Iranian plan B

[Oberon]

IIRC many of the men they faced in the breakout from the beaches were quite green themselves, and quite young.

*quick research*

Ah, yes, the 12th SS Panzer Division, the NCOs and enlisted men were veterans of the Eastern front but the main rank and file were Hitler Youth members.

I find it highly offensive to slam any Unit that landed on D-Day.
Perhaps you can offend the AirBorne units that landed behind the lines also?
I mean what 'mislead' youth wouldn't do that?

I don't think he was trying to slam the units, he was just trying to back up his rather strange theory.
Facts do seem to suggest that he manages to get the "proof" for his theory completely backwards.
Most of the ground .units involved in the invasion of France were untried in combat, those that had already seen action were concentrated in the first wave.
That would appear to be the exact opposite of his theory.

[TLAM Strike]

D-Day is a very biased example since only two or three US Divisions in that invasion had even seen combat (the 82nd, and 1st are the ones I know of, maybe some of the Ranger Divisions did too, I'm not sure).

The few other US divisions that had seen combat at the time were still fighting in Italy and stayed there for most of the war or were diverted to the southern France invasion, Operation Dragoon (which was meant to be conducted in concert with Overlord but could not due to lack of ships).

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

D-Day is a very biased example since only two or three US Divisions in that invasion had even seen combat (the 82nd, and 1st are the ones I know of, maybe some of the Ranger Divisions did too, I'm not sure).

The few other US divisions that had seen combat at the time were still fighting in Italy and stayed there for most of the war or were diverted to the southern France invasion, Operation Dragoon (which was meant to be conducted in concert with Overlord but could not due to lack of ships).

The only Ranger involvement during D-Day was at Point du Hoc the 2nd Ranger Battalion they as a unit had never seen action before.The most sizable formation of Rangers you will ever see is a regiment.It is very likely that some members of the 2nd Rangers where transferred from the 1st Ranger Battalion they had seen action in North Africa.

Of course the general rule in warfare is that you do not put all of your most elite,experienced and hardened units into the battle at the start unless you absolutely need them for a specific action.

[Skybird]

To clear at least this one detail, I am basing on memory I have about TV docus about D-Day and the occasional read here and there, nothing systematic since I am not overly interested in WWII. But if over the years I repeatedly read and see historians claim on TV, internet and in writing that on D-Day the more unexperienced units were sent first (that must not include whole divisons, but can be the most unexperienced companies in a battalion or other most unexperienced battalion in a brigade/division), and when I had little reason to doubt that since militarily it makes sense (militarily, lets leave peacetime morals out of this since war is not peace, then this leaves an echo, a mark in my memory. And so I say that some historians say that unexperienced units got sent first.

Do I have book titles, names, publication dates and publishers? No. It's the kind of media input that you get when you randomly watch and read media that I refer to, TV as well as reading. I claim however that it was not just one or two sources, but several interview partners, historians and/or authors and film makers. If I had made notes about them at the time I stumbled over them, I today would give you maybe seven or eight names, I do not know for sure, but I think that numbers matches quite well.

Do not ignore that probably a majoirty of GIs landing on that day were greenies who had not seen combat before, which made the veterans's experience probably an even more precious resource you wanted to save as a High Commander, so to have them survive at least the initial combat phase where the highest blood toll was to be expected. A dead greenhorn is a smaller loss than a dead experienced veteran, and the highest losses were suffered by green units and in the first couple of days of combat deployement. Many US units spend time in England after having been brought there, and had their earlier losses from before D-Day replaced and filled up there.

Militarily, it makes sense. I do not say it is nice. But militarily, it makes sense. Back then, wars still were fought differently than today. It still was more like Napoleonic squares than modern specialised fire teams with few soldiers in them who all have very specialised roles to fill.

