British avoid massacre at Omaha Beach?

[The Saint]

WI the British had drawn Omaha as their landing beach?

Would they have faired any better than the Americans? Or the Canadians at Dieppe?

The British tended to be more heavily laden than US troops and their cheaper quality uniforms more readily water-loggable, so more would drown I'd suspect.

Also the British physique was less lithe and they made slower runners than Americans, though probably better at "bullet dodging", and close in bayonet work.

Were British troops equipped with Bangalore torpedoes? The suppressive firepower of the Bren was superior to the BAR, but the covering power of the Lee Enfield was inferior to the Garand.

I believe whether there would be a near US-type massacre as in OTL or not would all come down to the wherewithall of the British beach commander in not opening under any circumstances the landing craft ramps until he saw that DD Shermans had landed ahead of him, or at least with him, unlike the Americans.

 

[CalBear]

WI the British had drawn Omaha as their landing beach?

The British were not assigned Omaha for a reason. Partly it was where their Airborne forces would land, but a good part was the Omaha site itself.

Would they have faired any better than the Americans? Or the Canadians at Dieppe?

I believe that they would have faired worse than either the American or Canadians. Not, in any way, due to the courage of their troops or the skill of their leadership (although, like many Americans I have a huge amount of pride in what the 1st & 29th divisions achived on D-Day & doubt it could have been done better), but due to the basic difference in how American/Canadian & British commanders viewed casualties. British commanders, understandably, given the horrors that the BEF experienced in WW I, tended to be less willing to accept serious losses than their North American counterparts. An excellent example of this is the Arnhem disaster. Had the relief force been under American command, it has long be speculated that a different outcome may have occurred, simply because American officers were willing to keep pushing despite losses.

I am not sure if the American point of view is better or worse, but it was most assuredly different.

The British tended to be more heavily laden than US troops and their cheaper quality uniforms more readily water-loggable, so more would drown I'd suspect.

Also the British physique was less lithe and they made slower runners than Americans, though probably better at "bullet dodging", and close in bayonet work.

Bullet Dodging? Not sure that anyone's all that terrific at that!

As far as hand to hand work, I think that the extra training that British forces received on bayonet drill would have been more than equalized by the general better condition and physical size of American troops (as you have noted).

Were British troops equipped with Bangalore torpedoes? The suppressive firepower of the Bren was superior to the BAR, but the covering power of the Lee Enfield was inferior to the Garand.

I'm not sure about the Bangalore. As far as firepower, I would take a company equipped with Garands & BAR's, along with some Thompson's, over pretty much anything available at the time(although a few MG-42's would be nice).

I believe whether there would be a near US-type massacre as in OTL or not would all come down to the wherewithall of the British beach commander in not opening under any circumstances the landing craft ramps until he saw that DD Shermans had landed ahead of him, or at least with him, unlike the Americans.

Once the invasion was green-lighted I'm not sure anyone short of Ike could make that decision. Additionally, if you sit out there you will lose troops to the German Coastal guns.

Most importantly, if you don't land the invasion fails, No if, ands or buts. Omaha isn't taken, D-Day fails. That's a lot of responsibility to give a Regimental commander

 

[Tielhard]

Two words:

Hobart's Funnies.

Of course the British would have taken Omaha at a small fraction that it cost the Americans.

 

[DoleScum]

WI the British had drawn Omaha as their landing beach?

The main difference is that the British would have had armoured support, be it in the form of the 79th armoured, or simply the fact that they released their DD's closer to the shore and thus lost far fewer during the landing process.

I'm guessing this would have made a big difference.

Conversely could the American's have done any better at Caen?

 

[Johnnyreb]

It is a matter of fact that the DDs at Omaha were released too far out and were swamped by the tide. No tanks got ashore. Also, against the advice of Admiral Ramsay's staff, the Admiral commanding the bombardment force reduced it's time span, apparently preferring to achieve surprise (an odd decision in the circumstances.)

Actually, I believe that all landing ships, including the small infantry carriers, were released too far out, in a very choppy sea - so the men were not in best condition to rush through surf, beach defenses etc when they got there.

Americans at Caen - now there's a debate. We musn't forget that the British/Canadians had to deal with 8 panzer divisions (4 of them SS.) The maximum Cobra faced was two and a half. Having said that, the Americans did very well against, I think, Hitler Jugend.

 

[TeaDaemon]

Two words:

Hobart's Funnies.

Of course the British would have taken Omaha at a small fraction that it cost the Americans.

You got there before I did.

After all, who needs Bangalore torpedoes (which were carried by the British/Commonwealth forces) when you've got Churchill AVREs firing dustbin-sized charges at any inconvenient obstacles? (Though pity the poor Royal Engineer who had to get out of his tank and clamber 'round to the front of the turret to reload the demolition gun, it being a large spigot mortar).

IIRC, the Americans were offered their fair share of 'funnies' but were only interested in the DD tanks, which they then employed incorrectly anyway (launching them too far out into heavy seas). Had they taken advantage of the British offer and taken more care learning how to use the DD tanks properly (they'd been under development for a good while and their limited sea keeping abilities and lack of reserve buoyancy should have been readily apparent), then American losses may well have been significantly lighter.

Incidentally, IIRC it was only due to political considerations that a multi-national landing took place at all. Eisenhower initially wanted an all-American invasion force to simplify organisation, with the British/Commonwealth/Free French forces landing on D+some time, after the beaches had been taken. I'm not sure there'd have been any use of funnies other than DD tanks had that happened, though on the other hand there'd probably have been no Omaha beach in that plan, all the landings taking place on the Calvados coast rather than the Cotentin peninsula.

 

[DoleScum]

Eisenhower initially wanted an all-American invasion force to simplify organisation, with the British/Commonwealth/Free French forces landing on D+some time, after the beaches had been taken. I'm not sure there'd have been any use of funnies other than DD tanks had that happened, though on the other hand there'd probably have been no Omaha beach in that plan, all the landings taking place on the Calvados coast rather than the Cotentin peninsula.

Which is strange because the in initial phases of overlord weren't there more British / Commonwealth troops deployed in Normandy than Yanks?

Would an all American venture have been a far smaller operation, or would it be based on funnelling the entire allied army through two beach heads?

The consequences of an all American invasion would have been truly appalling, particularly given how insufferable some American's can be in their instance that they 'saved our assess' in WW2, God alone knows how loud their braying would be if they'd carried out D-Day alone.

 

[Johnnyreb]

If what Teadaemon says about Eisenhower's wishes is true (I never heard it myself), it would have been a bloody disaster.
For a start, the area St Mere Eglise to Ouistreham was chosen because the Cotentin peninsular sheltered the beaches from Atlantic gales - this proved to be justified as such a gale smashed up one Mulberry and nearly wrecked the other within 3 days of the first landings.
Second, the Germans had 25 infantry divisions and 4 panzer immmediately available in France. Within 20 days of the landings there were 11 panzer divisions in Normandy. Not even the Americans could have coped with these numbers on their own, especially if their harbours were wrecked.
Yes there were more British/Commonwealth troops in the first landings. That was why Montgomery was in overall command. By D-plus 30 the Americans outnumbered the British so (by military convention) an American had to take over. Eisenhower elected to take over direct command, which was probably wise. Neither Patton nor Montgomery would serve under the other: Bradley probably wanted the job: but Ike wanted the glory.

 

[Tielhard]

Re: Mulberry Harbours. The US one only fell to bits because the US Engineers only put in half the bolts they needed to reach design spec.. So they built it faster than the British one which was stronger. I don't know if this was nationalist rivalry or clever strategy but given two devices it is a pretty good strategy one fast and one right.

Re: All American invasion for Ike. New one on me.

 

[PMN1]

Two words:

Hobart's Funnies.

Of course the British would have taken Omaha at a small fraction that it cost the Americans.

I'm reading a book on these at the moment called 'Churchill's Secret Weapons'

It seems it was a close run thing to get all the funnies ready in time.

Two that weren't used were a roller mine clearance stysem which appears to have been better than the flail though it doesn't say why and the CDL's (Canal Defence Lights) which might have been useful here and in future battles for blinding the enemy for long enough to overcome their defence.

 

[Thande]

I'm reading a book on these at the moment called 'Churchill's Secret Weapons'

It seems it was a close run thing to get all the funnies ready in time.

Two that weren't used were a roller mine clearance stysem which appears to have been better than the flail though it doesn't say why and the CDL's (Canal Defence Lights) which might have been useful here and in future battles for blinding the enemy for long enough to overcome their defence.

Ah, the Nazi war machine was no match for Britain's army of men tinkering away in sheds

 

[Grimm Reaper]

It all depends on which units were used, including strength and weapons composition, level of experience, caliber of the officers involved, etc.

CalBear raises the key point, overall planning. To change which units land at Omaha requires wholesale change of the invasion.

JohnnyReb, the total German strength in France was actually something on the order of fifty divisions, including 6-7 panzer, on D-Day.

