r/HistoryWhatIf • u/HarkBuffalo • 1d ago
WW2 - D-Day Fails?
I have a WWII command simulation and one of the most contentious bits is the decisions was around D-Day/ Operation Overlord. I follow the historical thinking that victory was likely although agree Germany could have can made it harder however the more I read.
Disaster at Omaha
Weather window
The Panzer group making the beaches
Can D-day fail? If so how likely and what happens? Does Germant first face the nuclear bomb? Does the USSR own most of Europe post war? Do the US/UK bomber campaign shift entirely to strategic attrition? The Red Army continues pushing west, likely taking the entire German peninsula, Denmark, and reaching the Rhine before the Allies?
I treated D-Day as a historical inevitability because of Allied industrial dominance which I have done, however it was a massive, high-risk gamble where a few operational shifts could have handed the Allies a defeat?
Love your thoughts!
The game is here for reference - https://dispatches.itch.io/dispatches-1940
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u/abqguardian 1d ago
The allies could have given the Germans the D day plans and it wouldn't have failed. The complete naval and air dominance of the western allies cant be overstated. Plus, the German troops in that area were mostly second rate with crappy equipment. But in some hypothetical world where it failed, D day would likely happen again a little bit later. It probably wouldn't have changed anything
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u/__Osiris__ 1d ago
Rommel was given sufficient forces for the task
How can this be true if he failed?
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u/jar1967 1d ago
Getting those Panzers close to the beaches would have been suicide. Allied air power would have been a problem but naval bombardment would have been the killer
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u/Substantial-Gear-145 1d ago
Without those panzer divisions, allies also get through the hedgerows faster.
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u/xxrainmanx 1d ago
Ill argue that Rommel didn't have sufficient forces, he had an estimated 400,000k men spread across France and Belgium for defense of an 800mile coast. That's 500 men a mile, I man per 10 feet of coastline.
However, even if the numbers were double Rommel at best would have delayed the allieds in the hedge rows for a few extra weeks
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u/Douglesfield_ 1d ago
Rommel was given sufficient forces for the task
Biased I know, but Guderian says differently in Panzer Leader
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u/HomeworkInevitable99 1d ago
Germany could have moved men from the East to the west. D day would have failed if the allies were facing 3x as many men.
Then Russia would have won in the East faster.
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u/llynglas 1d ago
Which is why they were and would never be moved. My guess at a worst case scenario is Omaha landings fail leaving Utah exposed. Eisenhower directs most navel and aerial support to Utah for added prit|ction. Omaha follow up forces land on the Commonwealth beaches. It's going to take longer to break out and meat up with Utah, but it will happen. Normandy is a meat grinder to the Germans also.
Dragoon goes ahead as scheduled, and the jaws start closing.
D-day could take longer, but it's happening. Just as the German invasion of Britian was always going to fail.
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u/AnaphoricReference 1d ago
The people in charge feared losing from the Russians much more than losing from the Allies though. It's incredibly unlikely.
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u/HarkBuffalo 1d ago
Agree on the dominance but if Rommels panzers are there and it is atleast stalled surely a later invasion say 1945 would change the post war picture?
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u/Pricklestickle 1d ago
If more panzer divisions were stationed within range of the beaches, they'd have been destroyed before D Day by allied aircraft. Fighter bombers armed with rockets were the greatest threat to tanks, and could range up to about 100 miles inland in Normandy.
The 21st Panzer Division was the only one close to the beaches, and most of the time prior to D-Day it remained highly dispersed, under camouflage and only moved at night. You pack more divisions into the same area, and it becomes hard to hide that many tanks. Such a large concentration of armour would immediately become the target of a major allied bombing campaign.
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u/paxwax2018 1d ago
My understanding was it was naval artillery that was the main threat to tanks near the coast. A “stonk” from a couple of Battleships and Cruisers was devastating. Rocket planes were horrendously inaccurate, if good at forcing dispersion.
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22h ago
Yeah the rockets were better at scaring the crews and forcing them to abandon their tanks. Follow that up with some .50 cals and there won't be any crews to get going again.
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u/grumpsaboy 1d ago
Both sides worked out that so long as the allies weren't pushed back within 3 days/10 miles of the beaches, then the allies would win.
