Wars and ConflictsÌý permalink
"Win the war in '44"? Possible?
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Saturday, 11th September 2010
Hindsight is easy for us peacetime civilians today, of course.
But what could the allies have done additionally (or instead) after D-Day back in 1944 to win the war by Christmas? Or could they have, as they claimed?
The Falaise 'gap' in the weeks after D-Day was closed too late by the jaws of the closing British/Canadians and US troops, allowing a remnant of the shattered German war machine to escape Eastwards and defend the Fatherland regions later. Eisenhower now ordered the allied advance to on a 'broad front' as opposed to Generals Patton and Monty's furious and egotistical rival demands for a single thrust into Germany.
Autumn 1944, the ultimate failure of the huge Operation Market Garden, Monty's brainchild and uncharacteristically offensive in nature - designed to punch a hole through the northern German defences in the Netherlands and thus opening up the allied spearhead to capture the Industrial Ruhr - was way too over-ambitious and badly-planned. Vitally, commanders stubbornly ignored intelligence- Dutch resistance reported that two Waffen SS tank divisions were re-fitting in the area after a mauling in Normandy (above) and prevaricated in the later dropping of the Polish paras, so that the Germans had by then captured their drop-zones and were waiting for them.
Over 33,000 US, British and Polish paras ('Market') would land far behind enemy lines to capture a series of bridges along the single, narrow road through the Netherlands to Germany, so that the ground element, the British armoured XXX Corps ('Garden') could punch through to Germany. It almost succeeded, but the British 1st Para Regiment, by their nature only lightly armed, faced the 'ignored' nazi tanks and fanatical SS troops, against whom they fought ferociously, but out of 10,000 only 2,000 escaped.
The allies, licking their wounds, soon afterwards nearly came unstuck when the Germans launched a huge surprise attack in the Ardennes, halted by a combination of allied guts, meteorological luck, supreme air cover and logistical superiority, but still ending any dying hope of winning the war in '44.
This fierce struggle was against 'only' perhaps 25-40% of the Nazi war machine, as the USSR was facing the remaining bulk.
What could, or should, the allies- who in the first two above scenarios knew of the enemy's whereabouts and strengths etc- have done after D-Day? -
Message 2
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Saturday, 11th September 2010
Hi Uptairs,
My feeling is Eisenhower had got it about right. Go for a broad advance, not exposing any of your troops; let the Ru-skis do the heavy work on the Eastern front and let the apple fall into the lap.
I suspect Market Garden resulted from Monty's attempt to show that he was as brilliant as Rommel. Some times plodding gets you farther if you lack brilliance.
Another disadvantage with being Brilliant in modern warfare, all your staff need to be brilliant as well. In this case some of the planners dropped the ball by not getting sufficient intelligence about the SS Tank Divisions in the area.
Tas -
Message 3
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Saturday, 11th September 2010
Even if Market Garden had succeeded any advance into Northern Germany would have been considerably hampered by the lack of a usable port. although Antwerp was liberated at the beginning of September 1944 the continuous attacks by V-1s and V-2s and the Allied failure to clear the Scheldt estuary of German resistance meant that Antwerp was not able to become fully operational until the end of 1944. It was this that prolonged the war into 1945.
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Message 4
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Saturday, 11th September 2010
the Allied failure to clear the Scheldt estuary of German resistanceÌý
Yes, this was the major problem. The question arises whether it would have been feasible to launch a medium-sized amphibious operation, timed to coincide with the Allied advance through Belgium, to clear the Scheldt estuary and drive the Germans out of the Netherlands.
It is a difficult location for such an operation: The coast is characterized by shallow water and strong currents, while much of the land behind it was inundated or easily to inundate. Still, an amphibious operation was eventually executed to clear Walcheren, in late 1944, together with assaults over land.
Planning such an assault earlier might have opened Antwerp in the summer of 1944. The men and materiel might have taken from Operation Anvil, the landing in southern France. This encountered very little resistance as the Germans were evacuating southern France anyway, so this would have been affordable enough.
