Hi Everyone

I need a little assistance with a history paper that I have to write for one of my courses. I have to write about "Why did the Battle of Normandy take as long as it did ?"

I've been doing research, but would greatly appreciate any assistance or ideas that you have.

Thanks in advance.

Leader,

Good luck on your paper. I don't know that I have a definative answer for you or even if one exists for such a large topic but I'll add some thoughts for entertainment purposes only! First, and I think most important, logistics. It takes quite a bit of time to build up the logistic tail that would, and was, required for such a campaign. Second, not only did the logistics have to be taken care of, but the space required to build it up and secure it also had to be taken from a well established, veteran force. Also, remember that the armies that invaded were for the most part inexperienced troops battling veteran, motivated formations, which means that an awful lot of on-the-job training had to take place from those in positions from division commander all the way down to the lowliest rifleman. All that taken together should perhaps lead to a different question; how were the Allied forces able to achieve this victory in such a short time.

Rick Cooper

The only thing that I would add to Rick's answer is that the Allies (if you are talking about the "Battle of Normandy" in a theater sense) failed to train or even take into account how hard it would be to fight through the Bocage country. The Allies did not train for close combat where their advantage in the air and in artillery would be eliminated.

Just my 2 cents...

Shaun

I would definitely support Shaun's point. We never trained troops for the hedgerows. We never equipped them to battle through those obstacles. The carpet bombing at St Lo worked largely because the VII Corps Commander, Major Genral Collins, was a lead from the front kinda guy who exploited a breech. However, the allies got tangled up in the hedgerow for an inordinate amount of time because they never trained on how to penetrate those barriers. Logistics played a part, but at that stage of the operation, the beachead was only six miles away. We never prepared troops and commanders for that area.
DJ

The bocage country was I agree, the major problem in the initial phase of the Normandy campaign. Many theories can be presented, my personal favorite has to be the inability of planners to correctly anlalyze the thousands of photo-recce pics that were taken of the area. They were analyzed as simple barriers/hedges, not sunken roads with centuries-old large hedges surrounding them. The Germans had 4 years to train on them, put down fields of fire and more importantly to write the combat manual on combat within these areas. An unbelieviable error on the pàrt of SHAEF.....Jim

I agree. The failure to train troops to manuver in the hedge row country is inexcusable. The only thing I can recall is that the Americans believed they would penetrate further into France than they intially did. Not to be understated is the die hard resistance of the the Germans. They held ground that all logic dictated they should abandon. They paid a steep price for it, but they did hold.
DJ

The statements above are correct. The Allies completely missed the importance of the bocage, although there were thousands of people living in England that owned property in Normandy and/or vacationed there. It was a major intelligence failure that rivals the intelligence failures before MARKET-GARDEN and the German Ardennes Offensive. There were plenty of low-level recon photos taken of the area, but no effort to verify what was in the photos and the effect on tactical ops.

All training was centered on getting the first waves ashore and in building a harbor for the follow-up waves. No effort was spent on developing tactics for action beyond the beach, even though there were areas in England that replicated what was in Normandy.

Also further delay was caused by the impact of the German armored counteracttack by 21st Panzer Division which had the British go conservative in their effort to capture Caen, causing the left wing, which had a much thinner hedgerow belt, to be stopped in its tracks. If the British had captured Caen in the first couple days, as called for in the plan, then they would have been been into the open.

As it turned out, the delay in the hedgerows actually had little impact on the overall campaign, as the Allies reached Paris and the Seine River more than a month earlier than originally planned, causing Patton's spearheads to run out of supplies.

Jeff-- nice round down as always. There are several great books on this subject. It seems to me that two of them deal with taking Omaha beach and the follow-on plan. I'll look them up tonight. I recall a fairly detailed argument among the US commanders (Huebner and Gerhardt ) over the composition of the invading force. Specifically, the break up and re distribution of troops to form British like assault forces. They were silenced by Bradley (never one of my favorites) and told to do as they were told. Some also speculate that troops were not trained on the psot invasion terrain over concern that the Germans would learn of the training and repel the landings. Weak argument, but it does rings of some degree of truth.
DJ

Thank you for the great replys. I've been doing more and more research over the last 2 days and its really interesting how many events played an impact in prolonging the campaign. As mentioned the bocage , but also the storm of June 19, monty hesitation, etc....

