World War 2 Talk - View Single Post

Glider · 11-02-2006, 04:42 AM

'We had LCTs too. Most of them got caught up on the underwater obsticles of morning invasion. Shermans could have defended themselves. '

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'An M7 could have but artillery rounds straight through the openings of the fortresses without even being completely on the beach. Roll up a small number of M7s off of the LCTs and the Germans would have fled the bunkers even before the infantry got there.'

I don't think so. The open top M7 would have its crews shot to pieces from MG's firing down from the cliffs. I would suggest the Shermans armed with 105's would be a better alternative.

'Then you can remove all the obsticles you want without having your engineers shot at. Funnies can't do any of that. I fail to see it's utility. Even if it had utility that something else wouldn't it was a one trick pony. But blaming losses at Omaha on not having Funnies is beyond the frey. '

What I think you are missing was the range of funnies. We had ones that layed track on the beaches so the tanks wouldn't get bogged down in soft sand. We also had others that enabled the tanks to climb sea walls. It was the combination that allowed the British armour the ability to move and support their troops. It was the lack of such tools plus of course the failure to land the DD tanks that forced the PBI to managed with little if any support.
In addition to the Funnies we had a range of landing craft that were armed with 25pd or 17pd guns in turrets that could land with the landing craft and give direct fire support to the troops on the beaches targeting the bunkers. Again the American infantry were without this aid and were on their own.
What cannot be doubted was that a lot of American Lives were lost because of the failure of the Senior Officers to take advantage of what was available.

'If I had the chance to be in one or the other, I would rather have something that could defend itself and supress the enemies fire. Removing anti-tank obsticles is just not that big of a deal.'

Removing the Anti Tank obsticles was key. Without it all the armour in the world might as well be on Mars for all the help they can give.

'We did it just fine with engineers so why waste money on a piece of equipment that doesn't buy you anything and stands a good chance of becoming a tank block that even the engineers couldn't remove?'

The USA did it just fine because by saving money you lost lives and that is not a good combination. The Engineer losses were huge and a lot more than the would have been with adaquate support.

'Just my personal opinion. I would have preferred a formation of B-17s to clear the beach in one fell swoop. That was the US plan, the engineers were a backup if the weather didn't hold.'

Ask any infantry man of any country of their confidence of any heavy bomber raid clearing a path trough defences like that and I strongly suspect that they would invite you to go first. It never worked on any landing anywhere in WW2. The bombs wouldn't be big enough or concentrated enough and it would be almost impossile to co ordinate it with the landing.
You might want to ask the Bomber crews of their confidence in the Naval ships holding fire. They were notoriously trigger happy and the bomber crews would be sitting ducks.

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11-02-2006, 04:42 AM	#23 (permalink)
Glider Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 207	'We had LCTs too. Most of them got caught up on the underwater obsticles of morning invasion. Shermans could have defended themselves. ' [/i] 'An M7 could have but artillery rounds straight through the openings of the fortresses without even being completely on the beach. Roll up a small number of M7s off of the LCTs and the Germans would have fled the bunkers even before the infantry got there.' I don't think so. The open top M7 would have its crews shot to pieces from MG's firing down from the cliffs. I would suggest the Shermans armed with 105's would be a better alternative. 'Then you can remove all the obsticles you want without having your engineers shot at. Funnies can't do any of that. I fail to see it's utility. Even if it had utility that something else wouldn't it was a one trick pony. But blaming losses at Omaha on not having Funnies is beyond the frey. ' What I think you are missing was the range of funnies. We had ones that layed track on the beaches so the tanks wouldn't get bogged down in soft sand. We also had others that enabled the tanks to climb sea walls. It was the combination that allowed the British armour the ability to move and support their troops. It was the lack of such tools plus of course the failure to land the DD tanks that forced the PBI to managed with little if any support. In addition to the Funnies we had a range of landing craft that were armed with 25pd or 17pd guns in turrets that could land with the landing craft and give direct fire support to the troops on the beaches targeting the bunkers. Again the American infantry were without this aid and were on their own. What cannot be doubted was that a lot of American Lives were lost because of the failure of the Senior Officers to take advantage of what was available. 'If I had the chance to be in one or the other, I would rather have something that could defend itself and supress the enemies fire. Removing anti-tank obsticles is just not that big of a deal.' Removing the Anti Tank obsticles was key. Without it all the armour in the world might as well be on Mars for all the help they can give. 'We did it just fine with engineers so why waste money on a piece of equipment that doesn't buy you anything and stands a good chance of becoming a tank block that even the engineers couldn't remove?' The USA did it just fine because by saving money you lost lives and that is not a good combination. The Engineer losses were huge and a lot more than the would have been with adaquate support. 'Just my personal opinion. I would have preferred a formation of B-17s to clear the beach in one fell swoop. That was the US plan, the engineers were a backup if the weather didn't hold.' Ask any infantry man of any country of their confidence of any heavy bomber raid clearing a path trough defences like that and I strongly suspect that they would invite you to go first. It never worked on any landing anywhere in WW2. The bombs wouldn't be big enough or concentrated enough and it would be almost impossile to co ordinate it with the landing. You might want to ask the Bomber crews of their confidence in the Naval ships holding fire. They were notoriously trigger happy and the bomber crews would be sitting ducks. [i]