Spook

Intriguing idea.

Yeah, some good footage indeed, but similarly I thought some of the questions were stupid in their contrivance. The primary stupid ones: 1) What should the US soldiers use for winter camo -- painted uniforms, bedsheets, or captured German winter camo? Like "Ike" would've made the call on that one. 2) Should Bastogne been evacuated, booby-trapped, or held onto? Not obvious to those without a map as to see Bastogne's value as a road junction, so the "stand fast" rationale wouldn't had been any more obvious. 3) Should the defense of Strasbourg been made outside or inside the town? Again, not obvious without a map or force dispositions. Perhaps US forces could've set it up as another Bastogne and caused the attacking Germans similar problems trying to lay siege to it, for all that the program conveyed for background information. 4) What should the air forces focused on bombing -- troops, roads, or fuel convoys? Stupid question in the main. Sure, roads (the "right answer") and supply/fuel convoys were appropriate for bombers to focus on, but fighter-bombers were numerous enough to provide CAS to work over German troops at that same time. As what the 2nd Panzer learned in earnest at Celles. 5) And the Grand Poobah idiot question -- What should the US counterattack been like --- to cut off the Bulge, go around it, or push it in? Geez, the knee-jerk assertion of the historic "push it back" was just plain dumb IMO. Not that trying to attack from the base of the Bulge (north & south) didn't have its hazards and limits, but the "push it back" caused worse US casualties than the earlier defense phase, and let more German troops escape than what might've been the case otherwise.

M-G might have had a significant impact if it succeeded. Or it might have instead meant a good bit less. The possibilities will always be speculated on, but regardless the concept to "flank" the Rhine seemed worthy to try IF Monty & co. had also seen to isolating the 15th Army and getting Antwerp opened up pronto. Recognizably, "Mac" did have an overt bias on a "Philippines first" strategy as that can be linked to restoring his prestige with the Filipinos at the time. The Luzon vs. Formosa debate also goes on to this day as where the US forces should've next reached for after Leyte. And as note above, Mac didn't control the Peleliu invasion, that was instead Nimitz's. So was another botch job known as Tarawa in 1943, although the latter did drive home some important later lessons learned to amphibious landings. [ November 06, 2003, 08:10 AM: Message edited by: Spook ]

I could think of a few, but they're all Soviet instead.

Loose notes: A "good reason" will probably always elude, and IMO forever be one such stain on Bradley and Hodges and other various US lower-level commanders involved. Though I rarely see posters ever wanting to kick off a "Bradley as Battlefield Commander" topic. Well, checking both Glantz and D'Este, I think that the above numbers have a bit of "tilt" to them if one constrains to the same period of fighting. The standard sum of casualties to the Germans for Normandy and the later fall of France come in at 400,000, half of these as POW's. The German losses on the East Front in turn were about 550,000 in the same timeframe. Yes, this is true. I haven't, but your own views all the same?

Well, Mailer, your enthusiasm for wanting the CM system extended to the PTO is certainly commendable. (For that matter, if you're really into Pacific war history from an IJN perspective, I've an article at the Wargamer that is guaranteed to bore you to tears, if you're so inclined. ) And yes, contrary to past argued positions on how the Pacific War doesn't "seem" adapted to gaming at squad-level, or seems limited in scenario possibilities, this doesn't hold up to historical accounting. Reviewing just Robert Smith's official US Army history of post-Leyte operations in the Philippines, "Triumph in the Philippines", would provide a ream of tactical possibilities. Engaging the Japanese 2nd Tank Division at Luzon's San Jose, ZigZag Pass, street-fighting and river-crossings in Manila, airborne drops on Correigedor, Ipo Dam, and so forth. The central nub to do all this, however, is that Battlefront has to first do all of the pre-development research into the Pacific War. They have to research battles & campaigns, and they have to develop historically-based OOB's for a host of nationalities. If trying to include nationalities like the Chinese for the 1930's on to 1945, that alone would not be expected to be a minor task. If the BF guys don't want to make that time investment, then end of story. UNLESS..... someday in the future, BF ever sees fit to "lease" the CM game engine to a party of volunteers willing to do the work instead; building the 3D models, making the graphics textures, researching Pacific OOB's and historical campaigns, and so forth. Will that happen someday? Maybe. But don't hold your breath this year or the next. And in truth, as a matter of priorities, I would much rather for the BF team to focus on its future-planned "CMX2" game engine which is billed to seek many more revolutionary changes to the original CM system than the evolutionary changes from CMBO to CMBB/CMAK. Perhaps when the CMX2 system has been out long enough, the original CM engine might be leased to those wanting to do a more extensive "Pacific" add-on with OOB's and added specialty rules and features. But I myself would just wait longer for a possible CMX2 Pacific mod.

