Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Americans are kinda weird on the whole POW business in general. Not just a WW2 thing, btw.

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Once again, the casualties in Hammelburg are the result of a poorly conceived and executed raid; but if it had been done right and the camp liberated, nobody would be very much concerned about Waters having been rescued along with the rest of the camp. The problem was that Patton did it half assed.

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Oh, and, MacArthur's entire Philippine liberation strategy rather trumps Hammelburg in terms of sheer egotism, if you want to get het up about that kind of thing. (Although I'm personally sympathetic to it on political grounds if not military ones.)

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I'm not quite sure what you think Patton should've done in Sicily. My own view is that he made lemonade out of lemons.

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Once again, Falaise failed not because of Patton. I'd primarily blame Bradley on this, and for the Brittany sideshow.

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Patton always wanted to complete the encirclement and was restrained from doing so out of Bradley's exaggerated respect for the Germans. Rightly or wrongly Bradley felt it was better to drive the Germans out of the salient and rake them with artillery and airpower, and more or less wreck the Germans in the process. I don't agree with the strategy -- the Germans showed a remarkable ability to reconstitute divisions that weren't completely encircled and destroyed -- but I note this "golden corridor" concept looms large in Asian conceptions of the art of war. It's not totally crazy if you follow Sun Tzu rather than Clausewitz.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

Why? In 1944, the German manpower barrel was in real trouble. They had largely static forces to act as a tripwire and mobile formations to act as the Fire Brigade. Committing the Fire Brigades with offensive action and then attriting them would never hurt the Americans as it would the Germans. American formations improve after D-Day whereas the quality of German forces steadily declined. The americans could afford the losses, the Germans couldn't.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP
In 1944, the Americans could afford the losses. The problem is that the 90 division army and their doctrine were finalized a year before that. A doctrine that works mostly because the Germans lost most of their strength on the Eastern Front (a fact which could never have been correctly estimated when the doctrine and the army were "designed") isn't really a good doctrine.

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But it didn't need to be. The American replacement system provided a steady stream of replacements.

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Replacements that had to be shipped across the Atlantic, with in many cases little means of slowly getting accustomed to combat (few chances for field training). The combat in Italy already showed that the US replacement system had its limitations, and that was against a handful of German divisions in difficult terrain. Marshall had all the time in the world to change it between the first landings in Italy and the landings in Normandy, but he didn't.

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I'm getting a little lost here. The point of the German advance was not to cross the Ardennes, but strike the Meuse. Therefore, the French 2nd Army and a lot more besides would have to dealt with before very long. They also planned to force the Meuse by assault crossing, whereas the British planned to drive across the bridges, which they did in many cases on the way to Arnhem.

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There were 4 French quality divisions, about a division worth of quality non-assigned troops and 4 poorly equipped or poorly trained divisions within an area dozens of kilometres wide between Dinant and Montmedy. Those poorly equipped or poorly trained troops were mostly static forces supposed to defend certain sectors of the Maginot Line or seperate (not attached to the rest of the line) fortifications west of Montmedy. The Germans basically had air superiority on day 1 and could see what was happening on the French side of the front. With 24 divisions in the first wave, there was a lot less risk involved than what XXX Corps faced on their drive to Arnhem, where commanders chose to ignore warnings of quality troops being in the area, which was especially risky for 1st Airbourne. Had there been any further delays in capturing Nijmegen and the bridges over the Waal, 1st Airbourne would've been done for, the same goes for the Poles.

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German traffic was backed up halfway across Germany. The roads were so good that the various Divisions got in each other's way attempting to get off some of the roads assigned to them and several "good roads" is hardly the point if you want to move an Army Group over them.

Ultimately, Monty attempted the most audacious Allied operation of the war. It was arguably the most audacious operation of the war. My point was that those that give Monty a hard time for being cautious, reflect on MG's failure, not on the fact it was the most incautious Allied effort of the 20th century. You can't have it both ways.

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The difference is that the Germans did not move over a single contested road, whilst Monty planned to do so.

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Traffic jams are a natural feature of large scale military operations in a limited area. The Germans did not have to clean up the logistical mess under fire in most cases, whilst the Allied transport units supplying the forces involved in Market Garden were in many cases at least halted for a short while by enemy fire.

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In which case we can characterise Patton;s breakout as cautious since the only forces captured were generally those penned up in coastal fortresses who did their utmost to become entrapped.

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Patton shattered a front without reserves,

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the achievement is Patton's for making that happen,

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the achievement is the German defence which made it possible to hold the Allies without any substantial reserves at first and basically no reserves afterwards. Patton basically advanced into a void after the breakout, with mostly token German resistance as the non-static forces were relocating.

