Did resources or geography influenced the Invasion of Normandy ?
1 Answer
The Allied Invasion of Normandy in 1944 rested on overwhelming airpower, sheltered water to unload vessels over the 'Beach', and the ability to defend the beachhead in its first days.
Explanation:
COSSAC (The Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander) was the entity charged with forming plans for the Allied invasion of the Mainland after the Casablanca Planning conference of January 1943. They first sat in April 1943, and almost immediately decided on Normandy as the invasion site for the 1944 Landing.
Norway and Southern France were ruled out almost immediately as being out of range or too distant for most fighter planes and tactical bombers based in Southern England. The Dieppe raid of August 1942 painfully reminded Allied planners that seizing ports and natural harbours from the sea would be very expensive, as these tended to be heavily fortified. The invasion would have to come over the beach.
As the British have always known, weather off Brittany and the French Altantic coast is always risky, and heavy seas would be extremely dangerous for landing craft and amphibious vehicles. Also, the open seas would make it too difficult to protect the invasion fleet, and would make for a longer transit time to bring more supplies and troops from Britain.
The Germans expected an Allied invasion to come to the Pas de Calais, where the English Channel is at its narrowest; also it there were more ports, and a shorter distance to Paris and the Reich itself. The Germans also never really had as good an understanding of sea conditions in the Channel as the British did.
The Normandy beaches were broad, relatively well sheltered by the Carenten Peninsula, and the Channel could be easily secured from German naval and air attack. German defences were also thinner, and the area around the beaches would be easier to defend against the inevitable German counter-attack (and so it proved on June 8th, when the 3rd Canadian Division badly mauled the 12-SS Panzer and 21st -Panzer divisions -- no further counterattacks towards the beaches were ever attempted).
The effective use of resources and geography both dictated the Allied plan.