The problem in preparing the assault to be launched at the right time is that the Allies did not know when they would reach Antwerp: The advance from Normandy was at first very slow, and then extremely fast. It might have been difficult to keep the landing force in reserve and alert at the right moment. -
Message 5
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 11th September 2010
The trouble with too ambitious an advance- especially in warfare that was increasingly dependent upon machines- is that machines need fuel, spare parts etc..
Also previous posts have highlighted- as Montie does in his Memoirs- the constant need to coordinate the various nationalities within the Allied force... David Niven, with his Hollywood renown, was one of a special team who were supposed to liaison between the various units. I am sure that his Sandhurst training of more than a decade before helped-- but nonetheless the fact that it was felt advantageous to have a famous film star smoothing things out (a famously "smoothie" and charming chap..) is surely indicative of the potential for problems to arise.
Moreover I am not sure just how confident that the Allies were about just what the French response would be in the various regions..A couple of years ago I read the French novel "Nord" by Felix "Celine"- the nom de plume of a French doctor who had fought in the First World War, but who had accepted the task of trying to run a hospital as best as he could during the German occupation.. With the Allies breaking out of Normandy he was put on the list of collaborators and joined the flood of French refugees fleeing into Germany..The novel takes the story from there to the end of the war.
Such people fled because after the "Liberation" the French put an emphasis on "putting their own house in order"- with punishments, reprisals etc
My father-in-law, just into his twenties and a student of English, did work as an interpreter for [I believe] US units..But I am not sure whether he did so as early as 1944.. Perhaps he could tell me more about French priorities..
I have seen Auschwitz survivors complaining that Allied bombers- as Celine described- reached as far as there and could have bombed the Germans. Those who were felt that they were "about to die" everyday might have prefered taking Germans with them. But people like the several hundred thousand French prisoners of war were a different case. A camping friend from the "Pas de Calais" just lost her father for 4 years of her childhood.
My personal experience, and books like "Suite Francaise" that I read this year, makes me suspect that the priority of the French people was often with their immediate world: and from a military point of view I would not have regarded France as a solid base from which to push on quickly into Germany.
The ambitions of General De Gaulle, as leader of the "Free French", to have a French presence in the actual offensive may well have been another complicating factor.
Cass -
Message 6
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Sunday, 12th September 2010
What could, or should, the allies- who in the first two above scenarios knew of the enemy's whereabouts and strengths etc- have done after D-Day?Ìý With steadily dwindling strategic and tactical resources available to the Germans, it was a sure bet for the Allies to chose painstaking offensive action on the widest front possible.
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Message 7
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Sunday, 12th September 2010
What if the airborne operation had been launched a little earlier, but around Antwerp?
If they had taken the port intact, and the approaches to it, before the Germans had time to settle into it, it should have had a greater effect than getting across the Rhine. -
Message 8
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Monday, 13th September 2010
What could, or should, the allies- who in the first two above scenarios knew of the enemy's whereabouts and strengths etc- have done after D-Day?
Ìý
Tell the Soviet Union to hurry up and defeat the Germans sooner? -
Message 9
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Monday, 13th September 2010
Eisenhower now ordered the allied advance to on a 'broad front' as opposed to Generals Patton and Monty's furious and egotistical rival demands for a single thrust into Germany..."
I don't claim to be a military expert, but I have never understood how this 'narrow thrust' idea would work. The Germans were far from a spent force in 1944. How do these genearls think the Germans would react to this ?
The obvious thing would be to muster forces in to the flank of this narrow thrust, raising the possibility of splitting the allied forces. This was, braodly, what they tried in the Battle Of The Bulge, though rather too late.
In fact, it seems to play to German strengths rather than allied ones. The allies had overwhelming superiority in numbers and materiel. A broad front allows the superior force to engage more of the inferior force. -
Message 10
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 13th September 2010
Actually, a valid criticism of the 'broad front' strategy was that it played to German strengths.
If the Allies had succeeded in breaking through the German front and push mobile forces in the German rear, the Germans would have found it almost impossible to respond: Reserves were almost non-existent, fuel shortages and the destruction of the railway net severely restricted the mobility of the forces, and in any case units that relied on horse traction could not match the speed of fully motorized Allied spearheads. The Allies had also achieved complete superiority in the air, which severely limited the ability of the Germans to move supplies and units.
