zinegata]

Would the Germans have been able to copy and mass-produce the T-34? If I remember correctly, some of the German high-command seriously considered it.

The exact tank used really isn't relevant. Comparing individual tank types against one another is a big reason why tank debates on the Internet are so pointless to begin with; especially when one realizes that two T-34s of the supposedly exact same model may have very different performance depending on other factors like the state of the factory that built it.

What's more important is to correctly identify requirements and fulfill them as efficiently as possible using existing resources in as short a time as possible. Modern day tank enthusiasts for instance have made it a hobby to naysay the Sherman, but in reality the Sherman exactly fulfilled the requirements of the US Army (which in turn were requirements defined out of real combat experience and exercises rather than fanboy drawings) - which is to have a highly mobile, long-legged tank which was primary oriented towards infantry support but is fully capable of engaging enemy tanks as necessary.

Contrary to popular belief, the Shermans in fact almost never encountered the original Tiger I tank (there are in fact just three recorded encounters with Tiger Is in Western Europe - of which only one might have involved Shermans!), very rarely encountered the Tiger II (which in the largest engagement resulted in King Tigers being knocked out by white phosphor shells), and uncommonly encountered the Panther, which was in fact horribly massacred every time it fought a Sherman unless the driver was British. The reality of ETO was instead this: The American army fought with tanks and infantry as a team. The Germans for the most part fought with infantry without tank support, who had to resort to increasingly suicidal anti-tank tactics. The US system worked and peaked just as the German one fell apart.

By contrast, the Panther was in fact the result of politicking. The Wermacht defined the requirement for a highly mobile 35 ton tank to replace the aging Mk IV. They instead got a 45 ton tank which was overweight and had a gun that was different from the 88mm and yet had roughly the same performance. This was totally not what the German Army needed (since German Panzer Divisions relied on mobility more than armor to win, and the Panther became too slow with its new weight); and really the only reason why the Panther won out over the Daimler-Benz prototype was because MAN rigged the bidding process somehow.

[Thanas]

Contrary to popular belief, the Shermans in fact almost never encountered the original Tiger I tank (there are in fact just three recorded encounters with Tiger Is in Western Europe - of which only one might have involved Shermans!), very rarely encountered the Tiger II (which in the largest engagement resulted in King Tigers being knocked out by white phosphor shells), and uncommonly encountered the Panther, which was in fact horribly massacred every time it fought a Sherman unless the driver was British.

What are your sources for the frequency of Tiger encounters and what are the sources for the Panther fights?

[Zinegata]

Contrary to popular belief, the Shermans in fact almost never encountered the original Tiger I tank (there are in fact just three recorded encounters with Tiger Is in Western Europe - of which only one might have involved Shermans!), very rarely encountered the Tiger II (which in the largest engagement resulted in King Tigers being knocked out by white phosphor shells), and uncommonly encountered the Panther, which was in fact horribly massacred every time it fought a Sherman unless the driver was British.

What are your sources for the frequency of Tiger encounters and what are the sources for the Panther fights?

Stephen Zaloga recently did an interview for a WoT buddy of mine:

http://tanksandafv.blogspot.com/2015/01 ... aloga.html

The specific section on the frequency of US tank vs German tank engagements:

What people don't realize is that the US tank force didn't really encounter very many German tanks in Normandy. The first month of the fighting was concentrated mostly up the Cotentin Peninsula during the drive by 7th Corps to Cherbourg. The Germans in Cotentin Peninsula had two tank battalions, both equipped with war booty French tanks, so basically very poor quality tanks. There wasn't a lot of tank fighting. Then in the month of July the US pushing through the boscages country, finally resulting in operation Cobra, the big breakout operation by 2nd and 3rd armored divisions at the end of the month. The Bocage country wasn't very good tank country either. The Germans did have a couple of tank divisions there, the Panzer Lehr Division, the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich. 2nd SS Panzer Das Reich didn't see a lot of tank fighting simply because the terrain wasn't suitable. Panzer Lehr did launch one major attack in the middle of July and got completely shot up by the US side. But in the case of both German Panzer divisions they didn't see much fighting against US tank forces, they were fighting mostly against US infantry and tank destroyers and they took significant losses. And then in August of course the breakout operations, so US tanks are running like wild through Brittany, through France to Paris and there are scattered encounters with German tanks but on a very small scale.

The first time the US has a really big tank on tank encounter with German armor is Arracourt, the fighting in Lorraine in September of 1944. Fourth Armored Division is confronted by a few of the new German Panzer Brigades. And that's a lopsided victory on the US side. Patton's Third Army trounces the Panzer Brigades in Lorraine, largely because the US unit involved there, the Fourth Armored Division, by that stage was a well experienced, well trained unit and the new Panzer Brigade, even though they had lots of brand new shiny Panther tanks, were new units with varying experience and they performed very badly. And that remains one of the most intense series of tank battle the US Army fought in World War II where there were really significant numbers of tanks facing tanks in a relatively small area.

As for the Tigers:

When you read unit accounts, whether it's the actual unit after action reports or the published books, everyone talks about Tiger tanks. But in looking at it in both German records and US records, I've only found three instances in all the fighting from Normandy to 1945 where the US encountered Tigers. And by Tigers I mean Tiger 1, the type of tank we saw in the film. I'm not talking King Tigers, the strange thing is that the US Army encountered King Tigers far more often than Tigers. That's partly because there weren't a lot of Tigers left by 1944, production ends in August 1944. There were not a lot of Tigers in Normandy, they were mostly in the British sector, the British saw a lot of Tigers. Part of the issue is that US tankers were notorious for identifying everything as a Tiger tank, everything from Stug III assault guns to Panzer IV and Panthers and Tigers.

There was one incident in August of 1944 where 3rd Armored division ran into three Tigers that were damaged and being pulled back on a train, they shot them up with an anti-aircraft half-track. And then there was a single Tiger company up in the Bulge that was involved in some fighting. And then there was one short set of instances in April 1945, right around the period of the film, where there was a small isolated Tiger unit that actually got engaged with one of the new US M26 Pershing tank units. They knocked out a Pershing and then in turn that Tiger was knocked out and the Pershing tanks knocked out another King Tiger over the following days. So I found three verifiable instances of Tigers encountering, or having skirmishes with US troops in 1944-45. So it was very uncommon. It definitely could have happened, there are certainly lots of gaps in the historical record both on the German side and the US side. I think the idea that the US encountered a lot of Tigers during WW2 is simply due to the tendency of the US troops to call all German tanks Tigers. It's the same thing on the artillery side. Every time US troops are fired upon, it's an 88, whether it's a 75mm Pak 40 anti-tank gun, a real 88, a 105mm field howitzer, they were all called 88's.

I'd note that this is two more than the number of verifiable engagements that I found - I knew of the Tiger company attached to 9th Panzer Division in the Bulge; but not the 3rd Armored encounter or the Pershing vs Tiger one.

Note that we're both talking specifically about US vs German armor engagements. The British fought more battles against the Tiger, but that's because all three of the Tiger battalions in Normandy were in the Caen sector.

[Thanas]

Yeah, I figured. The British tanks were much more engaged there. Thanks for clearing it up, because my Grandfather fought in a Tiger in France and I remembered some of his war stories.

[Simon_Jester]

They didn't need the Mulberries ultimately and this would be against a Cherbourg with a worse garrison and fewer completed defenses. Sustained operations were supportable, since Husky ended up as a protracted battle regardless.

The scale of protracted combat required to liberate Sicily is not remotely comparable to the scale of protracted combat the Allies could reasonably expect to be required in order to liberate France. The battle for France was predictably going to be larger-scale in both time and space, and larger forces would have to be employed.

Meanwhile, the Allies could not count on German resistance crumbling rapidly, ports falling quickly, or on similar strokes of good fortune. They did not know the exact disposition of German defenses or reserves, and in many cases planned for contingencies worse than what they historically faced.

And there was a reason for this. The consequences to the Western Allies of trying to stage landings and failing were far worse than the consequences of not trying at all. And there wouldn't even be much benefit to the Russians from failed landings, because any shift of troops off the Eastern Front would be limited in size and temporary in character. Taking five or ten divisions that would otherwise go East, and instead sending them West, would not be a big enough benefit to the Russians to justify the sacrifice of the Western Allies' best combat troops and a gamble taken with their entire amphibious warfare establishment.

The Western Allies could not possibly have planned for that. The Germans themselves didn't know when Citadel would happen until some time in March 1943, and the British and Americans would have had to plan their big amphibious offensive starting well before that time. If they picked the wrong month to stage the landings, they'd gain no real advantage from being simultaneous with Kursk.

The Allies knew about Citadelle. ULTRA intercepts, remember? And as it stood Husky happened right after Kursk got underway.

Please reread the paragraph you quoted.

The Allies knew about Citadel after the Germans planned for it to happen, that is, after March 1943. The Germans themselves didn't know it was going to happen much before then. No ULTRA intercept can tell you about an upcoming offensive your enemy has not yet decided to launch!

As it happened, Husky occurred simultaneously with Citadel- but that was due to unrelated factors like the timing of the victory in Tunisia, which in turn depended on the outcome of other battles fought even earlier and had nothing to do with the situation in the East. I see no reason to assume that advance planning for Roundup (a 1943 Overlord) would have happened to pick the right date, or that the timetable could feasibly have been shifted once the timing of Citadel was known.

Again, Overlord was meant to be the spearhead assault to create a beachhead for a score or more of divisions to pour into France, while assuming the Germans could neutralize port infrastructure, which they in fact did. Husky was a far more 'compact' operation in terms of time, space, and the size of forces that were due to be committed.

Again, Churchill was simply plainly wrong. They didn't need the Mulberries or the ports. They didn't even need them at Husky and you're talking about shipping from crummy North African ports to crummy Sicilian ports instead of the short hop across the Channel. And all this while under potential air attack no less.

Churchill and the Brits simply massively overstated the requirements for a successful invasion. And in the meantime the Germans actually built up far more defenses in the interim. A 1943 landing in Normandy would look much more like Husky - largely unopposed since there were no real beach defenses yet in July 1943.

Even largely unopposed landings had a way of going badly if circumstances didn't come together- as at Anzio. Given that there was no realistic way for the Allied beachhead to expand and fully liberate France before running into heavy German resistance, I think it understandable that the British overestimated by making assumptions in terms of what would be needed for the Allies to land and sustain a force capable of breaking that resistance.

