"What if Rommel Isn’t Absent During D-Day" Topic
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Tango01 | 23 Nov 2017 12:00 p.m. PST |
"Erwin Rommel was many things: a good strategist, a highly-decorated commander, and one of the most influential people in the Third Reich who wasn't also a complete scumbag. He should probably also be remembered for taking the worst-timed holiday in history. In 1944, Rommel took time off from his position in occupied France to celebrate his wife's birthday. The more popular name for that auspicious date today? D-Day. That's right. On June 5, 1944, Rommel dashed off to Germany for a quick liaison with his darling wife. Twenty-four hours later, the Allies stormed the beaches, marking the beginning of the end for Nazi domination of Europe. While we can't know for certain how things would've gone if Rommel was there, we do know that the remaining commanders were panicked and confused and completely screwed up the German response. A commander of one of the Panzer divisions later bitterly wrote: "If Rommel had been with us instead of in Germany, he would have disregarded all orders and taken action – of that we are convinced." In the spirit of this article, let's imagine Rommel had been there. Now let's imagine he mounts a successful defense, and the Allies find themselves experiencing another Dunkirk. What happens next? Well, either Nazi dominance of Europe is ensured for even longer (maybe even giving the Germans time to complete their V3 gun and bomb London flat), or maybe, just maybe, Rommel becomes enough of a German hero to mount a successful coup against Hitler – something he had vaguely discussed before with other officers. So that's a good ending and a bad ending. Hmm. Which do you find more convincing?" Main page ar.tuhistory.com Amicalement Armand
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deephorse | 23 Nov 2017 12:26 p.m. PST |
Everything appears to be in Spanish. |
torokchar | 23 Nov 2017 12:27 p.m. PST |
Russians would have met the western allies at the Rhine! |
Murphy | 23 Nov 2017 12:52 p.m. PST |
Well..If it had been "that way", then after the allied defeat at Normandy, remaining forces Allied forces would go back to England, rearm, regroup, retrain, and look for another time to go. Secondly, most German Atlantic wall troops and tanks would've been pulled from France and shipped to the eastern front, and a portion more to Italy…where they would've been pulverized and ground up like the others. Initial conclusion. Increased bombing of Europe…firestorm bombing of Berlin like we did Tokyo. Possible use of B29s in Europe, a Western allies re-invasion sometime in Mid 1945. Possibly at Calais this time….possible Western Denmark, or somewhere else. Even if Rommel mounted a successful coup against Hitler, Russia and the Allies were still bent on Unconditional Surrender, which basically means, as long as the Nazi's had a power base then the war went on. Eventual conclusion…War in Europe ends with Germany defeated sometime in early 1946… |
foxweasel | 23 Nov 2017 1:37 p.m. PST |
There's probably a good chance that had the war in the east played out like it did, and Germany was still holding out, the next place to get the nuclear good news if it didn't surrender would be Berlin (providing the Russians hadn't yet reached it) |
Rudysnelson | 23 Nov 2017 3:03 p.m. PST |
It does not matter if Hitlers freezes deployment of reserves expecting a more northern true invasion. Any General can only do so much as his job deals with strategic reserves. If Hitler does not release the reserves, then Rommel could not change the situation. |
bsrlee | 23 Nov 2017 4:08 p.m. PST |
What Rudy said. It would at best have only delayed the inevitable, maybe spared the British paras from Market/Garden later. |
Lee494 | 23 Nov 2017 5:35 p.m. PST |
I reject your premise as pure fantasy. The overwhelming naval and air power available to the allies would have prevented another Dunkirk regardless of what Rommel did. The Germans were never able to push the allies off a beach. Not Sicily. Or Salerno or even Anzio. Best case scenario for Germans would have been a stalemate allowing Russians to overrun most of Germany from the east. To end the war before they could do that the A Bomb probably would have been dropped on Germany. Most likely Berlin. So the war in Europe still ends in summer of 45. Having used the Bomb the USA is forced to invade Japan and that drags out the Pacific war for another year and costs hundreds of thousands of US and millions of Japanese casualties. Now aren't you glad Rommel was MIA on D Day? Bottom line is that by mid 44 any scenario you can dream up leads to allied victory the only question is how long and how many millions more had to die. Cheers! |
14Bore | 23 Nov 2017 6:21 p.m. PST |
It is more the question Could Rommel get Adolph out of bed a little earlier than the crack of noon? Fished Cross Channel Attack not long ago, nothing the Germans could have done would make much difference. |
Matsuru Sami Kaze | 23 Nov 2017 8:08 p.m. PST |
