Best Generals of ww2 and their role in this game

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keynes2.0

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he didn't really win democratic elections though. He had a minority government that was supported by democratic socialists who either had the option of backing the communists or him so they choose him.

Where on earth did you get this notion? Hitler was opposed by the SPD and supported by the Nazis, other fascist party and christian right.

The SDP leader was the only one to speak against the enabling acts (giving Hitler unlimited power) in the Reichstag. The Nazis banned the party, arrested anyone they could and then did a bunch of stuff forum rules forbid discussion of. This was following a decade of assassinations and other acts of terror perpetrated on the SDP by fascist paramilitary groups. After being banned the democratic socialist movement went underground and formed the bulk of the German anti-fascist underground inside Germany.

I find it quite sad that you would label people collaborators who showed such amazing integrity and courage by refusing to collaborate.
 

Porkman

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Where on earth did you get this notion? Hitler was opposed by the SPD and supported by the Nazis, other fascist party and christian right.

The SDP leader was the only one to speak against the enabling acts (giving Hitler unlimited power) in the Reichstag. The Nazis banned the party, arrested anyone they could and then did a bunch of stuff forum rules forbid discussion of. This was following a decade of assassinations and other acts of terror perpetrated on the SDP by fascist paramilitary groups. After being banned the democratic socialist movement went underground and formed the bulk of the German anti-fascist underground inside Germany.

I find it quite sad that you would label people collaborators who showed such amazing integrity and courage by refusing to collaborate.

These are the same people who don't see the Nazis as a right wing party and instead insist that it represented international socialism in some way. It was in the name, yes, but when the fundamental goal of the party is revanchism and racial purity, it's no longer really socialist.
 

BigPoppa1111

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These are the same people who don't see the Nazis as a right wing party and instead insist that it represented international socialism in some way. It was in the name, yes, but when the fundamental goal of the party is revanchism and racial purity, it's no longer really socialist.

A lot of American's do not see the Nazi's as a right wing party, because it isn't by American standards. They may be right-wing by European standards, but this is where a lot of the confusion comes. I have always viewed the "Are Nazi's right wing or left wing" discussions with amusement, because it probably does more than any other discussion to highlight the differences between political scales in various parts of the world. You would be hard pressed to find very many traits at all from the Nazi's that warrant describing them as right wing in relation to American politics, while it would only be slightly easier to define them as left-wing according to Euro politics.
 

keynes2.0

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Union busting. Private ownership of industries. Religious politics. Militarism + Revanchism. Curtail civil liberties. These are common right wing positions in many places besides Nazi Germany. Not exclusive to the right wing but pretty clearly indicative.

A down and dirty summery of the German National Socialist ideology is "Against everything the socialists advocate." Not perfect but pretty close. But the Nazi's had the very politically astute idea that they could put "socialist" in their name to appeal to the listless and powerless. It was a bald faced lie but Nazis were kinda famous for bald faced lies. The loved bald faced lies about as much as they hated socialism. It's understandable that people would be fooled at the time but with hindsight...
 

BigPoppa1111

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Union busting.
Not exactly true. They just wanted state control of the unions. They busted existing unions because they felt, somewhat justly, that they were merely tools for the political aims of the German communists. Remember, the Nazi hatred of Communists was based on the communist goals of internationalism and multi-culturalism. Not economics.

Private ownership of industries.

Yes and no. Nazis were fine with private ownership as long as the state got what it wanted. There was no guarantee against state collectivization. And this was also related to the fact that Hitler needed the support of the big industrialists for his war aims. State takeover would have been too unwieldy. It was a political decision, not a philisophical one.
Religious politics.

I will reply on the assumption you are not being facetious. While many religious people supported the Nazis, to say the Nazis had religious politics defies any serious analysis. I believe it is pretty well established that the Nazi philosophy itself was rather at odds with most any established faith.



Militarism + Revanchism.

This probably comes closest to any tenant that you could ascribe to the American right. Not exactly, but certainly more descriptive of the American right than left.
Curtail civil liberties.