Of course, the quality varied rather widely, a shrewd deception plan kept many tied down around Calais, and the six in southern France(one panzer) didn't bother doing very much, even something like delaying the forces landing in southern France. The storm didn't come until later, and Montgomery never held overall command(although he would surely have wanted it).

Caen was probably a bad mistake and diversion of effort. If the city, of some historical significance and with a road nexus, could be grabbed rapidly, fine work. Otherwise a slugging match inevitably favors the defenders.

 

[Agrippa]

The statement that there was no armor support on Omaha Beach is blatantly incorrect. There were two different flotillas of DD tanks at Omaha. The 741st Tank Battalion launched its 29 tanks at 6,000 yards as per standing orders (all beaches were supposed to launch at that distance). Only five reached shore (three of them coming from an LCT that beached itself after its ramp failed) and they had to fight without the bulk of their infantry support for the first half-hour, due to heavy seas. The second element of DD tanks came from the 743rd Tank Battalion whose commander decided to land the tanks directly on the beach. Eight were destroyed in their landing craft on the way to the beach, the remaining 28 landed safely on the beach. Sixteen tank-bulldozers joined them on the beach, along with 40 conventional Sherman tanks. Thus, at least 90 tanks were assault landed on Omaha Beach (the Army Official History states 96 tanks were operating ashore "within a few minutes of H-Hour"). Of those tanks, over half would be destroyed by German gunfire during the battle. I quite honestly don't know where the myth that no tanks landed on Omaha came from, having heard it several times before.

On Juno Beach, the 6th Canadian Armoured Regiment landed about 139 tanks, with 26 of them being conventional Sherman tanks. On Sword beach, there were 101. At Gold beach, there were 140. Thus, the Americans on Omaha Beach had tank support that was not significantly less than the tank support on British beaches.

On Omaha Beach, thanks to the 741st Battalion's tanks being launched according to plan rather than dropped on the beach, the 16th Infantry operated with only 30 tanks in support and suffered something like 970 casualties. The accompanying 116th Infantry benefited from 60 supporting tanks, yet this only reduced their losses to about 800 casualties. So even assuming the British get all the DD tanks ashore, their casualties aren't going to be significantly less. The killer on Omaha Beach was poor offensive terrain and stiff German defenders, not a lack of American tanks.

EDIT: There were also apparently plans for other American funnies, specifically flamethrower and mine-flail Shermans, but they were not ready in time for the invasion.

 

[Paulo the Limey]

EDIT: There were also apparently plans for other American funnies, specifically flamethrower and mine-flail Shermans, but they were not ready in time for the invasion.

Which does beg the question as to why they didn't ask the British for theirs, as they were obviously ready in time.

From what I remember, Montgomery was given overall responsibility for planning the assault phase- he immediately increased the frontage of the initial attack, and also increased the amount of troops involved.

 

[The Saint]

Omaha also had some other problems mostly due to a miscalculation in the current/tides.

Not only did this result in a bunch of the DD tanks sinking but units landed at different parts of the beach than they expected to and they tended to land as fragments rather than coherent units.

I'm not sure you will see a great deal of difference in day one. As the campaign progresses the different tempraments of the various commanders (particularly at division and above) may produce considerably different results.

About Caen, I'd rather break Patton loose in Cobra and have Monty fighting a set piece battle at Caen, than the other way around.

 

[Agrippa]

Which does beg the question as to why they didn't ask the British for theirs, as they were obviously ready in time.

The British were not ready in time. For example, they planned to have a full brigade of 315 AVRE's by the time of the invasion; there were actually only 180 by that point. I'll have to double check my figures on the other models but the story was the same. There was a shortage of Funnies.

 

[The Saint]

FCG noted:

"My sources give different details about the numbers of tanks that got ashore. Each of the two tank battalions assigned to the first wave on Omaha had 56 tanks. Companies B and C each battalion had 16 DD Shermans. Company A of each battalion had 16 waterproofed Shermans and 8 Sherman bulldozers for clearing obstacles. Total 112 tanks, including 16 dozers.

741st Tank Battalion had 27 DD tanks sink offshore. So 29 made it ashore to support 1st Division.

743rd Tank Battalion had 1 DD Sherman sink offshore, and 4 DD Shermans were lost when their LCT was hit by artillery. So 51 got ashore to support the 29th Div.

Total of 80 ashore, including all 16 of the dozers.

If we compare casualties between 16th Infantry and 116th Infantry, there is not much difference. About 3% more casualties in the 116th, the regiment with the most tank support. Does not support the notion that tanks made a huge difference on Omaha."