A strategic discussion about D-day

[CaptainMattJ.]

I believe it was Rommel himself who noticed the similarity of the normandy beaches to the beaches in italy. Rommel knew normandy was the kind of thing the allies were looking for. He just wasnt decisive enough in his plans to reinforce it. Then again, Germany was already stretched too thin and the allies had been pretty effective in convincing the germans that they were landing elsewhere such as southern france and the pas de calais.

So, in effect, Rommel had both reasonable incentive from deception and pressure from hitler and other generals to reinforce other areas with a lighter focus on normandy. Rommel did a good job of upgrading the atlantic wall with the time he was given, and had he been given enough time to complete it, it may have proven to be damn near suicidal to make a frontal assault on.

In addition, the allies completely dominated the air. Many panzer divisions were moved too far inland to be effective, so as to be safe from naval and air bombardment, which also made them practically useless to Rommel in the event of invasion. Even if Rommel had his panzers closer, it probably wouldnt have completely shut down the invasion (though it would've been extremely difficult). Either way, the Allies domination of the air was the nail in the coffin. Germany was now fighting a war of attrition it couldntve even dream of winning. Ground attack aircraft were devastatingly effective against armor. It was nothing less than a turkey shoot. Without air superiority, who knows how costly and atrocious the fighting wouldve been for the allies. Hitler made a terrible mistake when he slowed development of new fighters (along with the failures in the battle of britain). If the Me 262 had come around sooner and in greater numbers, and been used solely for air superiority, Germany wouldve had a much, much better chance of defending france.