However, in a slow advance on a board front, German units could hold on tenaciously, building up a defense in depth and under cover. By 1944, much of their equipment was also more suited for a defensive battle than for mobile warfare. -
Message 11
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Monday, 13th September 2010
But, still, the narrow thrust does present a long flank to enemy held territory. In effect, the length of front in contact with enemy forces is still very long, as it is with the broad front.
This means that it would have to be defended all the way along.
So the Germans could muster forces at a specific point of their choosing and attack. This would risk cutting off the mobile forces, leading to disaster.
It is incorrect to say the Germans had no reserves. I think they did have them, which is how they mounted the Battle Of The Bulge.
A narrow front would, presumably, concentrate the better units at its tip. If they were cut off, then the lesser units would have to mount a rescue. The allies would almost certainly still win, but the potential losses would be horrendous if the Germans did break through.
I am not convinced that this was worth the risk.
A broad front was, over all, more or less impenetrable given the sheer amount of territory any german counter attack would have to sieze to be effective. This need to take huge tracts of land was at the root of the failure of the Bulge attack.
The broad front is much less risky. -
Message 12
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 13th September 2010
Montgomery in a section in his Memoirs on his principles of command stesses that all men are not the same and neither are the units of an army. He believed that part of the challenge of command was fitting the men and their units to the challenge in hand.
Presumably in the light of this an assessment of just what the present army was best capable of must have been one factor.
A thrust deep into Germany- that surely had to be recognised as a great military unit- to try to get the war finished before Christmas:-
(a)stood in danger of creating a situation in which the men would try to work to a deadline,which would be a distraction;
and
(b) such a thrust would run the risk that - though Germany is not Russia- perhaps only the Canadians had any real experience of continental winters and the Germans might "do a Russia". As it was the Ardennes offensive showed a German ability to fight in terrain that the Allies had discounted.
Cass -
Message 13
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 13th September 2010
Re: message 2.
Hello Tas,
On the quality of Montgomery’s intelligence you write:
In this case some of the planners dropped the ball by not getting sufficient intelligence about the SS Tank Divisions in the area.Ìý
Actually, aerial photography had shown the presence of a strong SS armoured unit North of Arnhem. Montgomery felt in a spot, though; if he delayed the operation Market – Garden much longer, Eisenhower would have assigned the parachute divisions to Patton and Montgomery would have been left with the task of protecting Patton’s left flank.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 14
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Monday, 13th September 2010
A narrow front would, presumably, concentrate the better units at its tip. If they were cut off, then the lesser units would have to mount a rescue. The allies would almost certainly still win, but the potential losses would be horrendous if the Germans did break through.
I am not convinced that this was worth the risk.Ìý Exactly right. Especially, against tactically experienced, confident and savvy Wehrmacht field commanders. The wide-front thrust was the sure way. -
Message 15
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 13th September 2010
But, still, the narrow thrust does present a long flank to enemy held territory. In effect, the length of front in contact with enemy forces is still very long, as it is with the broad front.Ìý
This is the reasoning French generals adopted before May 1940, with devastating results -- for them.
Yes, the open flanks of a deep thrust do represent a certain risk, but only if the enemy has sufficient mobile reserves to organize a counterattack before the threat to his own supply lines forces him to retreat. Otherwise only the flanks of the gap in the enemy front lines needs to be held firmly, and a thin screen suffices for the flanks of the advance, which stretches through mostly empty countryside. As German generals demonstrated in 1940, and actually American generals in 1944 in France too, the concept of a deep thrust works. It achieves results by striking where the enemy is not, thus forcing him to choose between a headlong retreat or being cut-off and surrounded. This is far more economic in casualties than the slow attritional grind that is the result of an advance on a broad front.
They key element is to remain one step ahead of the enemy, getting in his "decision loop" to use the tactical jargon, so that he does not get the time to concentrate forces for a counter-attack. It is essential that the advance strikes against critical targets, to cut off the enemy forces from their rear, and does not dissipate itself by spreading out in strikes against unimportant targets -- an error made on the Eastern front by some Russian commanders and arguably also by Adolf Hitler.
