D-Day 1943

Tolls

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This was something brought up on another forum by some unreconstructed Marxist, that the WAllies had no practical reason not to land in France in 1943, bringing DDay back a year or so. The only reason for not doing so was something along the lines of wanting the Soviets to do all the heavy lifting and Churchill wanting to turn the Med into a British pond (or somesuch).

Anyway, that got me thinking what people here thought of it. What the pitfalls would have been.

For me, it was the flaws in the command and logistical structures highlighted by Torch and Sicily, and the need for more training. Also the lack of certain kit. I believe there would only have been parts for a single Mulberry, for example. Throw in no Transport Plan (in all likelihood), lack of air superiority, and the Battle of the Atlantic only turning the corner in April/May.

I read Grigg (1943: The Victory that Never Was) several years ago and remember being unimpressed by his arguments as a whole. It did highlight some interesting operational drift in 1943, but not something that could have been turned around (IMO) into a '43 invasion.

So...have at it!

...or not.
 
The D-Day invasion fleet consisted of more than 4,000 ships capable of crossing the Channel under their own power. That fleet didn't exist in such numbers a year earlier. The folks who casually state that the invasion could have come a year earlier have no concept of the amount of material needed or the number of men who had to be on England to make an attack become something other than another Dieppe.
 
Sometimes the Soviet worshipers like to ignore the fact that all their war material could be driven straight out the factory door and to the front. Its a little different when you've got, y'know, an OCEAN in the way.
 
kookbreaker said:
Sometimes the Soviet worshipers like to ignore the fact that all their war material could be driven straight out the factory door and to the front. Its a little different when you've got, y'know, an OCEAN in the way.
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Not to mention the fact that we had another war to fight at the same time. Three if you count North Africa/Italy.
 
Gawdzilla said:
The D-Day invasion fleet consisted of more than 4,000 ships capable of crossing the Channel under their own power. That fleet didn't exist in such numbers a year earlier. The folks who casually state that the invasion could have come a year earlier have no concept of the amount of material needed or the number of men who had to be on England to make an attack become something other than another Dieppe.
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Grigg (IIRC) argued that the day 1 landing capacity for Sicily was on a par with Overlord. Not convinced its follow up capacity was anything approaching the same, though. There were most certainly not 4000 ships involved!

He also argues that this would have been instead of Sicily, and Tunisia would have been left to rot. Actually, I think he argues for an earlier Torch, t provide enough time to transfer everything. But I'd go with Bradley who, I believe, started out as a "land in France ASAP" proponent and then, after seeing what happened around Torch went with "this needs a lot more planning".

Anyone know what the balance of air power would have been like? My gut says "not good", but I have no figures.
 
While it would have been possible for the Western Allies to land in 1943, or even sooner, however it would have been disastrous to do so.

After all, the vast amounts of supplies, personnel, intelligence, and other such things were not availble until about mid-1944.
 
kookbreaker said:
Sometimes the Soviet worshipers like to ignore the fact that all their war material could be driven straight out the factory door and to the front. Its a little different when you've got, y'know, an OCEAN in the way.
Click to expand...

:)
Re-reading this reminded me that this was the same chap who (a few years ago) decided that it was only the Soviet army that had prevented the Nazis from invading Alaska. I spent a little bit of time explaining how it was exceedingly unlikely the Germans could have even made it to the Soviet Far East, let alone somehow put together a naval force capable of landing anything of value. His grasp of logistics is questionable.
 
Tolls said:
Grigg (IIRC) argued that the day 1 landing capacity for Sicily was on a par with Overlord. Not convinced its follow up capacity was anything approaching the same, though. There were most certainly not 4000 ships involved!
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We put five division ashore on Sicily in four hours?
He also argues that this would have been instead of Sicily, and Tunisia would have been left to rot. Actually, I think he argues for an earlier Torch, t provide enough time to transfer everything. But I'd go with Bradley who, I believe, started out as a "land in France ASAP" proponent and then, after seeing what happened around Torch went with "this needs a lot more planning".

Anyone know what the balance of air power would have been like? My gut says "not good", but I have no figures.
Click to expand...
Cross-channel Attack should have info.
 
Given the extent to which Stalin's policies knowingly, cynically, and opportunistically enabled Hitler's aggression, and the extent to which Nazi Germany and the USSR were de facto allies at the start of the war, I think it's entirely reasonable that a) the Allies should have had little compunction about letting Soviet Russia take its lumps while they made complete preparations for an offensive in the west, and b) that the Allies would vastly prefer to prevent the USSR from gaining a strategic foothold in the Mediterranean.

