[historical question] why did the USA not use smoke on DDAY?

just came up with this while watching the pacific. smoke nades and smoke arty shells were avaible at that time, couldnt it have save alot of life during the landing?

"The first weather report from SWORD beach arrived back at Dunstable 8 hours after the first British troops waded ashore.
It read - "mainly sunny, wind north westerly force 4, small amounts of cloud above 4000 feet, good visibility"

So, on the Beaufort Scale, Force 4 winds are:

19.7–28.7 km/h
12.2–17.9 mph
10.6–15.5 knot
5.5–8 m/s

with waves of 1–2 m or 3.5–6 ft and are described as having "Small waves with breaking crests. Fairly frequent whitecaps." and the land conditions are described as "Dust and loose paper raised. Small branches begin to move."

(Beaufort scale stuff from Wikipedia)

So, by the looks of it the TLDR might be Wind.

But also, if we look tactically it may be that they simply decided it was better to send live HE shells in instead of smoke as smoke won't stop them firing onto the beach. After all, it is highly likely that the Germans would have pre-sighted artillery, machine guns and mortars etc. to fire onto the beach in the event of low visibility.

First thing my friend. The pacific was not set during WW2 D-Day, you might be thinking of band of brothers. The Pacific was the US/Japan theatre

I don't know much historical reasons but logically it must actually hinder an army to do this. With all the tank traps etc on the beach you would need to see where to shoot the mg's etc and also where to advance. Otherwise they would be spraying bullets through smoke and you'd have no idea where it was coming from. I actually think it would give the Axis more of an advantage in that respect

My second reason would be that the beach was being shelled by naval ships constantly... They may have appreciated visibility in this scenario considering how many of their own men were on the beach

Maybe they haven't teched up for nades or bought the DLC with smoke arty back then.

Maybe USF wanted to see the enemy and decided to not use smoke.

Maybe they haven't teched up for nades or bought the DLC with smoke arty back then.

Dlc Smoke

I have been one time to the beach and gosh the wind was very strong , if i remenber correctly, the operation was a bit delayed due to a storm crashing on, that might be why.

I'm not rely sure why they didn't smoke and flank the mg tho

smoke doesn't stop bullets

neither artillery fire

But did they use COH 2 True sight back in 1944?, because if they used COH 1 sight mechanics they would still see through the smoke, so there would be no point in using it

I have been one time to the beach and gosh the wind was very strong , if i remenber correctly, the operation was a bit delayed due to a storm crashing on, that might be why........

Storm was a few days later

First thing my friend. The pacific was not set during WW2 D-Day, you might be thinking of band of brothers. The Pacific was the US/Japan theatre

thanks i know (i play alot of different ww2 games so i know quite a few things i just mentioned that i had the idea while watching it, didnt relate anything.

thanks for the all answers, wind seems the thing i didnt consider ..

We dont know why but we know the consequences.

Thousands of poeple die because USA forgot to smoke ´n´ flank.

thanks i know (i play alot of different ww2 games so i know quite a few things i just mentioned that i had the idea while watching it, didnt relate anything.

thanks for the all answers, wind seems the thing i didnt consider ..

Many things happened that day both good and bad.

From after-action interviews we know that in the case of both the naval bombardment and the aerial bombardment the gunners and bombardiers "erred' to the side of caution in the fear of hitting friendly troops. This meant that much of the bombardment was off target and as much as several hundred yards/meters inland from the targeted fortifications. (and hence much less effective).

But other things that weren't planned went well. On Omaha, when it became clear that there was a huge problem on the beaches there was some improvisation. Some naval vessels came dangerously close to shore so their gunners could sight and correct their own gunfire. In one case one of the few Shermans that reached shore figured out that they could use smoke rounds to mark for the naval gunners German firing positions that were not visible to the naval gunners. (One 75mm smoke shell brings in a dozen 5" shells fired from "close" range!) This would not have been possible if the area was blanketed with smoke.

There was no storm but there was definitely "weather" as the sea was to the high end of what they considered manageable. Remember, almost all the DD Shermans drowned in the chop.

Storm was a few days later

You could say it was... Stormless

Few facts for the gamers here.