Unfortunately, both sides of the American political spectrum seek to curtail civil rights. They just differ on which ones to curtail. I would say the Nazis embodied a notion more akin to the American left when it comes to civil rights and social issues. Except for the racist components of their social ideology, you would be hard pressed to find many others that didn't directly map to the American political left, than the right. Gun control, abortion, welfare state, euthanasia, just for starters.
These are common right wing positions in many places besides Nazi Germany. Not exclusive to the right wing but pretty clearly indicative.

True, but as I have just pointed out, most of these didn't apply to Nazis no matter how hardly you try to shove the square peg into the round hole. It's been well documented that in alot of cases where these did apply was mainly for political expediency as indicated by Hitler's writings and modern day research.

A down and dirty summery of the German National Socialist ideology is "Against everything the socialists advocate." Not perfect but pretty close. But the Nazi's had the very politically astute idea that they could put "socialist" in their name to appeal to the listless and powerless. It was a bald faced lie but Nazis were kinda famous for bald faced lies. The loved bald faced lies about as much as they hated socialism. It's understandable that people would be fooled at the time but with hindsight...

No. A down and dirty summary of National Socialism will reveal what I said it will. They held social positions that with the exception of the racial bias they promoted, map directly to the social positions of the modern American left. I mentioned some above. The foreign policy of the Nazis was more akin to what is held by the American right. Fiscally, the Nazis were much more in line with the modern American left. They were big government statists. They believed in state control of the economy, one were business in government intertwined to the point there was no practical difference. This was done by increasing regulation over business. Taxes were heavy, and they had a very entrenched and expansive welfare state. All of these things are anathemas to the American right.
 

SergeantPunch

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Where on earth did you get this notion? Hitler was opposed by the SPD and supported by the Nazis, other fascist party and christian right.

The SDP leader was the only one to speak against the enabling acts (giving Hitler unlimited power) in the Reichstag. The Nazis banned the party, arrested anyone they could and then did a bunch of stuff forum rules forbid discussion of. This was following a decade of assassinations and other acts of terror perpetrated on the SDP by fascist paramilitary groups. After being banned the democratic socialist movement went underground and formed the bulk of the German anti-fascist underground inside Germany.

I find it quite sad that you would label people collaborators who showed such amazing integrity and courage by refusing to collaborate.

That's correct my bad. What I should have said is that a government could not have been formed without the nazi because the communists were against the democratic process completely and the nazis were willing to use the democratic process. A coalition could have been formed without the nazis if the communists were more democratically friendly.
 

me987654

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A lot of American's do not see the Nazi's as a right wing party, because it isn't by American standards. They may be right-wing by European standards, but this is where a lot of the confusion comes. I have always viewed the "Are Nazi's right wing or left wing" discussions with amusement, because it probably does more than any other discussion to highlight the differences between political scales in various parts of the world. You would be hard pressed to find very many traits at all from the Nazi's that warrant describing them as right wing in relation to American politics, while it would only be slightly easier to define them as left-wing according to Euro politics.

The only Americans who try to claim the Nazi's aren't a right wing party are idiotic Right Wingers who get all their information from Fox News (which not coincidentally is the source for a lot of this nonsense)
 

BigPoppa1111

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The only Americans who try to claim the Nazi's aren't a right wing party are idiotic Right Wingers who get all their information from Fox News (which not coincidentally is the source for a lot of this nonsense)

Try using facts in your argument. It will get you further.
 

me987654

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German generalship is in fact rather overhyped, and yes their military system had more in common with tribal alpha-male one-upmanship systems (which is why it's so appealing to teenage and young males), that unfortunately also flies in the face of some best-practice managerial styles. You'd know this if you read less self-serving memoirs and read modern analysis like say, Citino's.

German successes from '39 to '45 was not really a product of German leadership alone (the vast majority of its victories being won against weak or badly led enemies; and these string of victories immediately evaporating once they faced half-competent opposition), and in many cases German leadership was directly responsible for the failures.

