Kris

Poorly planned? Impossible? Should the Americans have disregarded it and went with a more widespread invasion?

My opinion is that it was a poor plan to begin with, but there were certainly other conditions which contributed to the failure, such last-minute changes in air drops, the sheer mass of the operation, metal particles within the soil that interfered with allied radio communication, etc. Nevertheless, it proved to be a harsh lesson that, even nearing the end of the war, the Nazis were not through fighting.

Komrade

The Market-Garden Operation was a gamble. A pretty daring gamble that might've been successful if not for the unexpected presence of the 2nd SS Panzer. Everyone knew it was a gamble and the gamble failed. It had enormous potential, but launching up a single highway and ignoring the Dutch resistance reports was foolish.

And even if they'd wanted to, I don't think they could've ignored it. Most of the higher up commanders were British and Ike was under significant political pressure.

Lucius

I think it would have been better not to have descended on each of the three objectives all on the same night. All the Germans had to do was to get out a map, connect the dots, and the plan was apparent right from the very start.

The Germans might have guessed at once that the objective was the Rhine but could not have been certain from the beginning, or even after the Nijmegen bridge had been taken. Plus, dropping each division separately would have allowed each to have been dropped with all of it's assigned and attached units, which was not the case at Arnhem.

I think there was a certain mind-set in operation among the Allied generals that Germany knew the game was up, that all that was required was "to kick in the door and the whole rotting edifice would come crashing down" (where have we heard that before?). The degree of German dis-organization was over-estimated.

Here's a good essay on the decision to launch Market-Garden -

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/70-7_19.htm

Belisarius

I read somewhere the Germans apparently found a copy of the whole operation plan including deployments and timetables in a crashed glider. That more or less doomed the operation.

gashead

The plan itself was a good idea. In his memoirs, Monty talked about how Ike wanted a widespread advance across the WHOLE of france. This was certainly not possible. The allies did not have the resources to launch such a widespread offensive especially since the only supplies were still coming up from the north-west coast of france. Northern Europe had the best chance for a strategic attack with the industrial Ruhr region being the most significant point. The plan had its flaws but what plan didnt? In my opinion these were the reasons it failed:
1. Poor Equipment - Large numbers of radios didnt work that caused major problems at Arnhem
2. Poor Intelligence - Old men and young boys? Did they not notice a whole panzer division lurking nearby?
3. Airborne Drops - The British should have been dropped into Arnhem for the final assault AFTER the bridges were secured and Nijmegen was taken. Lucios menitioned this earlier
4. The 1 Road - How could you expect to send 20,000 vehicles plus infantry down a single road? Thats pretty much impossible

Belisarius

I found a website that might interest you. It has one of the most detailed descriptions of the operation I've seen.

http://www.marketgarden.com

Komrade

They did, Model tough thought it was a ruse and refused to believe it. The Luftwaffe took it very seriously and the second half of the British paras as well as supply drop flights went through hell.

Belisarius

Really? Was there any Luftwaffe left by 1944?

Komrade

They had to really scrape at the bottom of the barrel, but they managed to get quite a few planes airborne.

Damien

the luftwaffe had planes based at calais during the d-day landings, however without sufficient orders as Goering was at a wedding? or some such. as a result 2 planes of the luftwaffe were present the beaches. so yes they did have planes however the pilots were fresh from the hitler youth