How many lifes would have been save on d-day if hap Arnold had employed the marines use of close air support on the beach implacements instead of medium and heavy bombers?

Answer 1

This is an opinion type question. Close air support was used in the European theater as well as in the Pacific. Also used were USAAF medium & heavy bombers in both theaters. At the Normandy Beaches on D-Day, the German fortifications were heavily protected from the rockets & bombs usually used in close-air support. The US Marines & US Army in the Pacific used close air support after landing to assist their advances. It was difficult for close-air support strikes to knock-out Japanese & German fortifications directly. Close-air support was often used as mobile artillery, because the landing forces had not yet landed their artillery. You are correct that the enemy beach defenses at Normandy, especially at Omaha Beach, were not sufficiently degraded before or during the landings. In the days before precision guided munitions, this was a tough challenge. In hindsight, maybe something could have been improved. I tend to think that naval gunfire at closer range would have been more useful.

Other things to keep in mind about the Normandy invasion: The Allies could not give away the time/date and the location of the landing site by bombing or shelling Normandy fortifications more than a few hours before the landing. The Germans could reinforce the beach defenses with troops & equipment dozens of miles away as soon as the location is known. In the Pacific island invasions, the bombing & shelling of Japanese positions could & often did take place weeks, days & hours ahead of the landings, and the Japanese could do very little to reinforce the troops on the ground because the US Navy isolated the target. Despite all the apparent heavy firepower & heavy bombardments on both German & Japanese positions, it required a direct & penetrating hit by large armor piercing or high explosive shells/bombs on the defensive fortification to knock it out. US Close air-support aircraft in WW2 generally did not carry large enough rockets or bombs to destroy these very hardened targets. US Navy Dive-bombers with 1400 ib. armor-piercing bombs in-theory could do the job if they were especially accurate. German AA fire was much more effective & dangerous than Japanese AA fire, making accuracy from aircraft a problem.