The only reason why German generalship is considered particularly good in pop-culture and in amateur circles is because of its bragaddacio nature and because very few people actually study German generalship outside of the Cold War version (which encouraged the publishing of self-serving memoirs) that German generals were awesome and therefore it's okay to take lessons from them to stop the Soviet Cold War tank horde (which resulted in some of the most retarded NATO military plans ever like the misbegotten "Forward Defense" strategy).

You are doing the EXACT thing you accuse German apologists of doing. Claiming that most of their victories were against weak or badly led enemies.

This is the exact same type of excuse you have railed against people making for German generals.

The fact is the truth is undoubtedly somewhere in between
 

Secret Master

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If you want to talk about politics, you can do it in the OT forum. If you want to talk about political party alignments in Germany during the 1930s, start a new discussion. This thread is for discussing military leaders.
 
Last edited:

me987654

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Oh absolutely, I just found it off putting that this guy was demeaning the peacetime preparations that allowed Germany to do well. Brilliant Generals who can win against incalculable odds on the field are very rare. The army shouldn't be reliant on them to win. Germany was very good at using peacetime to make it easy for its generals, regardless of their abilities, to win in the early war. (The winning with ease part of the quote.)

Institutionalizing excellence is difficult for militaries and was something that the German army did quite well.

I don't blame the generals so much for allowing Hitler to get them into an unwinnable war.

To use a modern example, when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration asked the Pentagon how many troops it would take to do it. The pentagon, full of professional generals who knew what they were doing, said "about 400,000 US and coalition troops."

That wasn't the answer the administration wanted so they went ahead and did the invasion with 170,000. Defeating Iraq's regular military was of course no problem for 170,000 US soldiers. But they had willfully ignored why the Pentagon had given over twice that number. The Pentagon knew that the US invasion was going to destroy the social order of Iraq and send the country into chaos, they saw 200,000 more troops as a necessity to prevent that.

Then events happened exactly the same way that the Pentagon had predicted with insufficient troops. The country descended into chaos, sectarian battles and such. Order wasn't restored until the Surge in 2007, when the administration sent 20,000 additional forces to provide security.

I know that this is massively oversimplified and could be construed as somewhat political, but my point was that the military can do their best and perform extremely well in their preparation and all that, but the ultimate conduct of the war is still up to the civilian leadership.

Great post and great example. If you compare the first Iraq war to the 2nd you can see what a huge difference competent political leadership makes (and really THOSE are the people who set strategy). Bush Sr and Colin Powell sent in overwhelming force, accomplished their objectives and resisted the urge to keep going further.
 

Dina1954

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Yeah, yeah.
Excuses are always cheap.

If excuses are cheap then German Generals are champions at this with their whole "It's all Hitler's fault" narrative.

The simple reality is that there is very much a jilted Internet meme wherein Allied generals who make mistakes are not allowed to have reasons for failing, only excuses (e.g. Monty failing to clear Antwerp quickly because the terrain was awful). Meanwhile, German generals who keep resorting to excuses like "Hitler made me do it" are given a free pass.

As many posters have already noted, German Generals were noted for their tactical skill, but to me even this was overblown and again by 1944 your average US Armored battalion commander was better than his Wermacht counterpart. And they never really figured out how to win on the strategic level; which is again why I brought up the controversial "Red Army" where NATO thought it was winning all along because it won one or two tactical battles but completely lost the war because their stategic position was irretrievable while they tunnel-visioned themselves into trying to win tactically.

The Soviets and the Americans during the Second World War simply understood a war is not simply a series of battles (when the Americans forgot this in Vietnam, they ended up winning all the battles and yet lost the war; all thanks to their stupid adoption of supposedly superior German wartime practices).