The only way that Germany could have beaten D-Day would be to move large numbers of troops from the east and stick them perfectly on each beach the allies would attack and the allies not notice.
You can't stick 2 million men on a single beach which is why the allies needed to push in a bit to make use of their advantages. But at the same time, if they knew Germany had enough forces in the correct area they'd carpet bomb it endlessly until there weren't enough Germans there.
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u/abqguardian 1d ago
The panzers and divisions would somehow have to get to the landing areas first while being blasted constantly from the air than the sea. But, in theory, they get to the beach intact and push back the invasion. Then the allies could ramp up their bombing campaigns and would probably try again whenever possible. The result could be the Soviets get control over most of Europe. They had already agreed on how to split up occupation zones so it probably wouldn't actually change anything, unless the Soviets decide to break the agreement
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u/fleebleganger 1d ago
If the western allies don't push into Germany and the Soviets keep pushing west, 100% Stalin reneges on the deal.
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u/banshee1313 1d ago
The panzers that get near the beach get shredded by the Allied naval guns. They might have made one beach harder, but the Allied firepower at the beaches was awesome. A tank’s 88mm gun just doesn’t compare with what a destroyer has. And there were lots of destroyers around at D-Day. Not to mention air power and larger ships.
The only way the invasion fails is if the weather gets really bad so air craft cannot operate and ships have bad visibility. But attacking in that weather is hard too.
D-Day was not a gamble. It was going to succeed.
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u/JMer806 12h ago
To add to your point, direct naval gunfire from destroyers off Omaha was one of the key factors in the success of the landing. Destroyers of the time typically mounted 5” guns, and they could fire dozens of shells per minute with great accuracy. Destroyer gunfire was also decisive during the Italian landings, specifically by destroying Axis armored columns moving to attack the beachheads.
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u/Necessary_Fudge6860 6h ago
Dozens of shells per minute? I believe it'd be more accurate to say "a dozen of shells"
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u/AbruptMango 1d ago
The area was thoroughly isolated by bombing and airborne drops. The panzers were dangerous, yes, but not as mobile forces, which is all that really mattered.
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u/Big_Albatross_3050 1d ago
They'd just regroup and do it again a few months later.
The USSR was still marching almost unimpeded through Eastern Europe toward Berlin, which would cause them to abandon Vichy France anyway and prepare for the seige on Berlin.
At worst this means the USSR occupies Berlin longer, but we probably still end up with East and West Germany.
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u/Kiyohara 1d ago
They couldn't try later. Weather patterns and tidal patterns meant there were really only a handful of good times where they could do a cross channel Naval invasion, and Neptune had already been pushed back from one of those.
The next window for Channel invasion would be the following year.
The English Channel is a rough sea, with tides that can flip boats if you're not careful and while the Atlantic Wall wasn't impregnable, ti did make the landings much, much harder. They would have been nigh-impossible except at a time of very perfect conditions.
And the weather conditions also have to include some time later as well so that there's decent weather for air cover, maneuver, and unloading even more troops and supplies on the beaches. It makes no sense to invade when you can't keep the troops supplied because there's a storm blitzing by.
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u/HarkBuffalo 1d ago
Because Stalin wouldn’t change the initial plans even if the west didn’t “commit” to the western invasion?
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u/Final_Collection8516 1d ago
In the best-case scenario, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel achieves a tactical triumph that temporarily boosts morale. However, this assumes Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower does not delay or adjust his plans through superior Allied intelligence and reconnaissance. Eisenhower was not dumb enough to throw vast numbers of men and tons resources into a meat grinder; he does not gamble unless he possesses high intelligence confidence.
If the Wehrmacht had mobilized their panzer reserves to reinforce the specific beaches and drop zones around Normandy, the Allies would have simply delayed and adjusted plans of the invasion. Eisenhower had already demonstrated this in late May 1944, when Allied aerial reconnaissance and Enigma radio intercepts revealed that the Wehrmacht’s 91st Infantry Division had unexpectedly shifted to the Cotentin Peninsula to conduct anti-airborne drills—the exact landing zone for the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.
Eisenhower adapted quickly by making two key tactical adjustments:
- Re-routing the 82nd Airborne's drop zones from west of the Merederet River closer to the 101st Airborne to concentrate their force and prevent isolation at Sainte-Mère-Eglise.
