how vital D-day was

The landings by the Allies led by the American and British forces on the 6th of June 1944 on the golden beaches of Normandy in northern France weren't only important because of the fact it gave the Allies a solid foot hold on Western Europe in which they could from there fight the Nazi's on a second front to that of their allies the Soviets, the Allies had a landing force of 175,000 men crossing the English Channel, by the end of the month after securing ports in northern France they had 1,600,000 men and machines on mainland Europe.

Although I may have sounded indifferent to the Allies fight in the Europe as compared to the Soviets who did the bulk of the fighting (killing 4 of every 5 German soldiers killed in the war) the landings in Normandy were vital to the timely defeat of the Germans.

Not only that but the speedy delivery of logistical support for those fighting against the Germans but also carried with it a good psychological effect on the millions of Soviets fighting on the Eastern Front.



The Soviets had suffered over 20,000,000 casualties after being lain under heavy siege by German oppression for nearly three years.

They had suffered massively and their land had been destroyed during the start of the German offensive because of their scorched earth policy which included the dissembling of factories and burning of crops for miles (that can't have been good for their economic growth of industry), to say they were weary of war would be an understatement.

But they had a fighting chance against the German forces, using massive infantry they overran the Germans where they could, eventually 80% of the German Army were sent fighting in the Eastern Front, several of these forces were pulled from Western Europe to avail in the fight to defend the Reich, the Luftwaffe had been put on the defense of Germany, therefore it would be unable to cover several other parts of Europe.

After the Atlantic Wall was formed in Europe, Hitler thought that any landing would be a failure and that if the Allies failed to spearhead a secure reinforcement zone in the north of France the Allied troops would be trapped and slaughtered by the German Army forces.

However history turned out to be much different, if this had been the case it could have seriously broke the morale of the Soviet Army and might have even prompted Stalin to except a peace treaty with Hitler bringing them back to where they started with the 1939 agreement, which would have seen Soviet forces drawing the border with Nazi Europe in eastern Poland, although Hitler didn't have anything sufficient to hit the several American bases in England with at this time, come 1945 if the D-day landings had failed the Americans would have probably hit the heart of Germany with the atomic bomb and burn the Reich from inside out. (That would be a very alternative to the history we have of two Japanese fishing cities being hit by these deadliest weapons in a vicious attempt to deter the Soviets).

However even though the tremendous sacrifice put forward by the Soviets (something that isn't properly remembered) did sufficiently strain Germany's war machine the timely injection of aid that came in the form of the Normandy landings helped the Third Reich come down before it had a chance to properly revive itself and cause more unthinkable damage and horror.

modern day amphibious warfare

The above famous picture of one of the D-day landings on June 6th, 1944 shows the massive American/British/Canadian amphibious assault in Northern France spearheading the liberation of Nazi occupied Europe (or Fortress Europe), it was the largest amphibious landing in all of history.

Just over a year later two atomic bombs where detonated no Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan bringing the Pacific War and World War II to an end, conventional war was to continue throughout the cold war and up to this day, so even today with all these super weapons conventional warfare, including amphibious warfare is still important.



Your standard amphibious assault ship today can hold around 12 helicopters or 10 AV-8B Harrier II's or a mix of the two along with smaller boats for amphibious landings (stored in the well, see image above).

Its punch on shorelines would include strafing runs from marine Harriers backed by Marines in RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, to me the ship is more of a transport fleet to land in troops after the major punch is given, the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 is all the evidence I need for this theory.



Built the same year as the Normandy invasion the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) with its 16 inch guns served along with other battleships in World War II on coastal bombard of islands in Japan such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, it also served in the Korean War in the 1950's helping amphibious landings there.

But in the 1980's under under Ronald Reagans 600-ship Navy it was restored replacing its old World War II era flak guns with the latest in AA defences along with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

It's shells could hit and destroy solid concrete dug in positions from 26 miles away on the coast of its target, even the 2,000 pound bombs dropped from B-52's can't do this, and I'm pretty sure a strafing run from a Harrier couldn't neither, this was proven in 1991 when engaging Iraqi targets in Kuwait; its Tomahawk cruise missiles could also engage reinforcing convoys to the besieged ground forces outflanking them while troops get a chance to land;

So while World War II era battleships could still do some major damage in today's conventional warfare not much has really changed with amphibious warfare.



The Soviet Union focused a lot on this type of warfare in the 1970's, an example above (the Polnochny) shows that they carried helicopter gunships rather than Marine transports and Harriers, the above example being the Mil Mi-24 'Hind' gunship, which could ferry troops while engaging ground targets;
however very few examples of these are seen in Russia today!