Berlin Airlift for Crimea?

@SuperbattleshipYamato Yeah I get you 100%. Alternate History is a niche interest in the first place so finding other people willing to go down the rabbit hole is always tough.

@Coldwarrior1984

Reading this, I feel strongly you’re confused about the nature of the German defenses in Normandy. In combination, I feel you are overestimating the Allies ability to place smoke as precisely and in the quantity that would have been required to have a chance to accomplish the goal you lay out. I also feel you’re overestimating the effectiveness of smoke even if I grant that none of the above was an issue.

I’ve been to Normandy three times with tour guides. I’ve read everything from Ambrose and Osprey on Overlord. I’m tempted to repeat my initial post about why you don’t hear or see this tactic being performed en masse in the many assaults in the Pacific or Mediterranean.

I’ll just sum this up and say that the German fighting positions were not composed primarily of Saving Private Ryan style bunkers but widerstandsnest with Tobruks across so much acreage that a simultaneous precision smoke affect against all of them for the required time to get everyone ashore is less realistic that just a mass smoke bombardment of the beach area.

Today or yesterday (depending on where you live) was the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Phillipine Sea.

When the US landed in Saipan, the Japanese responded with a massive carrier attack (supported by aircraft from land bases), the first major Japanese carrier operation in a year and a half. Numerically, at least, this was the largest Japanese carrier force ever committed to battle and was faced by the largest and most powerful fleet ever put together in the history of warfare up to that point, America’s Fast Carrier Task Force.

Due to the sharp decline of Japanese pilot quality and a massive technological and numerical advantage from the American side, the Japanese 1st Mobile Fleet was dealt a giant defeat, losing 3 carriers and irreverisble numbers of aircraft for essentially no results.

The battle saw the combat debut of Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, arguablly one of the best Japanese carrier commanders, in command of a major Japanese carrier force. Previously Ozawa commanded various fleets and formations containing carriers, but never the Kido Butai (or its successor, the 1st Mobile Fleet) in combat.

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@Witt

Thank you so much! I appreciate your input.

@ABWorsham4

Curious. Would’ve been a complicated air operation, given that escorting aircraft may have had to come from carriers. Then again, the Western Allies ruled the skies.

The success would’ve depended on whether the Italian government collapsed (Mussolini and the facists overthrown) and the army would’ve defected as quickly and massive as they did following the invasion of Sicily. If a substantial number were at least disarmed, it’s quite possible enough Allied troops could’ve been ferried into Italian ports to hold against an expected German counterattack.

While I don’t think the Allies would’ve reached the Italian-Yugoslavian or Italian-German borders, they may have reached what would become the Gothic Line by early 1944. Just making probable estimates, I did not look this in detail.

@andrewaagamer

The fact that there weren’t many divisions in Germany at the time. Obviously Germany would have brought several armies if they landed in Berlin, but maybe they could have assassinated some top Nazis beforehand.