That said, I think the Allies probably wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, and came across the Channel the moment they thought they had a chance of success.
 
I don't know how reliable this is, but according to this Wiki article the impetus for invading Sicily/Italy in 1943 came from the British:

At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, with the end of the North African Campaign in sight, the political leaders and the military Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. and Britain met to discuss future strategy. The British Chiefs of Staff were in favour of an invasion of Sicily or Sardinia, arguing that it would force Germany to disperse its forces and might knock Italy out of the war and move Turkey to join the Allies.[22] At first, the Americans opposed the plan as opportunistic and irrelevant, but were persuaded to agree to a Sicilian invasion on the grounds of the great saving to Allied shipping that would result from the opening of the Mediterranean by the removal of Axis air and naval forces from the island
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_Sicily

It's not clear whether the Americans preferred an invasion of the Italian mainland, Greece or a landing in Northern France.

Reading a little more about the Casablanca Conference:

Roosevelt, with advice from General George Catlett Marshall, US Army Chief of Staff, and Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, lobbied for a cross channel invasion of Europe. Churchill felt the time was not opportune, and favored an Allied assault on Sicily moving in through Italy.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_Conference

So maybe some U.S. generals were in favour of a 1943 cross channel invasion.
 
The Tunisian campaign hadn't ended by that point (Casablanca), Kasserine was a month away. That seemed to have an effect, at least on Bradley.

I think if the US really thought there was a good chance of success they would have made more of an effort.

And I think I answered my own question on the Luftwaffe. The campaign over Germany didn't yield major results until sufficient long range fighters were available, so March '44 ish.
 
Oooh, nice.

Oh, and we put 7 ashore on the first day of Husky.
I think it took longer to land them all, though.
The numbers were similar to DDay?
But I doubt there was the support.

The joy of trying to remember stuff...
 
Tolls said:
Oooh, nice.

Oh, and we put 7 ashore on the first day of Husky.
I think it took longer to land them all, though.
The numbers were similar to DDay?
But I doubt there was the support.

The joy of trying to remember stuff...
Click to expand...

We put five ashore in the first wave of the Normandy invasion. Those four thousand ships were most landing craft, which should give you an idea of what the first day's landings entailed.
 
Tolls said:
This was something brought up on another forum by some unreconstructed Marxist, that the WAllies had no practical reason not to land in France in 1943, bringing DDay back a year or so. The only reason for not doing so was something along the lines of wanting the Soviets to do all the heavy lifting and Churchill wanting to turn the Med into a British pond (or somesuch).

Anyway, that got me thinking what people here thought of it. What the pitfalls would have been.

For me, it was the flaws in the command and logistical structures highlighted by Torch and Sicily, and the need for more training. Also the lack of certain kit. I believe there would only have been parts for a single Mulberry, for example. Throw in no Transport Plan (in all likelihood), lack of air superiority, and the Battle of the Atlantic only turning the corner in April/May.

I read Grigg (1943: The Victory that Never Was) several years ago and remember being unimpressed by his arguments as a whole. It did highlight some interesting operational drift in 1943, but not something that could have been turned around (IMO) into a '43 invasion.

So...have at it!

...or not.
Click to expand...


Who is this Marxist you speak of, He is obviously lacking many historical facts on which I would be happy to enlighten him!
 
Hindsight is always 20/20. Since I wasn't there, I give much credit to those who were, who planned the invasion for 1944, and it worked. As far as I'm concerned, that settles it.
 
Gawdzilla said:
I've seen the same thing many times. Usually in a sulky tone of voice, of course. "You westerners let the Soviet Union bleed for you while taking it easy!" Da. Better you than me, comrade.
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But what Stalin didn't know, and what he would not have understood where some of the fantastic plots Bletchley Park came up with to ensure everything worked when it should without which the landings would have not have been the great success they where, all of which took many months if not years of meticulous planning by the allies.
The Russians where left out of the big secrets, Churchill was absolutely right when he did this.


https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Operation+mincemeat
Operation Fortitude
Operation Taxable, Glimmer, and Big Drum
Operations using “Mandrel”

“From the night of June 4-5, 1944, the specialist RCM aircraft of 100 (BS) Group, (Lancasters and Halifaxes, including USAAF B-17 Fortresses of 803 Squadron, which were attached to 100 Group, set up a radar jamming `Mandrel screen’ to cover the invasion fleet from the `eyes’ of those German radars which had survived the earlier attacks by Allied fighter bombers”.



This history is truly amazing, yet few know of it.
 
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