Without some kind of heavy tank development, the Soviet focus on upgunning their armor could get problematic for the Germans- although what was really needed was something with the Tiger's excellent optics and 88mm antitank gun to pot enemy armor from extreme range. Otherwise they get swarmed under by the Red Army, which will outproduce them in any event.

The Red Army never cared for the German heavies in the first place. Only the Tiger really gave them pause, and that was because the Tiger was employed successfully in early 1943 when the Soviets still mainly had T-70 lights instead of T-34s. This is why the only "big cat killer" on the Soviet side was officially the SU-152, followed by the SU-100. The IS-2 and T-34/85 were developed for infantry support, not anti-tank roles.

Moreover, the Germans already had 20,000 guns of the 88mm flak type to kill any Soviet heavies. Germany had a ridiculous glut of very heavy anti-tank guns.

Mobility counts; the Germans did have a valid need for some kind of mobile large-caliber antitank defense. However, it would probably have been more sensible to push this role onto tank destroyers and refrain from building heavy breakthrough tanks in a period when the Wehrmacht had been forced onto the strategic defensive on all fronts.

But there were some serious hidden defects in the T-34 of this time period:
...

The vast majority of those numbers cannot be trusted because it posits total loss figures from 1942 and 43 as representative of T-34 losses, when in reality the T-34 was not yet majority tank of the Red Army in those years. During this period as much as 40% of the tank park was in fact T-60s and T-70s, not counting the SU-76 assault guns.

Moreover, as has been found in Soviet records, the Soviet method for counting losses differed from the Germans. The Germans counted total losses only. The Soviets counted any operational loss. The T-34, being designed for annual overhaul, was thus automatically "lost" at the end of every year for overhaul. This is why the Soviet tank park suddenly seems to vanish near the thaws only to reappaer after it.

It is possible (and indeed very commonplace) to vastly exaggerate German tank kills and have them claim to have destroyed absurd, immense numbers of Soviet tanks of all types.

However, the point remains that despite having thousands of quite well protected and adequately armed T-34s, the Soviets lost an awful lot of them in the early war years. Even though a lot of their other tanks were more vulnerable vehicles like the T-70, that does not invalidate the proposition that a tank with a two-man turret, inferior optics and radios, and a gunnery arrangement that makes it hard to acquire targets... leaves something to be desired. Moreover, such difficulties compound any issue that may arise with crew training and doctrine. An undertrained crew that can't see where they're going, or that takes several extra seconds to identify and line up a shot at a target, is at a crippling disadvantage against an equally undertrained crew in a tank that allows them to see and shoot more easily.

What's more important is to correctly identify requirements and fulfill them as efficiently as possible using existing resources in as short a time as possible. Modern day tank enthusiasts for instance have made it a hobby to naysay the Sherman, but in reality the Sherman exactly fulfilled the requirements of the US Army (which in turn were requirements defined out of real combat experience and exercises rather than fanboy drawings) - which is to have a highly mobile, long-legged tank which was primary oriented towards infantry support but is fully capable of engaging enemy tanks as necessary.

This I am very agreeable with.

By contrast, the Panther was in fact the result of politicking. The Wermacht defined the requirement for a highly mobile 35 ton tank to replace the aging Mk IV. They instead got a 45 ton tank which was overweight and had a gun that was different from the 88mm and yet had roughly the same performance. This was totally not what the German Army needed (since German Panzer Divisions relied on mobility more than armor to win, and the Panther became too slow with its new weight); and really the only reason why the Panther won out over the Daimler-Benz prototype was because MAN rigged the bidding process somehow.

This I am also agreeable with- the basic point here being that the Germans did need a highly mobile 35-ton tank to combat the 30-35 ton tanks of their enemies and replace an obsolete 25-ton tank. And they didn't get it.

But at the same time, building an exact clone of the T-34 might well not have been a good idea simply because (as you point out rightly) any given nation should design the tank that is right for them and fulfills their needs. The Germans had different needs than the Soviets altering the utility of something like a T-34 clone for them. And even the Soviets arguably didn't get a tank that fitted their needs quite as well as it might have due to limitations imposed on the manufacturing process.

[Zinegata]

The scale of protracted combat required to liberate Sicily is not remotely comparable to the scale of protracted combat the Allies could reasonably expect to be required in order to liberate France. The battle for France was predictably going to be larger-scale in both time and space, and larger forces would have to be employed.

You don't need to liberate all of France in '43. In fact even the liberation of France in '44 was something of a surprise due to the rapid German collapse. All you need is to secure a lodgment in Normandy + Cherbourg, which is a far more important and existential threat to Nazi Germany than throwing 20 Divisions into Sicily. That forces the Germans to actually either honor the threat seriously and therefore tie down more Divisions, or seriously deplete their forces in the East just as the Russians are about to get serious with their offensive capabilities.

They did not know the exact disposition of German defenses or reserves, and in many cases planned for contingencies worse than what they historically faced.

Uh I'm pretty sure that they knew that there were no beach defenses yet - just a few flights over France would easily reveal that - and it's kinda well known that the Germans only had twenty or so Divisions in France and they were mainly dregs in the midst of rebuilding.

And there was a reason for this. The consequences to the Western Allies of trying to stage landings and failing were far worse than the consequences of not trying at all. And there wouldn't even be much benefit to the Russians from failed landings, because any shift of troops off the Eastern Front would be limited in size and temporary in character. Taking five or ten divisions that would otherwise go East, and instead sending them West, would not be a big enough benefit to the Russians to justify the sacrifice of the Western Allies' best combat troops and a gamble taken with their entire amphibious warfare establishment.

