On D-Day (invasion of Normandy) during WWII, why couldn't they use alot more planes since it was so dangerous for water?
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KiloWattKid
ANSWERS: 9
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Great question... we used as many planes as we could. The problem is that we had no nearby bases for planes to fly from (inflight refuelling wasn't an option back then). So all planes participating in the invasion had to take off from carriers... but we only had so many carriers, so the number of available planes was limited.
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Actually, the Allies were not using carriers in the European theatre. They were used in the Pacific. Flights to bomb Europe left from airfields (or in RAF terminology, airdromes) in Britain. There is only so much "softening up" that can be done via air. It still requires troops on the ground. That is true even today (as with the Iraq War). German soldiers were well bunkered on Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, et al. It required the infantry to rout them and then to take the high ground. There is no "easy way" in war.
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Just to give you an idea of the scale of D-Day, it involved over 5,000 ships and 150,000 men. There were 13,000 men that did parachute in and that effort required 800 aircraft http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/sfeature/sf_info.html Based on the above figures, a cargo plane could hold about 16 soldiers. That means it would have taken 9,500 planes to ferry the whole invasion force to Normandy. While that *may* have been possible, those men would have been very lightly armed. No tanks, no heavy vehicles, no heavy weapons. The troops that were parachuted in suffered heavy casualties until the main troops who came by sea joined up with them.
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Few of our support aircraft flew from carriers, they all came from bases in England. No fewer than 6000 allied aircraft supported or were on standby for the Invasion. P.S. people who do not know the facts should not answer and should certainly not recieve best answer. Mis-information is one of this countries greatest problems.
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It was even more dangerous to fly paratroops in. The seaborne landings went smoothly compared to the Airborne. Panicy pilots dropped there men too fast, to early, late, high or low, the ones that survived had no heavy weapons and little command and control. If we ferried in all the men by air, Overlord would have been a disastor.
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Air dropping large numbers of soldiers is way more dangerous and unpredictable than landing them from a boat.
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The US army didn't consult the Navy and Marine Corps who were expert at amphibious landings. The problem with the Omaha Beach landings were the bombers had not damaged the German defenses much on Omaha Beach. Although, more bombing may have weakened the German defenses, the pre landing bombardment was much too weak. Had the Army consulted the Navy they would have known they needed a much longer and more powerful naval artillery bombardment on Omaha Beach. To make this point further, what finally silenced the Germans enough to allow American troops move inland was a bombardment of German pillboxes by a US destroyer.
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the beach heads had to be taken first so as to get equipment onto the land . some of the beaches were heavily defended and were bombarded from the sea byb the navy prior to and during landing.Some paratroopers did go behind enemy lines but to bomb when your troops are invading is difficuilt as you may end up bombong your own troops and this is why they had to get equipment ashore and try to keep buildings intact was paramount as there were still a lot of french civillians close to the landings and they would perish as well
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Well first you have to remember this was one of the largest attacks in history and that it wouldn't be easy to add all these planes. And they may have gone only by water if their was no chance that a massive counter attack made of of several German Armour divisions would have annihilated every man on the beach. So they needed to drop more men in by air to help the chances of repelling the counter attack that never came. plus if the sea attack didn't work than they would have had all those men held behind enemy lines.
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