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What if D-Day Fails...

Nazi Germany:
Hitler may consider withdrawing his 400,000+ men from Norway and station them south next to Italy. If the Allies decided not to go on an offensive via Italy, Hitler might consider this opportunity to retake South Italy. Or, he might as well increase his troops on the Eastern Front.

Allies:
If D-Day failed, I estimated the casualties to be more than 300,000 (twice as much as the real casualties which was approx. 150,000) and losing a ridiculous large amount of supplies, armor and logistics support. Of course, this doesn't mean the Allies was battered out of Europe. There are troops in Italy (since D-Day failed, Operation Dragoon never happened) in approx. size of 10+ divisions, which will be the largest Allies force in Europe, excluding the Red Army. Things can differently at this point.

The Allies could, if they dare, launch another assault to capture Rome and the entire Italy which would take less time than the actual event considering that you have more men at your disposal. Or, they could attempt Operation Dragoon and invade Monaco. Either way, the Allies won't go on defensive at this point of time.

Meanwhile, the Pacific would've been dragged out as someone has mentioned above but not to point of giving Japan enough room to breath. However, the Pacific will still be a dangerous ground to cover considering that the IJN still have enough fire to prolong the naval warfare. Heck, if Leyte Gulf turned out to be a Japanese tactical victory, the US might have to reconsider their actions in the Pacific.
 
PainRack said:
Impossible. It takes an entire year to plan and shift troop logistics, with troop movements planned months in advance on the strategic level.

If a failure occurred, it would be easier to simply raise more divisions in the states and shift them overseas rather than disrupt an entire year of logistics and ship movements, especially since you will still need an assault force in the Pacific. At best, Iwo Jima is delayed.
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It takes some time, but not as much as you're stating. The US Army's 86th Infantry division fought in the ETO until May of 1945. They reached New York in June, trained until August, then left for the Philippines in late August. They were in Leyte Harbor on VJ day. From a quick googling, there's a substantial list of ETO units that were slated for Coronet:

1st Army
XIII Corps
2d Infantry Division
4th Infantry Division
5th Infantry Division
8th Infantry Division
28th Infantry Division
44th Infantry Division
87th Infantry Division
91st Infantry Division
95th Infantry Division
97th Infantry Division
104th Infantry Division
13th Armored Division
20th Armored Division

So, had it been necessary, Pacific Theater units could have been moved to the ETO reasonably quickly. The other thing that might happen is units and equipment that historically went to the PTO could have been sent to the ETO instead. For example, the US only sent one B-29 to Europe as a show of strength, with all of the others being sent to the Pacific. It would have been just as easy, maybe even easier, to send new B-29s to Europe instead.

Remember, the US strategy was always to take back Europe first while making do in the Pacific with whatever could be spared. A failure at Normandy just means the Pacific will drag out longer. Also, remember that the US was actually beginning to draw down wartime production around this time. Had things in Europe gone badly, this could have been easily reversed.
 
Therefore, if D-Day failed, it won't be the end of Allies counterattack.
Things will just get dragged out a bit, yes. Stalin will be pissed with the failure and Hitler will go panicky.
Plus, the US almost completed the Manhattan Project. If all else fail, there's the nuke (though that would be an unlikely scenario)
 
Pandora's_Folly said:
The US begins Considering chemical warfare to lessen their own losses during the next invasion.
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Really? Despite both the 1899 and the 1907 Hague conventions and the 1928 Geneva convention that outlaw their use? Somehow I'm not seeing it...

EDIT: To be fair, I shouldn't be quite so dismissive. The US did use them in contravention of the Hague conventions in the First World War. As did... well, everyone else. But the Geneva convention was a reaffirmation of the ban, only ignored by the Axis afaik.
 
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HMS Sophia said:
Really? Despite both the 1899 and the 1907 Hague conventions and the 1928 Geneva convention that outlaw their use? Somehow I'm not seeing it...

EDIT: To be fair, I shouldn't be quite so dismissive. The US did use them in contravention of the Hague conventions in the First World War. As did... well, everyone else. But the Geneva convention was a reaffirmation of the ban, only ignored by the Axis afaik.
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The US was not a signatory to the ban. Though they did say they wouldn't use it first. Japan's use of gas in Manchu gave them a reason to use it if they needed to and since they were part of the Axis powers a reason to use it on Germany as well.
Also the US had by 44 a stockpile and production output multiple times greater than every other nation in history added together. America is some cold ass honkys.

The US was planning to gas Japan into submission if the atomic bomb project didn't work.
 
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The US signed, and with presidential authority. It took congress 30 years to ratify it because [insert whatever stupidity here]. I'll concede the point though.
Yes they had a stock pile of chemical weapons. They still do. But two main points:
1) Operation downfall was unlikely to ever happen. The Navy would have blockaded the home islands, there would have been a mass bombing campaign, and Japan would have starved to death.
2) Gas weapons were only considered there because Japan had used them already as you said, they were particularly vulnerable to gas attack due to the very predictable winds and also, Downfall was due to cause unprecedented casualties. It was truly a pull out all the stops style situation. As has been pointed out, the Allies were not in that sort of position in Europe. Troops were already on the continent, being pushed back at Normandy would lead to more aggressive pushes elsewhere. It wasn't like Japan, it wasn't a small, untouched island where every single person wants to kill your soldiers and every single person will try their damned hardest.
 