D-Day is not a "try once" thing. Moreover, those best combat troops ended up not participating in 1944 anyway because they were frittered on the Italian Front.

The Allies knew about Citadel after the Germans planned for it to happen, that is, after March 1943. The Germans themselves didn't know it was going to happen much before then. No ULTRA intercept can tell you about an upcoming offensive your enemy has not yet decided to launch!

Simon, the Soviets knew the exact hour the Citadelle offensive was going to start, through a combination of human intelligence and intercepts. They knew to such a precise degree that they managed to launch a spoling barrage which left the Germans bewildered and thinking the Soviets had coincidentally decided to attack at the exact same time. Basically everyone knew that Citadelle was going to happen in May - Jul of 1943 because it was blindingly obvious that an offensive this was the only way Germany could hope to win a victory in the East in '43, and the date of attack was determined by the end of the thaws which turned the terrain into mud.

I do not see how they could have mistimed Normandy '43 when their intel was this good. It's also worth noting that in 1943 that the Germans totally didn't expect any invasion of France. The delay to '44 in fact was what made all the spent effort on Fortitude necessary in the first place, because the Germans knew for certain that an invasion was coming in '44.

Even largely unopposed landings had a way of going badly if circumstances didn't come together- as at Anzio. Given that there was no realistic way for the Allied beachhead to expand and fully liberate France before running into heavy German resistance, I think it understandable that the British overestimated by making assumptions in terms of what would be needed for the Allies to land and sustain a force capable of breaking that resistance.

Anzio failed because British strategy moronically advocated going into Italy, which was mountainous and therefore minimized the advantages of a fully motorized American Army. The point of a lodgement isn't that it's easy to defend so that you aren't thrown back. Doing that just creates a virtual prison camp for the enemy. You have to be able to do something from that lodgement other than just beat off enemy counter-attacks.

A lodgement in Normandy by contrast is a totally different thing, because if the Allies manage to break out they can run wild through France like they did in '44 - no mountains to slow down the American tank Divisions. Meanwhile, actually eliminating the lodgement was basically hopeless - because now it's the Germans bleeding into the bocage and against the British Army at its peak. And all the while the Allies get to keep dropping more and more troops to the beaches and a relatively undefended Cherbourg.

This is why Sicily/Italy was the loser strategy. There was never any threat of it becoming a rout like France for the German Army, while the Normandy lodgement itself was actually pretty secure for the Allies.

The American strategy was simple. Make an army that can win in France, transport it across the ocean, and have it battle the German Army at the first opportunity in terms that favored it. Normandy '43 fulfilled all of these conditions in a way that Husky/Italy did not. This is why 1943 was in many ways the "lost" year of the war.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So, if the Mulberries weren't needed, why were so many supplies landed through the one that remained intact for months? Those 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tonnes of supplies were minorly important.

What happens when Cherbourg is wrecked and wrecks are scuttled into the harbour during the fighting that take months to clear?

I will address the logistics in more detail later; I'm preparing for an interview today. That said the US forces in 1943 were still blundering around in amphibious landings with Tarawa-style massacres and an assault which needs to capture a port brings us back to Dieppe.

You also seem to think that a heavy Soviet counterattack would still develop at Kursk if the Germans simply fell back to drive the allies into the sea -- which is actually possible, because if Hitler defeats this attempt he may expect to be able to reach peace with the allies to continue prosecuting the war with the Soviet Union. The "No Retreat" order was at least somewhat fungible--and here we start running into the real problems of counterfactuals.

[Zinegata]

So, if the Mulberries weren't needed, why were so many supplies landed through the one that remained intact for months? Those 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tonnes of supplies were minorly important.

First of all, this is a prime example of quoting numbers without context. You're talking about 4 million tons of supplies landed over a period of ten months. That's an average throughput of 50,000 vehicles and 400,000 tons of supplies a month, or 12,500 vehicles and 100,000 tons of supplies a week.

By contrast, in the first five days of the invasion alone 50,000 vehicles and 100,000 tons of supplies were landed without needing any Mulberries and some of the beaches still being under fire.

Really, look at the context, not at the British excuse-making numbers. Having a lot of zeroes does not make it anywhere near a necessity. Its effect was not much more than one of the many minor ports along Normandy that the Allies also captured and put to use. It was not a replacement for Cherbourg; it was just a way to land stuff a little faster without getting the troop's feet wet.

What happens when Cherbourg is wrecked and wrecks are scuttled into the harbour during the fighting that take months to clear?

Taking Cherbourg in 1944 took months to clear because it had an actual garrison and landward-facing defenses. In 1943 the garrison was threadbare and there were no fixed defenses yet. So you're assuming that the Allies would have to be especially incompetent, be delayed longer than in '44 in the face of inferior defenders with inferior equipment, for th port to be demolished. And this is while the British Army was at its peak and the US Army wasn't made up of green replacements yet.

I will address the logistics in more detail later; I'm preparing for an interview today. That said the US forces in 1943 were still blundering around in amphibious landings with Tarawa-style massacres and an assault which needs to capture a port brings us back to Dieppe.