As Patton and Eisenhower demonstrated in the fighting after operation Cobra, the Allies held important advantages in such operations: Motorization, which allowed them to outpace German moves, tactical air power, which could both assisted the spearhead in its rapid advance and suppresses enemy attempts to strike against the flanks, and a large air transport capacity, which reduced the risks by its ability to supply units that might be cut off.
It is incorrect to say the Germans had no reserves. I think they did have them, which is how they mounted the Battle Of The Bulge.Ìý
They managed to concentrate 30 divisions for that, in part by transferring units from the Eastern front, and in part by scraping the bottom of the barrel. Impressive on paper, this force had many weaknesses: The infantry were mostly "People's Grenadiers" created by conscripting men who were too old or too young for service, poorly trained and often poorly equipped as well. The tanks only had half of the fuel they needed to reach Antwerp, nominal target of the operation. The promised air support turned out to be non-existent, so that the advance was immediately nailed down by Allied fighter-bombers when the sky cleared. Hitler's offensive managed to shock the Allies because they were caught by surprise, but as a military operation it was a miserable failure. -
Message 16
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
"....This is the reasoning French generals adopted before May 1940, with devastating results -- for them..."
Not a good comparison. The French were tactically inept in 1940. The Germans were not in 1944.
"...As German generals demonstrated in 1940, and actually American generals in 1944 in France too, the concept of a deep thrust works..."
It certainly can work, in the correct conditions. But I do not accept that you have demonstrated the correct conditions existed in 1944.
You are correct, and I have already pointed out, that the Battle Of The Bulge was an error tactically. But that misses the point that the narrow front would have given the Germans an easier opportunity further West earlier on. That the Germans had to strip the East Front is irrelevant. The war was already lost for them before D-Day. But the Germans could have split the western allies forces, with potentially devasting consequences. The Battle Of The Bulge occurred where it did when it did because the allies never presented Germany with a fair opportunity for such a strike before then. This demonstrated Germany's desire to do such an operation depsite the faltering likelihood of its success. The Germans were always keen on such encirclement battles, that succeeded so well for a while during Barbarossa. -
Message 17
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
Tas
I suspect Market Garden resulted from Monty's attempt to show that he was as brilliant as Rommel. Some times plodding gets you farther if you lack brilliance.Ìý
I suspect Churchill prodded him into it. He wanted to get to Berlin ahead of the Soviets and had been the force behind Monty's side of the deep-narrow-thrust argument. Market-Garden had the trademarks of the gambler's last desperate throw (like Hitler in the Bulge) to get onto the north German plain. And a gambler Monty wasn't. -
Message 18
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
This all sounds like a far huger and more deadly update of the Napoleonic "line [British] versus column [French]" debate?
We all know which proved the more lethal in 1815? -
Message 19
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
....This is the reasoning French generals adopted before May 1940, with devastating results -- for them...Ìý Not a good comparison. The French were tactically inept in 1940. The Germans were not in 1944.Ìý I think he meant to compare the French of 1940 with the Allies of 1944, not with the Germans in 1944. But, of course, the French in 1940 had adopted passive defensive pasture while being completely unprepared for Blitzkrieg. The Allies in 1944 had the initiative and steadily increasing advantage in strategic and tactical resources to go with it. Makes all the difference in the world.
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Message 20
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
This all sounds like a far huger and more deadly update of the Napoleonic "line [British] versus column [French]" debate?
We all know which proved the more lethal in 1815?Ìý
And we all know which proved more deadly in most of Napoleon's previous battles - the column. -
Message 21
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
But ultimately doomed and outfought by Wellington's masterful defensive style in over 18 battles.
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Message 22
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
One has to wonder, given the "revolutionary fervour" of the French National Armies in the age of Napoleon, that Eric Hobsbawm explained funded their wars by looting and spoliation, whether Wellington did not have an advantage having faced something similar in the Mahratta Wars in India.
Cass
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