Carriers!!

[plan_D]

I'm sure a few Tallboys well placed would have done a lot of damage to the German defences. Which would have provided a great aid to the assault troops. But as I see it, Operation NEPTUNE was a complete success.

Maybe some extra fire support from Cruisers and Battleships would have been nice. But what was used worked well. Remember that Omaha was the worst beach. The others suffered very little casaulties in comparison to most PTO landings and Omaha.

Utah - 200 (MIA - KIA)
Omaha - 3000 (MIA - KIA)
Juno - 1000 (MIA - KIA)
Gold - 400 (MIA - KIA)
Sword - 630 (MIA - KIA)

See? Not that bad!

 

[syscom3]

The situation on Omaha was so bad, that Gen Bradley considered withdrawing.

All the USN/RN had to do to prevent this debacle was to have had some cruisers or battleships up close and firing point blank at the pillbox's and bunkers as they were discovered.

 

[plan_D]

All that was needed were a proper release of the DD Shermans, which would have given the troops the armour support that provided effective passage on the other beaches. The heaviest losses were expected on Omaha from day one, it was nothing of a shock to COSSAC.

There was the idea to land all other waves on Utah beach, but thankfully they did not. That would have left Utah cut off, which is why Omaha was chosen in the first place.

Possibly a few Battleships would have given the troops a greater chance. But let's be honest, a loss of 3,000 is not bad in comparison to the PTO operations.

 

[CurzonDax]

I don't know where AVALANCHE came from. Alzimers maybe, yes its ICEBURG. Maybe the whole snow subject got me all mixed up. The 6,000+ number for OVERLORD and its subplan NEPTUNE is if you include all of the LSTs, LCIs, DUWKs, rowboats, bamboo rafts, and so on and so forth. My numbers did not include these since I thought we were talking about ships LSTs and bigger.

I will concede the point that the losses on June 6th were less compared to some PTO ops such as Tarawa but still more if you compare the landings done in the Marshalls and Leyte. But like syscom said COSSAC planners did not take into consideration the lessons of the PTO. I still will stick to my argument that if those lessons had been taken to heart, Omaha would have not been the blood bath it was.

:{)

 

[syscom3]

The Duplex Drive tanks were a gamble. They were known to be easily swamped in high seas, and they could easily be knocked out by the existing German guns.

Just having naval support at point blank range would have changed the situation on that beach. I would aslo say that converting some of the LST's or even destroyers to carry a battery of howitzers for close up indirect support would have helped things along on all of the beaches.

 

[CurzonDax]

All that was needed were a proper release of the DD Shermans, which would have given the troops the armour support that provided effective passage on the other beaches.

In some of the other beaches the DDs worked pretty good. I read a German account where they did not recognize the DDs for what they were in the water, just as these canvas "bathtubs" I think was the adjective until they churned out of the water, down came the canvas, and OH its a Sherman! Yes I know how many feel about the Sherman but my pucker factor would be high if I suddenly saw platoons of Shermans coming out of the water shooting 75mm shells and popping .50 and .30 cal caps.

:{)

 

[Jabberwocky]

The Duplex Drive tanks were a gamble. They were known to be easily swamped in high seas, and they could easily be knocked out by the existing German guns.

Just having naval support at point blank range would have changed the situation on that beach. I would aslo say that converting some of the LST's or even destroyers to carry a battery of howitzers for close up indirect support would have helped things along on all of the beaches.

Couple of points:

1)Few captains would be willing to risk a capital ship in that close. E-boats, midget submarines and mines as well as underwater obstacles, shoals, sand bars and the like were considered to be major threats to cruiser operations. We now know that the threat wasn't as great as imagined, but that was the feeling at the time.

2) Destroyer gunfire was judged to be more accurate for direct fire support than the larger guns of the cruisers and battleships. There WAS direct naval firesupport at point blank range at Omaha, but it was provided by the 5 inch guns of the destroyers. The cruisers and larger battlewagons were engaged in flinging rounds at the bluffs and targets further inland.

