this is a question for military knowledgable people only, especially those who are well schooled in .........?

Question

marine corps doctrine or army amphibious warfare tactics. in what ways would the landings on normandy would be more efffective if it was done in this day and age? what lessons we learned in normandy? final question, is an amphibious operation of that size considered obsolete because nowadays we use small unit raids or an amphibious operation of that magnitude is still feasible?

Answer 1

One major aspect to take into consideration is the public support for an operation like that. America alone suffered 29,000 KIA. I'm not sure if the American people have the stomach for those kind of losses anymore. Look at the debate over our current situation in Iraq. We've lost a little over 3000 now. Imagine the outcry if we tried another D-Day. No politician would support an operation of this kind anymore.

I understand your question was more concerned about the tactical, rather than the strategic aspect of an amphibious landing. One still needs to consider that one part of strategy is anticipating the overall outcome of an operation. Losing the will and support of the home-front will end any war fast, regardless of the success of one particular battle.

Answer 2

The last major amphibious assault was in 1982 when Argentina invaded the British owned islands The Falklands. Memebers of the Royal Marines, The SAS and The SBS ( special boat service ) successfully conducted an amphibious assault against argentine defenses.

From Wikipedia

During the night on 21 May, the British made an amphibious landing on beaches around San Carlos Water, on the northern coast of East Falkland, putting the 4,000 men of 3 Commando Brigade, including 2nd and 3rd battalions of the Parachute Regiment (2 and 3 Para), ashore from the amphibious ships and the liner Canberra: 2 Para and 40 Commando landing at San Carlos beach; 45 Commando at Ajax bay; 3 Para at Port San Carlos. By dawn the next day, they had established a secure beachhead from which to conduct offensive operations. From there Brigadier Thompson's plan was to capture Darwin and Goose Green before turning towards Stanley.

Now its not on the scale of D-Day but its the most recent major amphibious assault to date.

For more info type Falklands war into wiki

Answer 3

In many ways, the amphibious landings at Normandy were sheer suicidal. The commanders of that day put little value on human life. They would determine, even before an invasion, what was an acceptable loss of life for the operation to be successful. This was civil war mentality.

Iwo Jima was another example of the John Wayne theory of combat. In this case, the casualty level far exceeded what was anticipated or acceptable, yet it was considered victorious because we were the last ones standing. Yet, the casualty numbers could be best described as tit for tat. We lost as many as the Japanese in that very costly invasion for two air strips.

Today, many other tactics are available to penetrate enemy positions. Smaller, special ops units with skilled and highly motivated personnel, a tactic we used successfully in the early Vietnam era, and is still highly desirable and successful. Un-manned missiles with pin point accuracy is as formidable as a weapon can be. Attack gun ships, such as puff the magic dragon, or attack helicopters, are still very effective offensive weapons.

Large, amphibious operations are all but off the table, as an effective means to penetrate a body of land, unless the beachead has already been secured. Only then will it be used, if no other means of ingress is available.

Answer 4

Well, I think you answered your own question within: an amphibious operation of that size considered obsolete because nowadays we use small unit raids or an amphibious operation of that magnitude is still feasible?

I would go one step further. Look at the naval build up in the Persian Gulf over the last two weeks. That isn't fora amphibious assault that is to launch planes (if necessary) for air strikes on specific target sites (not to fight soldiers).

Different time Different Style of warfare, however still one of the greatest assaults is world military history.

Answer 5

Come on, we all know that the raid at normandy was a flop and a badly planned flop at that. The airforce messed it up and there was no air support during the raid. This is why so many got slaughtered by the machine guns, that and a lack of foresight.

I mean, where else are they going to put machine guns. Charge the guns!!!!!!!

Nowdays, you are right, an amphibious op like that would not be feasible, in my opinion, tho I am not well versed in marine doctrine.

Nowdays we would just sit back and bomb the shiit out of the fortifications and then move in with smaller raid units to clear up.

Back in the day, the alliance only one because of sheer numbers. They just kept sending out the boys and eventually they made some ground and, funnily enough, worked in smaller raid groops to take out machine guns.

This was actually quite a popular alliance strategy, in Stalingard they just sent the boys in and the germans could not kill every body. You know the story, they gave half rifles and the other half a five round clip. The germans killed half the force, which were just farm boys anyways (very much like the US forces), untill the real soldgiers could arm themselves, get organized, and do some damage.

Since nowdays are military consists of highly trained professionals with excellent organization and modern-tech, a strategy like this is not at all accepted. Why the hell we need to throw away a couple thousand lives by charging a fortified position, when we can send in one unit, drop them in behind, let them get to the target covertly and then take it out in one fell swoop.

The worst it can get is that the one raid unit i wiped. But that is better than normandy.

Normandy was, very simply put, a charge untill the bodies form a mountain as high as the walls and then send in some more troops. Amphibious or not, it was a disastor

Answer 6

I don't believe that a landing of that size would be out of the question IF the situation called for it. The US Navy still has a number of Amphibious Assault and Amphibious
ships as well as Landing craft and Correct me if I'm wrong but the Marines have large assault Hovercraft and still train for a over the horizon beach assault in various Landing craft and amphibious vehicles.

Answer 7

An interesting theoretical query... do we give the German military similar weapons upgrades ??

Sadly, the US Military (and Great Britain) have a FRACTION of the amphibious capablity... there is NO way we could stage an evolution of that size.

BUT if it were to use current technology and systems against the German military of the TIME it would be an incredibly simple exercise... we'd have perfect imagery to locate every gun, bunker and pillbox, then apply JDAMs to surgically remove them... we'd have C-17s, C-141, C-5 to airdrop not only the 82nd and 101st... but the TANKS and APC's to support them... Hovercraft and helicopters to push back off the beach quicker... Our Airforces would destroy German production and units... just imagine ONE of those slick little cluster bombs with the anti-armor systems.

HECK... just think of the advantage we'd have with ONLY the satellite and radio systems of today !! Soldiers on the ground able to call up a P-47 directly... or call a tank or two to target a pillbox.

It IS obsolete.... at least until we need to fight North Korea...

Answer 8

amphibious operations wheather grand (like normandy),or small ,are conducted when there is no way to approch the targeted area from land.what would you do if you want to capture an island for example.it is never obsoete,because,the opposing forces , fortifications,and the ammount of the expected resistance decide the size of the landing force and its logestic support.the means have changed a bit,now you can use helecopters for vertical envelopment,much leathal bombs to soften the targets,hovercrafts for faster transportations,but the backbone remains the landing ships of their different types.tactics do change frequently in accordance to the enemy tactics,weapons,geography....etc.such an operation is still feasible if there is a requirment for it.

Answer 9

We wouldn't face nearly as much resistance as we did back then, the coast would be pounded with precision guided cruise missiles. During the Normandy invasion a lot of the rockets that were fired by the ships actually went too far inland and missed most of the German bunkers, leaving their defenses mostly intact.

Answer 10

Marine Corps doctrine is to get in as quickly as possible. The use of heliocopters makes it much easier to simply skip over the beaches and go directly inland. Pinpoint bombing make shore emplacements vulnerable and ineffective. We are not likely to ever see a need for large scale assaults such as WW2 ever again.