D-Day Question

[Ickie]

I often wondered this .....
Why did the Germans not fire them big guns at the ships on D-Day?
I find it hard to believe that no-one was watching the channel with high power binoculars that morning.

 

[Ickie]

Wow a question stumper, lol.
What I have found out isn't much.
But they did shoot at the higgins boats but not the ships.
Everyone was afraid to shoot without orders from Hitler.

 

[stiz]

i think it was pure confusion about not knowing fully what was going on, their were dummy conveys that were set by aircraft throwing out window at very specific times, that and the fog prolly obscured the bigger ships out to see. Also remeber it'd been a relatively quite coast (in terms of invasion threat) for 5 years or so before D-Day so the gaurds were prolly a bit of "o another boreing day on the guns again" mentalitly.

 

[Naismith]

Wasn't there a vast amount of disinformation dissipated by intel agencies causing the Germans to anticipate the invasion where the Channel is narrowest i.e. the Calais area. They certainly knew an invasion was imminent. Re the big guns, is it possible that they were not suitable for use at such close range? By that I mean perhaps the standard trajectory of the barrels could not be lowered sufficiently.