Well if more careful planning was conducted and more recon was collected wouldnt we have forseen that?[/quote]
You mean like Omaha Beach?
Well if more careful planning was conducted and more recon was collected wouldnt we have forseen that?[/quote]
You mean like Omaha Beach?[/quote]
Without going off topic … Alot more went wrong at Omaha than just bad intell.
Market Garden was, in effect, a hasty attack. It was not really foreseen even in the Overlord planning, but it became neccesary. The Overlord advance was becoming bogged down, and this would allow the Germans to sort out their defence. Bear in mind that these bridges were going to have to be taken, either the “quick get the paras in” method or the “armoured slugathon” method.
Market Garden was to speed this all up.
They planned it in the time they had available, if they had planned over for 4 months, then the Panzer Div would have been alot more dangerous. Like wise there would have been stronger defence positions, the bridges might even have been blown!!!
The idea of pushing a Bailey over a fully fortified and armed defence position is frightening in the extreme. It was done, and is shown in the film, but the Germans had no time to prepare proper fortifications. And of course their Artillery took a long time to get their targets. Had XXX XXX had to fight up the road, artillery would have been targetted on the bridges long before the lead elements reached them.
Also this attack was smaller than overlord, it consisted of an Armoured Corps, XXX XXX, with about what 3 Airbourne Divisions. If anything, Overlord was rushed in relative comparison.
I’d be interested in the reasons for the yes vote?
I would commend the section - in Nigel Hanilton’s biography on Monty - on Arnhem to all here.
there was one other example of ‘going too far’ (tactically!) for which he bears at least some of the opprobrium, being Dieppe. He was closely involved with the Canadian Corps, in the relevant period.
I think it was the only and poor option then available to him - of ‘the single thrust’, knife up the guts - that he would argue for later on.
And he may well have been right that the Wehrmacht - in the West - was already reeling.
His chosen method betrays a quirky lack of his characteristic direct personal control, and procedural carefulness.
Hamilton’s thesis is that this, and Dieppe, is the REAL Bernard Montgomery.
Of whom his mother was wont to remark, in Hobart, Tasmania, where he spent his boyhood.
“Where’s Bernard got to? Go, find him, and whatever he’s doing, tell him to stop it!”
A bittuvva fuck up, what!!!
for all the Hooh hah, about the red devils / screaming eagles / fallschirmjager.
Airborne (para and glider) troops got the short end of the stick throughout WWII.
Either put in too far out, and thus copping very heavy casualties, or misused as shock troops, or wasted/exhausted as front-line PBI in Tunisa / Monte Cassino, ie by both sides.
Crete was a slaughter for the Luftwaffes young soldiers.
Combine this with very low training for the drop, and resupply, pilots. And the rear echelons, of both. So most operations were diluted by scattering, let alone friendly AA fire.
Staff performance at 1st Airborne Army(!!!) must have been absolutely appalling. WC wasn’t behind Boy Brownings appointment, was he?
So, it clearly took a while for it all to sink in, in other armies, how high risk the dependent factors were, and given the personal investment of certain rising / high-up Generals and Staff => inertia.
Valuable, but expensive, and they’re no longer a major offensive arm globally.