Where to start.... Mr Furious, first of all, it wasn't "2nd SS Panzer Division" refitting in Holland, it was 2nd SS Panzer Corps of 9th & 10th SS Panzer Divisions. Second, Patton's army was the US 3rd, not 4th. Third, that any German panzer force could've "annhilated" Patton's army in September is rather bogus to presume. In fact, during the Lorraine operations of that month, Patton's 3rd WAS counterattacked by three of the four "panzer brigades" formed ad-hoc for the West Front (the fourth went to Holland), with all three instead being resoundingly thrashed in separate actions by Patton's divisions (including French 2nd Armored). The results of these battles convinced even Hitler that the future Ardennes attack against the "crappy" American troops would have to be better concentrated in armor and other forces. As compared to Market-Garden happening at the same time, I regard the Arracourt battles by Patton's 3rd as being one of the few bright spots of September, along with the Westwall breakthrough near Aachen. The attrition for the 3rd at Arracourt also was much better than that for Market-Garden on average, although the later Lorraine operations would be worse.

Along with Andreas's summation above, and echoed by Anthony and now Sailor Malan, I similarly concur that the Antwerp/Scheldt affair was Montgomery's most significant error. Along with the errors to be discussed below of Monty's errors with Market Garden, he had gone from what was his best period of summed generalship (Normandy) to his worst. However, any critique of Monty in the Antwerp/MG operations has to maintain a larger perspective in that there were a host of other Allied leaders in that same timeframe that didn't perform their best either, sometimes in such ways to either chainlink or to magnify Monty's errors. Sometimes one just has to look at a map so to start. For nearly two months, the French battlefield had been constrained to Normandy, basically a postage-stamp of the overall area of France. Then, in but a few weeks, the Allies had burst out and had seemingly ripped the German west-front army into irrecoverable shreds. At its peak strength, the German mechanized units had about 1500 tanks or so. By the end of August, German tank strength was measured at a few hundred, and it seemed as if any Panzer Division had no more than but a handful of tanks and other armored vehicles. Luftwaffe strength in sorties over France was in similar straits. Frequent airborne drops planned in late August were cancelled due to ground forces overruning the planned dropped zones. And so on & so forth. Little surprise that "victory fever" took hold of several high-ranking Allied leaders from what they could see of German strength, and how fast their troops were now driving through France. Whatever victory fever had also taken hold of Monty also, the added premise was of his "demotion/promotion" in the first week of September. With Eisenhower taking over directly as overall ground forces commander on the West Front and with Bradley's US forces now independent of Monty, Monty's overall command responsibility was gutted down to the Commonwealth forces. Certainly not insignificant, but in terms of raw manpower, the US forces were mushrooming beyond the CW much faster. Sure, Churchill mollified a little by bumping up Montgomery to field marshal rank, one rank over Ike and two over Bradley, but in practical terms, Bradley now had the greater offensive power. Further, both Ike & Brad were concurrent with the "broad front" strategy for which Monty was opposed to, who instead advocated the "single thrust" strategy for driving to the Ruhr and then on to Berlin. (NOTE: I rarely see earnest discussion on which strategy was ultimately better, which would make a good topic in itself. But IMO, the answer was "neither" in strictest terms, if one compares with what an high-ranking Soviet commander experienced in "deep operations" would instead probably do. ) So Monty, the overall ground commander of the Normandy campaign, watched as the fruits of victory seemed to slip through. He didn't control the West Front anymore, the Germans seemed at the end of their rope, and the strategy for which he was ardent about wasn't being adopted. All of which had probably turned some screws in Monty's mind, as for him to not be in the peak train of thought right then. The downside of the victory fever however, not overly obvious to all, was that the sudden liberation of most of France also came part & parcel with exponentially increased logistics friction. Supply depots had to move up from Normandy (again, just a postage stamp of France overall), supply lines had lengthened immensely without a working rail net to also support, only Cherbourg was coming along in operating as a deep-water port on the northern coasts, and the overall frontage was now greatly stretched. I'd hate to think on what the West Front logistical bind would've been in late 1944 ,if Ike didn't stand up to Churchill and didn't follow through with the DRAGOON invasion that had taken the valuable southern French Riviera ports intact. Another harbinger for the results of September was that the tactical air units of US 9th AF and RAF 2nd TAF also needed to relocate and move up. And to be honest, the transfer of overall ground command to Eisenhower was not done in the most inspired fashion. SHAEF HQ was first set up in the coastal town of Granville, not the best place in location or in available communications net resources to keep abreast of developments with the separate army groups during September. It was an environment for which one or several SNAFU's boded to happen, and inevitably did. This doesn't directly address or explain Monty's actions in September/October on what he did right or wrong, it just sets the stage. (To be continued)