The Germans deluded themselves into thinking that winning a lot of battles equals winning a war. Sun Tzu's maxim on how skill is not about winning a hundred battles, but on winning without fighting, holds true to this day far more than the "German way of war".
In this forum we have two sides about the skills of the generals and how well the different armys behaved.I am not good in writing in english so my translating from swedish can be wrong but I hope you will understand me.Most people have made their opinium
from source. I will refer to Max Hastings book Harmagedon which in my opinion is the best source for what happend between june 44-may 45,and explain how Germany could keep on fighting against owerhelming odds until 45 their army was destroyed in France
after 10 weeks hard fighting.I am quoiting: It must be very clear for all except the most harsh stance nationalists that the german army performed their tasks considerably more proffessional and fought with moore determination than the men of Eisenhower.
About the generals he says an extraordinary workmanship combined with total unsrupulous made many german and russian generals to repulsive people but dreadful soldiers.It is very difficult to say that allied officers in generally could match up with german
officers.About Monty and clearing the waterways in Amsterdam he, Eisenhower and maybe Demsey are to blame.11th.brittish amoured div. had taken and the soldiers were very exosted and wanted only to rest and recuperate.Now they should have command
and sporred the division to keep moving.Nothing happen in 9 days when they tryed to clear the waterways and now it costed dead and wonded.The germans had acted quick as usual the day after the brittish had taken Amsterdam they started to transporting soldiers over the chanel .Monty was best in static battle as he was used in first w.w.He often fail to use different opportunities ex closing the pocket of failase (here we must blame Bradley too).
 

Zinegata

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You are doing the EXACT thing you accuse German apologists of doing. Claiming that most of their victories were against weak or badly led enemies.

This is the exact same type of excuse you have railed against people making for German generals.

The fact is the truth is undoubtedly somewhere in between

No, I'm pointing out that German Generals do in fact keep resorting to the "Hitler made me do it" excuse, and they in fact had the advantage not of "superior leadership", but of strategic surprise against the Soviets. For the French, there was very bad generalship involved on the French side, but that still doesn't change the fact that the balance sheet of regular Divisions ultimately favored the Germans.

This does not at all support these constant attempts to find "middle ground", because that kind of silliness is how you get 1+1=3 because delusional people insist that 1+1=4 (3 being in between 2 and 4, hence "middle ground").

The reality is that German Generalship wasn't all that cracked up to be. Decent tacticians, but were outdone completely by 1944 in this regard; and they were never particularly good at figuring out how to win a war in the first place. Because again, winning a battle and winning a war are two very different things, and people seriously need to stop believing winning battles automatically leads to winning a war and no amount of "If only Hitler..." is going to change that. Heck, again, America won every battle in Vietnam and yet still lost the war.
 

Zinegata

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In this forum we have two sides about the skills of the generals and how well the different armys behaved.I am not good in writing in english so my translating from swedish can be wrong but I hope you will understand me.Most people have made their opinium
from source. I will refer to Max Hastings book Harmagedon which in my opinion is the best source for what happend between june 44-may 45,and explain how Germany could keep on fighting against owerhelming odds until 45 their army was destroyed in France
after 10 weeks hard fighting.I am quoiting: It must be very clear for all except the most harsh stance nationalists that the german army performed their tasks considerably more proffessional and fought with moore determination than the men of Eisenhower.
About the generals he says an extraordinary workmanship combined with total unsrupulous made many german and russian generals to repulsive people but dreadful soldiers.It is very difficult to say that allied officers in generally could match up with german
officers.About Monty and clearing the waterways in Amsterdam he, Eisenhower and maybe Demsey are to blame.11th.brittish amoured div. had taken and the soldiers were very exosted and wanted only to rest and recuperate.Now they should have command
and sporred the division to keep moving.Nothing happen in 9 days when they tryed to clear the waterways and now it costed dead and wonded.The germans had acted quick as usual the day after the brittish had taken Amsterdam they started to transporting soldiers over the chanel .Monty was best in static battle as he was used in first w.w.He often fail to use different opportunities ex closing the pocket of failase (here we must blame Bradley too).

