"What would happen if the allies invaded France in 42" Topic

Spontoon – interesting thought. I think the invasion of Norway was planned pretty hastily as they were aware that the British and French intended to send forces to cut off their iron ore supplies from Sweden (which were exported by sea from Narvik). So without Norway there would be no iron ore, and no iron ore = no steel.

If the Allies had invaded France in 1942, the Germans would have defeated them. The Russians would likely have sued for peace, and the western Allies would never have been able to make the attempt again. Marshall would have given Hitler the victory he couldn't win on his own

"Was that the motivation for launching in 1944 rather than waiting until 1945 – to prevent the Soviets from grabbing most of Europe?"

There was no thought of waiting until 1945. It would have been impossible politically (Roosevelt was running for re-election after all) and giving the Germans another year to work on the Atlantic Wall might well have made an invasion simply impossible.

It's my understanding that the British strategy on raiding came from Churchill.
Raiding being the only meaningful way of waging operations against a superior enemy and inspired by the commandos of the Boer war.

The idea of increasing the size of raids led from vaagso > St Nazaire > Bruneval > Dieppe.
If you really care about evidence then I'd take a look at Churchill's briefings. I think there was an agreement with USA in early 42 to increase size of raids. I think this was linked to persuading the yanks that full scale landings in France 1942 were impractical.

I don't follow what significance the label "raid" is supposed to have.
The primary aim of the operation was to test out the practicalities of taking a port by doing so temporarily.
Other aims were to destroy material, capture papers and prisoners, improve morale at home and pacify Stalin's demands to DO SOMETHING in Europe to ease pressure on the Sovs.

I don't get what that is if it's not a raid.
In any case it was an operation carried out as part of a strategy of raiding.

I've always thought there were useful lessons learnt. The cost in lives was obviously very high.
On the other hand, maybe the cost in lives in later landings would have been higher otherwise.

John the OFM wrote:

And we would have had Fredenhall as a corps commander too!

Fredendall. Fredendall. FREDENDALL, dammit.

God rot the monkey copy-editor who let Charles Messenger spell it "Fredenhall" throughout his otherwise tolerable book on the Tunisian campaign.

All the best,

John.

The raiding strategy was as much about home morale as doing damage to the axis. The commandos and raids were highly publicised. It was to send a signal to the population and to the rest of world that Britain was fighting back. Britain had not invested in airborne forces or any real offensive capacity in the 1930s, unlike Nazi Germany or the USSR. A huge defensive effort was still required, especially in the air and the Atlantic – building fighters, convoy escorts and merchants. So work began on building up those forces that could quickly deliver some limited offensive results – primarily strategic bombing and raiding forces. The commandos were named after the Boer raiding parties (Churchill had famously been captured and escaped out of the window of an outdoor privvy in the Boer war, and Jan Smutts – Prime Minster of South Africa was a close friend and former "commando" himself). The airborne forces were also created at this time too, and carried out some of the raids too (Bruneval – to capture a german radar set).

In the end the strategic bombing campaign became Britain's single largest offensive investment, and from it developed the modern art of electronic warfare.

Archeopteryx

The Commandos of the Boer armies were not 'raiding parties' though – they were simply militia units in which all burghers between 16 and 50 who lived in a given geographical area were obliged to serve in time of war. Rather like a yeomanry unit in the UK, but with no sort of selection process / training required.
The 'elite' connotation / association with raiding came later.