3) The smaller German guns and emplacements were so well camoflaged or concealed that it was almost impossible to have any effective firesupport until shore-to-ship communications had been established. Most of the beach communication parties were lost very eaerly in the landing. Commander W. J. Marshal, captain of the destroyer Satterlee summed up the situation:
"It was most galling and depressing to lie idly a few hundred yeards off the beaches and watch our troops, tanks, landing boats and motor vehicles being heavily shelled and not able to fire a shot to help them just because we had no information as to what to shoot at and were unable to detect the source of enemy fire"

4) Without effective communications, eventually the captains began to act on their own initiative. They closed with the beach, often coming to less than 900 meters and risking running aground, and began to engage any targets they could find. Shubrick, McCook, Satterlee, Frankford and Harding all fired between 500 and 1000 rounds of 5 inch ammunition ammunition. Carmick fired close to 1,200. The few DDs that arrived on the beach would fire at concealed emplacements and then the destroyers would aim at their targets.

 

[plan_D]

The 1,300 figure for ICEBERG includes all minor vessels, and it still falls short of NEPTUNE by 5,000 vessels. NEPTUNE was the largest seaborne invasion in history, that's a fact.

The plan was fine, COSSAC had plenty of lessons from their own ETO experience including HUSKY, AVALANCHE and JUBILEE. All of which were much more directly related to NEPTUNE than any PTO landing. The situations were completely different.

 

[CurzonDax]

I never said the COSSAC planners did a bad plan and I never said that they had experiences to draw from. But they still could have learned a lot from the PTO. All I said that when things did go bad there were some lessons that they ignored too. Lastly ETO amphib numbers always include smaller boats like landing craft of all types, where as in the PTO they don't, just ships from ecorts up.

Here is the quote from MHO from which I got my sources from which in turn was gotten from from the D-Day museum in New Orleans and USA and USN files-

The United States Navy assembled an unprecedented armada in April of 1945, with 1,300 ships laying in wait off the coast of Okinawa.(18) In fact, the effort in the spring offensive of 1945 was far greater than the previous spring offensive in Europe. During the Normandy invasion, the Allies had employed 150,000 troops, 284 ships, and 570,000 tons of supplies, all of which required a very short supply line. On Okinawa, in Japan's back yard, maintaining the supply line seemed an incomprehensible feat. In the invasion of Okinawa, there were 183,000 troops, 327 ships, and 750,000 tons of supplies.(19

This number does not include forces that were later added on to combat things like Kamakazis or bring rienforcements in considering that before it was all over 300,000 allied personel fought in or around Okinawa. Also this does not count the British Task force that was supporting US ops.
So if you include every LST, LCI, LCM, DUKW, dinghy, row boat, bamboo raft, sampan, and junk, yes NEPTUNE was bigger on paper. But like I said before I thought we were discussing ships not boats which is what these smaller vessels are. And yes this may seem technical but it is an important fact. Also you forget that amtracs/alligators, which are 430, are not included in the vessels in the invasion because they are neither considered boats or ships. Also in this figure are not included Halsey's task force which was not physically covering the beaches but still part of ICEBURG. So I will argue that if you include every LST, LCI, LCM, DUKW, dinghy, row boat, bamboo raft, sampan, and junk in ICEBURG it will at least be as big as NEPTUNE and if you count the follow up forces it was bigger.

I await your broadside while my guys re load thier Long 24s.

 

[CurzonDax]

Okay I don't know where the smiley came from, its an "18" for a foot note.

:{)

 

[maxs75]

Iceberg and Neptune were very different operation by concept.
The European one was a shore to shore landing, while the Okinawa was a ship to shore op.
It means that across the channel also the minor LC were able to depart from friendly ports and unload on enemy beaches, while for Okinawa only major vessels were able to do the trip from Leyte, Manus, probably also Pearl Harbour. So LCMs were to be carried by LSDs or AKAs, and most probably also LCTs had to be carried by LSTs.
BTW, IIRC the Husky operation involved the higher number of troops put ashore for the first wave, more than Overlord. Obviously, Overlord neeeded moch more follow on troops and material than any other landing op.

Max

 

[plan_D]

You do realise your source is wrong, don't you Curzon? NEPTUNE landed 133,000 by sea. If you can prove that over 6,000 vessels were used by the ICEBURG team, then I'll give it to you. But it seems to me the site is indicating it was the biggest invasion for the U.S. Remember that 78% of the vessels used in NEPTUNE were British.

 

[syscom3]

Why dont we define the invasion force as all cargo, transport and amphib vessels LCI sized and larger.

The supporting warships should be in a whole different catagory.

