Best WW2 General

[Sarevok]

because he had to halt because he ran out of gas...

 

[privatehudson]

So did Montgomery suffer from lack of fuel you know, and he had to detail much of his canadian troops to guard the channel ports

 

[Zamecnik]

Originally posted by Case


As Hudson points out, you most certainly can. Some of the British and Canadian beaches were every bit as well defenced as Omaha, but British tactics proved superior then the tactics employed by the Americans (who had foolishly turned down a British gift of large numbers of the specialised tanks which were to prove so useful). If the Americans had used the methods the British used then taking Omaha would have been a lot easier.

____________________________________________

Just to clarify about the actual landings, the British and Canadian beaches were certainly not as well defended as Omaha.

Omaha - The second beach from the right, Omaha, was also the largest. Over 6 miles in length. 100-foot cliffs over looked the entire beach, and the latter third of the beach had a 10-foot seawall. The Germans had built up some tough defenses. The beach was heavily mined, and the Germans had built 5 strong holds called Widerstandsnester ("resistance nests"). The battle itself went entirely wrong for the allied forces, 27 of the 29 amphibious support tanks sank in the rough waters of the channel. The allies lost more then 2400 soldiers in taking Omaha beach, but by the end of the day, they had managed to land more then 34,000 troops.

Utah - The farthest beach to the right, Utah, had light defenses compared to that of Omaha beach. Consisting of some automatic weapons, and a small number of inland artillery batteries. Utah was much easier to take then was Omaha, and the allies only lost 300 men, 1/8 of the troops lost taking Omaha. The landing went wrong again, as the troops landed almost 2000 yards off target. But luckily, they ended up in a less defended area.


Gold - Gold beach was the middle beach, little infantry resistance and no German armor made this assault very effective. The British lost around 400 men, but by the end of the day, managed to land more then 25,000 men.

Sword - Located on the left of the other beaches, was Sword beach. It also had light defenses, mainly consisting of far off artillery. The Germans had machine gun nests hidden in the dunes, along with mines. The British lost around 700 men, but managed to land 29,000 by the end of the day.

Juno - Juno was the second beach from the left. The main thing the landing troops had to worry about was not the German troops, but the offshore reefs and shoals. The Landing craft were running late, so most of the water defense was already at least partially submerged. The ships paid a heavy price for being late, with over 30% of the landing craft being destroyed. 1200 out of the 21,400 troops that landed perished in taking Juno beach.

 

[Case]

Originally posted by privatehudson
Arnhem I still have a bugbear about, if I had been Ike I would have handed Patton the role, not because I consider Patton better than monty, I don't, but Patton faced better terrain in some ways

Not so. The whole point of Market-Garden was that if the Allies could blitz through Holland, they would both be in the vital Rhur industrial area and on the best and shortest road to Berlin. Add in the possibility of opening Germany's North Sea ports for supplies, and you have the reason why a single thrust along Patton's axis doesn't seem to have been seriously considered.

Wether Patton may have been a better choice to command Market-Garden is an interesting sugestion, but any such appointment would have been politically impossible due to the axis of advance clearly lieing within the British sector of the front. Anyway, Montgomery only exercised very limited tactical control over the battle - the battle was handled by the commander of the 2nd British Army and the various British and American corps commanders. As Army Group commander, Montgomery's job didn't involve the direct tactical command of units.

Those who criticise Montomery as an 'attritional' general while still praising Patton really need to look at Patton's campaigns in eastern France in late 1944. The fighting in this area was attritional warfare at it's most ruthless and incompetant, and Patton's performance left an awful lot to be desired. It's no wonder that this important part of the war was hardly covered in the single-dimensioned movie.

Anyway, Patton can't really be compared to Montgomery during the 1944-45 campaign for the simple reason that they had very different jobs: Montgomery was an Army Group Commander and Patton 'only' commanded an Army. Montgomery's principle American counterpart was General Bradley, whose performance was also generally good, ableit with some extreamly serious blunders (ie, the failure to close the Falaise Pocket and the failure to anticipate the German December counter-offencive).

 

[privatehudson]

Not so. The whole point of Market-Garden was that if the Allies could blitz through Holland, they would both be in the vital Rhur industrial area and on the best and shortest road to Berlin. Add in the possibility of opening Germany's North Sea ports for supplies, and you have the reason why a single thrust along Patton's axis doesn't seem to have been seriously considered.

But that has to balanced against the atrocious terrain that lead through the Market Garden route and Monty's unsuitable nature for such a role to me. You add an interesting point that I hadn't thought much about previously though, so when I write an article on the campaign, I'll keep that in mind

And I agree, Patton couldn't have commanded the offensive in Holland, I merely suggested that he should have been given command of a similar one in his own region. I also agree that M-G was out of Montgomery's direct control, I haven't criticised him personally for the tactical handling. I do though think that the plan that they used really needed a good overhaul to correct some glaring errors at the bare minimum, if not rejected the plan overall for it's strategic problems. It was his role partly to decide overall strategy, and some of the strategic decisions were so blatantly going to cause severe tactical problems that it should have shouted NO!!!!!!!!!