Random SSO input: Oh, by all means, Northwest. You deserve it, MrSpkr. </font>

Well, yes, this point is true. Actually, the sins of Monty (and Ike & several others) regarding the Scheldt and Market-Garden are more onerous than over the extent on how much the Dutch underground was used. But I'll have to get into that later on.

If true, that would lend a fair charge to a "thoroughly infiltrated" Dutch resistance, although I don't know if this played into the reservations of Monty and 21st AG in specific for the MG planning. I don't recall it mentioned in Ryan's book.

Though that doesn't also address the added photo-recon which showed German armored vehicles on one such occasion, as I might anticipate to come up as a later counter. Even to that end, a measure of perspective is needed. One or two photos of armored vehicles alone do not confirm the existence of a (rebuilding) panzer corps. Many German infantry divisions also could have some limited integral (SP/TD) armor support. However, I consider your assertion of the Dutch Underground being a "flawed" source as being too vague. Yes, that the Dutch (PAN?) had been infiltrated on one such occasion is often cited, and an understandable backdrop to the British command's reservations to use same. But do you throw the baby out with the bathwater? That does seem implied as justified above, and historically, it is not. The Dutch PAN practiced some strict intel standards per the accounting of C. Ryan in "A Bridge Too Far," and for that matter, that the Nijmegen highway bridge didn't blow up when it was supposed to might have been the work of a PAN agent who earlier sabotaged some fuse lines, but didn't survive the Market-Garden op. That the British chose not make more use of the PAN was ultimately to Market-Garden's detriment; as it also was to ignore the advice of some Dutch liasion officers about an alternate advance route to Arnhem. Again, this can be more fairly appreciated in hindsight than foresight, but I've yet seen it demonstrated as that the PAN was so "thoroughly infiltrated" to be ignored as it was as an intel asset. [ October 29, 2003, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Spook ]

CombinedArms does have a point. Much (though not all) of the negative aura surrounding Monty to this day stems from his recognized personality shortfalls and typical lack of sufficient tact, along with his less-than-honest postwar recountings. He had gotten even Churchill all ruffled a couple of times during Normandy alone. As Churchill is reputed to say once of Monty: "In defeat, unthinkable; in victory, insufferable." One thing I do want to nip in the bud for now is another mundane "Patton vs. Monty" comparison. For one, