How did the americans even succeed with the d-day invasion? I

There was a relatively small amount of Germans defending the beaches at the time of the invasion. If it had been the full force we'd have gotten our bums kicked in.

>>3023150
But even if the germans were outnumbered wouldnt their defences just grind up the attackers??

>>3023161
They kinda did. It wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

>>3023139
the poster is right about light defences,but either way have a look at omaha casualties of the americans.

>>3023139
D-Day invasion was actually pretty much a breeze for everyone else like the Canadians or the British, it was only the Americans on Omaha beach who fucked it up.

the naval bombardment was quite intense, the defenders were ill prepared, and the german leadership was totally caught by surprise so reinforcements couldn't get there in time to make a difference.

>>3023165
yeah, it was a walk in the beach

>>3023139
Reserve troops had to be authorized by Hitler to move to the beachhead. Being a late sleeper (look it up) gave the allies several more hours to work with without the immediate threat of these troops, including panzer divisions.

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>>3023165
Things went poorly at Omaha, but allied air and naval support was generally competent. For the vast majority (read: everyone except the first wave) of allied troops D-Day was relatively smooth.

Imagine being a German at Omaha beach. Lord knows how many of the fuckers you've killed. You've slagged a barrel on your machine gun already, and the replacement is glowing hot. You're near deaf, standing in a pile of brass, you've been shooting and concentrating so long you're seeing double.

And they just. Keep. Coming.

>>3023139
They and the British had practice already 2 years ago at Dieppe, and they had been endlessly drilling and practicing to smooth out whatever problems had emerged then. Sure, a lot of things still went poorly or failed, but commanders on the ground knew what they were dealing with and what was going on, and (unless your tanks didn't arrive in time or sank or your naval support fucked up) had the tools to deal with it.

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>>3024815

>>3023139
Beach defenses cut both ways; while you have an open field of fire, your bunkers and gun emplacements are going to be piss easy for naval artillery to target as well; the Japanese found this out at Tarawa and the Solomons, where US naval support was generally successful in disabling much of these island's larger-caliber guns. It was due to these lessons that the Japanese became more willing to withdraw and fight it out deeper inland where naval artillery doesn't have such an easy time; at Iwo Jima the Japanese let US troops land before attacking them unaware, while the commander at Okinawa made little effort to engage US troops on the beaches.

File: US Soldier on Omaha Beach, Operation Overlord.jpg (134KB, 991x747px) Image search: [Google]

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>>3024780
Why did Omaha beach turn into a Pacific War-tier meat grinder?

Pro-tip: there's a thing called naval and air bombardment.

>>3025014

artillery barrages and bombings missed their mark.

smoke got blown away by the wind.

>>3025014
Bad intelligence lead to a mostly ineffective pre-landing bombardment, which simultaneously managed to chew up the beach side (making it difficult to move around) but not substantially destroying the German defenses.

>>3023169
This for the most part
Omaha was a case of everything that can go wrong doing so
The Brits and Canadians did fine, and the Americans did fucking great at Utah, Omaha was just plain an awful place to assault.

>>3025014
Didn't see the use of the 'funnies' that the British used to good effectiveness, without them and also due to most of their tanks being deployed too early and sinking they had a significant lack of firepower. If they had listened to the British and used the funnies it may have turned out differently

>>3024727
Yeah, because that immediate counterattack worked so well at Salerno.