The best thing you can probably hope for (from an Germany stand-point) is that the added time a failed Normandy invasion gives you enough time to kill/assassinate the man at the top (Hitler) and sue for peace while still having a strong position. That however crosses quite far into the realm of speculative fiction.
From a purely military standpoint Germany lost war when both the US and UDSSR turned against it- after that it was a simple matter of time.
 
Erandil said:
The best thing you can probably hope for (from an Germany stand-point) is that the added time a failed Normandy invasion gives you enough time to kill/assassinate the man at the top (Hitler) and sue for peace while still having a strong position. That however crosses quite far into the realm of speculative fiction.
From a purely military standpoint Germany lost war when both the US and UDSSR turned against it- after that it was a simple matter of time.
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The Allies had some investment in keeping Hitler at the top, as I understand it. He was apparently a much worse military leader than the people who would replace him. I don't remember exactly where I read that, though.
 
aeqnai said:
The Allies had some investment in keeping Hitler at the top, as I understand it. He was apparently a much worse military leader than the people who would replace him. I don't remember exactly where I read that, though.
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Very true. Hitler loved minutae. His late war replacement was Doenitz, a very sensible officer from the kriegsmarine with, get this, a great eye for grand strategy. The man coordinated the battle of the North Atlantic, amongst other things. I'm not saying he could've won the war, but get him (or someone like him) in place, and goddam, It's gonna be tougher (probably).
 
aeqnai said:
The Allies had some investment in keeping Hitler at the top, as I understand it. He was apparently a much worse military leader than the people who would replace him. I don't remember exactly where I read that, though.
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While Hitler's increasingly erratic late war performance was one factor, there was also the aspect of the Allies wanting to burn out Nazism as a body, rather than the uncertainty and issues of some form of negotiated peace with whatever emerged after him.
The fear of martyring him, and creating another stab in the back myth as in the close WW1, was a big part of the reason why things like Operation Foxley were never actively pursued.
 
HMS Sophia said:
Very true. Hitler loved minutae. His late war replacement was Doenitz, a very sensible officer from the kriegsmarine with, get this, a great eye for grand strategy. The man coordinated the battle of the North Atlantic, amongst other things. I'm not saying he could've won the war, but get him (or someone like him) in place, and goddam, It's gonna be tougher (probably).
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Eh my hope is less for a successful/prolonged war (you would have to do something much earlier than D-Day to change something on the military side) but more for earlier peace settlement. I think the number of German generals and leader who still believed in an victory should be quite low and most of them would probably have started peace talks with the allies.
 
Wouldn't dragoon still basically go on as planned even if Overlord failed?
 
Eliar said:
Dragoon was only possible because the Germans and their reserves were depleted by the fighting in Normandy and Bagration. Depending on how Bagration goes I would think Dragoon would still be way to risky to attempt.
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Could Germany wheel around enough forces quick enough to stop the Dragoon landings?
 
Slayers148 said:
Allies:
If D-Day failed, I estimated the casualties to be more than 300,000 (twice as much as the real casualties which was approx. 150,000) and losing a ridiculous large amount of supplies, armor and logistics support.
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Uh, total Allied casualties on D-Day were ~10,000. More casualties happened in the post-D-Day Normandy campaign, but if the landings had failed, they weren't going to keep feeding divisions into the grinder. You could certainly argue for something like ~20,000 - 30,000 losses assuming the airborne divisions die in place until surrendering or a similar blowout, but six figures? Nah.

Mental Omega said:
Could Germany wheel around enough forces quick enough to stop the Dragoon landings?
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Not stop the landings, but they could move enough troops into position to bottle them up as they did with the Anzio landings.
 
Apocal said:
Uh, total Allied casualties on D-Day were ~10,000. More casualties happened in the post-D-Day Normandy campaign, but if the landings had failed, they weren't going to keep feeding divisions into the grinder. You could certainly argue for something like ~20,000 - 30,000 losses assuming the airborne divisions die in place until surrendering or a similar blowout, but six figures? Nah.
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Oh, really? Thanks for the correction.

But still, if Overlord failed, is it wise for the Allies to rush up Italy and open a...err..Southern Front (considering that Dragoon never happen)?
 
Slayers148 said:
Oh, really? Thanks for the correction.

But still, if Overlord failed, is it wise for the Allies to rush up Italy and open a...err..Southern Front (considering that Dragoon never happen)?
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I really don't think that the Allies would just give up on Dragoon. Lightning can't strike twice for Germany here and after Bagration the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS are pretty severely battered. All the triumph at Normandy means for Hitler is a few more months and a larger occupation zone for the Soviets.

As Apocal said Germany is at best capable of bottlenecking Dragoon for a bit and sooner or later the tide of Allied material superiority is going to break Germany.
 
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