D-day

[Nikolai]

Without the D-Day, Europe would've been red.

[Dinner]

Could've done it without your D-day. Thanks a lot for the lend-lease, though.

Stalin kept demanding a real second front, when the US & UK invaded Italy instead of France Stalin even accused the west of deliberately delaying to weaken the Soviet Union, he was absolutely insistent that a second front in France was necessary and would take years off of the war as well as save millions of Soviet lives.

[dannubis]

Without the D-Day, Europe would've been red.

Nobody is contesting that, or is minimizing the sacrifice of all those that died fighting for our freedom, both foreign and domestic.

[Dr Strangelove]

The mere threat of a potential Atlantic invasion kept about 30 to 40 Axis divisions posted in Scandanavia and France and northern Germany. After the invasion only a handfull of units were taken off the Eastern Front and shipped west. I don't remember how many, does anyone know? The question is, even if there had never been an invasion or the threat of an invasion how many divisions could the Axis have spared for the Eastern Front. Consider that fighting partisans in Yugoslavia alone required about 10 divisions. My guess is that even if there had been no threat of Allied invasion the Axis could have freed up no more than 15 to 20 more divisions for the Eastern Front, probably not enough to make a difference.

[kentonio]

Depends on when they were freed up probably, the Germans did come very close in the East.

[Nikolai]

Nobody is contesting that, or is minimizing the sacrifice of all those that died fighting for our freedom, both foreign and domestic.

It was a reply to HC, must have forgot to quote him or something. It can be turned the other way too: Without the Western Allies, Europe would have been brown.

[Ben Kenobi]

On a more serious note, a thank to all those who sacrificed it all for our freedom

Wow! Thank YOU Nikolai!

[DaShi]

Not you Ben! You're not an American! And haven't sacrificed ****!

[C0ckney]

Good for those Americans.

The rest of us just watched I guess.

.

[Uncle Sparky]

Happy double-D Day!!!

[Docfeelgood]

[DaShi]

Happy double-D Day!!!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]172098[/ATTACH]

Damn, used my thank you on your prison date thread.

[notyoueither]

The mere threat of a potential Atlantic invasion kept about 30 to 40 Axis divisions posted in Scandanavia and France and northern Germany. After the invasion only a handfull of units were taken off the Eastern Front and shipped west. I don't remember how many, does anyone know? The question is, even if there had never been an invasion or the threat of an invasion how many divisions could the Axis have spared for the Eastern Front. Consider that fighting partisans in Yugoslavia alone required about 10 divisions. My guess is that even if there had been no threat of Allied invasion the Axis could have freed up no more than 15 to 20 more divisions for the Eastern Front, probably not enough to make a difference.

There were several Panzer divisions stationed to counter an invasion. Five or more, IIRC. I'm thinking they'd have been happily blowing up Russians had it not been for the threat of and actual invasion.

[Proteus_MST]

There were several Panzer divisions stationed to counter an invasion. Five or more, IIRC. I'm thinking they'd have been happily blowing up Russians had it not been for the threat of and actual invasion.

Among them several Elite Disivions from Waffen-SS and Army, who had the newest equipment.
Equipment that, thanks to allied air superiority on the western front, often was destroyed from the air before getting deployed on the front, with massive losses in High Tech weapon systems (like Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II tanks) and experienced personnel.
Had these divisions been deployed onm the eastern front instead (where there wasn´t such an air superiority) much more of the equipment would have been able to do what it could do best ... fighting other tanks.

[Dr Strangelove]

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.