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Thread: Omaha beach

  1. #11
    Join Date: Aug 2009

    Location: Staffordshire, England

    Posts: 37,779
    I'm Martin.

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    The big problem was the weather, they had already postponed one day due to storms. If they didn't go on the 6th they were stuck for a month until the tides were right again.

    Plus once the paratroopers had dropped that was it, no choice but to go ahead with the seaborne landing unless you wanted to consign them all to death or captivity.

    On the whole it didn't work out too badly. They Allies had already had a near disaster with a seaborne landing at Salerno https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Avalanche where the Germans nearly over-ran the beach-head. Far more desperate situation than Omaha, bad as that was. But that was in the Italian campaign so everyone forgets about it.
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  2. #12
    Join Date: May 2010

    Location: Worcestershire, UK

    Posts: 1,101
    I'm Rob.

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    It's worth having a look at the beach:



    You wouldn't be able to see the impact of the shelling to defences on top of the cliffs from sea level.

    Also, you have to understand what a huge logistical operation it was.

    In the airborne landings on both flanks of the beaches, 2,395 aircraft and 867 gliders of the RAF and USAAF were used on D-Day. Operation Neptune involved huge naval forces, including 6,939 vessels: 1,213 naval combat ships, 4,126 landing ships and landing craft, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels.
    You can't just stop that size of operation. Once Eisenhower had said go, it was going to go ahead no matter what.

    And then ... the period between the shelling and the troops going in had to be as short as possible. If there was a long time, the Germans could just pull their troops back during the shelling, and push them back into place when the shelling finished. Also the longer the shell before the attack, the more notice the enemy has that an attack is coming, and that they have to call up support.
    Rob.
    Powered by crossed fingers and clenched buttocks

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