Weakness.

This is coolbert:

The troops landing at Normandy on D-Day [June 6, 1944], found themselves in instantaneous trouble from a variety of sources.

Physical weakness was one of the problems. Having spent perhaps three days on vessels steaming out of British ports, the troops being embarked into landing craft faced a trip to the shore accompanied by a five foot "chop". This produced severe sea-sickness and vomiting that only exacerbated any sea-sickness and vomiting that the troops may already have previously experienced.

Now, when they show the movies of the landing craft bringing the troops ashore, it all looks so neat.

The landing craft sails right up to the edge of the water, down comes the ramp in the front of the landing craft and, and the troops run ashore, most without even having gotten their feet wet.

It was not so at Normandy.

Many of the first-wave landing craft could not get closer to the beach than where the water was five or six feet deep!?

The ramp in front came down, and the soldiers had to just make the best of it to reach the beach. Some jumped out into water over their heads! And of course all this was done under severe German fire at Omaha Beach! [the landings were supposed to be made under conditions of low tide. But the weather creating this "chop" negated any low tide conditions].

And of course the load each infantryman was carrying was so excessive as to be beyond belief.

In addition to the normal fighting load, each troop was wearing a pack with an unbelievable amount of gear that some staff had determined was necessary. Extra water, extra rations, life preserver, panel markers, etc.  

A tremendous amount of weight.

And those men carrying this load must have just become so sodden from jumping into the water five or six feet deep, that the load instantly became double?!

The staff that figured all this additional load was necessary for "survival" not only did not help the troop, they doomed the troop. [I am not sure of the exact weight of the load carried here, but it was probably in excess of the normal full existence load of 60-70 pounds, due to the "special" nature of this beach landing].

The crossing of the beach at Omaha was nothing in reality as it had been in training.

Now, in training, U.S. troops, fully laden, had been able to cross the one hundred [100] or so yards of beach in about twenty to thirty seconds. And this at a jog trot, without problem.

It was later determined that some of the troops landing under fire, after being immersed in five to six feet of water, took THREE HOURS to cross that one hundred yards of beach!?!?!? [this may well have been the exception, but is indicative of the conditions faced by some. To have stayed on the beach or in the water, as some did, meant death anyhow, from German machineguns, mortars, and snipers].

And there was another factor that greatly inhibited the ability of the troops to wade ashore and cross that one hundred yards of beach.

FEAR!

Extreme fear as would have been encountered by the troops at Omaha would have induced WEAKNESS!
 As I have stated in another post, the factor of fear is not something that can be duplicated in training.

Troops, fully laden, that can easily cross one hundred yards of beach in training, may have a hard time doing so in combat.

The flow of fear induced chemicals in the bodies of the troops prior to going ashore must have been huge.

Good in the short term, bad in the long term.

And this was in the long term.

Three days of being on ships, anticipating what they knew would be a hard fight, had to have stimulated chemical flow that created physical weakness. This weakness, coupled with the sea-sickness and vomiting, went a long way to creating a physically debilitated soldier unable to perform his duties under the weight of the equipment he was expected to carry!!

coolbert.