Jim D Burns
Posts: 2736
Joined: 2/25/2002
From: Salida, CA.
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Mostly it was due to the limits of technology of the day, precision drops back then were pathfinding Para troops dropped in a few hours ahead that would try and locate a suitable landing site and set up a small spotlight for the later arriving planes and gliders to use as a homing beacon. Many/most of the pathfinders that dropped that night were scattered far and wide, so it’s probably safe to assume a pathfinder team at Point du Hoc would have been miles off target had they tried to use one.
Just finding Point du Hoc at night from the air would have been all but impossible due to a lack of any significant landmarks visible from the air at night. The Orne River Bridges (the only precision air assault made on D-Day) were easy to find because the glider pilots could simply follow the river to the bridges. But as this picture shows:
http://www.atlantikwall.org.uk/point%20du%20hoc%2002a.jpg
Point du Hoc was a tiny bump in a pretty jagged coastline that would be very hard to see in daylight. Forget finding it at night from the air, it was simply not possible back then. Even assuming a pathfinder team had been able to somehow Para drop close to the target, the surrounding terrain made glider landings difficult at best.
They needed a 100% way to assure the guns would be attacked. A Para drop or glider landing was very iffy, so my guess is, it wasn’t even seriously considered when planning ideas were presented for taking out the target.
Jim
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