When I was a teen-ager my buddies and I would meet every Saturday to play the old Avalon Hill board games. One favorite was D-Day. One neat thing about that game was the chance to try out different strategies concerning where to land. You could land at the South of France, for an example, as a diversion, then hit Pas de Calais for the real thing. Or vice versa.

Anyway I would like your ideas of what some alternatives to landing at Normandy were? With 20/20 hindsight we now know that the Bocage terrain gave the defenders a huge advantage post landings. Landing at Pas de Calais I think was impossible. Were there any choices that would have given the Allies a better chance at a real breakout earlier than July that might have gotten them to Germany earlier than in reality?

nuke Berlin?- worked pretty well in Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

Ha good idea but we did not have one for another year. even then it was a bit of a rush. (the test was duct taped together)

As for the question I will have to think of that. I have only thought about ways to avoid a disaster at Omaha.

Matt

I believe I'm right in saying that Churchill was not particularly enamoured with the Normandy idea. He preferred a landing in Greece, or an expansion of the Italian front, entering Europe by the "back door" so to speak. He was totally opposed to the "Anvil" landings in southern France, & indeed they did have little real effect initially on the Germans in the west. The south of France was territory the Germans could easily afford to give up, & generally speaking, their forces there got out in good order, fighting a delaying action as they went. Had the Allied units used in Anvil, been instead inserted in northern Europe, things may have gone much faster.
American opinion was distrustful of Churchills proposals on two grounds. Firstly, it was much further to the heart of Germany going from the south, whereas a landing in northern France presented a direct route. Moreover there was the need to placate not only Stalin, but also the civilian population of the Allies, who had clamoured for a "Western Front" for 2 years. Secondly, there was the nagging doubt that Churchill wanted to use US help to maintain British interests in the Mediterranean & the Balkans, whereas, in actual fact, Churchill had recognised the danger in allowing Stalin to "liberate" eastern Europe, & was already looking ahaead to after the war was over.
Given that, with the US shouldering the main burden of the war now, the invasion would be in France, Normandy was actually the only really viable place. The Pas de Calais was not suitable, as most of the strength of the "Atlantic Wall" was precisely there, but also it was exactly where the Germans expected the Allies to land, & they had made their troop dispositions accordingly. Landing in Brittany or further afield were discounted by distance & supply.
Montgomery's original intention in Normandy was that the breakout should be led by the British, as he planned to seize Caen on the first day, & hoped to exploit with armoured cars as far south as Falaise. This didn't happen. Instead 2nd Army attracted the mass of the German armour reinforcements, precluding an early breakout. The American forces were placed in the west, simply because most of the American units in the UK were in the west, so it made sense logistically. The intention had never been for a slogging match through the Bocage.

I think one of the bigger issues facing the Allies in June of 44 was allied air cover. So the question was, where could the Allies land where they would have TOTAL supremacy of the skies. Southern France would be a stretch. Not Greece or the Balkans. Which pretty much restricts one to NW Europe. And, if you wanted to avoid Calais, then pretty much Normandy was the best option. I can't play 20/20 hindsight.....the Allies MANY fewer than expected on D-day, and ultimately won the war in less than a year from D-day. Hard to imagine that it could have worked better than that.

I tend to believe that the Allies could have landed anywhere, and eventually been successful. I just think their air, naval, and logistics were so superior they would have won no matter what. That said the question is if they could have done so with fewer losses, or the ability to get to Germany faster, or both.

One option that I wonder about is to actually do what the Germans thought they were doing, and that was to land a diversion, either in southern France or Normandy, then go for the main landings at Pas de Calais? Another question is instead of going after south France like they did, what if they had waited till the bulk of the German army was tied up in Normandy, then land at P.d.C. with the forces that were being used in the south?