>You're a German soldier, looking out at the grey seas and skies of the English Channel one morning, when suddenly a few ships pop into view.
>Then more ships. And planes. And landing craft. And thousands of men heading for your beach.
>You thought you'd got off easily being posted in France. Hundreds of thousands of your fellow Germans were entrapped in Stalingrad a couple of years ago. Thousands more are being torn apart as the Red Army and their tanks surge through The Eastern Front.
>Until now. The wealthiest and most vastly resourced nation in human history, capable of production on a level unparalleled by any other state in the war, is rocking up on your beach.
>With them are British forces, aided by Commonwealth nations, along with allies from Poland and exiled French forces.
>Scheisse.
What do?
Would you run?
Well, I'm already losing the war since 1942, so what's the big deal?
>>1244749
>le hindsight man
People living through events don't have the benefit of knowing how things end up.
Many Germans may still have believed they could turn the tide of the Russian advance in the East, and stall/prevent any Western front being opened by the Allies. Possibly sue for a truce that would keep their nation relatively intact.
The Nazi state didn't properly start falling apart until '45 IMO.
>>1244731
>Would you run?
What kind of stupid question is that?
I machine-gun hundreds of them until they reach my bunker and then try to surrender expecting fair treatment
>this is what germans actually did
>>1244777
Germans have never been the brightest.
>>1244731
Fight to the very end retreat was necssarily an option
>>1244844
Wasnt
Honestly, there's nowhere to go. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd try to surrender to someone.
>>1244777
>fair treatment
https://youtu.be/AIplts9Fk9A?t=54s
Who cares about D-Day? It's practically a meme.
>>1245099
werent those two memers actually Czech people that were "forced" to fight for the germans?
>>1244731
they were fanatical hitler youth
>>1244731
>What do?
I ask grandpa when dad is going to get back from the eastern front.
>>1244731
[x] Die
>>1244777
I love all the stories of them hiding in a house, jumping out and panzershrecking a tank, and then surrendering so they could get some gimmedats
>>1244731
I cannot help but feel like the British force is Downplayed in this post.
>>1244731
Do my duty and mow as many of them down as I can.
>>1246027
to be fair, the bloodiest beaches were Omaha and Juno which were American and Canadian.
>>1246027
Brits lost all right to be proud of ww2 land combat at dunkirk
>>1245796
underrated
>>1244731
Just shoot all of them. Maybe if I kill enough of them they will be swept away in all the blood and I'll be rewarded the Knights cross.
>>1246152
>the bloodiest beaches were Omaha and Juno
in retrospect,it was a smart idea to land the DD shermans close to the shore and not risk all 28 sinking further out
My parents anniversary is on D-Day. I think my dad planned that out so it would be easier for him to remember.
>>1244731
Dieing for a good cause is better than living without purpose... I would be honored to stand with them, as I will be honored to stand with you in the conflict ahead. Leftism is a Cancer that will never stop growing. It grows, and grows, and only ends in war. This is the time before the great war, and this time is nearing an end.
>>1246776
are you 13?
>>1246782
Shouldn't you be prepping the bull?
>>1246793
You have to be 18+ to post here, anon. Maybe /pol/ or /tv/ will be more to your taste; worn out cuckold jokes are pretty popular there.
>>1244731
I'd fight and gun down hundreds of the Anglo pigs. I have no idea whether we'll win or lose after all, and I'm doing it for my homeland, they'll kill me if I run, etc.
At least I'd die with a good K/D.
>>1246819
>At least I'd die with a good K/D.
More Churchill tanks, nicknamed “Crocodiles”, carried flamethrowers. Like the AVREs, these could often break resistance without huge loss of life – the prospect of being burned alive was often the final straw for German defenders. Sometimes you would get the Crocodiles moving up and testing their flame thrower with a few practice squirts – and the Germans would surrender without another shot being fired
>>1244731
>when suddenly
Anon, the allies bombed the shit out of Normandy before the landings (sans Omaha) and the Germans were mobilizing for a while in the greater Northern France area in preparation for the invasion. They knew shit was gonna go down (maybe not the extent that it did however).
>>1246831
That must've fucking sucked to seeing a enemy tank roll up to your bunking and shoot fire. I heard that the eastern front that Soviet defenders along the Stalin line were helpless against German stugs. None of the Soviet bunkers had artillery capable of penetrating the stugs frontal armor and so they would just roll up and shot at almost point blank range into them.
>>1246407
Well considering innitialy American failures in north African, you could say the same for them. British and commonwealth troops did make up the majority of D-Day landers.
>>1245771
Spielberg confirmed that they were Czech conscripts.
Write up from the first waves on Omaha:
>First wave
http://www.29infantrydivision.org/WWII-Documents/29th_Division-116th_Regiment-1st_Bn-A_Company-Group_Critique_Notes.html
>Second wave
http://www.29infantrydivision.org/WWII-Documents/29th_Division-116th_Regiment-1st_Bn-B_Company-Group_Critique_Notes.html
>Third
http://www.29infantrydivision.org/WWII-Documents/29th_Division-116th_Regiment-1st_Bn-D_Company-Group_Critique_Notes.html
>Fourth
http://www.29infantrydivision.org/WWII-Documents/29th_Division-116th_Regiment-1st_Bn-C_Company-Group_Critique_Notes.html
>>1247397
>True. In part due to German strength/fortifications/terrain and in part due to American incompetence. You say that like losing most men is something to be proud of...
Casualty numbers were still below expected.
>>1247397
>in part due to American incompetence
>get the only beach stuffed with fucking SS divisions
>be the only group to paratroop into fucking SS panzer divisions
>American incompetence
The Americans did extremely well considering what they were up against. Look at Point du Hoc. They were also below baseline as >>1248293 said.
>>1246864
>I heard that the eastern front that Soviet defenders along the Stalin line were helpless against German stugs. None of the Soviet bunkers had artillery capable of penetrating the stugs frontal armor and so they would just roll up and shot at almost point blank range into them.
I find that highly unlikely given the early model stugs carried 50mm front armor at most which even the m37 45mm AT could punch through
>>1248347
>He actually believes the SS were elite soldiers meme.
>>1248293
>Captain Taylor N. Fellers and Lieutenant Benjamin R. Kearfott had come in with 30 men from "A" aboard LCA 1015, but what happened to that boat team in detail will never be know. Every man was killed; most of the bodies were found along the beach.
holy fucking shit. It WAS like saving private ryan.
the british beach landings themselves were pretty much alright. but people tend to forget the battle for caen. an entirely british effort that ended up being the bloodiest battle in the entire battle for france.
i think a lot of americans don't realize that caen was basically a mini-stalingrad, in terms of the brutality of the urban combat.
Until a while ago I thought D-Day was somehow rather bad and bloody - because of all the popular media obviously - but looking at the numbers involved and casualties it's incredibly, like mindbogglingly so, mild. Yeah obviously relative to most of the war, not denying the first wave of the US beaches had it easy or anything. But still, just 4k dead?!
>>1244731
Well, more like the Royal Navy is landing forces on your beach and shelling the shit out of you and the Commonwealth is attacking with a bit of help from the USA but hey what's 50% of the land forces and nearly 100% of the naval force between friends.
I've been to Omaha beach and it really doesnt look much like in Saving Private Ryan, in terms of the landscape. There's like a huge flattish grass plain before the bunkers for one. Its not just sand and the a cliff
>>1248408
pretty much.
one of the biggest inaccuracies of the SPR scene was the scale of the geography at omaha. in the movie, the germans at the bunkers have a clear sighting on the landing soldiers to the point where they can make out each individual soldier.
the reality is that the beach was A LOT longer than that, with a fuckton of land between the disembarking men and the defenders.
referring to this relatively famous picture, the men at the shoreline can just barely make out the tops of the bluffs.
but as it is with almost all hollywood war movies, firefights aren't exciting enough when they're occurring over 400+ meters.
>German soldier
The Atlantic Wall was manned mostly by ostruppen
>>1248500
>what do I do
Stay in my bunker at least 3 km from the shore and get ready to knock out any tanks with the 75 mm AT gun emplacement.
>>1248456
Not Omaha beach. Why do you think that was so bloody?
>>1248564
American stupidity and refusal to use all the funnies
>>1248388
>i think a lot of americans don't realize that caen was basically a mini-stalingrad, in terms of the brutality of the urban combat.
The hedgerows were awful as well. Absurd numbers of face wounds because of it.