Normandy invasion beaches were codenamed Gold Juno Sword Omaha Utah. US landings were only at Omaha and Utah.

1. Have a look at the topography of "Omaha" and its cliff bluffs before suggesting flanking. i.e. Omaha beach was constrained at each end by large rocky cliffs.

2. The invasion itself was an enormous undertaking as it was. How precisely do you consider a 6th landing beach should have been nominated and forces allocated to permit "flanking" General?

3. During any attack on a defended position, people are going to die. Bloody as Ranger losses were by US unit casualty rate standards of the day, the US lost SFA relatively. Research Tarawa and Iwo Jima casualties in comparison, or if you are honest enough for perspective of a real bloodbath, German losses around Orel alone during Unternehmen Zitadelle. Now that's a battle. Omaha, bloody as it was portrayed, wasn't exactly on the scale of British casualties on the first day of the Somme offensive in July, 1916 either. The Omaha landing is just widely known and has a MUCH higher profile than it rates in the scale of battles as battles go because of Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and preoccupation of its target audience with themselves. If you asked those who have seen the movie at the time it released, I'll wager the majority couldn't have told you the code name of the beach before hand or now nearly two decades on.

4. The Omaha landing was a clusterfuck. Let's just add to that clusterfuckedness potential with smoke.

5. Smoke provides cover from view, not from fire basic field knowledge. Smoke like gas, works indisciminately to advantage or disadvantage of both sides.

In this case, smoke would hinder the attackers more than the defenders. Confusion reigned as it was. Can you imagine that confusion abetted by the Coxswain being unable to see beach obstacles or beach the Higgins boat possibly causing them to flounder or tipping its load into the sea. Or its disembarking infantry to beach blind unable to see obstacles like barbed wire funnelling them into killing zones to cut it for an alternate route, see the objectives, see cover so you can move to take advantage of it, where tracer was coming from or even directing your own return fire toward those firing at you?

If you don't know why apart from all those factors, smoke would have been a hindrance rather than benefit to the attackers, research the purpose of obstacles including barbed wire to funnel attackers into MG beaten zones aka killing zones, research cross covering HMGs firing along fixed lines at those zones, registered artillary and mortar fire etc, then go and join an infantry unit and get some experience doing to understand exactly how all of this differs pragmatically from experience of a game like COH2.

W/V is a factor in laying cover from view smoke, but an irrelevance in consideration of why arty fired smoke for cover from view wasn't used here.

I once asked on Reddit as to why certain techniques weren't used to minimise casualties on D-Day. I was mostly interested in the idea of using the doors from the boats as shields instead of just dropping them and exposing a tight group to instant machine gun fire (quick answer: heavy doors not a great idea in deep water).

There were some good answers in there. I can't recall a whole lot of specifics as it was a while back, but there actually were significant preparations made to cover the troops.

Ultimately, Omaha beach was about the only significant battle of any of the landings. Most of them were a relative cakewalk with little to no resistance. Bad recon, perhaps?

I once asked on Reddit as to why certain techniques weren't used to minimise casualties on D-Day. I was mostly interested in the idea of using the doors from the boats as shields instead of just dropping them and exposing a tight group to instant machine gun fire (quick answer: heavy doors not a great idea in deep water).

There were some good answers in there. I can't recall a whole lot of specifics as it was a while back, but there actually were significant preparations made to cover the troops.

Ultimately, Omaha beach was about the only significant battle of any of the landings. Most of them were a relative cakewalk with little to no resistance. Bad recon, perhaps?

i remember the navy wanted to create huge artillery craters for cover to advance butthey missed their target

i still cant get the idea out of my head that smoke nades on squadleaders could have been usefull

You could say it was... Stormless

Joke of the year award goes to

I just thought of this, I'm gonna start calling you "Windy" from now

as much as it wouldve helped with machine gun fire maybe, it would've been greatly disorienting for americans as well.

imagine walking through random mg42, mortar, arty fire in a thick fog.

imagine walking through random mg42, mortar, arty fire in a thick fog.

Charging across a flat surface when they can accurately target you is probably worse.