As long as Allies commanded the Air, there was nothing Rommel could do that could not be seen and slaughtered from the air at that time of year. He knew it too. Then AH pinned everyone to a hard Normandy defense. Oops. |
Patrick R | 24 Nov 2017 4:14 a.m. PST |
There is a fundamental flaw in the thinking. "If Rommel had been there, he would have performed a miracle." Rommel was in Normandy on the 6th by 10pm. He WAS in Normandy and the genius Desert Fox who could defeat any enemy somehow couldn't pull of that miracle everyone expects of him. Oh, but the timing is everything you say ? It's not like he could snap his fingers and the panzers would be there the second the first soldier sets foot on a beach in Normandy. There is no guarantee the panzers will move in the first place. Many still believed the landing was merely a decoy for the real landing the Pas de Calais, for several days into the invasion. The picture was far from clear in the first 24 hours. Getting a picture of the situation was very difficult. I recall that a German officer sent a report directly to Rommel's HQ which stated that he had personally seen the landing forces and he was convinced they were commandos sent to disable guns and radar stations along the coast. He came to this conclusion because he saw far too few troops and transports, if it had been the invasion the sea would have been littered by transports and the beaches would be crowed with troops. He could only see small packets of troops. This officer is watching a whole division land before his nose and he grossly underestimates the scale of it all. And even if the Panzers arrive they will be out there in the open in broad daylight, in the dunes and on the bluffs. Sure a bunch of guys on the beaches are in for a worse day than their historical counterparts, but the Panzers are going to suffer. It's not like the allies went in completely blind. They feared the Panzers very much and knew they might have to give up one beach and consolidate the others if things went wrong. The air and artillery assets were waiting to pound on the enemy. Right or wrong the Germans feared or at least respected airpower and massed artillery and knew they would be exposed if they attacked and commanders on the ground would quickly identify the kind of terrain that would give them a good position to attack the allies and screen them from enemy fire. The Panzers would have walked all over the allied invasion in any case you say ? Why didn't they do it around Caen ? Why didn't they do it in the Bocage ? Why didn't they do it in dozens of battles where the panzers (of the low numbered SS variety and the Panzer Lehr, one of the most, if not THE elite of the Panzer corps) were in position to just "walk over the allies" They poured all their reserves and best men into the battle and they may have stopped the allies cold at times, but never was there a gap in the line and did they wipe out whole regiments and divisions as they routinely seemed to do on the Russian front … Let's drag Wittmann into it, he pretty much wiped out a whole army group single-handedly or so I hear, why wasn't Churchill on the phone with Hitler ten minutes later and sueing for peace ? This wasn't the "rather mediocre" allies throwing everything against a clearly superior enemy who pwned them on every single tactical, technologial and material level. The Panther had a big gun and thick front plate ! So what ? Even if it had gravidium armour and a plasma disintegrator it would not diminish the inherent value of a Sherman tank's capabilities. And they are not always fighting Panthers, they are going up against Germans with the same old Mauser rifle and their horse drawn carts. It's in the memoirs of allied soldiers, they remember that the roads in Normany are littered with dead horses. Yes it was tough for the tankers when they came up against Panthers, but they were not automatically wiped out, they learned to fight back and won more often than they lost because in reality the battle wasn't about the disparity between the 75mm guns of the Sherman and Panther, the disparity in other equipment which is conveniently ignored by the nazi-fan is far more crushing than all the virtues German designers were able to embue the Panther with. The allies had the most sophisticated radio network in history. This allowed low ranking officers to call down fire which their hierarchic superiors on the German side could only dream of. A US officer can rain down 105mm shells, while his counterpart is damn lucky that he has mortars and his regimental guns pointed on his part of the front line. There is a note which most nazi fanboyz will gladly dismissed is that a German soldier in late June notes that he and his comrades have not eaten in two days and have been foraging for some stale bread, a meager supply of tinned fruit and wine left behind by the locals. The problem is that the Germans are pumping in troops, weapons and ammo, but the system can't provide them with food. And these are not men on the front line, but they are in the second lines, waiting to be called up and they don't have access to food. We should not see the Normandy campaign as "The allies barely making headway