June 6 1944: D-Day

Paratroopers, I´d say.
Apart from Omaha Beach, all the landings were quite quiet affairs I think. The bombers just missed their targets at Omaha, which is why the Americans had such a hard time there.

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>>33914817
The poor sobs that had to crew the "amphibious" shermans

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>>33915449

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>>33915462

>>33914817
you had a better chance of survival being airborne than those poor guys being the first wave in omaha. fuck that i choose airborne over omaha. at least i can possibly get a kill or two

>>33915462
>>33915476
Neither of those were DD shermans bro

>>33915025
No
the problem with omaha is all their tanks sunk

>>33915498
Blame Google images then

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>>33915025
Bombers missed targets everywhere. The Navy managed to hit a lot of the pillboxes but they were extremely well-built. You could see form this picture that this fortification took heavy damage, but is still standing and would still be protective against small arms fire.
And the landing craft ended up dropping people at the wrong places in a lot of areas. Some of the other beaches managed to get lucky with having "ost battalions" that just said "lol fuck you Nazis" and ran or surrendered. Omaha was manned by more ethnic Germans if I'm not mistaken.
>>33915449
>>33915462
>>33915476
A lot of them actually managed to get out of their tanks and get rescued, thankfully. Some of the tank formations literally dropped into the sea right in front of their LCTs so the crew was able to be rescued. The allies managed to get 5 of the ~30 onto the beach IIRC. At least according to Stephen Ambrose in his D-Day book.

>>33914817
I'd say the Glider pilots to be honest dude. They had to do the same ground combat as Airborne and they weren't even paid the extra 50 bucks a month for it. A lot of them screamed into hedgerows that were supposed to be shorter than anticipated and burned up. Others hit the ground at twice the speed they were supposed to. The pilots often got squashed by the vehicles they were carrying.

>>33914817
>Paratroopers
>Being dropped at night
>With no moon
>With all their equipment
>Over swampy flooded planes
>By planes taht missed a lot of the drop zones
>With the chances of being dropped over open sea, in the dark, with pounds of equipment on your back, and no way of telling how to get to land

I'll take a beach bloodbath anytime over that living hell.

Besides, wasn't Utah pretty mucha cakewalk due to the fact they missed their beach and landed on reasonable unprotected coastline?

>>33915653
>Besides, wasn't Utah pretty mucha cakewalk due to the fact they missed their beach and landed on reasonable unprotected coastline?
Kek yeah, Teddy Roosevelt Jr commanded the first wave there. The funny thing is that according to Stephen Ambrose, the beach they landed at was the original proposed location for Utah but it was scrapped for the "true" location because the planners didn't think the sand was stable enough to bring people ashore quickly enough.

>>33915449

Only the American ones that decided to launch in 6' swell despite only being rated for 1'. The British & Canadian ones were either able to launch in calmer water (Sword) or were launched closer to the beach (Gold & Juno)

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD_tank#D-Day

Two other candidates worth nomination is those landing at Pointe du Hoc (I've actually visited it, still a spooky moonscape), and those involved in the resistance sabotage efforts (the consequences of getting caught for you and those close to you were, not pleasant)

>>33915613
Im with this guy, Glider pilots got fucked up hard, not only that but i'd imagine the glider pilots landed alot more scattered than the Paratroopers, meaning they probably just had to fight to some friendlies and join up with them provided they didnt get friendly fire.

>>33915587
Quality post. My Great Grandpappy was apart of the 5th rangers, E company, and he was in the first wave on omaha.

I Believe that he was only 1 of 18 guys in the original company to make it home.

>>33914817
the guys behind enemy lines got to sneak around and try to fuck some shit up, the beach landing must have been a total clusterfuck

>>33917395
They couldn't find their units, often FF at dark night. That was a clusterfuck, but that wasn't depicted in such manner as Omaha landing was in SPR.
BoB was pretty good, but not that brutal.

4000 americans dead at the hands of 17 year old kids and czechs conscripts with 3 hours worth of MG ammo

>Muh the few.the proud!

>>33917654
Many american's weren't that much older.

>>33917372

How does he feel about contributing the rise of the Soviet Union?

>>33917623
Huh? I remember them having trouble finding Ryan because the jumps were depicted as being a total cluster fuck. Not sure where you are getting that the airborne units were depicted as organized in SPR. Unless I'm reading your comment wrong.

>be american
>be 17 and lie about age to get into military
>few months of boot camp
>it was all for nothing because I got mowed down before I could even set foot on the beach

>>33917698
Spielberg didn't pay much attention to the airborne troops in the movie, but his vision of landing on the beach was accurate. Now Band of Brothers was way less dramatic than Saving Private Ryan

>dump infantry out of a landing craft onto a beach with no cover
>which is defended by numerous machine gunners
>again and again until it works

>70 years later
>"soviets used human wave tactics!"

>>33917734
The beach itself wasn't though

>>33917734
Well of course, Hank's squad was the focus of the movie, finding Ryan from airborne was just the plot. I agree with you.

>>33917738
Soviets used the tactic of just throwing endless streams of bodies at the enemy in like 80% of their battles while Allies only did it a few times

>>33917738

>Massive deception operation to convince the invasion was in Calais, the largest paradrop to date to seize bridges, and a coordinated resistance effort to sabotage infrastructure to deny the Germans reinforcements.
>Naval fire support from one of the greatest fleets ever assembled (including >1200 warships), and a gigantic concentration of bombers (>2200).
>Invent numerous specialised armored vehicles to aid infantry in advancing up the beach with minimal casualties.
>Invent the Mulberry floating harbors and PLUTO to make sure that as soon as possible after D-Day troops get the the heavy weaponry and supplies they need to move from infantry to mechanised warfare.
>Break the vaunted "Atlantic Wall", mounting the greatest amphibious invasion in history, for 4,414 dead.

Yes, by the end of the war, the USSR had got mechanised warfare down to a fine art, but they had made a lot of big fucking messes along the way.