Thanks for that detailed factual exposition of the many problems on D Day.
In relation to the quote above, might it be that one of the significant problems on D Day was that the Allied troops were well trained but, in general, quite green while in the Pacific there was a much higher proportion of battle hardened troops and a lot more experience of amphibious assaults which, by mid-1944, made the Pacific commanders and troops more adept at such assaults?
I think for an attack like that, maybe it was better to have green troops. I’m pretty sure that may have been the thinking of senior commanders…
Maybe.
But battle hardened troops will always do a lot, lot better than green troops.
The trick is to have enough battle hardened officers, NCO’s and OR’s sprinkled among the green troops to make the supposedly green units work well.
At Omaha Beach the US Aarmy 1st & 29th Divsions attacked side by side. The 1st Div assualt echelon did a little better than the 29th, but both had the same problem with the NGF radio communications. The 1st had been in a a couple amphibious operations in the Mediterrainan, so one would expect them to do much better at maintaining the critical NGF. Perhaps they did not have direct control over the NGF Spotting teams and their communications? Usually the USN controled the NGF network. The rest of the fire support they had very little control over. 1st Army HQ was responsible for the overall plan & one would expect a better show from them. Bradley & many of his staff officers, and subordinate commanders & staff, werre veterans of the Mediterrainian campaigns. You would think they had learned more from Torch, Husky, Avalanche… After all Bradley commanded a corps in Husky.
In the Pacific the island assuallts were planned and executed by the same half dozen corps staff. Turn over of individuals was less withing HQ and expertise and accumulated knowledge not dispersed across dozens of divsion & corps HQ. Only late in 1944 did the number of army level combat HQ in the Pacific expand to more than three. This arrower HQ base muxt have kept the expertise concentrated. I also suspect the US Marines were less wedded to ‘sticking to doctrine’ than the US Army was and adapted a bit better.
another thing about d-day was, why were amtracks not used? i know they were used in the pacific and i think that alot of lives could have been saved by avoiding the whole “murder hole” ordeal
Probably a beach gradient thing, coupled with production capabilities. Many attols in the pacific have a coral reef some distance away from the beach, meaning troops landed by boat have to wade a hell of a long way under fire to hit the beach. Amphitracks are invaluable there. That isn’t true of any of the Normandy beaches. If landing craft are a limiting factor (and they were - there just weren’t enough Higgins boats to invade France before 1944) then the same applies to Amphitracks. Limited supplies would save far more lives in the Pacific, so they were sent there.
Not sure what you mean by “murder hole” - you mean dismounting out of the front of a landing craft? Amphitracks would probably have been even worse, particularly as the troops wouldn’t even have the dubious cover of 4ft of water but would be out in the middle of the killing area (beach) sticking out like a dog’s wotsits.
Ultimately getting off a beach unscathed requires some form of effective cover from fire and some form of mobility. Cover from fire can be in the form of hard cover, fire support to suppress incoming fire or even sufficiently effective cover from view. That means organic armoured support, more NGFS than you can shake a stick at and concentration of force. The latter two are a communications problem rather than an equipment problem.
In other words, the best way to save lives on D-Day is to invent the transistor 20 years early.
murder-hole is the opening of the LCVP door, when the ramps would land, soldiers exiting through this narrow exit would often be riddled with bullets, hence the term “murder hole”
i am also aware of the logistics problem of getting the amphtracks, i’m just suprised that they wouldnt just stop from making the LCVP’s to amphtracks in factories since they were alot safer because the exit was facing away from the machine guns and they could drive onto shore, although i suppose that its alot easier to unload jeep and such into an LCVP
Duration is pretty minimal when you’re in the surf line, particularly at low tide. The amount of aimed fire coming in your direction is generally a lot lower than appreciated, mainly because any fire coming your way feels like it’s aimed at you.
Amphitracks are however one big target all the way up. Only the later versions were effectively armoured against rifle-calibre ammunition, and none of them had overhead cover. They carried less and required more work to build than Higgins boats, weakening your first wave if you used nothing but them.
