ColinWright
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TOCarroll
Well, so much for qoutes. Manstein was Germany's most accomplished strategist (say most military historians), and he certainly was capable. HOWEVER, upon his appointment to Army Group Don (Stalingrad releif force), he stated that he could relieve Stalingrad, and the garrison should NOT try to break out before his troops arrived.
That whole chapter is interesting. One writer (I forget who) argues that Manstein knew, but could not openly admit (even to himself), that the Stalingrad garrison had to be sacrificed. That is to say, if it tried to break out, even if it succeeded, it would be temporarily useless as a military force (200,000 half-disarmed and half-starved refugees) while the entirety of the Red Army would be free to pour westwards against the frail German defences. On the other hand, if it simply stayed put, it would be destroyed in the end, but it would tie down a large part of the Red Army long enough for the Germans to construct a defensible line to the West. So Stalingrad had to be held -- and hard cheese for those who happened to be the ones who had to do it.quote:
 He did change his tune quickly, once he had a few dats to think about it. Another blunder was his insistence that The Wermacht continue the Kursk offensive, after Hitler ordered it called off.
Others have argued that is what should have been done. I believe Manstein's position was that had the Germans persevered, they could have destroyed much of the Soviet offensive potential and thus gained a chance to recover themselves. As it was, once the Germans suspended their attack, the Russians were able to immediately go over to the offensive themselves. So while I don't really know all that much about the situation at the time, I'm not convinced Manstein's argument didn't have merit.quote:
Finally, and most telling (to me), the Lost Battles (Manstein's memoirs) adequitely that the man was a complete liar, or suffering from Altzheimers. Manstien was a great strategist, but severly handicapped by always wanting to be on the winning side. His opinion on Sea Lion, of course, can never be proved.
I wouldn't call Lost Battles evidence that Manstein was a 'complete liar.' It is, however, hard not to notice that he seems to have invariably been sure that the situation called for all available forces to be put under his command. Wherever Manstein happened to be, that's where the schwerepunkt belonged, that seems to have been the gist of it. Had he been assigned to Finland, no doubt Lost Battles would contain an excellent argument to the effect that if only twenty German divisions had been sent there, the war could have been won.quote:
However...I would not want to be the German General in charge, particularly giving that co-operation with the Luftwaffe (which suffered considerable losses in the pre-invasion battle, even assuming they won) would mean having to depend on Herman Goering, not usually described as a military genius.
That said, I like Sea Lion games, but they are What IF.
It's all very interesting. One factor that is hard to evaluate is the effect of German confidence and elan, which after France were sky-high. Take a look at Crete -- and at the German position there at the close of the first day. At the time, they really were capable of overcoming such piffling obstacles as complete failure.
The German army of the time was a revolutionary army in the sense that most of the men were imdued with the goals of the whole, and able to keep working towards those goals even without any direction and in spite of setbacks that would utterly demoralize most forces. German forces could have been thrown ashore in Southern Britain in almost any state of disorder and even with the most severe losses and still bid fair to establish a defensible beachhead.
Now of course not all the troops of a German first wave could have been trained up to the standard of the Fallschirmjager at Crete, and of course even the most committed Nazi can't do much if he's been drowned out in the Channel, but the factor of morale in all this cannot be simply dismissed. Churchill was being foolish when he wrote that he had hoped the Germans would try an invasion; he would have been running a very grave risk if they had.
< Message edited by ColinWright -- 11/9/2006 8:58:11 PM >
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RE: What WW2 Scenario Would We Like? - 
RE: What WW2 Scenario Would We Like? - 
Shows you the level of the PO in THAT scenario, hunh? 
Still, it was fun, and could be tweeked to make it a little (ok a lot) more realistic. The main problem was the lack of supply constraint. 
RE: What WW2 Scenario Would We Like? - 
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