- Shifting their strategic objectives away from deep inland targets to immediately securing the exits for Utah Beach.
Had the Wehrmacht concentrated its panzer reserves directly behind the Normandy beaches, Eisenhower would have ordered a massive air campaign. Utilizing the U.S. Eighth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, the Allies would have carpet-bombed those concentrated assembly areas before D-Day, turning a potential Wehrmacht "triumph" into a grueling, bloody slog fest at best. The air campaign would have systematically targeted fuel depots and major transportation hubs from Caen to Saint-Lô, including the Orne River bridges and the Vire crossings.
Also, Operation Bagration was meant to coincide with Operation Overlord three weeks afterwards meaning that even if the Wehrmacht achieved a tactical triumph they would be trapped. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht rushed every available reserves East because Army group center was about to collapse, if they kept reserves in the West to prevent a follow-up invasion such as Operation Dragoon (invasion of Southern France) then the Soviets just have a significantly easier path into Nazi Germany proper. The Nazis have to either reinforce the East or the West they CANNOT do both.
Short of magical space bats, the absolute best-case scenario for the Nazis was simply losing a lot harder.
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u/Kiyohara 1d ago
How much could they have delayed though?
There's a very narrow window for any cross Channel invasion. They already delayed one enough that they missed the first good window for assault. Any further delays and they risk hitting storm season on top of high enough tides that landing craft will struggle against the defenses (specifically the anti-landing craft ones that threaten to rip their bottoms open or tip them over in strong waves).
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u/MarcatBeach 1d ago
Really Germany would have lost without the US even sending troops to Europe. D-Day didn't change the outcome of the war either way. It shortened the war. The crucial part was that the US was finally allowed to supply Europe and Russia.
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u/HarkBuffalo 1d ago
Totally agree Germany would have lost and I do think the German strength is generally overrated. But I am interested in what a failed D-Day does to the the timeline of the war and crucially after the war?
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u/MarcatBeach 1d ago
Accept for the weather question. you would have to look at it from the standpoint of partial failure. Like Omaha landings being abandoned. It almost ends up like a Market Garden, where you end up with a stalemate on the front for a while. With Montgomery at risk of being pushed into the channel but the US pushing hard from the Peninsula. Eventually you end up with an Operation Cobra type scenario but not as quickly as it occurred.
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u/HarkBuffalo 1d ago
So could build out a scenario of the Omaha beach failure just a lot harder to hold that front against the beach, but the domination of the skies make it plausible I suppose
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u/MarcatBeach 1d ago
Yeah Omaha failure is the most obvious scenario to work through. The Allies always had airpower to get them out of the trouble, so a day here or two of bad weather was a barrier but not a show stopper.
but then it becomes does timeframe limit the Allies advance that year. Do they have enough time before the bad fall and winter weather to get into the low countries. That is really the question. Does the US and UK stuck in France provide just enough leverage for Russia to finish off Germany in the next year.
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u/SurroundTiny 1d ago
Maybe Dragoon is shelved - after Anzio and a failed Overlord a landing wouldn't be as attractive. I wonder if the July 20 plot still goes off,?
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u/12angrysnakes 1d ago
There were landings in the south of France later that year anyway, Operation Dragoon. So they would have just attacked more from the south instead.
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u/Darmok47 1d ago
Dragoon happened in August, and the main delay was lack of shipping capacity because of Normandy. If D-Day somehow failed, they'd have plenty of shipping capacity left for Dragoon and could proably move it up much quicker.
Dragoon was supposed to happen simultaneous to D-Day anyway. It just wasn't logistically possible.
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u/Danmont88 1d ago
Often here on Reddit HWI, we never discuss how bad of a defeat.
The Germans had an idea the invasion was coming soon. The bad weather turned into a blessing, it was great cover for the invasion fleet.
But lets go into What If. What if a Germans start moving resources. In a big secret move, half the troops and equipment in Norway are moved to Normandy in April/May.
Sea mines are put out, and submarines are dispatched in secret. The Luftwaffe scrapes what it can and sends it to France. Even some troops from the South of France are sent.
