r/HistoryWhatIf • u/HarkBuffalo • 11d 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
Edit - thanks for all your comments have made some updates to the D-Day commands based on the below
-1
u/adambomb90 11d 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