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Before that, the Allies slugged their way through Notmandy, fought a broad front advance to the borders of the Reich then everything collapsed. Arguably, the Ruhr was an operational encirclement, but then everything was over bar the shouting at that point. At Falaise, the Allies demonstrated that real manouver warfare was simply not in their makeup.

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You mean manoeuvre warfare against a foe that would actually have a chance to resist was not really their kind of warfare.

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There's also the point of how "broad front" the advance was. The front was indeed fairly broad, but the Allies had the forces to do it, with the 60-70 divisions they had in France and Belgium in late 1944.

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They were. We dropped thousands of them during the Rhine crossing.

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If you're referring to Varsity: They were dropped almost directly behind German lines, that's not a deep insertion or a good use for paratroopers, as it takes away most of their advantages and placed them at a disadvantage against organised resistance due to lacking heavy weapons. Of course, German resistance was already breaking apart by then.

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It was significant because it convinced Hitler paratroopers were not a strategic, or perhaps even operational weapon.

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Limited Luftwaffe transport production and requirements on other fronts for transport aircraft meant paratrooper operations involving one or more divisions would not be possible,

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By 1943/44, Britain had a lot of bad experiences and lessons to draw upon. They may well have sounded high handed to proud American warriors, but it was Brits who developed specialised armour for Normandy, added bigger guns to the Shermans and successfully argued for a later rather than earlier D-Day.

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Yet until late 1944 the British had failed to develop and produce in any significant numbers a tank that could use the 17 pounder,

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failing British tank production of newer designs being one of the main reasons the Shermans were converted to begin with. The majority of the British tanks were still using a gun type that was close to being obsolete 2 years earlier (6 pounders and short barreled ~75mm guns).

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I've also always been amazed at how the British failed to develop a truly modern scout vehicle, especially as they had seen captured German equipment so they would know how it should be done. The British equipment list had some serious shortcomings that were never ironed out, in some cases not until after Korea.

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Imagine not 600 paratroops at one end of the Arnhem bridge, but a significant part of the division, even with the scattering common in airborne operations, it would be thousands of men in a much larger bridgehead. The gliderborne 6pdr antitank guns caused problems for the Germans, how much more effective would they have been over the open country to the South of Arnhem. The whole of Arnhem would have been turned into a battleground, which the Germans would have had to advance through, losing some of the power of their AFVs.

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It was a winning doctrine in the end.

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Change it inside a year? How?

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The German's did not assault with 24 Divisions out of the Ardennes in the first wave.

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The Germans had real issues supplying the forward units during the invasion of France. Given the roads available couldn't support the combt units, exactly how easy was it ever going to be? German tanks units carried extra fuel with them, sometimes strapped to the tank. You underestimate German logistical difficulties.

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Hmmm....Hodges shattered the front.

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No, it is Hodges and Collin's.

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And advancing in the face of no resistance is how difficult exactly....?

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There is no other type. Manouver warfare against a foe incapable of resisting is known as "pursuit".

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The Normandy landings were not deep insertions, what difference does it make. the point was the Allies tried hard at Arnhem, and when that failed, still had the specialist para resource to go again six months later.

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Why? The Germans massed enough transports at Stalingrad to airdrop a Division. Successfully lifted an Army into Tunisia. It was nothing to do with transport aircraft. It was will. The casualties persuaded Hitler these operations wouldn't work.

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Which western Allied Nation fielded a 17pdr or 90mm weapon before that?

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British doctrine called for infantry tanks and cruiser tanks. The cruisers were designed for manouvre so didn't need thick armour and the infantry tanks were consistently the best in class.

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British tank design was also stunted because production in the early years concent
rated on pumping out proven existing designs to maximise production to replace the losses of the French campaign.

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Weapons ideally suited to infantry support, which is what the tanks were designed for.

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A "truly" modern scout vehicle was hardly as desparately needed as heavy armour etc.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

The SS would've mostly had to ferry troops across the Rhine to get to them, so they would be safer south of Arnhem, with water on three sides. However, in that case the SS or other German forces could also try and relocate (through Germany) to Nijmegen in order to engage American forces and drive North across the bridges at Nijmegen, which is why it think that success would've been only possible if both the bridges at and around Nijmegen and the bridge at Arnhem could've been held until the arrival of XXX Corps.

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ORIGINAL: punkjock

Thats why history remembers Lee's greatness not Grant or his predecessors