Any military 'geeks': Can someone explain D-day to me?

[Irish_Dem]

114. Yes the allies took full advantage of the German problems.

The Germans had spent years preparing for the invasion, they built a seeming fortress along the coast.
But when the day came, they failed to stop the Allies.

One blunder after another. Some of it set up by the Allies.

The Germans made other mistakes as well that day, operationally and strategically.

The German Luftwaffe had withdrawn most of its fighters to Germany to deal with the
relentless American daylight bombing operations all over Germany. The German Navy ships
were either in bad shape or bottled up in ports, unable to move out.

The Germans only had ten Panther divisions in the area, but not close to the beaches like some had wanted.

So in the first hours of the invasion, the German resistance nests used machine guns to mow down the Allies.
It was a blood bath and Allied bodies lined the beaches. Gen. Bradly watching from a ship on the ocean actually considered evacuating and calling off the invasion. But as we can see, no German Air Force, Navy appeared which could have repelled the invasion.

The invasion came as a complete surprise to the German commanders. Hitler was sleeping in as usual. Rommel was back in Germany celebrating his wife's birthday. The others were spread over France and Germany and had to scramble to get back.

The German Generals could not send in more divisions without Hitler's permission.

False reports came in to the Germans about paratroopers landing and they went on some wild goose chases.

Even when Hitler did finally wake up, he spent several days in disbelief. He could not fathom that the Normandy was the location of the invasion. A vast system of information, too much to outline here, had made Hitler believe the invasion would hit at another location. He thought the Normandy location was a trick and did not want to be sucked in.

By the time he figured it out it was too late.

So how many lives were saved by Hitler sleeping in? Some say it didn't make much difference.
He would have awakened in a barbiturate drug haze and made silly decisions, plus he didn't believe it was the
real invasion any way.

Even if the Germans had stopped D Day, it was only a matter of time.
The Russians were approaching Berlin, the US army had liberated Italy, it was just a matter of time.

But I think the Battle of Normandy which was the battle to secure the beach would have been bloodier
if Hitler had woken up early, been on top of his game and moved more divisions in right away. The Allies lost 73,000 lives
and it would have been much higher Hitler took appropriate action right away.