They also had some experienced, well equipped Panzer divisions for the planned counter attack on D-Day. That means Hitler was very confident that he could decisively defeat the Allies. And the initial battle was not going too well, it was only because the Germans held back Montgomery for too long, while the Americans outflanked them. If Hitlker had not paralyzed the OKW the disaster at Falaise should have never developed. Otherwise the Allies would have faced a million men against them with good equipment during most of the battle of France, not been able to march to the German border with relative ease.
If you factor in that that quality of the German units was not nearly as good as the Allies, the decisive weakness was of course air power. German wunderweapons had already reached the front in the form of the best tanks at this time, which were totaly superior to the Allied tanks. But the panzers were eventually not able to do much in daylight because they were shot to pieces by 1,000s of fighter bombers. Thats why the entire operations of the German Wehrmacht in France took place at night, resulting in many accidents and mental stress, an impossible situation.
I'm sorry Bro but this is complete bollocks.
First, German units in France suffered constant bleeding as they were used to cover losses in the Med and especially in the East. It doesn't really show that well if you only look at the divisions but those divisions lost regiments and equipment and didn't usually get sufficient amount of replenishments. Even if we leave aside the Ostlegion units and static divisions, the picture ain't pretty. Units like 709th ID (static) or 716th ID (static) were divisions in name only and lacked communications and heavy equipment. Then you get units like 352nd ID and 91st LL which were good quality and, in defensive positions, could match Allies 1-to-1, but could only support attacks, not launch them on their own. Germans at this point only had 12 truly mobile and powerful divisions in the entire West. And as the transportation network had been largely wrecked, concentrating those 12 divisions in Normandy was impossible in any realistic timeframe, even allowing for the crazy situation where the Germans would leave every other part of the West front without mobile reserves.
Second, neither German units nor their doctrine was superior to Allies at this point. While it's true that Allies made blunders and suffered pretty heavy casualties when attacking, so did the Germans. In fact, one key reason that allowed the Americans to break out of Normandy was the fact that German mobile formations had bled themselves dry in pointless counter-attacks against Allied lines. Attacks that German doctrine demanded of them. Certainly Hitler didn't help things at all, but even when he wasn't involved, it's not like the German generals suddenly performed flawlessly. Similarly, the infantry divisions had largely been decimatedl, as there were barely any replacements coming from Germany. Sure, some units had top of the line equipment but then others had old French weapons that had been looted in 1940.
Third, while Tigers and Panthers were better than all Allied tanks except for the up-gunned Shermans, they were only present in small numbers. Majority of German AFVs in France were Panzer IIIs, IVs and various types of assault guns (StuG/Marder/etc). So the technical gap wasn't as bad as it seems on paper. Then you have to remember that in Normandy, average engagement distances in combat were so short that the superior range of Tigers and Panthers didn't really come into play. Majority of of battles were fought under 1 km, many of them under 500 meters.
Fourth, the air menace to tanks has been vastly overrated. Fighter-bombers and ground-attack planes were good for wrecking bridges, trains and supply columns, but not so good at shooting up tanks. If they had been, the entire German AFV strength in France would have been destroyed in the first four days. No, what it caused were delays and supply problems. Units had to go around destroyed bridges, take cover when under attack, couldn't replenish food or ammunition or fuel or spare parts, and so on. Units did move during the day as well as during the night - night marches were safer.
commie thanks for the tip. Maybe I'll wait for WitE2 to come out and jump straight into that.
:russia:
