Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

What If D-Day Was Fought Today?

I have often wondered how enormously deadly we have made war fought in the conventional fashion - How would D-Day have looked, fought against the 2005 U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marines, and U.S. Coast Guard - and our allies?

After three days of reconnaissance via GlobalHawk and Predator aircraft, the information about the area of operations would be transmitted to a Joint Command Staff. Generals and Admirals would have a game plan that would involve days of strikes with cruise missiles, precision-guided munitions from tactical and strategic bombing aircraft, and night insertions of small teams of SEAL, Delta Force, and SAS commandos equipped with NV gear and laser designators for the targets that required weapons to enter a gun port - some of Rommels bunkers were two feet thick, and the 16" shells of battleships did not damage them sufficiently to do anything but deafen their crews.

The Navy would be ruthlessly patrolling tens of miles off shore, using active sonar and radar to quickly detect any Kriegsmarine craft, undersea or otherwise. Prosecution and elimination of contacts would be conducted with extreme prejudice. Naval mine-detection units and the EOD dive teams would be clearing paths to shore under cover of darkness, with close-air-support from Air Force A-10s and RAF Tornados, protected by F-15, F-16, and Tornado high-performance jet fighters at high cover. AWACS craft would detect any attempt at German reconnaissance or interdiction from the air, and efficiently vector high-performance jet fighters to attack any targets which present themselves. Other aircraft, both manned and unmanned, would attack infrastructure targets miles inland - railroad crossings, bridgeheads, airbases, AAA sites. Army Intel would have their teams broadcasting warning messages day and night in three languages with the common message, "Civilians, hide somewhere well away from any military targets, German Army personnel will surrender when opposed by means of display, laying down all arms. Failure to do so will result in immolation."

On D-Day itself, the U.S. Air Force would fly C17 Globemasters for para-drop of airborne Allied troops. Being navigated by INS, VORTAC, or GPS, they wouldn't stray off course (no matter the weather), and simultaneous attacks by large quantities of U.S. Army AH-64 Apache and OH-6 Cayuse helicopters on AAA and concentrations of enemy troops would demoralize the enemy quickly; especially so when they discover that their enemies posses the uncanny ability to accurately see and hit targets in near-total darkness, while being armored nearly as heavily as panzers.

Instead of relying primarily on waterborne landings, like the actual D-Day scenario, the Joint Command would split the forces between helicopter insertions and inland-seaborne operations via the LCAC, the Navy's Air-Cushioned-Landing Craft, and more traditional landing craft. Since this craft can carry a large quantity of Marines and soldiers (yessss, kids, there's MARINES in MY D-Day fantasy; why the hell weren't Marines in the REAL D-Day?), and their related equipment inland, they would be a QRF assigned the task of meeting up with the paratroops, providing them mobility with Armored Humvees. These teams would flank the enemy at his weak spots, going to the rear to look for indirect fire points - hidden bunkers, mortar pits, Nebelwerfer rocket platoons. Still other Marines and Army Rangers would storm ashore in the mine-cleared lanes in modern landing craft, with M1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, M2 Bradleys, and Marine LAVs leading the way with their death-spewing 40mm grenade machine-guns and their 25mm Bushmaster cannon. Marine Air would provide spot air support with F/A-18 fighter-bombers, mercilessly pounding any Nazi fool enough to point a weapon downrange.

All in all, I'd give the Krauts three days. On day three, D-Day, they'd surrender, en-masse, all along the Normandy coast by 9:00 p.m. Our losses would number in the hundreds, instead of the tens of thousands. The Germans would surrender the European continent in 5 weeks, although this might take a nuclear suggestion on Regensburg.
 

posted by: underwhelmed at February 02, 2005 20:57 | link | comments |

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