before a superior foe" it's "The Germans are doing an amazing job at holding back the allied tide with limited resources that are being eroded faster than they can be replaced." Back to the OP, Rommel is there, he calls up the Panzers, they arrive during the day, take heavy losses, allies take more losses, and maybe a few tankers get to dip their toes in the water for the next cover of Signal. The problem is that the panzers have only a few hours to get up, jump in their tanks, move all the way to the landing beaches and then attack as a coherent force. I'm willing to give good odds that an early panzer counter-attack arrives in barely organized penny packets and may have some local success, but without proper support from infantry and artillery their wins are only temporary, add a few acres to the Normandy cemetaries, Berlin still ends up taken by storm. |
christot | 24 Nov 2017 5:16 a.m. PST |
Best case scenario for the Germans, heavy casualties on all beaches (aka Omaha)- Allies still off the beaches by D-Day +1. Larger and earlier counter-attacks by the Germans might have actually done the Allies a favour in the long term by writing down units sooner and using up fuel and ordinance they couldn't replace. Any direct attack on the beaches would be decimated by naval and air support (as was 21st pzrs little foray on June 6th). In the Normandy campaign when either side attacked, they took losses. |
vicmagpa1 | 24 Nov 2017 3:40 p.m. PST |
Nice article Armand. a nice what if? Problem with the German army then was logistics. though the front was quiet prior to D-Day. Their logistics problem still wasn't fixed in 1944. it was only being addressed when Albert Speer took over a year earlier. (thank God for us). Maybe if he was appointed in 1942 it might have been a difference.. But between all the different projects being worked on at the same time. MAYBE, Rommel could have done something. Allies would be in a better position if He sacked Hitler. But would France still be Vichy? Interesting! Thank you! |
ScottWashburn | 24 Nov 2017 3:57 p.m. PST |
I don't see Rommel's presence as changing things very much. I don't think there is any possibility of the Allies being pushed back into the sea. Not with all the air and naval forces available to them. It's also worth noting that the few tines the Germans launched significant counterattacks in Normandy, they had nearly as much trouble with the Boccage as the Allies did. And even if Rommel did manage to keep the Allied Beachhead contained, there was still Anvil/Dragoon in the South of France going to take place. With no room to deploy more forces in Normandy, the Allies would have diverted them there. The whole campaign might have been slowed down, but probably not by much. |
Kropotkin303 | 24 Nov 2017 4:09 p.m. PST |
I understand that the French Resistance took out a lot of German tanks being re-located to Normandy from the south of France prior and during this time, by blowing up conyoys, railways and logistics stuff, Perhaps they kept the allies safer. |
Legion 4 | 24 Nov 2017 4:13 p.m. PST |
The Allies had so much of everything, that the outcome would have been the same in the long run. With or without Rommel, IMO … |
panzerCDR | 25 Nov 2017 5:45 a.m. PST |
Not much difference, I imagine. The Allies had so much stuff and the Germans so little, and the German logistics was so sparse and ill organized that it limited the combat potential they had. For example, IIRC the 91st Luftlande Division starts the campaign in Normandy with 10.5 cm mountain howitzers and three basic loads of ammo. The shells for this weapon are not the same as for the standard German 10.5 lefh 18/40 howitzer. Very rapidly, the 91st fires off all of there ammo and has a very nasty time getting more, making their artillery train more like the ornaments one sees outside a VA post than a capable weapon. Throw in all the other captured guns the Germans are using and it becomes a logistician's nightmare. And that's not even discussing the fuel problem . . . So, Rommel on D-Day probably makes the Germans react a bit more rapidly, causes more Allied casualties, and the Germans still get ground down in the bocage in the summer. My 2 cents (or 100,000,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars) anyway . . . |
Marc33594 | 25 Nov 2017 7:37 a.m. PST |
I may be wrong but think folks are concentrating on the wrong issue or question here. The argument is not if Rommel could have pulled off a successful defense but rather if Rommel had been there and had there been a successful defense then what. Starting with those assumptions (Rommel and a successful defense) Tango then posits two possibilities. He then asks which is the more convincing. |
Tango01 | 25 Nov 2017 11:18 a.m. PST |
You are right my friend…. (smile) Amicalement Armand |
Walking Sailor | 25 Nov 2017 7:38 p.m. PST |
By chance (they were practicing right there) the Germans put in an armored counter attack at Salerno. Panther Tanks good, US Navy cruisers BETTER. |
Patrick R | 01 Dec 2017 3:42 a.m. PST |
