It certainly would have been a tougher fight.

Allied forces already owned the Mediterranian and would have continued to march through Italy.  Ground advances may have been slowed or stopped at the Alps but we would have valuable air bases in northern Italy.  Hitler would still have to fight his dreaded 2 front war

Allied bombers from English bases supported Soviet ground advances by bombing eastern Germany and we poured tons (literally) of supplies into the Soviet Union.  If we ever felt the Soviet advance was proceeding too efficiently we could have cut their supplies.

"Patton" was just on for Memorial Day weekend.  He had the (right) idea that postwar boundaries were more political than military.  Even if D-Day had been delayed by a year we could have insisted that the Soviet Union hold its borders at Poland.

Well, had it failed, a new plan would have been devised. However its also safe to say Hitler might have made another attempt at invading England again. Then again looking at another angle the battle of britain was over giving our troops and commanders time to regroup, and go in a differant way. An all out beach invasion was a 1 shot deal though i believe, once Hitler and his generals knew the game plan he would have had time to reinforce every beach along the french coast.

I don't think that Hitler would have been able to invade England under any circumstances.  By this time he was already fighting on two different fronts, and invading England with America in the fray and his navy gone probably would have been impossible. 

I think that it would have been harder, but the troops coming up through Italy would have driven a wedge through all of the low countries and cut off Hitlers armies in France.  Having divided him, the troops in the west could have been taken care of at leisure, while those in the east would have been the main objective.  Russia would have gotten more, maybe all, of Germany, but it would have stopped there.

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Things have changed a lot both with media coverage & the attitude of the general public. Everyone realised the need for secrecy during WWII & knew their lives & those of their loved ones depended on it. They were well aware of being fed a certain amount of propaganda but weren't too bothered about it. Two well-known posters plastered everywhere at the time were "Be Like Dad - Keep Mum.....!" (maybe not PC now but effective) & "Walls Have Ears.....!".

Although 10,000 people from all walks of life worked at the top secret code-breaking establishment at Bletchley Park by the latter part of WWII, not one revealed what they did there even to their close families. (I can't imagine that happening today without some newshound finding out about it & broadcasting it to everyone.) This must have been one of the most closely guarded secrets of the whole war although there are many similar examples. Many took their secrets to the grave & the truth is still coming out now.

It's very different now with even top intelligence staff writing their memoirs immediately they leave the service. With the constant news coverage from both sides in a conflict I have often wondered how it's possible to fight a conventional war these days. Somehow I don't think that the date or location of the Normandy landing beaches would have remained secret too long.

I'm not familiar with that one.  Can you remember anyone who was in it or even one word of the title?  I could probably figure it out from there...   

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Interesting theory Woody. Of course, the Allied invasion could not have been contemplated without total air superiority. A recon flight could not have failed to notice the huge build up of troops & equipment all over the south of England for weeks beforehand, let alone the ships in the Solent & the caissons for Mulberry Harbours dotted all along the south coast. It always amazed me that they got away with it.

From what I've read recently, the German atom bomb was not sufficiently advanced to be used for several years. I don't think it was ever more than a threat which started serious research by the Allies. It's possible that the V2 could have used bacteriological or chemical warheads instead of high explosive. I don't believe these would have been used first for fear of retaliation.

I think the Amerika Bomber project had been cancelled by this time & if not it would have taken several years to develop. Germany was also desperately short of raw materials & oil. There was a severe shortage of high octane fuel for the conventional fighters. The jet engines had a very short service life, something like 10 hours before they packed up. As I mentioned before I think it was only a matter of time.

Sorry Woody, but I have to agree with Hagar on the German Atomic bomb business. I have read, and seen on many docos, that the German bomb program, in so far as it existed, was well behind the US program. I've constantly heard figures of at least 2 years off at wars end.
(All their 'heavy water' was destroyed in Norway, ala the Movie - I think that episode alone put the program back a couple of years. as the HW was essential to the research and production of the weapon)

But apart from that, the Yanks would certainly have still been bombing the 'living crap' out of cities such as Hamburg, Dresden etc.
I think it would have taken the Russians at least another 6 months to a year to get to Berlin. As it was, with D-day successful and the second front a reality, they took almost another year. By that time of course, Berlin would have been a smouldering ruin. As would virtually every other city in Germany. Not to mention the Industrial infrastructure, which was well below the required capacity to supply even the Eastern Front alone, with the required equipment and supplies.

Imagine the additional destruction that would have been unleashed on Germany if the US and Brits had not had the French front to worry about. Remember also, that Ike had given Bomber command over to the Normandy Invasion and subsequent campaign months prior to D-Day (to the chagrin of Lee Mallory).

So all this, I think would have culminated in a very, very wrecked Germany. Not to mention her Armies, due to the lack of supplies and equipment (which was already stetched very thinly) due to a more concentrated bombing campaign than the one we now know.

Consider the result of 500 or so B29's in Europe. they could have been bombing (20,000lbs each) the Eastern Front!!  US industry would have had no problem with turning out the extra planes etc for an extended European War.