 

[CurzonDax]

I think our disagreement comes from the fact that you are counting ALL seagoing vessels used in NEPTUNE, I am not as I have said before. If you read my posts you will see, and I guess I was a little too technical, I was making the distinction between what is considered a "ship" and a "boat" which there is a diffrence. I am counting "ships" like destroyers, transports, carriers, etc, etc. I know that if you count EVERY seagoing vessel used NEPTUNE was larger (thats a duh!), but of we are just counting ships from escorts up, men landed or in reserve, and supplies available, ICEBERG was bigger and at the end of a much longer supply chain. That is what I am arguing. Nothing more nothing less. So with this said, I know that each landing had a difference of mission and scope, I am not arguing that and I never disputed it.

:{)

 

[CurzonDax]

All right, I realized we were both right. Yes you were right that NEPTUNE was larger over all. On the other hand my sources were not wrong they were just not explicit enough. The numbers I was looking at were of the US naval forces in NEPTUNE vs ICEBURG. I had to dig out battle of order material to find this stuff. So here is what I found and realized-

1. The naval numbers are for USN ships. The supply numbers are of available supplies on the ships off the beaches. Man power are troops landed and those in reserve. So again in this aspect, again just US forces, ICEBURG was bigger.
2. All numbers for NEPTUNE include everything from battleships down to midget subs to yaghts carrying a .50 where as ICEBURG numbers only include combat vessels from escorts and minsweepers to carriers not amphibious craft from LSTs down. In fact if you look at the actual reports prepared by Halsey's staff they make it a point not to count these vessels.
3. Again it seems a ETO, MTO custom to include ALL vessels in thier numbers. (how much you wanna bet it was Army bean counters trying to upstage thier Navy cousins by saying my invasion was bigger )Where as PTO numbers do not include these numbers, again from Halsey staff reports.

Therefore it would stand to reason that if don't include amphibious ships, which PTO numbers seem to never include (And I looked at several landings), the USN force ICEBURG was bigger than that off the Normandy beaches. The only support vessel numbers that I found were numbers for Amtracs and rocket LSTs. This how the numbers read. So it stands to reason since the PTO was a USN lake and the ETO was a RN lake, these numbers to me make more sense. Also the ICEBURG numbers do not include RN strength which was four carriers built around a two battleship led screen.

:{)

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[MP-Willow]

Curzone and Plan_D, this is a very good topic and I have to agree with Curzone that the USN could have used more aircraft. The problum was thought that at the time of landings, the weather was not good for air operations, at least for the USAF. The USMC might have been able to fly in that low clowd cover, but no dive bombers.

But over France I think what would have realy helped was better understanding of where all the falling steel and lead was landing and what it was doing!

I have to agree that some of the Pacific landings put more troops on shore for the first wave then Normandy and lagistically I think were much harder to pull off.

 

[CurzonDax]

Oh logistically, while OVERLORD was a logistic achievement, the PTO was a logistical miracle. I can only imagine the headaches the supply folks from all five services, because the USCG was also present in the PTO, had trying to keep everything from spark plugs on Corsairs on Rendova to Ice Cream on the Enterprise at the end of a 5000 mile long supply line. Not saying that the ETO was not hard but England to Bastonge is a lot closer than San Fransisco to Okinawa.

:{)

 

[syscom3]

The supplies that went to the CBI ws even longer. more like 10,000 miles.

 

[CurzonDax]

Yes and much in the air. And like your sig says, there were defenetly goats in them clouds. Still the way the USN and later the RN could keep thier Task Forces supplied at sea was fantastic. I will argue though that even if the Kriegsmarine had deployed the Zepplin, its ability to project power like the USN, RN, and IJN were able to do would have been limited by the fact they did not have the experience or the traditions in carrier ops. Just as an example, thier hitting power would have been on short legs because of the relatively short range of the aircraft they were planing to use as carrier planes, 109 and Stukas. Also while they did have the ability to refuel at sea, thier ability paled to that of the USN to do.

:{)

 

[plan_D]

And later the Royal Navy? The RN kept the CBI supplied from day one. There's no "later" about it. It's a long way from Portsmouth to Calcutta, even longer to Rangoon or Singapore.

You rant on and on, but you do not provide evidence that ICEBURG was bigger than NEPTUNE. Overall, OVERLORD involved a lot more men than ICEBURG - the OVERLORD operation ended up landing millions into France, and it wasn't just from the sea.

OVERLORD, and the whole operation in Europe was a logistical miracle. Keeping forces supplied of fuel and ammo across an awful stretch of water, and over land that had been demolished by your own airforce. It's a miracle that the assault got off in the first place.