Once again thanks, and if anyone has any more ideas that would be great

i agree with the posts so far,

i think the lack of training to deal with the terrain was probably the biggest factor.

The british and US armys put all the emphasis on getting men onto the beaches, and then the intended rapid advances inland. the bocage country was largely ignored in the planning of the operation.

this is hard to believe when many areas of britain are very similar to the bocage, so the opportunity to train the troops was there.

of all the special weapons developed for the invasion, such as the funnies, why were none used in the bocage to support the troops?

they were mostly based on the churchill, so hedges were no obsticle, and i believe would have sped up the advance for the US troops bogged down there no end.

chers

joe

Joe-- why do you say the Chuchill would have no problems with the bocage? It is a relatively heavy tank but the same vulnerabilities to the underside affect it as the Sherman.
DJ

hi dj,

the churchill, in its later marks, had armour thicker than a tiger, and could easily drive through the hedges with out the aid of things such as cullins devices etc.

however like you say, the velnerable belly remains the same.

cheers

joe

Most of the "funnies" were designed for dealing with beach obstacles and peculiarities. They mounted demolition mortars, rolls of canvas screen to help traction on shingle beaches, or bridging or crossing ditches. None of them were well equipped to deal with hedgerows. Also, even with its increased weight, a Churchill would not be able to dive through most Norman hedges because they often had bases several feet tall made of packed soil and intertwined roots almost as hard as cement. Any tank hitting one of these would wind up climbing the hedge, which would expose the thinly armored belly of the vehicle and leave it vulnerable. There is a fairly famous painting of Churchills attacking through hedges which shows one of the tanks climbing the hedge and only bursting through once almost all of its weight is on the foliage.

Interesting comments on the Churchill. I put it along side the Sherman and can see its' width is larger. Do you have a reference for them on-line? I'd like to know a little more about them. I believe the follow-on tank is the Centruion. Am I correct?
DJ

dj, not sure about any online refenrences, but i can point you to some good books,

let me give you the exact titles when i get home from work.

the centurion was the evolution of the cruiser tanks, cromwell, comet, then centurion.

the churchill series was really a one off design, based largely on the tanks of WW1, designed to cross a trench battlefield. the early versions suffered because of poor weapons, and with each mark the weapon and armour increased.

ill get you some more info later

cheers

joe

Joe-- appreciate your help in better understanding the Churchill. Interesting model to build.
thanks again
DJ

dj,

if you can, check out this book.



it has a good detailed description of almost every major armoured vehicle since 1918, including the churchill.

the frontal armour of the marks of churchill used in normandy (gun tanks only) was 152mm. the tiger 1 was 100mm,

most were armed with the standard 75mm gun, a 6 pounder bored out to fire sherman ammo.

this gave superior HE rounds to the 6 pounder, but the AT performance was significantly lower.

the design of the churchill, with its long wide track runs gave it amazing traction over rough
terrain.

as war machine says, they crushed the hedges by partially climing them, exposing their bellys, but almost all US vehicles had to rely on cullins devices to penetrate the hedges.

some of the funnies based on the chassis would have been a real asset to the american troops battling through the bocage, such as the AVRE, with its huge 165mm demolition gun.

as im sure your aware, the british side of the bridgehead, to the east, was largely open countryside, so the british troops were spared a lot of the close quaters fighting.

cheers

joe

Joe-- thanks for the recommendation. I shall certainly look it up.
thanks
DJ

In addition.... the Allies had to wait for the misinformation programme to do its work in making the Germans believe the actual invasion would be up around Calais etc, not Normandy...
interesting....

Cheers
Peter

I always wonder about the effectiveness of Operation Fortitude. It certainly confused the Germans about the true location of the invasion. But, I believe the July assasination attempt against Hitler added fuel to the fire and further delayed moving forces against the Normandy invasion. I read several accounts that stated until Patton's breakthrough in August of 1944 the Germans at the tactical level were convinced that Normandy was the true invasion while the strategic level people did not want to discuss it with Hitler for fear he would consider them defeatist. The price of appointing "yes men" to your government.
DJ

There is a simple answer to this. It didn't take to long. The allies planned for it to take 90 days before they reached Paris and this is how long it took them. The problems was that they planned for a gradual advance and that is not what they got. They got stalemate and then a sudden brake out with operations Cobra, Bluecoat and Totalize.