diddyriddick

Which is what is so completely puzzling to me. How did the bold and imaginative Monty of 1940 France and Alamein become the timid Monty of Caen and Falaise?

Edward

I agree with all what you are saying but in Holland, there is no many option for multiple axes advance. Especially when low-lying “polders” are under water from breached dykes.
I agree with all what you are saying but in Holland, there is no many option for multiple axes advance. Especially when low-lying “polders” are under water from breached dykes.

diddyriddick

Not quite. Monty was nominally in charge of all Allied ground forces in France until the Cobra Breakout. But Bradley and Montgomery were taking their orders directly from SHAEF.

And how many Allied lives would have been saved had they been on the Seine on D+80.....or D+75? This isn't about phase lines. Monty made a sound plan for the British/Canadian forces on Gold, Sword and Juno, then abandoned it on the first day.

I'm aware of Britain's manpower issues. They simply had no replacements available, and had to start dismantling existing units to bleed troops to replace combat losses. But how does a poor operational plan at Market-Garden help with that? If anything, it heightens the problem because of heavy losses if it goes south like it did.

Again, that was the Monty of 1942.

Were the strategic objectives achieved? Did they outflank the siegfried line? Did they stop the V-2s?

The Americans lost about 25,000 total casualties of 120,000 engaged at the Hurtgen forest. If we extrapolate that over the entire 140-odd days of the battle, that is a casualty rate of less than 1/25 of one percent per day. The forces in Market-Garden lost conservatively 15,000 of roughly 80,000 total Allied troops engaged over 8 days. That works out to almost 7/10s of one percent per day. Moreover, the troops in the Hurtgen forest were going to be in the line regardless. You are correct-there were mistakes made in the Hurtgen. But they weren't a result of a massive gamble, and the losses weren't nearly as high as a percentage.

diddyriddick

[quote=Edward;375800]I agree with all what you are saying but in Holland, there is no many option for multiple axes advance. Especially when low-lying “polders” are under water from breached dykes.
[/quote]

And that is a fair point. But might that have been addressed with proper planning? As Paulinus noted, one of Monty's shining moments was the depth of planning before Overlord. Why did he so completely fail to adequately plan for Market-Garden?

And as an aside, Edward....You gotta do something about your font size, my friend. My 50 year old eyes don't work like they once did!

Edward

[quote=diddyriddick;375805]Perhaps the reason is that German (strictly speaking Hitler) thanks to brilliand deception plan, did cooperate with his planing for Overlord, but they refused to cooperate at the later stage of the battle?

Diddi, I'm almost 62 and have the same problem but on my computer they look OK. Will try to address the font size somhow.

Bismarck

It wasn't that he failed to plan 'adequately' for market-garden. They planned for success - as any decent plan would. If it had gone to plan, we'd be hailing him as a hero. As it was, it didnt quite come off, but it was always going to be a gamble.

I agree with Paulinus in that Monty's new reputation is a little too revisionist for my liking.

beorna

there were several mistakes done at market garden.
The main mistake was the bad Reconnaissance, that didn't report the tank troops and those of the ss. And when they got the report they didn't change the plan.
The operation was done quite well, just some german resistance and as well just some bridges destroyed
But then the weather changed and the 2nd wave wasn't able to land
Further on there was quarrel between the staffs of the UK and the USA
Fortunately for the Wehrmacht, the weather conditions in Holland were quite good, so that the German Luftwaffe had the air superiority.
Now the German resistance grew from day to day, especially by the SS-units. Another advantage was, that the logistic of the allied didn't work well and another point was that the connection between the troops and the HQ wasn't very good
The 2nd wave came to late, the landing zones were already conquered by the SS, so a lot weren't able to land.
That weakened the allied offensiv. Ammunition became rare, while the German logistic worked very well. Further there was new equipment send to the front, Königstiger and jagdpanther
Allthough the 3rd wave managed to land, the Wehrmacht brought more and more troops to the front.
At the end those side had won the battle, that was able to support its troops best and that was the German side.

So the plan was not bad, but failed already in the beginning with the wrong reconnaisance. Nobody can plan the weather, such things happen.

redcoat

Nope. The senior chain of command in Normandy was like this, Dempsey and Bradley were the Army commanders who took their orders from Monty, who took his orders from SHAEF.


Its difficult to say, if the German forces hadn't fought so desperately over every inch of ground, and instead had fought a phased withdrawal as the battle turned against them as the Allied planners had expected them to do, they may have been in a far better condition for longer, thus increasing allied casualties


No plan survives contact with the enemy, all the Allied forces failed to reach at least some of their objectives in the first days of the invasion. The reason Caen wasn't taken on the first day had a lot to do with the fact that a German panzer division (21st) attacked the troops from Sword beach heading towards the city, the Allied forces beat off the attack, but it gave the German's enough time to reinforce the defences around the city with the majority of their panzer divisions

It was a gamble that if it had succeeded might have shortened the war, it was worth the risk.


It cut off the German defenders on the east side of the Scheldt Estuary from reinforcements and supply, making the Canadian troops whose task it was to clear it, easier( even then it was a hard fought battle, and the Canadians suffered high casualties)

Sorry to be blunt.... but damn the percentages. Nearly 32,000 casulties were suffered by the US army in a campaign just to tidy up the line.

Spartacuss

"We have elements in Argentan. Shall we continue and drive the British into the sea?" Gen. Patton sent this communique to Bradley after his initial 180 degree turn from heading into Brittany and rapidly swinging around the Germans with the objective of linking with 1st Canada. Patton later said the statement was "half in jest". But it had to add to Bradley's concernes of a potentially catastrophic head long collision of the enveloping elements. Patton had moved so fast because he forsook parsing off units to protect his flank as he advanced along the Liore river, and this contributed to the speed of his movement. He instead coordinated with Weyland's XIX Tactical Air Force to cover his left flank. Weyland and his boys did a masterful job. This speed of advance, Patton's "little joke", and his well known bat out of hell approach to maneuvre was very much a concern to Bradley.

As the gap continued to close, Bradley was getting more and more reports of friendly fire incidents with mounting casualties from these occurrences. Mostly from air support miscues. In one, the Canadians suffered more casualties from a bombing by B-17's than they did in the similar incident in the Cobra breakout. They actually shot back with AA support batterys and succeeded in shooting down one B-17. It is kind of wierd that in this battle the US Tac Air supported the Brits and Canadians, and the Brit Tac Air supported the Americans. Colored smoke markers were confused. The Canadians again suffered from friendly air bombings as red smoke for them meant "friendlies here". To the Americans red meant targets. An American fighter-bomber group took out half the fuel reserves of the Polish brigade in one raid. Another attack destroyed the command position of US VII Corps forcing a retreat that allowed the Germans to reoccupy good defensive ground.

Bradley continued to recieve reports such as these, along with increasingly muddled reports of the tactical situations, and came to the conclusion to halt. An opportunity lost, yes. But given events leading to his decision, I can understand it in it's moment.

Chookie

Possibly because he wasn't involved in the planning - sure, he came with the concept, and yes, it was a flawed concept. But Montgomery was running the war on the north flank and had no time to be planning airborne operations (which he knew damn all about anyway).

Market-Garden failed, not because of the presence of SS Divisions at Arnhem, but because of what was probably the worst case of bad planning in the entire war. This wasn't helped by the either the decision to drop the 6th Airborne between 8 and 10 kilometres from their objective. 82nd and 101st were dropped on their objectives. There is also the fact that the Allies didn't have enough transport aircraft to deliver and supply three parachute divisions.