What If?: Operation Overlord

[Shadowmancer]

This thread idea has come from a few places, the first being the thread about The American Civil War, it also came from a National Geographic show that I saw today on something that the Nazi's were working on, which will be gotten onto at the requisite point in this post. I know that this may not be the most popular thread but I hope that it gives the most thought to those that think they know World War 2 History because after going through my thought experiment it made me realize just how important a certain event was to the War ending.

First let me explain my methodology behind what I called the thought experiment. It may not follow on from Einstein's methodology for a thought experiment. My methodology when it comes to historical thought experiments revolve around picking a point in history that has two main possible outcomes and playing out the way that it could go from there based on knowledge that I have of a historical period, I may be wrong or I may be right but it kills time for me at work while I am doing the mindless stuff.

Now onto the actual thought experiment itself. I chose to do Operation Overlord because well it is an important aspect of World War 2 and it has the two possible outcomes, first it comes together and everything occurs as it does in the existing timeline. The other possibility is that it doesn't occur either at all or until the next year.

A bit of background for those that don't know what Operation Overlord is. Simply put it is the Plan that is put in place that was to lead up to the D-day landings. You will notice that I called the thread What If: Operation Overlord and not what if: D-day. and the main reason behind this is because D-day fucking up changes the game in a different way to that of Operation overlord not going to plan.

And now to do what history teachers say you should never do a what if scenario in proper historical analysis. But its fun so why not.

Operation Overlord requires a number of things to go the allies way for it to go off. the D-day landings happen on the last day that they could have happened on, think about that for a second, what would have happened if that last possible day was called off like the previous days had been. Frankly speaking I can't see the Allies winning the war from this point on if the landings do not happen at the stage they do. Germany was in development of what is effectively a stealth fighter/bomber and had a full size prototype before the D-day landings, it ran in test dogfights against an ME 262 and was faster and more maneuverable, it had such an advantage over the other planes out there that I would hazard to say that the chain home would have been destroyed as soon as an operational unit was set up in France. They would have reeked havoc upon the Russians. If the Chain home would theoretically be brought down quickly imagine what would happen when there wouldn't be the 2/8 minute warning would have.

Goering had said that Germany would have a fully functioning Nuclear weapon by 1946 and had commissioned a long range bomber concept to carry it to the US.

Other elements of the war are also able to be used in saying that the lack of landings in 1944 would be such a huge blow to the Allies in the long run. Italy was still a bogged down battleground, the Russians were gaining some sort of traction but new equipment that was in development by Nazi Germany could turn that front around just as easily. This is ignoring the Pacific was where a large amount of resources were tied up. I don't think that nuclear weapons would have gotten to the practical stage by 1945 and even then I think that they would have used them upon Germany.

Anyway I hope you can understand my leaps of logic in there as well as contribute

 

[Барбоса]

"What If?" histories are quite popular. I don't really understand why they are much maligned. I have found that they can help enhance your arguing and writing abilities. Stephen E. Ambrose has written a "What If?" regarding the failure of D-Day in which he speculates on the use of nuclear weapons against Germany and the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Japan.

To my mind, Operation Overlord did not change the outcome of the war. In the Pacific, even with the large amount of men and materials given to the D-Day landings, the USA was always going to eventually defeat the Japanese. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's claim that "I can run wild for six months … after that, I have no expectation of success" or the line falsely attributed to him in Tora1 Tora! Tora! that "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve" are very apt descriptions of how the war in the Pacific would go.

In Europe, I don't think the opening of the second front (Italy never seemed to count as a front, mainly because it had turned into the cul-de-sac that the Americans had predicted) in Normandy changed anything regarding an Allied victory. By June 1944, the Red Army had the measure of the German forces. Army Group South had been smashed at Stalingrad and removed from the Ukraine altogether; Army Group North had been forced back from Leningrad and was in danger of being cut off by a Russian drive to the Baltic and a Soviet pincer movement was about to would trap over two-thirds of Army Group Centre in a pocket east of Minsk, where it would be ground out of existence. German allies such as the Finns and Romanians had begun to put out feelers of peace.

What D-Day did ensure was that Churchill's Iron Curtain stretched from the Baltic to the Aegean rather than having a boundary on the North Sea. Had the Allies not established a military presence in western Europe in 1944, the Soviets would been able to establish communist governments in more of Europe than they actually did. All of Germany would have fallen to Stalin, along with Austria and Denmark. The Yugoslavs would likely have been forced to accept Stalinist direction. Communism may also have made strides in the Benelux countries and in France.

Had the the Americans, the British and their Allies not succeeded in Normandy, the Iron Curtain may have resembled more of a blanket over the whole of Europe.

 

[klunderbunker]

I'm not sure I'm sold on the Germans being able to win even if D-Day didn't work. At the end of the day, I just don't think they had the man power or the resources, and taht's where they fell short. This is a very odd comparison to make, but I've always considered the war in Europe to be similar to a George Foreman fight with the Allies being Foreman: you can run all you want, but eventually you're going to be stuck in a corner and you lose because you're outgunned. It just seems to me like it would have only prolonged the inevitable. As Shadow said, the Germans could have had a nuclear weapon in use by 46. Assuming that's true, even still, with VJ day in 45, it would have allowed the American forces to focus solely on Germany, and there is simply no way the Germans could have handled a full fledged American and Russian attack from both sides, no matter what planes they had. In the end, had D-Day not succeeded, I think it would have been a matter of extending the Germans' time for a bit, but the ending was inevitable.

 

[Platypus Palsy]

D-Day came late and would've really had more effect in 1942. If D-Day never happened, things really wouldn't have changed. There is a difference in what would've happened in changing the question ever so slightly. If it's what if it failed, well all the troops and Panzers and supplies would've still been shipped over to western Europe which would have still helped the Russians but not nearly to the effect that a successful D-Day was. Now if it never happened at all, then the Germans wouldn't have wasted the time, gas, money, etc getting everything over to western Europe and could've strengthened the line to stop the Russian advancement to delay the war and possibly get the wonder weapon finished to turn the tide of the war.

I don't think that Russia would've eventually invaded Japan since they and a non-aggression pact with Japan and both countries were willing to honor it unlike Germany did. I think another interesting question to ask is what if Germany never broke the treaty.

 

[Барбоса]

I don't think that Russia would've eventually invaded Japan since they and a non-aggression pact with Japan and both countries were willing to honor it unlike Germany did.

Stalin had actually agreed to enter the war against Japan as early as the Tehran Conference in November, 1943 but only after the defeat of Germany. At Yalta in February, 1945, Stalin further agreed that he would declare war on Japan three months after the defeat of the Nazis. He kept to this agreement by invading Japanese-occupied Manchuria on 9th August, 1945 and making short work of Japan's Kwantung army.

The cynics note that Stalin's declaration of war on Japan came less than 24 hours after the dropping of "Little Boy" but for the Russians to launch a three-pronged attack into Japanese territory with over 1.5 million men a day later means that the dropping of the bomb had no effect on Stalin's decision to invade.