Ah, the famous Speer myth. When Speer took over he realized that German production was like combination of fiefdoms who competed with each other for the nazi's favour. They were submitting a constant stream of designs and inviting officials to come watch their latest prototype being showcased. German production was a model of inefficiency. Large factories were sitting on their hands, while smaller subcontractors and parts suppliers were working overtime to plug the gap and vice versa. The war time distruptions meant that production was inevitable held up somewhere for lack of parts. Speer toured the factories and asked why production was held up while there were whole warehouses full of parts they weren't using. Approximately 30% of production went into spare parts for tanks in the field. Speer made an excecutive decision and gambled that a boost in production might give the Germans the breathing space they needed and might even turn the tide long enough to make a deal and end the war. So he ordered spare parts to be used in production and dusted off the plans and procedures drawn up in 1940-1941 to increase production. Some industries were already working at full capacity, and Speer simply ordered them to find partners, not already involved in wartime production that could help provide spare parts and boost production. In later years this became the famous "Genius plan of decentralizing production to avert the effects of stragic bombing" That's a fantasy. It was a side effect of the kick in the butt German industry got to stop making toasters and bridge girders and start producing machineguns and tank parts. While it did see a boost in weapon production things like railway stock and other things that were overlooked stagnated because some parts were lost to priority shifts. Foundries were tasked with producing armour grade steel and other steel for locomotives dropped, slowing down production in that department. Speer made some changes, but it was at the expense of Germany cannibalizing itself. Yes tank production went up but the quality of the equipment dropped as they stopped almost all quality control. It's a telling sign that almost all surviving late war tanks in museums today show signs of sabotage by slave labourers. Without spare parts and shoddily built equipment every effort the Germans had put into improving their tank reliability was rendered void. The end of the war came too soon, but had Germany continued along that path for another year the structural problems would have become very apparent. German equipment was often an engineer's dream and a manufacturer's nightmare. Wartime production was held off because Hitler feared a repeat of the revolutions of 1918 when the Kaiser sacrificed everything to keep the army going to the bitter end. German production was aware of the problem of inefficiency and had an excellent plan to tackle the problem at hand, implementing steps to make sure they could shift gear when asked. And I haven't told you the funny bit, the fact that German industry wasn't going full speed was a bit of a problem for some, who were expecting much larger (read more profitable) orders. It's hard to prove but the reason why people like Porsche and the folks at Henschel, Hanomag and other factories came up with these massive new tanks may have had less to do with an actual need, but was seen as a way of making more money per tank since Hitler refused to up production efficiency was not meant to streamline production and reduce costs it was meant to shift more products and cut costs maintain or increase the overhead and increase profits. Tanks like Panther were a borderline case because the design proved itself but Maus was a perfect example of a prestige project that would make a ton of money even if they only produced a reduced number. If Speer really rationalized production he would have weeded out the arbitrary rampage of different designs and simplified it along the lines of Soviet production, a single type of main tank, a light vehicle for those factories that couldn't build tanks and a heavy tank to counter enemy heavy armour. Whatever the Germans did, they should have done it two years earlier to make sure they had a nominal strategic reserve of tanks in 1944 with which they might have been able to do more than just being knocked out with Bagration and Normandy. Yes production went up in 1945, but it was because earlier production was a textbook example of inefficiency in the first place. If XXX corps and troops in Market Garden could be accused of lacking a sense of urgency, then German production had the same problem for most of the war. Some of it can be attributed to the inefficiency of an authoritarian regime with every major official behaving as if everything is his own fiefdom with an overall leader who had no clue to the realities of modern warfare, but the industry itself was milking the system and making fortunes that helped to finance and launch the post-war economic boom … |
Last Hussar | 02 Dec 2017 8:55 a.m. PST |
The panzers stayed in pas De Calais for 6 weeks, waiting for Patton and FUSAG. MI5 and Operation Fortitude won Overlord. |
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