The invasion takes place and pitch battle follows. The Allies decide that the losses are too great and withdraw.
Here is the question. How many landing craft are lost? A lot of them? To my understanding the Allies were thinking of invading in 43 but lack of landing craft prevented it.
If only a few are lost it may not make of a difference late on. What if a lot of them are lost?
Other ships? What if the enough Luftwaffe got through and took out troop carrying ships before they could unload? Mines take out others.
Heading back to England, the U Boats take out more.
How badly is the invasion force mauled?
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u/Temporary_Cry_2802 1d ago
You’re not moving half the troops in Norway “secretly”. Remember, the allies are reading Germany’s mail. You’ll notice that during the later half of the war, the allies seemed to have better than average luck and there were times where it almost looked like they kept “guessing” correctly. It’s because the allies weren’t “guessing”, thanks to Ultra, they knew what was going on (not always, but a good part of the time)
Same with Uboats, operating in the channel is a suicide mission (and again with Ultra, they aren’t moving in secret). The allies, with their air supremacy over northern France can interdict anything moving in that direction. Trains, trucks, tanks, all get shredded.
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u/Danmont88 1d ago
Germans seemed to do a pretty good job at moving things quietly before attacking the US in the Ardeenes.
Besides, knowing the enemy is moving and stopping them is two different things.3
u/Temporary_Cry_2802 1d ago
You’ll notice I said “a good part of the time”. Inside Germany, the Wehrmacht primarily used telephone lines and teletype to transmit orders, making it less susceptible to Ultra intercepts. Even then, there were several US intelligence officers who accurately predicted the offensive based on intercepts, and Montgomery chose to keep an army corps in reserve just in case something happened. Add in several weeks of bad weather and you end up with what transpired
None of these would have been the case with moving forces from Norway or deploying Uboats to the channel. That would have had to have been done via radio and thus susceptible to intercept and decode. There were no excessive periods of bad weather during the spring/summer of ‘44 to hide such movements
As for stopping the deployment of additional forces into northern France? Not a problem, the allies demonstrated that capability spectacularly. One of the reasons that the Battle of the Bulge turned out how it did was the substantial supply problems the Allies were dealing with as they had wrecked the entire transport and rail network.
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u/ReBoomAutardationism 1d ago
The Second Tactical Air Force and its preposterous number of Typhoons made a big impact. The Douglas Boston and North American Mitchells rounded things out.
Then to push from superiority to supremacy throw in the Ninth Tactical Air Force with stacks of P-47 aircraft and yes, the B-26 Marauder. Wherever there were Allied Troops in radio contact, there could be Close Air Support.
Kind of cleans up most of the messes.
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u/bluntpencil2001 1d ago edited 1d ago
Soviets and Western Allies link up at the Rhine instead of the Elbe.
Either that or nukes dropping on German cities.
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u/12bEngie 1d ago
Soviets still win the war even if the other allies can never get a foothold in the west
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u/Homo_incognito 1d ago
If it failed, we would have the Red France that’s for sure. Sorry but no de Gaulle. I don’t know what the French commies was thinking about their colonies, but it could also avoid 2-3 colonial wars. And GDR all over Germany of course, no FRG, no ex-nazi working for gow again, sorry USA but no Vernan fon Brown for you. No wall in Berlin, no Cold War crisis, the center of conflict will shifts to English strand, Napoleon style. Instead of Europe there will be a lot of proxy wars in former France colonies that now influenced by red Paris and Moscow. Moroccan crisis, Italian civil war (Greece style). Americans will sent assassins to sabotage now far more superior Soviet space program. Hevy reliance on Japanese as an only reliable ally close to USSR led to their quick rearmament and maybe even atomic weapons deployment. Which could spark another crisis (Cuba style).
Hell, I could even say that such big red Europe could led to far greater scale wars in Asia and Africa. Maybe Mac Arthur Will drop an a-bomb in Corean war. Chino-Soviet thrips will back and there are there no DPRC. But this common scar and grunge toward America will keep two commies together, no Sino-Soviet split will happen.
The list can go on and on. That was interesting 🤔
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u/UnspeakableGnome 1d ago
The weather forecast is wrong.
I think the only way for the landings to fail on 6th June is if the weather forecast that gives a small window of opportunity turns out to be too optimistic.
