Doppleganger
Active member
This point is precisely why German panzer formations should have been based inland. The counter-attack ideally for the Germans wouldn't have come anywhere near the coast. The idea was that 2 armoured pincers would engage when the Allies neared Paris, in a large-scale envelopment reminiscent of the encirclements in 1941 and 1942 on the Eastern Front.4) Even had the allied air force stayed away any German counter offensive within 10 miles of the beach was going to be met with naval gun fire.
Tanks are not beach weapons. By sticking them on such a surface you basically relegate them to mobile pillboxes. The best use the Germans could have made of their forces, regardless of air supremacy from the Allies or not, was to use their concept of Elastic Defence in Depth to suck in the Allies and then counter them as described above. Disasters for the Germans such as the Falaise Pocket would probably never have occurred.