One other thought - could they have got through the beach obstacles? The allies landed at low tide to give the engineers a chance to blow their way through the minefields and obstacles below the high water mark. It may well be that the tracks couldn’t drive through these without being destroyed.
Tanks werent ever going to be good on Omaha because of the shingle, its not there now, but was there aplenty then.
my post had nothing to do with tanks
even if amphtracks couldn’t bring troops very far it sure would have beet swimming through 10 feet of water
Given that the draft of a Higgins boat is 2ft 2in forward, I think you’re talking b*llocks.
what??
It’s British for testicles, actually more synonymous with “bullsh!t” in US speak…
I believe you meant to say “English” there - “British” isn’t a language.
The value of the tanks in the first wave was in their ability to see & destroy the pill boxes & gun bunkers. The did not need to cross the seawall, or dunes, ect… to do this. The intent was the DD tanks would land a couple minutes ahead of the infantry and cover them with direct fire on the enemy positions. On the other four beaches most of the DD tanks made it ashore as intended and covered the initial waves of infantry and engineers with fire. Once the infantry & engineers had prepared the way the tanks advanced off the beach.
The small handfull of tanks that did make it ashore on Omaha beach were able to suppress & destroy a few of the German gun positions, but the numbers were to small to do the entire job. The destroyers that fired from just beyond the surf line were substituting for the drowned tanks. The same for the surviving engineer teams that infiltrated to the flanks of the gun bunkers and destroyed them.
Or blabbering cockney-speak, more accurately. :lol:
But the destroyer’s 5" guns were far more effective that the 75mm’s on the Sherman DDs. The real problem is that the German positions were mostly untouched by the pre-invasion bombardment, and anti-tank guns would have just knocked out any tanks just like they did a lot of landing craft. In fact, I think the few Shermans that made it ashore were quickly put out of action.
I once heard probably the worst graphic WWII story from a soldier that landed at Omaha. His Higgens boat was heading to the beach when his platoon was showered with the blood, internal organs, limbs, heads, and equipment of the boat next over, which had been hit by an 88mm shell. The tanks weren’t going to fair any better…
In point of comparison, I believe one of the British beaches themselves had a problem with a singular German anti-tank gun, in perfect firing position, that held them up for hours despite having far more DD tanks present on the beach.
But of course, they were able to flank the gun as infantry could freely move into the cottages and use them for cover…
I thought you said “blathering” not “blabbering” for a minute there. Cue Ironman flashbacks!
Correct, but the destroyers did not fire effectively for nearly two hours, until after communications (visual signals and radios) begain to be restored. Unlike the tanks the destroyers could not identify the specific targets from their greater range on their own. The tanks that made it ashore on all the beaches werre close enough to spot the locations of the MG & cannons.
On the other four beaches the tanks came ashore in large enough numbers to overwhelm most of the defenses. Many were destroyed, but they destroyed enough MG and gun bunkers that the infantry/engineers could advance more or less on schedule. Aside from most of the tanks making it ashore on the other beaches they came in ahead of the infantry/engineers as planned, and so were able to effectively cover them with fire. On Omaha Beach the surviving tanks came in fifteen to twenty minutes after the first wave of infantry/engineers. They straggled ashore in very small groups, rather than entire battlaions crossing the beach within a few minutes. Even those few survivng tanks took out their share of the defenders.
Still the tanks across that beach and the others did their job despite losses. Any assualt agaisnt prepared defenses is likely to be a bloodly event and there will be many small failures. The overall sucess of the tanks on the other four beaches was just one part of their general sucess. On Omaha Beach the failure of the tanks to reach the shore in usefull numbers was just one part of the fire support plan that failed across the board.
Had the two tank battalions not been lost in the rough water over 110 tanks would have crossed the surf some ten minutes ahead of the first infantry wave, while the last of the naval gun fire wa still falling. As it was less than thirty straggled ashore twenty minutes behind schedule, and after the naval gunfire had shifted off the beach and front of the bluffs.
Now, if all the landing forces had only had M-2 Carbine assault rifles! 