I like Armageddon but Hastings' thesis that Western Allied leaders could have ended the war sooner, I feel, lacks sufficient argumentation. His only argument is that the Allies could have been "more aggressive" like the Germans or Soviets or Patton, but really I don't think that's a very good argument because "aggressiveness" is subjective. To prove that the Allies could have ended the war earlier, you need logistical analysis, terrain analysis, and force ratio analysis - all of which Hastings fails to provide. And based on what I know, given the very real gas shortages, the strength of the Rhine river defensive positions, and the fact that the Wermacht losses were not as bad as supposed in the aftermath of Falaise, I don't think it's reasonable that the Allies could have ended the war sooner even if they hadn't made the Market-Garden mistake.

Besides, the real delay in the invasion of Western Europe was the one year delay imposed by the British on the invasion of France. The Allies in fact could have landed in Normandy in 1943 rather than in 1944 - guys who look at logistics can see that the Allies landed almost as many Divisions in Sicily as they did in Normandy, and back then the Atlantic Wall's construction hadn't even really started yet. But no, instead thanks to British insistence we have that whole (largely pointless and forgotten) Italian campaign.
 

Porkman

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Besides, the real delay in the invasion of Western Europe was the one year delay imposed by the British on the invasion of France. The Allies in fact could have landed in Normandy in 1943 rather than in 1944 - guys who look at logistics can see that the Allies landed almost as many Divisions in Sicily as they did in Normandy, and back then the Atlantic Wall's construction hadn't even really started yet. But no, instead thanks to British insistence we have that whole (largely pointless and forgotten) Italian campaign.

Now, you're just being a monday morning quarterback. The Italian campaign wasn't a bad idea. It was executed somewhat poorly but that doesn't make the idea bad.

The Allies were worried about German advantages in tanks (that were largely illusory) and they decided to enter Europe in Mountainous terrain where the Allied armies had fared well previously. Also, knocking out Italy was a worthy war goal in and of itself.

I have the same attitude to those who say the Burma campaign was pointless since the war ended before it finished.

No one at the time knew that the war was going to take the course it took. None of the generals besides Marshall and some Army Airforce guys knew about the Atomic bomb. Everyone in Asia and the Pacific was operating on the idea that the war would last til 1946 and culminate with an invasion of Japan and possibly a campaign to kick the Japanese off the mainland. Can you imagine telling Nimitz, "Don't do anything, because we're already in range to drop a super bomb in 5 months and the Soviets will probably get involved too."

Why not land in Italy which has a weaker army, weaker defenses, a more war weary populace? The stalemate in central Italy wasn't inevitable.

The Allies had to try every war winning strategy they had, not all of them paid dividends, but saying, "Just the invasion of France would have been enough" is like those Axis victory counterfactuals where Germany does everything absolutely perfectly while the Allies make all the same mistakes.
 

Zinegata

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It's not quarterbacking when the fundamental premise of the Italian Campaign was faulty to begin with; the result of the British trying to apply Napoleonic-era strategy in a completely different strategic situation.

Again, let's examine the premise: If you're going to be landing in Italy on the basis that it would be very hard to dislodge the Allied bridgehead due to rough terrain, then it must equally apply that the reverse is true and that any invasion of Italy will be ultimately a long, hard, slog against rough terrain.

Meanwhile, the American Army had been designed from the ground up to fight in France, which is why it had so many Armored Divisions in the first place (which are not exactly useful in the mountains), Tank Destroyer Brigades to counter German armor, and no real Mountain Divisions to boot.

So why are you sending an armor-reliant American/British Army to fight in a country whose terrain is ill-suited to armor? Why would you instead send them to a place full of mountains, when they don't even have real Mountain Divisions to begin with?

The Italian campaign was simply a loser strategy from the get-go - a front of stalemate that was unsuited for US and even British Army operations - which is why the Soviets were pretty angry at the Allies in 1943. An invasion of Normandy could have been done in 1943 - the number of Divisions landed in Sicily roughly corresponds to the number landed in Normandy and through a longer sea passage to boot; and again the Atlantic Wall was more a decoration at this point than a serious defensive feature.

Western histories are just too hooked to the drama of D-day to seriously consider that it could have in fact been done a year earlier, and this was in large part the Brit's fault that it wasn't, hence they can't really be the ones commenting on how the Americans should have been more aggressive in 1944 when in reality they created the bigger delay to begin with.
 
