Would A D-Day Style Amphibious Invasion Been Possible In WW1 ?

[Tokthr]

Assuming in WW1 France is defeated and America enters the War after that.

Based on the technology available at that time would a D-Day Style invasion have been possible?

[RavVid]

Highly unlikely. The major impact of America entering WW1 was that Germany knew that millions of US troops would be on the allied side. So Germany had to pull out some stops and win WW1 before those US troops arrived.

That is exactly what they tried to do and with Russia out of the war they could transfer troops from East to West. The 1918 Spring or Michael offensive tried to smash The British armies 13 divisions with 43 divisions. But the Germans ran out of steam and logistics and ground to a halt. Some 300,000 US troops had arrived by then so allied losses could be replaced.

Now I understand this is a whatif. WW1 was not a war of mobility. The major port of Brest was never closer to German lines than 700 km. Germany was never going to conquer the whole of France as it did in WW2

Going with the whatif, there was an amphibious landing at Gallipoli in 1914 and it was a failure. Landing ships did not exist. Troops were landed by ships boats and were heavily machine gunned before they got to the beaches.

It is by no means reasonable to transpose Gallipoli to a hypothetical amphibious landing in a conquered WW1 France but I think not till landing ships were mass manufactured.

[BCA6010]

If France got knocked out of the war, and by extension Britain lost its foothold, there's a very good chance that the war would've ended then and there with a treaty favoring the central powers. If the US wasn't already committed before that point, then we likely wouldn't have gotten involved at all.

As far as landing on a beach under fire, it would've been possible, but likely would've ended in total disaster, not that mass casualties were really anything new, but there simply wouldn't have been much motivation left to actually keep fighting.

[RebelinSteel]

No it would not have been as easy as D-Day which was highly complex, relied on all 3 services to be involved, also the technology was just enough to help with DDay, such as mulberry harbours etc.

any invasion would have been easier through Italy and then into France. Having sufficient aircraft, cavalry, and infantry would be the hard part and the logistics would prove to be very complicated.

also America had a very small navy and army for WW1, https://www.army.mil/article/185229/world_war_i_building_the_american_military#:~:text=On%20April%206%2C%20the%20U.S.,transport%20it%20and%20fight%20it.

[Soteris]

No. Not to the same scale. D-Day was barely possible for the combined might of the Allies in WW2. During WW1 they would have been much less prepared and less able to.

Some sort of naval invasion would obviously have been possible but nothing on the same scale. In fact, we do not even have the same capabilities today even, it would take like a decade to prepare for something like that and require the mobilization of entire nations.

[Tokthr]

How do we not have the same capabilities today that we had in 1940s.

I am struggling to make sense of that part?

[Soteris]

That is just the scale and absurdity of D-day. No one in modern day is ready to deploy thousands upon thousands of landing craft, and that is the easy part. The hard part is the organization and logistics.

Many people forget that the D-Day landings is not just putting troops on French soil but also to support them with everything they need to prosecute a major war. I think at the highest they deployed 56 200 tons of supplies, 20 000 vehicles and 180 000 troops each day.

To make it worse, it was not all from a single nation so the cooperation between the countries also made things infinitely more complicated. You can imagine the nightmare of being in charge of that mess. Point is, currently no country on earth has the capability to do this.

Naval invasions is the hardest military action one can take and D-Day is the most insane version of this. It is also important to remember that D-Day was only executed from across the English channel which is a tiny short hop but even then it is probably the most difficult military operation in human history.

[Daniela1982]

@Tokthr They would rain down more missiles on the troops than we could deal with. Plus, they would only need one nuke to take all the invaders out. With drones and planes at the disposal of both sides it would be madness. It would be a real Dunkirk, but with no escape.

[goaded]

I had a conversation with a gentleman whose friend was at D-Day. He said, hi friend told him he'd woken up that morning and looked out, and the sea was literally covered in ships. (He was on dry land, by the way.)

[Daniela1982]

@goaded Yep, a lot of Germans shit their pants upon waking. 💩💩💩💩💩💩💩

[Flatmanlewis]

No. I don’t think so. Since D-Day was a remarkably complex event the totality of planning, logistics, communications, and technical ability was all equally relevant. The absence of any significant airlift ability, aerial reconnaissance, paratroops, and amphibious craft seem most significant to me but also the ability for rapid communication to exploit tactical opportunities as they developed was sorely lacking in WWI.

[andreasderjuengere]

I think that it would have been possible - technically.
But the mindset of the warlords had been different in those days, compared to the 2nd "world" war.
The German emperor, in fact, was very fond of his navy. Which of course challenged British pride :)
But the mutual murdering happened more on the land-side and where a naval operation could not really get near enough to the front lines.

[Tokthr]

There was never a need for such an operation during WW1 since most of the war was on the main land.

However in WW2 things were different. Since Europe was taken over.

Had Germany conquered France like WW2 how would the first world war continue then?

[andreasderjuengere]

Germany in WW1 did not intend to conquer.
Please consult Kaiser Wilhelm directly, by reading "An das Deutsche Volk".
It was about honour and about loyalty to allies.

[NamerOfStars]

Said navy was actually one of the REASONS for the war; the post-Napoleon status quo held that England, a net importer of resources, had to have the strongest navy, so they focused on that, while others focused on a stronger land army. Then Mahan writes his book, Germany gets battleship envy, England panics and builds the Dreadnought, lowland Germany gets flooded by kaiser Wilhelm's drool, and BOOM!

[andreasderjuengere]

@NamerOfStars - understandable. Shortly after, German engineering presented Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
And the U- boat.
So when you say that Britain pissed their pants, I understand your reasoning. But... that occured only after WW1? And in a way only because of the Versailles "treaty"?

[NamerOfStars]

No, I'm referring to the arms race between the UK and Germany before WWI. The Dreadnought was launched in 1906.

[andreasderjuengere]

But a D-day style mass landing still was not required.

[exitseven]

The amphibious craft that was used to transport troops did not exist at the beginning of the 1900s. If they used boats it would have been easier for the Germans to shoot at them at the water line.

[KrakenAttackin]

No, the maritime technology and support systems didn't exist. There are great books about the complexity of D-Day.

[lightbulb27]

no higgins boats, probably not go well. need quick...

[Dargil]

My weak opinion, no. Lack of equipment and the enemy was too spread out. A sea to land invasion seems unlikely.

[Anonymous]

No, wasn't WW 1 only fought on land with no water access?

[Tokthr]

This is a hypothetical question

[andreasderjuengere]

Ouch :D

[Twalli]

Probably, but then D-Dsy wouldn't have worked

[noohair]

Look at the gallipoli campaign.