You mean like how Husky totally went off without a hitch despite ships coming under air attack, or that whole drama at Anzio where the German counter-fatuals keep claiming the Americans could have been thrown to the sea when in reality it only served as an abject demonstration of how powerless armored counter-attacks are in the fact of naval fire support?

Also, Tarawa is an assault against a prepared beach defense. You're talking about an open, largely undefended Normandy coast in 1943. No concrete bunkers, no mines, no Rommel's asparaguses. Not even MG nests in most cases. Again, this is just context-switching. Normandy was not Tarawa in 1943.

You also seem to think that a heavy Soviet counterattack would still develop at Kursk if the Germans simply fell back to drive the allies into the sea -- which is actually possible, because if Hitler defeats this attempt he may expect to be able to reach peace with the allies to continue prosecuting the war with the Soviet Union. The "No Retreat" order was at least somewhat fungible--and here we start running into the real problems of counterfactuals.

I don't think you have any idea of how the East Front actually worked if you think the Soviets wouldn't launch offensives in May-July of 1943 when the Ukraine and Belorussia was still in German hands just because the Germans didn't attack as planned at Kursk. This isn't counter-factual. This is you denying the actual character and operational tempo of the Red Army.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I am saying that Hitler may have allowed a withdrawal to dress the lines along a shorter perimeter, rendering it very hard to prepare an offensive quickly because of logistics concerns on the Soviet part because it takes time to prepare an offensive from new jumping off points, if he thought he could quickly defeat the western allies and then concentrate entirely upon the Soviet Union. You blatantly ignored that.

Now, on this dead zombie of a message board, don't be so hasty. I need time to answer these points.

[Simon_Jester]

They did not know the exact disposition of German defenses or reserves, and in many cases planned for contingencies worse than what they historically faced.

Uh I'm pretty sure that they knew that there were no beach defenses yet - just a few flights over France would easily reveal that - and it's kinda well known that the Germans only had twenty or so Divisions in France and they were mainly dregs in the midst of rebuilding.

The Allies at the time could not easily predict in advance the Germans' ability to shift forces between fronts (indeed, the less ability the Germans had to do that, the less point there would be in launching Roundup* at all). They could know the defenses were weak, but could not be sure how mobile the German response would be.

I'm not sure at that time they even knew exactly how many divisions the Germans were prepared to field, or how many were available to be dispatched to the front. Certainly this information would not have been available during the planning sessions at which, historically, the Allies decided not to stage a 1943 invasion of France.

*Again, to clarify, "Roundup" is the term normally used at the time for a 1943 Normandy invasion.

D-Day is not a "try once" thing. Moreover, those best combat troops ended up not participating in 1944 anyway because they were frittered on the Italian Front.

Fair point in that they were not available for Overlord, although to a large extent the US's training establishment was producing increasing numbers of troops and there were just plain more effective formations available total in 1944.

On the other hand, while the Normandy landings were not strictly a 'try once thing,' a failure in the landings would be a military disaster of the first order, and the losses inflicted could easily make it difficult if not impossible for a follow-up invasion to happen in anything like a short time.

The Allies knew about Citadel after the Germans planned for it to happen, that is, after March 1943. The Germans themselves didn't know it was going to happen much before then. No ULTRA intercept can tell you about an upcoming offensive your enemy has not yet decided to launch!

Simon, the Soviets knew the exact hour the Citadelle offensive was going to start, through a combination of human intelligence and intercepts. They knew to such a precise degree that they managed to launch a spoling barrage which left the Germans bewildered and thinking the Soviets had coincidentally decided to attack at the exact same time. Basically everyone knew that Citadelle was going to happen in May - Jul of 1943 because it was blindingly obvious that an offensive this was the only way Germany could hope to win a victory in the East in '43, and the date of attack was determined by the end of the thaws which turned the terrain into mud.

Why do you think "they knew the hour the attack would start" negates "information about the timing of the attack was not available until March or April of 1943?"

My point is that the planning for Roundup necessarily had to start in 1942, and the decision about whether or not to commit to that attack basically had to be made by late winter or early spring of 1943. For Roundup* to happen in time to coincide with Citadel, at least with any combat-experienced formations on the Allied side, the Allies would have had to rush troops out of Tunisia as quickly as possible, shift them to Britain, and prepare them rather quickly for amphibious landings under Channel conditions.

Preparations to do this would necessarily have needed to be made well before the victory in Tunisia... that is, in March or April of 1943. At a time when even the Germans were still debating the Citadel attack.

Historically, the decision to commit to not commit to Roundup was made in the summer of 1942, when the troops and amphibious assets required to make the plan work were earmarked for Operation Torch.

That was before Stalingrad, let alone before Kursk!

To time an amphibious assault to coincide with the Germans' Kursk offensive, the Allies would either have had to employ a psychic to predict the state of the 1943 Eastern Front even before the 1942 campaigns had resolved, or they would have had to hold their entire armed forces in reserve hoping the right circumstances would emerge at some point in 1943 so they'd be ready to attack on a month's notice.

The latter plan may sound good because it allows the possibility of decisive action. But for people without benefit of hindsight or psychics, it's a risky strategy. Because if the opportunity does not arise, then there is never going to be a good time for the Allies to launch a diversionary offensive into Normandy, in which case the entire US/British force in the European Theater is basically spending their time doing nothing all year.

