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re: A seriously underrated aspect of D-Day and the Allied offensive in France
Posted on 6/6/19 at 2:07 pm to eitek1
Posted on 6/6/19 at 2:07 pm to eitek1
quote:
To a man they said they knew the war was as good as lost by the end of the day. The general sentiment was that there was no way to defeat an army that was so well equipped and in such abundance. What most people don't realize was that all during the war a large portion of the German army was still "horse drawn". They didn't have vehicles for everything like we did.
The Germans had panzers and U boats but otherwise were very far behind technologically. Usually the panzers had to stop and wait 2 days for those on horseback and on foot to catch up when invading a country.
Germany lacked the necessary ports, raw materials, and oil to ramp up a war machine from the onset. Their entire plan hinges on Blitzkrieg warfare which meant taking over weak nations quickly and decisively and using their resources to keep their war machine going and hopefully become technologically superior before Russia, Britain, and the US had time to overwhelm them.
Had Japan not attacked the US when they did, Germany likely would have succeeded because they had Britain on the ropes and would then have focused all manpower on the USSR. But alas they brought us into it, and the US had a huge population with every resource known to man and infrastructure not afftected by the war. Within months we had a war machine superior to Germany in every way and the rest was history
1
Posted on 6/6/19 at 2:32 pm to VolsOut4Harambe
quote:
was the geographical challenges stacked against the Allies
quote:
A seriously underrated aspect of D-Day and the Allied offensive in France
What are you talking about. Literally every piece on D-Day talks about all of that.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 2:42 pm to VolsOut4Harambe
quote:
Western France (and most of France in general) is mainly fields bordered by hedges or thin patches of woods. In other words, perfect for camping defenses to pick off advancing offensives.
The hedgerows were visible in the overhead photos the Allies used to study the area. However, there was a problem. In England these types of hedges were generally very short--they could see past them, step over them, etc. What the overhead photos didn't show was the the hedgerows in France were often very high, averaging 15 feet or so. Made for impossible visibilty, enemy hiding places, and difficult maneuvering.
quote:
Dudes had huge balls to get off the boats and storm the beach, can’t imagine the doors dropping and looking out and seeing what they saw.
Eisenhower wanted younger, newer troops in the first wave. Kids who didn't know what they were up against vs. battle-weary soldiers. He figured those who hadn't yet seen the horrors of war yet would wade right in (no pun intended).
Posted on 6/6/19 at 2:48 pm to deltaland
quote:
Within months we had a war machine superior to Germany in every way
No, it took years for us to get there. We spent 1941-1943 providing our allies with resources while strengthening ours. I understand you were trying to talk about how we built a superior army which we did but it took a lot longer than months.
Also, Germany had the most sophisticated army in the world at the start of the war which by the way was in 1939 for Germany. The term blitzkreig was coined to talk about how fast and efficient the German army was and nobody in the world could keep up. This is why they had so much earlier success
1930’s before shite hit the fan, the majority of America supported the movement in Germany but when China invaded Mongolia, the US started beefing up military. We weren’t close to being ready for war which is why it took us 2.5 years to fully get involved in the war.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:06 pm to VolsOut4Harambe
The Germans used the geography to their advantage but really the deck was stacked against the defenders in every other respect. I'd have much rather been on the invading side than the defending side from a pure survival point of view in June of 1944.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:12 pm to deltaland
More likely to be a 7.92mm running by your head
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:13 pm to parrotdr
quote:No French refuges or people who has been to France could have told them they were tall?
What the overhead photos didn't show was the the hedgerows in France were often very high, averaging 15 feet or so. Made for impossible visibilty, enemy hiding places, and difficult maneuvering.
This post was edited on 6/6/19 at 3:14 pm
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:21 pm to VolsOut4Harambe
quote:
the geographical challenges stacked against the Allies.
The Rangers at Pointe du Hoc
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:35 pm to VolsOut4Harambe
If you want to talk about a seriously underrated aspect of the D Day invasion, you need to familiarize yourself with Juan Pujol García, also known by his codename Garbo. He was a Spanish double agent, working for both the Nazis and the Allies. He wasn't actually a spy though and had zero training in intelligence or espionage. His entire network of subagents were mere inventions of his mind. He was so convincing though that the allies were able to use him and his "network" to convince the Germans that the D Day invasion was a decoy. The other underrated aspect of Garbo was that because the Allies had his original transmissions to the Germans each day, they had great insight into the set up of the German enigma code for the day. This allowed the allies to decode other German intelligence in real time.
LINK
LINK
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:42 pm to Blizzard of Chizz
quote:
No French refuges or people who has been to France could have told them they were tall?
You would think so, and I'm sure their intelligence could not have been a COMPLETE failure in this regard, but in the history I've read of these battles this issue comes up.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:51 pm to VolsOut4Harambe
If the Germans just let Rommel do his thing the outcome could have been totally different
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:58 pm to jimbeam
quote:
No French refuges or people who has been to France could have told them they were tall?
It wasn’t just a matter of them being tall. Those hedgerows had been there hundreds of years. They were extremely dense and impossible to penetrate. It wasn’t until a soldier who was a farmer back home had the bright idea to weld pieces of scrap iron to a tank and essentially turn it into a bush hog that the allies were able to break out of the hedgerows.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 3:59 pm to eitek1
quote:
To your point, one of the Germans fell back to a strong hold in a manor. They started getting hammered by rocket fire from P-47's. The German thought, this will let up in a minute. They got hit by sortie after sortie for 4 solid hours. He knew at the point it was over for Germany.
Reminds me of this WWII joke:
A "green" sentry asks his CO how can he identify approaching troops in the dark or under low visibility conditions.
His CO answered:
You can identify an unknown force by firing one shot and judging the response. If the unknowns respond with precise, regimented rifle fire, they are British. If they respond with heavy machine gun fire, they are German. But if nothing happens for a few minutes, then your whole position gets leveled by artillery, they are American.
If they surrender, they're French.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 4:02 pm to wartiger2004
quote:Yall are insufferable
This latest generation of pansies we have produced would never be able to do this again.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 4:02 pm to Blizzard of Chizz
I am well aware of that. I just don’t know how we didn’t prepare or at least know about the scale of the hedgerows.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 4:06 pm to jimbeam
quote:
It wasn’t just a matter of them being tall. Those hedgerows had been there hundreds of years. They were extremely dense and impossible to penetrate. It wasn’t until a soldier who was a farmer back home had the bright idea to weld pieces of scrap iron to a tank and essentially turn it into a bush hog that the allies were able to break out of the hedgerows.
Good points. Some even dated back to the days of the Romans where they started as mounds of dirt.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 4:10 pm to jimbeam
quote:
I just don’t know how we didn’t prepare or at least know about the scale of the hedgerows.
It was just an overlooked detail that became a huge problem once we were there on the ground. I’m sure we just assumed they wouldn’t be hard to penetrate. The planners probably figured that conventional explosives would be sufficient enough to clear them as obstacles. Again though, the problem lied in the fact that they were hundreds of years old and incredibly dense. Explosives simply didn’t have an effect on them.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 4:18 pm to VolsOut4Harambe
And throughout it all, they were slugging it out up the mountainous spine of Italy, with nobody paying attention. They finally made it to the German border in the final days of the war.
Posted on 6/6/19 at 4:21 pm to deltaland
the largest thing not really accounted for were the hedgerows...
Posted on 6/6/19 at 4:25 pm to Blizzard of Chizz
We gave condoms to all foot soldiers but overlooked the terrain necessary to traverse during the breakout. Thanks Obama 
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