The Mystery Battery at Omaha

[civdiv]

Just saw this, thought it was interesting;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=506065&in_page_id=1770

[Sirocco]

I posted a video of that battery in another thread. Whether it had the range to hit Omaha is disputed, I believe.

[JasonC]

The real defense system at Omaha, in some detail -

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/omaha.html

A few quibbles - "grenade launcher" is of course mortar ("granatwerfer"), and some of those described as 50mm were probably 81mm (a le GrWfr designation misinterpreted).

Overall there were a couple dozen light artillery pieces firing direct over the beach. The 352 regiment and 716 battalion on the beach had, between them, 176 MGs on strength and 33 81mm mortars. The MGs were split between 15 platoon sized strongpoints with an average of 6 MGs each, and 85 seperate individual MG nests all along the bluff.

Indirect support came from 4 150mm guns with 150 rounds each (part of IV battalion of div arty) and 12 105mm guns with 225 rounds each (I battalion). Not that we know they fired off every round; that was their total available supply that day.

Note that these weapons inflicted a total of 3000 casualties including wounded, over several hours. The average MG might have accounted for 5-10 men (the latter figure would make them far and away the biggest killer), and the average indirect fire gun or mortar 15-25, varying inversely with the previous. The barrage came from organic mortars mostly, and from about a score of div arty guns off the beach with plentiful ammunition.

The barrage shells almost certainly averaged well under one man hit each - the average shot flat missed, despite the exposure of the target. Many of the rounds fired were undoubtedly unobserved and just keeping the open beach area dangerous over an extended period, in which men mostly kept off of it, against the seawall.

[Aragorn2002]

Originally posted by Sirocco:

I posted a video of that battery in another thread. Whether it had the range to hit Omaha is disputed, I believe.

That was also the conclusion on BBC Timewatch.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Aragorn2002:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sirocco:

I posted a video of that battery in another thread. Whether it had the range to hit Omaha is disputed, I believe.

That was also the conclusion on BBC Timewatch. </font>

[Andreas]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The real defense system at Omaha, in some detail -

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/omaha.html

A few quibbles - "grenade launcher" is of course mortar ("granatwerfer"), and some of those described as 50mm were probably 81mm (a le GrWfr designation misinterpreted).

Did the 81mm ever become leGrW? I thought it became mGrW when the 120mm was introduced?

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

It was never officially designated leicht, no.

But the only unit in the area that had any 50mm mortars at all was the 716th, which had like one battalion there, 2 companies of it up at the sea. Their whole regiment (726th of the 716) had 18 50mm and 24 81mm - while 326 has 96 81mm. Less than 1 mortar in 7 in the area was actually 50mm, in other words, and they had to be neglible in the actual fire plan. I just don't see that reflected in the very rough breakdown at the URL I gave. So I don't trust its mortar caliber designations.

[jtcm]

Don't believe anything you read in the Daily Mail-- the article, with its sensationalism and its middle-brow simplication of everything, is typical. JasonC's post, with sources and analysis, is enough to dispell the article's fog.

[sudowudo]

thought i'd just post this to let the non Brits get an idea of where the Daily Mail stands amongst the other newspapers in GB.

The Times is read by the people who run the country.

The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country.

The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country.

The Express is read by the people who think this country should be run as it used to be run.

The Telegraph is read by the people who think it still is their country.

The Guardian is read by the people who think they should be runing this cuontry.

The Mirror is read by the people who think they are running this country.

The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country.

The Independent is read by the people who don't know who runs the country but are sure they're doing it wrong.

The Evening Standard is read by people who are less interested in who's running the country than in getting a seat on the train home.

The Star is read by people who don't care who runs the country as long as they do something scandalous.

The Sun is read by the people who don't care who runs the country as long as she's got big boobs and the semi-naked girl on page three is attractive.)

[DavidFields]

JasonC: I like your estimations of which weapons caused how many casualties. Do we have any idea how effective the initial Allied bombardment was? I get the idea that despite the huge amount of ordinance expended, the amount of damage actually done to the German defense was small.

But perhaps I am underestimating the carnage inflicted by Allied guns. If only a fraction of the MGs/mortars survived, they could still cause major losses, and it would still look like "hell" on the invaders side?

(As most people on this forum likely know, the German cemetery at Normandy--or, at least the one I saw, if there are several--was very moving, in an understated way. Granite crosses, in a wooded area which seemed very serene.)

[JasonC]

The initial bombardment was nearly useless. Later naval gunfire was not - the destroyers were essential to the attack, coming very close in shore and firing at fully IDed individual bunkers and even single firing MGs.

On the initial fire, first heavy bombers dropped well over 1000 heavy bombs, but they landed well inland (up to 3 miles). Other than discouraging any movement of reserves up to the beach for a time, and suppressing a few rocket positions in open pits behind the beaches, they had no effect.