At least by attacking Sicily and Italy, the Allies took the third-largest Axis power out of the war entirely and forced at least some German troops to fight. Even Stalin viewed this as some contribution, whereas he would have taken a very dim view of the Allies saying:

"Yeah, our army is waiting in Britain for just the right moment. We'll land when we happen to know exactly when the Germans are going to overcommit to a major attack on your forces. Or within a few weeks of that date, tides permitting. Assuming everything goes according to plan."

I do not see how they could have mistimed Normandy '43 when their intel was this good.

The decision about when to launch the attack would have had to be made before the intel existed, because the decision was made before the Germans themselves had decided to launch the attack referenced by the intel.

Again, no strategist, no ULTRA codebreaker, no highly placed spy in the Wehrmacht, can inform you of an upcoming attack the enemy has not yet decided to launch!

Even largely unopposed landings had a way of going badly if circumstances didn't come together- as at Anzio. Given that there was no realistic way for the Allied beachhead to expand and fully liberate France before running into heavy German resistance, I think it understandable that the British overestimated by making assumptions in terms of what would be needed for the Allies to land and sustain a force capable of breaking that resistance.

Anzio failed because British strategy moronically advocated going into Italy, which was mountainous and therefore minimized the advantages of a fully motorized American Army. The point of a lodgement isn't that it's easy to defend so that you aren't thrown back. Doing that just creates a virtual prison camp for the enemy. You have to be able to do something from that lodgement other than just beat off enemy counter-attacks.

A lodgement in Normandy by contrast is a totally different thing, because if the Allies manage to break out they can run wild through France like they did in '44 - no mountains to slow down the American tank Divisions. Meanwhile, actually eliminating the lodgement was basically hopeless - because now it's the Germans bleeding into the bocage and against the British Army at its peak. And all the while the Allies get to keep dropping more and more troops to the beaches and a relatively undefended Cherbourg.

While it is easy to be confident about this in hindsight

Let us separate two propositions:
1) "A 1943 Normandy offensive would have worked pretty well!"
2) "The British were idiots for opposing such an offensive!"

I maintain that (1) is true but (2) is not. Granted that invading mainland Italy and committing to making it a major campaign on into 1944 wasn't such a smart move either. But there were good reasons, at the time the decisions were made, to doubt the wisdom of an attack into Normandy in 1943.

[Zinegata]

I am saying that Hitler may have allowed a withdrawal to dress the lines along a shorter perimeter, rendering it very hard to prepare an offensive quickly because of logistics concerns on the Soviet part because it takes time to prepare an offensive from new jumping off points, if he thought he could quickly defeat the western allies and then concentrate entirely upon the Soviet Union. You blatantly ignored that.

Now, on this dead zombie of a message board, don't be so hasty. I need time to answer these points.

You have to be very specific about these supposed withdrawal lines, because the reality of 1943 is that the German army kept trying and failing to hold up the Soviet advance. The period between Kursk and Bagration is the "lost year" of the Eastern Front because the German Army didn't like to talk about it, whereas we're only recently finding out how this was actually a hugely successful year for the Soviets in terms of offensive success; with the Red Army essentially liberating all of Ukraine.

The Allies at the time could not easily predict in advance the Germans' ability to shift forces between fronts (indeed, the less ability the Germans had to do that, the less point there would be in launching Roundup* at all). They could know the defenses were weak, but could not be sure how mobile the German response would be.

I'm not sure at that time they even knew exactly how many divisions the Germans were prepared to field, or how many were available to be dispatched to the front. Certainly this information would not have been available during the planning sessions at which, historically, the Allies decided not to stage a 1943 invasion of France.

*Again, to clarify, "Roundup" is the term normally used at the time for a 1943 Normandy invasion.

That's in part because it was already decided in '42 to cancel Normandy '43. Yet when landing in Sicily they had a very good idea of what forces they were going to face. You're simply overestimating the lack of Allied intelligence assets.

Fair point in that they were not available for Overlord, although to a large extent the US's training establishment was producing increasing numbers of troops and there were just plain more effective formations available total in 1944.

The problem is that the new formations were not necessarily much more effective precisely because they spent a year essentially doing nothing; and what veteran troops that were had tended to be frittered on the Italian Front. The Allies actually had better formations in 1943 than in 1944 for the first wave.

On the other hand, while the Normandy landings were not strictly a 'try once thing,' a failure in the landings would be a military disaster of the first order, and the losses inflicted could easily make it difficult if not impossible for a follow-up invasion to happen in anything like a short time.

The Germans basically had very little chance of throwing back the invasion in the first place. People agian love to play up the drama of D-day but in reality they were ready to abandon Omaha and just reroute everyone to Utah if necessary. Similarly, all the scares about Panzers running wild on the beaches is overblown when they never even got to within naval fire range to again test out whether armored counter-attacks can actually survive massed naval gunfire.

Moreover, with almost no enemies to stop them you're really looking at the Allies not merely storming the Normandy beaches, but actually taking St Lo and Caen before any meaningful German reinforcements could arrive. That would put the Allies well within bocage country which is ideal for defense, while the Germans would have to defend open ground. That's better than in '44.

My point is that the planning for Roundup necessarily had to start in 1942

I never agued that they could shift from Husky to Normandy once the decision had been made to cancel Roundup in 1942. What I said is that it was mainly British politicking and extremely bad military logic that resulted in Husky being chosen over Round Up. And that arguing that the Allies couldn't count on the Germans or the Soviets launching an offensive in May-Jul is essentially contradicting the very nature of the Eastern Front. May-Jul is the period right after the Spring Thaw. One side or the other was going to attack because they've had months to build up while the ground was too muddy for offensive operations; and in fact in 41/42 both sides were attacking during this period. Pretending you need a psychic to know this is silly especially when they could literally just ask the Soviets "hey do you guys do major offensives in May-Jul"?

Still, the planning didn't take as long as people suppose. Husky's planning apparently only really began in earnest in February of 1943. It took only half a year to launch what was the biggest actual amphibious invasion of the war.

So as late as February 1943 - right after Casablance - they could have in fact invaded Normandy if the Americans had just ignored the British and their idiotic strategy. That they didn't and 60 years of British propaganda have just combined to make everyone think that Normandy 1943 wasn't possible when in fact it was very possible and by all accounts had a better shot at succeeding than in 1944. Every beach in 1943 would have been like Utah in 1944.

But there were good reasons, at the time the decisions were made, to doubt the wisdom of an attack into Normandy in 1943.

There were good reasons to doubt, but almost all of the commonly cited reasons in the present day are complete nonesense. Not enough landing craft? Untrue, Husky landed more troops on the first day than on D-day. Lack of complete uncontested air superiority? Husky did all that while the fleet was under air attack. German counter-attack will crush inexperienced Americans and Brits? Their formations in 1943 were more experienced than the ones who landed in 1944, while the Germans had no real beach defenses yet!

Moreover, much of the "doubt" was self-created by a plainly bad and retarded British strategy. The American Army, since 1940, had been built from the ground up to fight tank-infantry battles in France. Britain, with a Churchill obsessed with reliving the Peninsular Wars, kept looking for secondary operations that would have a minimal risk of being thrown back due to bad terrain, but had an equally minimal risk of making any real progress against the Wermacht. Landing said army anywhere but France was simply bad military logic.

The only valid reasons for doubt was that they hadn't done such big invasions before, and there were questions on whether everything can come together on the first go in 1942. But by that logic there was no need to fritter away further strength once there were already "proof of concepts" after Torch - which actually landed some troops all the way from America to North Africa.

In short, Normandy 1943 didn't happen because Allied generalship got cold feet, and they ran to a bad alternative strategy for want of pretending they were doing "something". It was never a problem of logistics, landing craft, or combat experience of ground forces. It's this harsh reality that sixty years of D-day mythology has been trying to cover up.

[Simon_Jester]

[To clarify, although Zinegata didn't spell it out, the bulk of his post is responses to me, not Duchess]

The Allies at the time could not easily predict in advance the Germans' ability to shift forces between fronts (indeed, the less ability the Germans had to do that, the less point there would be in launching Roundup* at all). They could know the defenses were weak, but could not be sure how mobile the German response would be.

I'm not sure at that time they even knew exactly how many divisions the Germans were prepared to field, or how many were available to be dispatched to the front. Certainly this information would not have been available during the planning sessions at which, historically, the Allies decided not to stage a 1943 invasion of France.

*Again, to clarify, "Roundup" is the term normally used at the time for a 1943 Normandy invasion.

That's in part because it was already decided in '42 to cancel Normandy '43. Yet when landing in Sicily they had a very good idea of what forces they were going to face. You're simply overestimating the lack of Allied intelligence assets.

Perhaps. Although I must note that Sicily is an island, limited in size by its very nature. There are only so many places on the island to park soldiers, and new soldiers cannot be easily shipped in once the island is heavily invested by enemy air and naval forces. So once you know how many soldiers are physically standing in Sicily, you know all that really matters- the theater of operations can be isolated from enemy reinforcement.

Normandy can only be isolated from enemy reinforcement through very heavy strategic bombing of the surrounding transportation infrastructure, and Allied strategic bombing was less developed in mid-1943 than in mid-1944. Therefore, there was a considerable risk that troops the Germans might have anywhere in Europe could get thrown in to oppose a beachhead. In hindsight we can dismiss that risk by noting that during the timeframe proposed for Roundup, the Germans were busy doing something else. But that could not be predicted in advance.

You plan for the capabilities you expect your enemy to have when they're at their best. Not for the capabilities they'll have if they just happen by good fortune to commit their reserves elsewhere a week or two before your attack.

Fair point in that they were not available for Overlord, although to a large extent the US's training establishment was producing increasing numbers of troops and there were just plain more effective formations available total in 1944.

The problem is that the new formations were not necessarily much more effective precisely because they spent a year essentially doing nothing; and what veteran troops that were had tended to be frittered on the Italian Front. The Allies actually had better formations in 1943 than in 1944 for the first wave.

Conceding this point.

On the other hand, while the Normandy landings were not strictly a 'try once thing,' a failure in the landings would be a military disaster of the first order, and the losses inflicted could easily make it difficult if not impossible for a follow-up invasion to happen in anything like a short time.

The Germans basically had very little chance of throwing back the invasion in the first place. People agian love to play up the drama of D-day but in reality they were ready to abandon Omaha and just reroute everyone to Utah if necessary. Similarly, all the scares about Panzers running wild on the beaches is overblown when they never even got to within naval fire range to again test out whether armored counter-attacks can actually survive massed naval gunfire.

Again, we must separate the two claims:

1) A 1943 Normandy attack would probably have worked, and
2) It was foolish not to launch such an attack.

