D-DAY

[HealzDevo]

Also I think that the US Bombers played a role. They were needed to destroy some areas in advance. Also having fighters and bombers meant that you had the Flak-88 and other mobile anti-air artillery focusing on the air rather than on infantry. You have to remember that very few of the Allied tanks came through from the water for various reasons. Therefore the Allied forces were relying on the bombardment of the navy as well as airforce help. As it was though, Omaha beach was a close-run thing with the Germans. The Germans had had the chance to dig in and build fortifications. The fighters if they weren't bombing were useful for suggesting targets through radio to the navy. I really do wonder about whether the airforce role in D-Day was played down. We rarely hear about the airforce doing any damage on that day. I would like to know what damage the airforce really did do in this major amphibious landing.

 

[Kiwikid]

Yeap Les, it is not like the Luftwaffe showed up for D-Day anyhow.

Well Allied air superiority is the reason why the Luftwaffe was fairly light.

u-88C's would have been mincemeat for the close in-shore Destroyers' AAA.

Not according to an eyewitness of mine.

It was a turkey shoot most days when lumbering Ju 88 were caught unescorted by the 2nd TAF Mustang IIIs.

They weren't lumbering either.

My dad's ship LCH-187 was straffed off Aromanches by a Ju-88 flying so low that it's props were lifting plumes of spray. The landing fleets stopped flying barrage ballons quite quickly when they found that the huge gun batteries at Le Havre were using them to target ships they were attached to.

My dad's ship later went close in to Le Havre to direct battleship fire onto the batteries at Le Havre.

USAF bombers were used, but gained a bad reputation because they would not perform bombing runs from the direction that ground forces requested. This led to the obliteration of a French city and Allied troops around the city. They earned a bad reputation amongst the men who were there because they inflicted more casualties on Allied forces than they did on the Germans.

East of Caen, was their target, a large Panzer battalion. This was unit obliterated but so was Caen where there were about 8,000 French civilian casualties. The Panzers were in woods well outside town.

Ground forces requested an approach parallel with the coast. The bombers flew in over Caen instead.

 

[Twitch]

Interesting that in the whole of WW2 air support/air superiority was critical from start to finish and the lessons learned have held true in every conflict since- own the sky over the battlefield. Was the 1st war where some battles were decided by air power.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

The allies could have managed to get a toehold, but without airsupport the difficulty in establishing a firm beached would have multiplied. Panzer divisions not being harresed by jabos means more tanks are going to attack allies soldiers, and with the heavy tigers and panther, it'd have been a lot harder.

 

[plan_D]

First let's establish the volume of Allied air support:

6th June, 1944, AEAF flew 1,547 fighter sorties and maintained 36 fighters over the British and Canadian beaches, with 36 fighters over the U.S beaches at all times. A further 1,800 escort sorties were flown for bombers and troop carriers.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

wow thats a lot of sorties.

 

[Kiwikid]

First let's establish the volume of Allied air support:

Which makes it all the more impressive that the Luftwaffe did manage quite a few attacks and underlines the need for airsuperiority.

What kept the bulk of the Panzers away, up at Calais, was the deception plans.

 

[redcoat]

if there had been no air support from either side on D-day itself the result would probably been the same.
The only Panzer division to attack the beach-heads on D-day was the 21st Panzer Division, and it was easily driven off by a screen of Sherman Fireflys, and 17 pdr Anti-tank guns. In fact the 21st Panzer lost 70 of the 124 tanks it started with on D-Day, almost all to ground combat and artillery.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Which makes it all the more impressive that the Luftwaffe did manage quite a few attacks and underlines the need for airsuperiority.

What kept the bulk of the Panzers away, up at Calais, was the deception plans.

Right, like Lt. Col Josef Priller and his wingman flew two FW190s down on Sword and got away without a scratch despite the fact every AA gun around opened up on them.

 

[Joe2]

AA Guns hardly hit aircraft anyway, especially British ones. The 'Barrage' effect was useless. You would need 10 000 guns to cover 100 square yards to hit a high-level bomber, apparantly.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

if there had been no air support from either side on D-day itself the result would probably been the same.
The only Panzer division to attack the beach-heads on D-day was the 21st Panzer Division, and it was easily driven off by a screen of Sherman Fireflys, and 17 pdr Anti-tank guns. In fact the 21st Panzer lost 70 of the 124 tanks it started with on D-Day, almost all to ground combat and artillery.

They did not lose 70 tanks in one day.

The info that I have is from actual German records and from my copies of the actual OKW (Germany High Command) documents. I have the complete OKW documents in 8 Volumes broken down from the day the war started to the day the war ended. Here are the losses for the 21st Panzer Division.

June 6, 1944: 16 Tanks destroyed

Between June 6, 1944 and June 8, 1944: 54 Tanks Destroyed mostly by air attack. Of the 54 that were destroyed only 13 were destroyed by enemy tanks and artillary.

22 August 1944 the 21st Panzer Division was down to 12 tanks.

I think what you are getting confused is this on June 8, 1944 the 21st only had 70 operational tanks left. 70 were not destroyed in the 1st day or the second day.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

I remember reading The Longest day by Cornelius Ryan that the 21st was stalled at sword by AT guns, and that most of the tanks were old Mark IV's.

 

[HealzDevo]

Okay all very useful to know.