re: What would have been your plan if you were on a Normandy landing boat?

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Ww2 is an amazing subject. No matter how much time you read into you will always learn new things. Like all the behind the scenes stuff the US did in Iran to get supplies to Russia. Our help in.Vietnam and promise that the French wouldn't return.

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Or the more recent discovery, that hitler lives for 20-30 years in Argentina after the war

I think it was debunked as the guy on that picture build only be Hitler of Hitler aged in reverse.

I would do my job.

Jump over the side and hope to splash into the water before getting torn up

Hold my breath long enough to strip off most the unneccessary equipment

Come up for air near the side of the boat and grab a few gasps before going under again

Wait for the initial hail of bullets to pass onto the next landing boat opening

Swim to shore and hit a tank barrier to regain my composure before assessing the situation, the next area of cover to run to, the range of the mortars, the pillboxes that could sight me, where my men are, and where my rally point is

Throw up like every one else

i wouldn't make it so just consider me a goner.

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Imagine if it were the German 6th army and 4th panzer division on the bluffs overlooking the beach head instead of some rag tag group of undesirables.

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It would have been a huge waste of a Panzer Division to put it on coastal defense duty. For starters you're putting it right under the preparatory naval and air bombardment where it's main combat force, namely it's Panzer regiment, will be obliterated. Secondly, by putting it into a static defensive position you take away its main battlefield advantages of maneuverability and shock effect.

The best way to deploy the Panzers was to use infantry formations to absorb the initial landings and then immediately (key word being "immediately) counterattack the beachheads with Panzer formations before they can solidify their positions. Of course for this to work, the German's would also have had at least a modicum of air superiority, which they of course did not have.

Any plan i had would last about a second

Then it would be try like hell to find anything I could hide behind to figure out something