Last edited:

keynes2.0

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The Italian campaign looks pretty damn successful to me.

First of all it makes the Italians surrender. That's hundreds of thousands of troops either not fighting on the Axis side who would have or supporting the Allies who wouldn't have.
Second of all it ties up hundreds of thousands of troops that dont go to the eastern front or France. The western allies could afford to spare these troops. The Axis could not.

If you do the D-Day invasion in 1943 then you are doing it without buildup or preparation. Tunisia doesn't fall until May so you have to ship the African forces back to England and optimistically be ready to go in the late summer. The Axis have another 300k troops that aren't in Sicily just for starters. Because there is a huge exodus from North Africa all at once you are advertising the invasion of France in flashing neon lights and the Axis know exactly where to put the troops. It's not going to be a cakewalk to Berlin. It would be very fortunate to get to Paris before Christmas.
 
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misterbean

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The Italian campaign looks pretty damn successful to me.

First of all it makes the Italians surrender. That's hundreds of thousands of troops either not fighting on the Axis side who would have or supporting the Allies who wouldn't have.
Second of all it ties up hundreds of thousands of troops that dont go to the eastern front or France. The western allies could afford to spare these troops. The Axis could not.

If you do the D-Day invasion in 1943 then you are doing it without buildup or preparation. Tunisia doesn't fall until May so you have to ship the African forces back to England and optimistically be ready to go in the late summer. The Axis have another 300k troops that aren't in Sicily just for starters. Because there is a huge exodus from North Africa all at once you are advertising the invasion of France in flashing neon lights and the Axis know exactly where to put the troops. It's not going to be a cakewalk to Berlin. It would be very fortunate to get to Paris before Christmas.

Not to mention the panzers pulled out of the Eastfront.
 

D Inqu

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The Italian campaign looks pretty damn successful to me.

First of all it makes the Italians surrender. That's hundreds of thousands of troops either not fighting on the Axis side who would have or supporting the Allies who wouldn't have.
Second of all it ties up hundreds of thousands of troops that dont go to the eastern front or France. The western allies could afford to spare these troops. The Axis could not.
This makes zero sense. The Italian troops were not a concern for the allies, due to their poor quality. And, by mid-1943, Italian troops were in Italy only, having lost most of their combat-capable forces in Africa or Stalingrad. Furthermore, the allies only captured southern Italy. The key industrial north Italy remained in German hands until 1945 as a puppet state.

The problem with the italian campaign was the it was both a tactical, operational and strategic dead end. Tactically, because the mountains provided good defensive positions for germans with limited amor, and essentially nullified allied armor advantage. Operationally, the narrow frontline, german prepared defensive lines and lack of local infrastructure turned the battles into an attritional stalemate, with no possiblilities of encircling major german forces. Strategically, because even in ideal invasion (much better than historically), where the allies take over all of Italy, Germany's war capacity is not affected. Germany can establish a defence line on the Alps without much difficulty.

If you do the D-Day invasion in 1943 then you are doing it without buildup or preparation. Tunisia doesn't fall until May so you have to ship the African forces back to England and optimistically be ready to go in the late summer. The Axis have another 300k troops that aren't in Sicily just for starters. Because there is a huge exodus from North Africa all at once you are advertising the invasion of France in flashing neon lights and the Axis know exactly where to put the troops. It's not going to be a cakewalk to Berlin. It would be very fortunate to get to Paris before Christmas.
The Allies had a lot more forces, and there was no need for a complete "exodus" from Africa to begin a landing in France. And the German intelligence would could not "know exactly". Historically, in 1944 they thought Normandy was a secondary area, and expected a landing in Calais. Why would they they thing any better in 1943. The key allied advantage is that in 1943 the Atlantic wall is not built, there are less panzer divisions in France, and the fact that for US armoured divisions, the terrain in northern France was much more suitable than Italian mountains.

Not to mention the panzers pulled out of the Eastfront.
Because there weren't any. The only division to be moved from the eastern front (LSSAH) did so without any heavy equipment.