The naval gunfire proper also had little effect, even though a few German batteries had already opened up, before the fleet did. It was long on counterbattery, but the targets were many, unpromising, and not the essentials. Only a few of the German guns were sited to fire out into the open water. Most were instead dug into the sides of the beach exit draws at angles that let them see a stretch of the beach and their exit area, but not most of the ocean. That is why DDs had to come in so close to get shots at them, later on.

The only benefits the saturation fire beforehand may have produced, is to detonate some of the minefields the Germans laid between their strongpoints, and to keep the German defenders well inside their dugouts and bunkers until neary touch-down.

The last component of prep fire was a rocket barrage. It was mostly high and had little direct, immediate effect. Indirectly it may have contributed enourmously to the eventual outcome, because it touched off brush fires in several places, some of which spread. Smoke from those fires cut up the German fire plan and protected several of the moves off the beach between the strongpoints. Purely by chance, not an intended effect at all. (Note that one-off deliberately fired smoke would not have lasted long enough to have this effect - the relevant time scale is 3-4 hours - but still would have helped the first waves more than the HE actually used did).

But the German beach defenders were up and firing when the first wave came in. They were still up and firing, pretty much unabated, an hour later when the 3rd wave came in. A few parts of that landed in the weak poins between the German draw-exit fire sacks and were fine, but ones that landed in front of them were cut to pieces just like those an hour earlier. So there is no evidence any intervening fire appreciably reduced the defense.

The mortars probably just flat ran out of ammo.

It took time to coordinate naval fire support on IDed targets. The fleet as a body was not firing, to avoid hitting their own guys. Nobody knew anything about whether men had made it inland or where etc.

There are recorded instances of very effective naval fire support from inshore DDs, but some come at like 1130 - 5 hours into the landing. Some were supporting before that, certainly - though there seems to have been remarkably little in the first hour or so. But stuff still left to do five hours in.

The defending light cannons were probably mostly taken out by that naval fire, or occasionally by the few surviving tanks ashore. In other cases the gunners would have been driven deep in their casemates or away from the pieces themselves by such fire, and were still cowering from it when attacking infantry got in among them. But this didn't happen because they never got a shot off. It happened because they fired at will for an hour, somebody finally got a DD in the right spot and walked in the mission, etc.

What actually worked in the end was trickling infantry up the steeper parts where the defense was thin to non-existent or more accurately, relied entirely on minefields and wire. Plus smoke concealment. And DDs neutralizing some of the firing MGs. The defending indirect fire fizzled on its own, as most of the available tubes burned their ammo stock, leaving a few div arty pieces only, and those firing at slow sustained rates to interdict the beach as the fight dragged on for hours.

Infantry that got up where the defenders weren't, then walked along the bluffs or behind them, to the flanks of the strongpoints. DDs suppressed the strongpoints with directly observed 5 inch gun fire. Infantry from the bluff flanks and from directly below in front, then closed with the pinned down defenders and killed or captured them with grenades and small arms.

FWIW...

[jtcm]

Under the command of Tom Hanks

[DavidFields]

1. I guess, then, some Allied infantry where truely heroic in their actions--it is not just mythical/movie lore.

2. Sounds like some of the CM limited ammo issues are realistic (even if one can argue about time-frames). I had thought that pre-set gun positions would have had "essentially" unlimited ammo--from local resupply, if given a few hours.

3. You are describing very disciplined attackers, and very disciplined defenders (in general). Impressive, in a military sense, all around.

[JasonC]

Disciplined - well. The fight did take 6 hours and up. The US infantry that hit the beaches in the first hour was cut to ribbons and spent the next couple of hours huddling against the seawall screaming for their mothers, pretty much.

Their mothers didn't come.

Some went up the bluffs over hours, mostly in the thinner spots, and some spots became thinner as DDs came in and silenced parts of the defense.

I'd describe it as a horrific human train wreck, rather than "disciplined". But in the end, weight told - the defense could not be kept impenetrable, indefinitely. For the first hour, it very nearly was.

[jtcm]

So what's the best narrative account of Omaha ? And where to go for the best primary (or near primary) accounts-- i.e. AARs ? I know there's a certain amt of "worm-eye accounts" of the action in things like "After the Battle" magazine, etc.

Saving Private Ryan was reviewed by Soldier of Fortune magazine (which lambasted it as a "librul" movie. One of the gripes was that in the Omaha scene, MG 42s were hosing the beach down with uninterrupted fire-- whereas training requires aimed bursts. Hmm.

[JasonC]

jtcm - the standard history is

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/100-11/100-11.htm

See especially the sections on the landings (initial period, first hour or so) and the assault on the bluffs (later efforts on the beach proper).

[jtcm]

Excellent, thanks. Hair-raising stuff, in staff college prose.

[jtcm]

"An engineer unit with panels for marking Dog Red Beach landed on Easy Red, over a mile away; they set up their panels anyway. "