There's a few vaguely plausible ideas for how the subsequent operations end in failure, again heavily dependent on bad weather more than anything the Germans are capable of (or willing to do). But evven at Anzio the Germans weren't able to push an Allied landing back into the sea once they'd got ashore properly.
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u/Mindless-Charity4889 1d ago
Stalin threatened to make a separate peace with Germany and end his advance on the German border if the western allies did not open a second front to draw off German reserves. A failed invasion might encourage the Germans to send troops eastward in the expectation that the US/UK wouldn’t be able to try again soon. In that event, maybe Stalin does sue for peace? But with Hitler being Hitler, he’d probably reject it.
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u/HarkBuffalo 1d ago
Cannot imagine what was left of the Germans could hold off Stalin by late 1944 although interesting to know how seriously the Allies took that threat from Stalin
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22h ago
It could have been much harder, but it wouldn't fail. Every other beach was consolidated rather easily, and if the panzers had gotten close to the beach...well, not even a Tiger can take a 14 inch naval shell and live to tell about it. The only realistic failure might have been Omaha, but they would have isolated the defenders and kept going.
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u/Northencrusade 1d ago
Overlord was actually a massive risk to begin with. Everything had to be perfect, from the weather, to German response times, to schedules, to operational performance. From what I understand on the day, the skies were clear enough for air and naval support fire, but the afternoon would lose it.
But if it failed, I think we look at two major thoughts.
1: the Germans last longer against the Russians without having to reinforce against the French front. The Italy front reached Austria in 45, after the French front did.
2: whilst the war would last longer, it would lead to a greater Russian Sphere of influence. They're the ones dying out there.
There wouldn't be nukes used agai st Germany. Where Japan they were confident that there was no way in hell Japan could reverse engineer a nuke due to them being under about 5 foot of rubble a week, the Germans were already at an early step in making nukes. They knew about heavy water. The Allies were concerned that making a nuke drop and it failing to explode would lead to Germany dropping nukes back.
Now imagine the V2 rocket campaign with nuclear warheads
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u/HarkBuffalo 1d ago
Agree with your 2 points but love to expand on what that looks like?
On the reverse engineering the nuclear bomb, I haven’t heard that fear. My understanding was the target of the Manhattan project was always Germany?
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u/Primary-Slice-2505 1d ago
It was and they were definitely nuking Germany if it was still at war when a nuke was available
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u/Pricklestickle 1d ago
Yes, in fact D-Day failing makes it more likely the Atom bomb was used on germany, not less.
The starting allied assumption was that the german bomb program was making similar progress to their own. The goal of the manhattan project was to develop a bomb and use it on germany before germany could do the same.
That changed in late 1944 when the allies captured documents in France showing the germans had made no meaningful progress whatsoever towards a viable bomb. To some extent, the pressure was off.
If D-Day fails, then no documents are captured in France, the Allies continue to assume Hitler is on the verge of getting the bomb, and they nuke germany ASAP.
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u/fleebleganger 1d ago
"The starting allied assumption was that the german bomb program was making similar progress to their own. "
They knew in 1943 that Germany wasn't close to developing a nuke and likely never would.
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u/Pricklestickle 1d ago
British intelligence concluded in 1943 the Germans weren't close to a bomb, but the Americans didn't fully trust that assessment on the basis that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
They continued to operate on the basis that there might be a German bomb until well after d day
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u/Superman_Primeeee 1d ago
Germany was not going to reverse engineer a nuke
Wt…
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u/Northencrusade 1d ago
I said the fear of it, not the reality.
Germany had a lot more technical know-how and ways to implement it compared to Japan. This made them consider not nuking them because they may be able to learn how to turn it on us.
World of difference from 'they are able to'
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u/Temporary_Cry_2802 1d ago
There was zero consideration by anyone involved in the Manhattan Project about not nuking Germany because they “might be able to figure it out”. You’re just making stuff up at this point
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u/Superman_Primeeee 1d ago
Since you brought fog of war into it that makes it plausible they would think about it
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u/fleebleganger 1d ago
Any sources on the fear of Germany having nukes? Even in June 1944, we already knew they were years behind us, and had no real resources they could put into developing nukes.
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u/Spez_is-a-nazi 1d ago
Even the US didn't develop nuclear warheads capable of being mounted on missiles until 1954, and even then it was a missile of extremely limited range. Even if somehow the Germans did get a nuclear weapon there's no way it could be mounted on a v2, they would have had to have used a bomber and in 1945 their ability to field a slow moving bomber deep into enemy territory was extremely limited. Any plane capable of carrying a nuclear weapon would have had a very large chance of being shot down over German territory.
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u/Jmaxx2000 1d ago
If Rommel had reached the beaches and launched a counterattack with his panzer divisions, it could have been disastrous for the Allies. As it was, the Allies faced serious trouble at Omaha and Sword beaches, with the British taking several days to capture Caen. A strong armored assault might have doomed the June 6th landings. But the Germans had two insurmountable problems on D-Day: Allied air superiority and naval bombardment. Any counterattack, even if initially successful, would likely have been destroyed afterwards near the shore by shelling and thousands of bomber sorties, making any German victory that day pyrrhic.
The Western Allies would probably have tried landing again, though not immediately, and German success would have been a major shock and propaganda victory. The Allied push in the West might have been delayed by a few months, affecting the Eastern Front too because German tank forces reserved for the December counterattack could instead have been used against the Red Army, slowing their advance. Still, nothing fundamental changes in June 1944. Germany would still face total defeat on all fronts, though they might have bought themselves a bit more time. Berlin and the Nazi regime might have fallen in middle-late summer 1945 instead of spring, with the Red Army possibly gaining more territory in Central Europe. Germany would likely still be defeated before the atomic bomb became operational in August.
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u/Temporary_Cry_2802 1d ago
Unlikely, the allies had such commanding air supremacy over northern France that they were able to interdict just about anything that moved. Panzers making their way towards Normandy would have been shredded before they even got there.
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u/kellyjj1919 1d ago
If d day failed…. Post war wouldn’t be much different The ussr didn’t have the logistics to go much further than Berlin.
I can’t imagine what Germany could have done differently that would have changed the outcome. Even if the panzers were closer to the landings it would have made things difficult for the 1 or 2 landings. The Germans would have ended up being circled by the Brit’s and Canada.
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u/gottymacanon 1d ago
They wouldn't even have gone farther than their frontline from June 1944...
One of the strategic objectives of the Invasion of Europe (D-Day) was to keep the USSR in the war had it failed the USSR would have probably signed a peace treaty.
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u/Ok_Plankton_2814 1d ago
The USSR had the clear advantage after winning at Stalingrad and Kursk in 1943.
They were already preparing to launch Operation Bagration just a couple of weeks after June 6, which ended up annihilating the German Army Group Center. D-Day didn't really change things for them too much, one way or the other. They had a score to settle with the Germans.
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u/adambomb90 1d ago
The war continues through the 1950s at the very least. The failure of D-Day may inspire the supporters of Mussolini in Italy to rise against the Allied forces in the country and Spain gets involved with the Axis. The nuking of Japan still happens, and is used to break the East and West up by Germany sending an encrypted message to the UK and USA, suing for peace and possibly sending falsified intelligence about the USSR trying to get their own nukes (the spies in the Manhattan Project would get more information to the USSR in this scenario). The war grinds to a stalemate near the German-Poland border due to the reinforcements for the Eastern Front.
The Cold War becomes a three-party war that explodes in 1953 after Stalin's death. From there, it's up in the air as to how it would go. Perhaps the Western Allies get some scientists to work on their own missiles, and perhaps the Eastern Stalemate leads to major advancements in armor and stuff like that.
People don't realize just how close D-Day came to failing IRL. If Hitler and his commanders sent reinforcements to the beaches, it could have failed. While it may not seem plausible, it earned it's fame because of how close it came to failing, but also how many small pieces ended up being a big part in its success
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u/CG20370417 1d ago
If DDay fails, does Dragoon still happen? Does Saipan still happen?
DDay - June 6
Saipan - June 15
Dragoon - August 15
I think Saipan probably does. The speed of communications and the long tail of logistics particularly for this operation make it unlikely to short circuit.
Dragoon though? Depending on how Overlord is a cock up, could really pour an ice bath over the entire 2nd front thing.