These are logically distinct claims. Being worried about a German counterattack was not illogical when the Allies had little or no practical experience with successful amphibious assaults.

Remember, the most recent historically relevant example for the Normandy landings in mid-1942 was the Gallipoli Offensive. Or possibly the Dieppe Raid and/or Guadalcanal.

None of which would give the Allies much confidence in being able to get large fighting forces ashore quickly and not only succeed in repelling counterattacks but rapidly 'puff up' their beachhead into a territory that would be defensible in pitched battles against army-scale German formations.

We can prove (1), and you have done quite a bit of diligent work in doing so. But proving (2) requires that we show that the British were mistaken in light of what was known at the time. Not in light of things that were then mysterious imponderables about which no one had any first-hand experience.

Moreover, with almost no enemies to stop them you're really looking at the Allies not merely storming the Normandy beaches, but actually taking St Lo and Caen before any meaningful German reinforcements could arrive. That would put the Allies well within bocage country which is ideal for defense, while the Germans would have to defend open ground. That's better than in '44.

Point, and that might well be something we could reasonably expect the Allies to foresee... maybe. Assuming no irrational overreaction to Dieppe.

My point is that the planning for Roundup necessarily had to start in 1942

I never agued that they could shift from Husky to Normandy once the decision had been made to cancel Roundup in 1942. What I said is that it was mainly British politicking and extremely bad military logic that resulted in Husky being chosen over Round Up. And that arguing that the Allies couldn't count on the Germans or the Soviets launching an offensive in May-Jul is essentially contradicting the very nature of the Eastern Front. May-Jul is the period right after the Spring Thaw. One side or the other was going to attack because they've had months to build up while the ground was too muddy for offensive operations; and in fact in 41/42 both sides were attacking during this period. Pretending you need a psychic to know this is silly especially when they could literally just ask the Soviets "hey do you guys do major offensives in May-Jul"?

You don't need a psychic to know there will be heavy fighting on the Eastern Front in the late spring and early summer of 1943. You do, however, need a psychic to predict the exact timing of a major offensive the enemy hasn't decided to launch yet. Or to know in advance whether the enemy will have to commit literally their entire reserve... or whether there will be some left over to drop a few inconveniently placed panzer divisions and several divisions of infantry into the area you plan to invade, a few months before the invasion arrives.

Still, the planning didn't take as long as people suppose. Husky's planning apparently only really began in earnest in February of 1943. It took only half a year to launch what was the biggest actual amphibious invasion of the war.

Since the key assets to do this were, as I recall, already in theater anyway because of Torch... not surprised.

So as late as February 1943 - right after Casablance - they could have in fact invaded Normandy if the Americans had just ignored the British and their idiotic strategy. That they didn't and 60 years of British propaganda have just combined to make everyone think that Normandy 1943 wasn't possible when in fact it was very possible and by all accounts had a better shot at succeeding than in 1944. Every beach in 1943 would have been like Utah in 1944.

Conceded- it would have worked, in retrospect. However, I think the British were not exactly unreasonable to doubt whether it would have worked, given how much they did not know and could not realistically know at the time.

Also, just because the Allies could have decided in February 1943 to scrap Husky and invade France, that doesn't mean they could have invaded France at the same historical date they launched Husky. Roundup might well have needed to be postponed by that point, in which case it hits in fall 1943, not summer.

But there were good reasons, at the time the decisions were made, to doubt the wisdom of an attack into Normandy in 1943.

There were good reasons to doubt, but almost all of the commonly cited reasons in the present day are complete nonesense. Not enough landing craft? Untrue, Husky landed more troops on the first day than on D-day. Lack of complete uncontested air superiority? Husky did all that while the fleet was under air attack. German counter-attack will crush inexperienced Americans and Brits? Their formations in 1943 were more experienced than the ones who landed in 1944, while the Germans had no real beach defenses yet!

Moreover, much of the "doubt" was self-created by a plainly bad and retarded British strategy. The American Army, since 1940, had been built from the ground up to fight tank-infantry battles in France. Britain, with a Churchill obsessed with reliving the Peninsular Wars, kept looking for secondary operations that would have a minimal risk of being thrown back due to bad terrain, but had an equally minimal risk of making any real progress against the Wermacht. Landing said army anywhere but France was simply bad military logic.

So your argument is that Churchill's ideas for how to employ the US army were unwise in light of the composition and doctrine of the US army. Right?

In short, Normandy 1943 didn't happen because Allied generalship got cold feet, and they ran to a bad alternative strategy for want of pretending they were doing "something". It was never a problem of logistics, landing craft, or combat experience of ground forces. It's this harsh reality that sixty years of D-day mythology has been trying to cover up.

My perception is that the decision not to launch Roundup was made because it was seen as a major gamble, which at the time was not supported by much if any experience. This was before Stalingrad, before Torch, before victory at Guadalcanal- hell, Rommel was still an active threat in North Africa at the time the decision to focus on the Med in 1943 was made...

Meanwhile, the US Army was all ready to go and fight a decisive battle despite having minimal experience in direct combat with the enemy... while the British, accustomed to fighting effectively alone, had been doing literally nothing but nibble at the periphery for the past two to three years.

For two allied combatants in a strategy session to advocate different approaches in light of such wildly different types and degrees of war experience is... hardly surprising or foolish.