Really Stupid Allied Plans

Revolutionary Todyo

Banned
Okay, we're all aware of all the stupid invasion plans the Nazis had. The Invasion Iceland, the Invasion Ireland (North and South) and of course the Invasion of Britain.

But, were there any really stupid allied plans on the same scale as these? Plans that made sense to the people proposing them, but today would just be laughed at by any any sensible tactician. Or were the allied leaders just generally too stable to come up with such tactical farces as Sealion and Ikarus?
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Churchill's soft underbelly of Europe has been mentioned. Dieppe wasn't great. And then there's the Americans' firm conviction that they could do Overlord as early as 1942 with green troops.
 

Shaby

Project Habakkuk springs to mind. Giant carrier made of ice (well Pykrete).

Plan Catherine also is one of mor ludicrous schemes hatched by Winston.

Project Cultivator no. 7 also. In fact pretty much all I can think of belong to Churchill.
 

The Oncoming Storm

I think it would be easier to have a thread with all of Winston's good ideas ;)

Back on topic, MacArthur's plans for the defence of The Phillipines.

Just about everything Clark did in Italy.
 
Cymraeg

Cymraeg

Giant II would have been a total frigging disaster. And I think that Marshall had a batshit crazy idea for landing a lot of paratroopers at Evruex in 1944. Which is 45 miles from Paris.
 
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Cook

Cook

Banned
Todyo1798 said:
But, were there any really stupid allied plans on the same scale as these?
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The first to spring to mind:

Operation Catherine - Royal Navy campaign to control the Baltic Sea (Not Carried Out), 1940.

Plan R 4 - The Allied Invasion of Norway, (Planned, cancelled when the Winter War ended suddenly, then carried out shortly after), 1940.

The bombing of the Russian oil fields at Baku (not carried out fortunately), 1940.

Operation Jubilee – The raid on Dieppe. (Carried out), 1942.

Operation Jupiter – Allied invasion of Norway (Again, cancelled.), 1942.

Operation Giant II – Air assault by the American 82nd Airborne Division near Rome. (cancelled), 1943.

Operation Market-Garden – Airborne invasion of Holland. (Carried Out), 1944.

The Bird Forces –Defence of Ambon, Timor and New Britain (carried Out), 1942.

The dispatch of Force Z from Singapore against the Japanese without air support, 1941.
 
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dgharis

Of course the Allies came up with some howlers of their own:

1. The British plan to mine Norwegian coastal waters. A clear violation of their neutrality, and a diplomatic windfall for the Germans, who would be sure to play it for all it was worth. It would also annoy Roosevelt and make his intended support for the British all the harder to achieve. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot; fortunately the Germans beat them to the punch by one day.

2. Dieppe. Originally concieved as a raid, it was expanded to the point of grotesqueness. The forces committed were too large for a raid and too small for an invasion, which argues that there was no clear objective agreed on by the Allied commanders. There was no rehearsal, inadequate reconnaisance, poor execution, poor coordination, and no backup plan in case the original went astray. The result was entirely predictable.

3. Anzio. The idea was a surprise landing followed by a rapid advance into Rome; one of those plans which sounds good at first, but on close examination is utter nonsense. It took no account of German reactions, and ignored the fact that the troops landed were primarily infantry and would have to walk all the way to Rome, thus giving the Germans plenty of time to interfere. It also blandly assumed that the area would be lightly defended and that the invasion force would be able to defeat the garrison of Rome, neither of which was the case.

I'll stop there; I'm sure the members can come up with many more.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Shaby said:
Project Habakkuk springs to mind. Giant carrier made of ice (well Pykrete).

Plan Catherine also is one of mor ludicrous schemes hatched by Winston.

Project Cultivator no. 7 also. In fact pretty much all I can think of belong to Churchill.
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As FDR (or possibly Alanbrooke) commented "Winston has a hundred ideas a day, four of which are good ideas".
 

Devolved

The Oncoming Storm said:
I think it would be easier to have a thread with all of Winston's good ideas ;)

Back on topic, MacArthur's plans for the defence of The Phillipines.

Just about everything Clark did in Italy.
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Mark Clark was a menace. He must have been blackmailing some important people not to be sent home as a toilet attendant.

Many 'great plans' from the Churchill catalogue.

MacArthur's great time wasting battles that were only fought to justify the existence of his command.

Building the ledo road and sending billions of dollars of material to Chiang Kai Shek.

Operation Dragoon. Why invade the South of France in August 1944.
 

Revolutionary Todyo

Banned
Devolved said:
Operation Dragoon. Why invade the South of France in August 1944.
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To be fair, this one was carried out pretty much successfully. And I suppose it has two objectives, 1) To distract the Germans who are going to have to rearrange forces for a possible second front in Italy, and 2) To give France a front of their own.
 

bsmart111

Operation Dragoon. Why invade the South of France in August 1944.
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Dragoon opened up the very large port capacity of the French Mediterranian coast. I believe that by early 1945 these ports supplied a majority of American supplies coming into Europe (The U.S. Army 'Green Books' Volume Global Logistics and Strategy 1943-1945 would probably be a good place to check)
 

Grimm Reaper

Dragoon was not only highly successful but went better than several other invasions by the Allies(or Axis) during the war and was certainly worth doing, if only in terms of French ports liberated and German forces isolated or destroyed.
 

Devolved

Grimm Reaper said:
Dragoon was not only highly successful but went better than several other invasions by the Allies(or Axis) during the war and was certainly worth doing, if only in terms of French ports liberated and German forces isolated or destroyed.
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I suppose I should remove Dragoon from my list.
 

MUC

Guys, most of the operations you mention do not qualify as "really stupid".

We are talking about really, really stupid plans. Plans that could NEVER work out and would cause huge losses to the Allies.
 

Petros >Peter Fergus<

I forget where I first heard this interpretation, and a quick google comes up negative;

Dieppe was designed to fail, so as to make the Nazi's think an invasion was impossible.

We know that the allies sacrificed men and materiel to protect the secret of the codebreakers, to spread that kind of misinformation. Is it beyond the pale to think they would organise an operation that would discredit the possibility of an invasion?
 

Revolutionary Todyo

Banned
Elfwine said:
What would you consider a sufficiently big blunder for the thread, in general?
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Well the thread is more about plans then a bad fight, after all we all know Sealion to be a major cock-up in tactics and logistics, but it was still never carried out.
So, something which had a sound strategic aim, but was poorly planned and if carried out would have been a disasterous waste of men, time and resources.

Petros >Peter Fergus< said:
I forget where I first heard this interpretation, and a quick google comes up negative;

Dieppe was designed to fail, so as to make the Nazi's think an invasion was impossible.

We know that the allies sacrificed men and materiel to protect the secret of the codebreakers, to spread that kind of misinformation. Is it beyond the pale to think they would organise an operation that would discredit the possibility of an invasion?
Click to expand...
No it isn't, but it's still a hell of a big hit for the team. And would it not be in danger of having a reverse effect where the allied troops think that they can't possibly break the German coastal defences?
 
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