>>1248388
Brits did literally nothing
>>1244731
How did the Nazi media report D-day?
>>1246864
Maybe it will help you to know that flamethrowers wouldn't burn you to death in your bunker. It would just kill you through carbon monoxide poisoning.
>>1245771
Yeah, they were Ost Battalion guys.
>>1244731
Is it accurate to say that D Day would never have worked without either of America or the Commonwealth?
>>1244731
>>You're a German soldier
/pol/, please leave.
>>1244731
You know, in all retrospect, the D-Day landings were nowhere near as brutal as they're made out to be.
>>1248912
By the Commonwealth I mean including Britian by the way
>>1248912
>would d-day have worked if the invaders weren't there?
uhhh, what are you trying to say?
do you mean, would d-day have succeeded if it was ONLY an american operation? or ONLY a commonwealth operation?
>>1248767
This, many German commanders knew full well that they had bitten off more than they could chew and knew it was only a matter of time before they started to crumble.
Maybe if the Japanese had avoided dragging the US into the war things might have gone a little bit differently.
Germany hit hard and fast, but when it came to actually defending all the territory they had taken it proved to be too difficult.
Hell, evacuation from North Africa was more than enough of a sign that things weren't going to end well for the Wehrmacht.
>>1248940
Indeed. They knew it and that is why they invested so much in sience with the hope that they will find some kind of a superweapon (the atom bomb. for instance) that would have to turn the war on their advantage. Nevermind they failed as fuck.
>>1248931
Yeah
>>1248919
omaha was pretty objectively brutal i'd say. if only for the fact that you have soldiers engaged in one big five-hour long firefight where retreat was literally impossible.
in terms of pure statistics, however, you are correct. there were plenty of battle throughout the campaign in france that were just as bloody and brutal as the beach landings. caen being a big one, but also cherbourg, brest, etc.
and omaha beach wasn't just one big long battlefield either. it was only certain sectors of the beach that saw real intense combat. Dog green, easy red, to name a few.
and it's also important to remember that omaha was one beach of five, and the other four beaches on average saw little resistance. on utah beach, the other american beach, there was virtually no combat.
>>1248364
The SS were a cut above the rest in Normandy, anon. I'm not big on American stuff but I know the Canadians were up against some SS and Hitler Youth in the first few weeks of Overlord, and every time we bumped into each other it was a clusterfuck.
I do feel people downplay the fact the Germans were shitting themselves so hard over holding Caen from the British and Canadians that they left the bare minimum against the Americans.
>>1248720
Hedgerows? Why? How could a hedgerow cause a face injury?
>>1249072
sticking your head through
>>1248758
This is just basic historical illiteracy. The sort of post someone that gets their entire history watching Disney films would come up with.
On D-Day the land force was made up of nearly 50% British Commonwealth forces and the naval force was nearly 100% the Royal Navy.
On D-Day the USA was, to put it reasonably a nearly equal partner with the Brits and to put it in a mean shitposting way was merely the junior partner.
>>1248758
>Brits did literally nothing
If you mean literally the majority of the fighting from 1940 onwards. Then sure, literally nothing.
>>1245796
Noice
>>1248347
>Point du hoc
Yeah that shit was intense in call of duty
>>1248388
Oh yeah, Caen was supposed to fall on D-Day and it took them months to finally win the city.
>>1247397
I was just saying that the bloodiest battles are the ones most remembered.
Also it's war, everyone's fucking incompetent.
>>1249093
The naval force wasn't 100% the Royal Navy. The US had their Atlantic fleet there as well for shore bombardment.
>>1249247
The Americans only made any progress in Normandy thanks to the British tying up literally all the German forces in Caen.
>>1249178
>Cod2
yes
>>1244731
Be thankful that there's a panzer division just a few miles inland. The high command will surely deploy them and push the Anglos back into the sea when they hear about this massive invasion.
>>1249810
It worked so well at Salerno!
>>1248408
im pretty sure the scene in SPR was filmed in ireland or something
>>1249104
Brits would would be at the bottom of the ocean if America didn't save the day. Be thankful.
>>1249093
Jack shit sorry
Fuck off Nigel
>>1249810
its not like the allies have done a massive disinformation campaign and have paratroopers to assault and secure the bridges over the caen river canal.