D-Day's failure would certainly have been a dreadful drawback, but I think, through Italy and the continued bombing, Germany would not have been in any position to mount any invasions (if indeed the original invasion of Britain was really intended, which I think not - she never had the landing craft! - let alone the completye lack of any Western Airforce to speak of at that stage).

Also, with the troops and equipment that the Yanks had  in Britain, Germany would have been very hard pressed to have made any kind of headway had an invasion resulted anyway.

Further, I just thought, had D-day failed, I think that the US and Brits sending troops via the Baltic and/or Dardenelles to the Eastern front would have been a consideration, at least in as much as it would have given the US more control over what actually happened from that side.

puff....puff.....puff (all out of steam............. )

As Goering put it later: "When I saw Mustangs over Berlin (early '44), I knew the jig was up"...........

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Agreed, mate. They were turning out far more than they were in 1940, but tanks, planes, guns etc, not to mention men, were being destroyed, just on the Eastern Front, at a rate far exceeding that in 1940. And that, they couldn't keep up with. Even with the forced labour and the moving of vital installations underground etc, they still couldn't keep the flow of 'decent' weapons and equipment to anything more than a 'trickle'. And of course, there was the fuel problem. The failure of D-Day wouldn't have changed that in any way.

By June '44, the Russians had pushed to Poland. They had their T34's in HUGE numbers, which were more than a match for anything less than a Panther or Tiger (which were in such short supply that they were being madly shuffled from one area of the front to another, just to try and plug up or reinforce areas which were breaking or weakening). So there was absolutely no hope of the Germans being able to get at any oil fields or reserves behind the Russian advance. And there really wasn't any oil anywhere else within reach.

Anyway, after all is said and done, post mortems and 'what if's" aside, Hitler made his 'fatal' mistakes years before D-Day.
The majority of high ranking German Oficers, ministers etc, knew by JUne 1944 that it was simply a matter of time. Many knew even before that.

So, in the nutshell, even if D-Day had failed, I can't see how Germany could have survived for much longer than she did anyway. Maybe another year (just my unqualified 'guestimation').

However, I agree the political & geographical situation in Europe would certainly have been a different one from that which did emerge.
In fact, I think, had the Russians totally overrun Germany and 'absorbed ' it, there may well not have been a place called Germany afterwards. 

It is a well known fact, that  Germany and Japan used massive resourses conning the Allies into believing they had mass produced armaments.
The same way Russia did during the cold war.

Germany even went as far as building carboard factory roofs put up on scaffolding. From the air, they looked real! clever, very clever.

If D-Day had failed, we would have just used our air power to bomb the Boshe into submission.
I doubt we contemplated using nukes.

Anyone know if we did?

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Thats what Japan thought. And all they did was wake the sleeping giant. The US wouldn't have given in that easily. Would have been just as easy for the United States to send a few B-29s with nukes to Europe as it was to send them to the Pacific. In other words, it would've just pissed the giant off.

good point. The Japanese did not believe the Americans had the will to fight though (at least some of them didn't) I know we would've most likely cleared it with Britain and  maybe France. Don't know about clearing it with the Russians though. The main point of my above post was that the US wouldn't have given in that easily. I think it would'd have an "Pearl Harbor Effect" on the US people. Oh well, this is all hypothetical anyways.

Interesting theories. "Panzers in London". First you would have to get them safely across the English  Channel. Don't forget that any successful cross-channel invasion would involve total air superiority. This was accepted back in 1940. I can't see Germany succeeding if the Allies had failed on D-Day. The Allies had almost total air superiority & this was unlikely to change. It would also involve a huge fleet of surface invasion vessels & escorts. Apart from U-boats the Kriegsmarine was confined in port with no suitable troop transports available. I'm not saying these could not have been built in a short time but getting them across those few miles of water would be a different matter.

Ther German's could never have invaded England. Simply because the Royal Navy was a hugely superior force to the Kreigsmarine. By 1944 all of Germany's powerful warships were either sunk or being hunted down and sunk one by one. So an invasion force would not have made it across the channel. Even if the Germans did have air superiority.

This again would have been impossible. It would have taken a long time to dig a tunnel. The units holding the bridgeheads would have had to have been resupplied by air. Something the Luftwaffe wasn't capable of doing in 1943 let alone late 44/45. Finally, England would have contained one British and two American armies. And enough hardware with which to invade northern europe. A bunch of Paratroops and air inserted Infantry would not have lasted five minutes. As they would have needed armour and artillery at least. Something not even 323's could provide with out holding operational airbases.

But if the Luftwaffe had complete air superiority they could have kept some Stukas airborne 24/7, like the RAF did in Africa and like the Alliies did over France.
Those Stukas may have been old,but with pilots like Rudel,it was the most dangerous Air-to-Ground weapon of the Luftwaffe.

Not in '44 anyways...possibly in 1940. But we've already discussed that.