Btw case, do you happen to know which commander the battles in Hurtgen forest fell under? I dunno, and was wondering if either Patton, Bradley or another held responsibility for that waste of time and lives. On Bradley, I agree, one of his biggest blunders was not to finish the closing of Falaise, something that would have ensared the best part of the entire Wermacht in the West.

 

[Sarevok]

that was because bradley didnt let patton close the gap because monty was north of him. Patton naturally was pretty pissed off.

 

[privatehudson]

I'd appreciate you clarifying that somewhat, what you posted there isn't very clear as to why Montgomery being there prevented bradley from doing his Job....

 

[civilleader]

So what exactly is an army group commander?

 

[Sarevok]

a commander of army groups, or a combined group of armies. id say... 4 armies.

 

[Case]

Originally posted by privatehudson
But that has to balanced against the atrocious terrain that lead through the Market Garden route

True. However, if the Allies had been able to achieve the objectives of the Market-Garden plan then they would have blitzed through that terrain and would be on the border of the North German plain, which is fantastic tank country. Patton's axis would have been more mountainous and forrested.

I do though think that the plan that they used really needed a good overhaul to correct some glaring errors at the bare minimum, if not rejected the plan overall for it's strategic problems. It was his role partly to decide overall strategy, and some of the strategic decisions were so blatantly going to cause severe tactical problems that it should have shouted NO!!!!!!!!!

True. The principle fault with Market-Garden was for it to work, almost everything had to go right. As a result, when one of the 'modules' failed at Arhnem, the plan ended in defeat. Things would have been much worse though if one of the American drops had been defeated - the entire plan required XXX corps to blast through and cross all the major rivers on captured bridges.

Btw case, do you happen to know which commander the battles in Hurtgen forest fell under?[/B]

Um, Bradley was the Army-Group commander, and I can't remember the name of the Army commander who was in command there. The key problems at Hurtgen forrest appear to have occured at every level in the chain of command, from Army Group down to regimental level - not only was the forrest not worth it's price, but the tactics which were used to take it were poorly selected.

Originally posted by Sarevok
that was because bradley didnt let patton close the gap because monty was north of him. Patton naturally was pretty pissed off.

Actually, Montgomery's 21st Army group furfilled it's part of the plan, and reached it's final objectives (which were, of course, to the north of 12th Army group - Falaise was an encirclement battle ) Bradley however chose not to furfil the 12th Army Group's objective by closing the gap due to a belief that doing so would be too difficult. As a result, while the Germans lost most of their equipment, a hell of a lot of well trained soldiers escaped from then encirclement and went on to form the backbone of the divisions which stoped the Allied advance on the German border. It was a very serious blunder which probably added several months to the war.

Originally posted by civilleader
So what exactly is an army group commander?

As the name sugests, an Army Group commander plans and co-ordinates the activities of two or more Armies with similar missions (an 'Army' being a force of two or more corps). They generally concern themselves with grand strategy and high-level logistical planning and shouldn't ever directly issue orders to combat units - they delegate this to their Army commanders. In contrast, Army commanders are responsible for the tactical handling and supply of units under their command (again, with control often being delegated down to Corps level). The only time Patton and Montgomery had the same job was during the Scilian campaign - at all other times, Montgomery was operating one level ahead of Patton.

During the campaign in Western Europe, the Allies had 3 Army groups: from north to south they were 21st Army group under General Montgomery, which consisted of a 'Canadian' Army (which was actually a mix of Canadian, British and minor allied units), a British Army and an American Army, 12th Army group under General Bradley which consisted of 3 American Armies (including Patton's 3rd Army) and 6th Army group under General Patch which consisted of an American Army and a French Army (I *think* that another French Army was added in 1945).

There was also 15th Army Group in Italy which commanded the 'American' 5th Army (which was a mix of American, South African and South American units) and the 'British' 8th Army (which was a mix of British and British Commonwealth units). Army Group HQs were formed in the Pacific in the second half of 1945, but the war ended before these HQs actually commanded any units in battle.

 

[Sarevok]

there was also the army groups that were made by the Germans in russia (army group North, AG center, AG south)

 

[Case]

Originally posted by Sarevok
there was also the army groups that were made by the Germans in russia (army group North, AG center, AG south)

The Germans formed about a zillion different Army Groups during the war. However, by 1944 the desperatly undersrtrenght nature of the German Army meant that few of these Army Groups could actually field and Army's worth of forces. This was reflected by the increasingly limited amounts of territory each Army Group was responcible for.

 

[privatehudson]

Case, I would have replied, but my conclusions are going to be in an article on the battle, so sooner or later I'll comment there

 

[Sarevok]

which battle?

 

[privatehudson]

Arnhem, well to be precise the whole campaign rather than just Arnhem

 

[Sarevok]

cool, cant wqit

 

[privatehudson]

You'll have to I'm afraid, I've not even started on the fighting part yet and it is like 5 pages long on word

 

[Sarevok]

ouch, well... so be it.

 

[privatehudson]

Should I condense it?

 

[Sarevok]

no, the more the better.