To clear at least this one detail, I am basing on memory I have about TV docus about D-Day and the occasional read here and there, nothing systematic since I am not overly interested in WWII. But if over the years I repeatedly read and see historians claim on TV, internet and in writing that on D-Day the more unexperienced units were sent first (that must not include whole divisons, but can be the most unexperienced companies in a battalion or other most unexperienced battalion in a brigade/division), and when I had little reason to doubt that since militarily it makes sense (militarily, lets leave peacetime morals out of this since war is not peace, then this leaves an echo, a mark in my memory. And so I say that some historians say that unexperienced units got sent first.

Nothing to do with morals, its just that evidence doesn't support your claim.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

The only Ranger involvement during D-Day was at Point du Hoc the 2nd Ranger Battalion they as a unit had never seen action before.The most sizable formation of Rangers you will ever see is a regiment.It is very likely that some members of the 2nd Rangers where transferred from the 1st Ranger Battalion they had seen action in North Africa.

5th Rangers were there as well, they landed at Omaha beach Dog Green sector instead of at Pointe Du Hoc as reinforcements for the 2nd as was planned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_Assault_Group

(I called the Ranger units Divisions by mistake, My bad.)

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

5th Rangers were there as well, they landed at Omaha beach Dog Green sector instead of at Pointe Du Hoc as reinforcements for the 2nd as was planned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_Assault_Group

(I called the Ranger units Divisions by mistake, My bad.)

I had to pick on you a little for the division thing my father was a Ranger in Vietnam.


You are right about the 5th Rangers at D-Day I forgot about them.I recon that when Spielberg wrote "Saving Private Ryan" he picked that unit because they where really at Omaha Beach and where an elite unit about the only believable part in that entire movie.

Point Du Hoc was impressive but I would rate the POW Recuse/raid on Cabanatuan in the Philippines as their most impressive action of WWII only a handful of Ranger KIA in exchange for a great deal of IJA dead and a lot of freed POWs that surely would have been executed.Of course the Alamo Scouts also where involved in that operation.

[Agiel7]

I remember reading Guests of the Ayatollah where once it became clear it would be a drawn out crisis, some Pentagon guys were given the task of drawing up a rescue operation, then two days later were brought before the Joint Chiefs to present whatever they came up with. Of course, on such short notice, it wasn't much of a plan at all, and the unfortunate soul who was in the hot seat had to deliver this with the caveat that a better plan could be made given more time, and he began with: "Obviously we don't want to do this..."

The plan was to para-drop commandos near a road into Tehran that was known to have quite a lot of truck traffic. They would then hijack the trucks they needed, drive to the embassy, free the hostages, then fight their way 300 miles to the Turkish border. The planner who delivered this finished it off by repeating "Obviously we don't want to do this."

That said, I thought of this: B-2s bomb the airstrips and hangars known to house the most dangerous elements of the Iranian armed forces (not that a bunch of poorly maintained F-4 Phantoms could pose much of a threat to F-15s). Rangers, Delta Force, and engineers would be dropped near the known underground nuclear facilities, along with Javelins and Humvees and jeeps with TOW launchers mounted on them to deal with Iranian armour. Should the Iranians scientists lock themselves into the nuclear processing facilities, the engineers would devise a method to contact the men inside and ask them nicely to open the doors so they can smash the centrifuges, and should they refuse, inform them that they have the means to breach the doors or prepare them in such a state that a laser-guided bunker buster could do it for them. The engineers also prepare makeshift FARPS for the helicopters that will extract them. While the engineers work, air escort and SEAD shooters punch air corridors into Iran not only so C-2 Greyhounds and C-17 Globemasters can resupply the ground troops by para drop, but also for CAS assets to assist the troops as well. If at all possible, the ground troops are to collect data that can prove the intentions of the Iranian nuclear program. Once that is done, the troops are extracted by helicopter after refueling from the FARPS built by the engineers.

Now obviously we don't want to do this.

Steelhead.
Since you mention the Phillipines isn't the Pacific war a much better example of Skybirds theory being backwards?
While Normandy alone proves that his theory doesn't hold water the long series of beach assaults against the Japanese provides a much greater set of examples to show the theory is incorrect.