Invasion of Normandy – The Guderian Reports

KiloIndie, on 06 June 2014 - 05:42 PM, said: This is interesting but lacks sufficient qualification. After all, excuses were in order....  More salt please.   further, there is a singular failure to publish both accounts, of tanks arriveing as well as those defending. Not to mention, with Russia's presence at the DDay landings, an account of the simultaneous Soviet offensive designed to relieve pressure on the western allies.   I think you have a few hours left to get it right...


Maxmk6, on 06 June 2014 - 06:24 PM, said: Excellent piece, more would be good as always but it's a really interesting angle, ty WG :-)   There's been quite a lot on D-Day on the documentary TV channels recently. Apparently, all the Allies on every front quickly came to the conclusion that if they ever engaged the Germans on anything like equal terms they were virtually guaranteed to always lose, because of the German's superior commanders and tactics, weapons, but most of all, their fighting spirit. That fighting spirit manifested as the difference between the Allied troops suffering a huge number of casualties from psychiatric break down (not just combat fatigue, but from the moment troops first entered combat), compared to the Germans who had virtually no such problems at all. They commissioned psychiatrists to study this, and the conclusion was that Hitlers 3rd Reich from 1933 was a better preparatory society for war than democracies could ever be. But maybe it goes deeper, maybe it explains some of the brutality of the regime, they simply never escaped the brutilisation of WW1, considering how that ended and it not being resolved in their eyes.   But whatever, seems truth is D-Day was only a success cuz we massively overwhelmed the Germans with quantity of manpower & material, exactly the same way the Russian's turned it around on the Eastern front. Makes you realise just how dangerous they were, if they'd just had a little bit more sense in finishing off one front before starting on another they'd have been unstoppable. And it makes sense of what Guderian said in that report about feeling confident relying on the fighting spirit of his troops, it really was an enormous difference and advantage and would have been decisive if not for numbers & material and lack of air & sea power.


sleepysteve22, on 06 June 2014 - 07:34 PM, said: thank you wargaming for your alternative view on D-day found it a great read, keep up the good work:-)