D-day

[dannubis]

The turning point in the war in he East was 1942 at Stalingrad, years before D-Day. On the western front the Germans had diverted a corps sized force to Africa, not enough troops to influence the battles in the east. The next great battle was Kursk in 1943 at which the center of the German army in the East was destroyed, occurred a year before D-day. In the summer of 1943 the Germans were fighting in Italy, deploying perhaps two Army corps, still their presence in the east would not have made a difference. By 1944 the German army in the east was simply staging a continual fighting retreat. If they had been able to use in the East the troops neededin the west it still wouldn't have made a difference.

This is why I said birdbrain needed to have his history checked!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Gold Almost took all objectives took substantial casualties doing so
Juno Took all objectives and faced serious casualties doing so
Sword Couldn't take Caen until a full month later
Omaha Nearly called a failure. Largest amount of casualties. Offsetting this is that arguably facing the most battle hardened Germany troops (352nd) as opposed to the OST troops at other landing sites. Achieved objectives at D Day +3. Still better performance than Sword beach.
Utah Achieved virtually all objectives with little casualties (but arguably not as much opposition as Juno)


Performance ranking: 1. Canadien 2. USA 3. British

[dannubis]

Let's say that being a sitting duck on a beach while entrenched troops take potshots at you makes it difficult to grade performance. I guess everybody had enough incentive to get the hell out of there.

[kittenOFchaos]

Gold Almost took all objectives took substantial casualties doing so
Juno Took all objectives and faced serious casualties doing so
Sword Couldn't take Caen until a full month later
Omaha Nearly called a failure. Largest amount of casualties. Offsetting this is that arguably facing the most battle hardened Germany troops (352nd) as opposed to the OST troops at other landing sites. Achieved objectives at D Day +3. Still better performance than Sword beach.
Utah Achieved virtually all objectives with little casualties (but arguably not as much opposition as Juno)


Performance ranking: 1. Canadien 2. USA 3. British

The majority of the shipping and naval support was British. That should up our performance rating quite abit

[Myrddin]

Gold Almost took all objectives took substantial casualties doing so
Juno Took all objectives and faced serious casualties doing so
Sword Couldn't take Caen until a full month later
Omaha Nearly called a failure. Largest amount of casualties. Offsetting this is that arguably facing the most battle hardened Germany troops (352nd) as opposed to the OST troops at other landing sites. Achieved objectives at D Day +3. Still better performance than Sword beach.
Utah Achieved virtually all objectives with little casualties (but arguably not as much opposition as Juno)


Performance ranking: 1. Canadien 2. USA 3. British

You missed a few key facts:
Sword - cleared the deepest defences and stopped dead a counterattack by a Panzer division (recent research shows that casulaty rates here were actually much higher than believed)
Omaha - IIRC only 2 battalions belonging to 352nd were present here (the rest of the battalions were from coastal defence divisions) - as many as were involved in dealing with the advance from Gold.
Utah - true about opposition but not so about achieving objectives - they didn't even linkup with the paras on D-day

Performance ranking - has to be 6th airborne - Orne bridges, Dives bridges, Merville battery and dealing with a panzer division

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Actually it simply reflects the poor generalship of Montgomery establishing unrealistic objectives. (seen later at Market Garden). The fact that individual elements performed admirably is not a substitute for success as measured against objectives.

[Myrddin]

Perhaps it had something to do with the Germans, as the reinforcing Panzer divisions mainly arrived at Caen?

[Dr Strangelove]

Did anyone else manage to push their lines more than 10km inward from the coast on D-day? (I mean other than the airborne troops.) It was an unreasonable objective

[Straybow]

If their armor had made it to the beaches the objectives might have been reached on the first day. And didn't the Navy keep their larger ships so far from shore that they couldn't do effective close support?