>its a British inferiority complex episode
>>1249882
Or blown up a lot of the supply infrastructure that allows those tanks to stay at combat readiness and move out on short notice
>>1248364
The SS were the only soldiers at Normandy that had seen any real combat. They were on combat leave from the East to be reorganized after suffering heavy casualties after YEARS of fighting.
Most of the German forces on Normandy weren't German but were Slavs.
>>1249506
Rather, the Germans specifically targeted the British forces and mostly ignored the Americans, who quickly took advantage of the lack of pressure to flank hard and fast through France. The Germans were under the mistaken impression that
1. If they could beat the British troops at Caen they could destroy the beachead
2. They could beat the British
They were horribly outnumbered, and even had they done well the Americans would have inevitably come crashing down on their flank or rear echelon. They wasted a lot of men and armor trying to keep the British out of Caen and ultimately failed, by the time they tried to retreat the Americans had begun closing a noose around what would become the Falaise Pocket, leading to the total destruction of Germany's ability to fight in France.
>>1249956
Except of course for units like the elements of DAK that were present (the 21st armored), Panzer Lehr, and probably others that I'm not familiar with.
>>1250043
Well I suppose I should clarify for troops specifically on the beaches. Most of the defenders were second and third rate troops from the East who had volunteered or been conscripted by the Germans and whom the Germans did not trust to fight the Russians. Garrison troops by and large and not first rate soldiers. Not to say the SS were supersoldiers, but they were trained and had seen combat. I believe the elements of Panzer Lehr were held in reserve were they not?
>>1250058
>Carlo D'Este and Ken Ford both note that various elements of the 21st Panzer Division's two infantry regiments, tank regiment, pioneer battalion and artillery regiment were all involved in the fighting on 6 June.[6][7] Niklas Zetterling notes that on 1 June that these formations amounted to 9,778 men.
(Mostly at Sword Beach, as well as some at Juno)
Plus, as far as I know, the SS guys were held in the same mobile reserve that units like Lehr and XLVII were. I don't think any were actually fighting on beaches on the 6th of June.
And yes, most of the troops that were fighting the initial waves were from "Static divisions", which were usually comprised of second or third rate troops. OTOH, most of what differentiates good troops from bad troops are things like cohesion, ability to move under fire, ability to take initiative, etc. If you're just sitting in a strongpoint and pouring fire at what you see in front of you, the difference between third echelon guys and your best will still be there, but it's not nearly that pronounced. In large part the fighting on the beaches was done by much less well trained troops precisely because you don't need the same degree of ability to do what they did as opposed to say, fighting a mobile maneuvering battle trying to contain breakouts.
>>1250103
Fair point. They still were far less effective because they had much worse training if any training at all, and being static means they reacted really poorly to any breakthroughs from the beach.
Probably why casualties were below estimations in general, they expected better troops to confront them. Most of the strongpoints fell decidely fast after small units of Allied soldiers broke through the seawalls. Although in the case of the British it was organized and quite fast breakthroughs as opposed to the more piecemeal maneuvering of American soldiers on Omaha. And Utah may as well have been undefended.
I don't suppose the results would have been significantly different with first rate troops as opposed to garrison infantry. The Germans were really heavily outnumbered and the mobile reserves were not near mobile enough. And also scattered because of the scattered paradrops.
>>1249506
Blah blah blah, we get it: Americans did dick all in history while some how stealing everyone elses thunder and glory, get over yourself you fucking bong.
>>1249852
Yes. They filmed it in Ireland and most of the extras were Irish Army
>>1246152
Wasn't Omaha's casualties a reflection of poor preparation and military execution on part of the Americans. As far as I was aware it was one of the more relatively light beaches in terms of present German forces.
>>1250618
AFAIK, Omaha's defenses were about the same as the other beaches the bigger problem is that intelligence mistakenly claimed that the defenses there were very weak, and that turned out to be full of crap.
At least if wiki is correct (so take this with a grain of salt) Omaha was right in the middle in terms of German presence, less than Utah and Sword, but more than Juno and Gold.
>>1250618
Well the initial bombardment from the navy missed literally every shot so the Americans were facing a defense that had zero casualties and zero shell-holes/debris to take cover behind. The Americans just walked right into machine guns during the first wave.
>>1244731
>>would you run?
You bet your ass I would. The combined force of the US and the Commonwealth nations is not something to sneer at.
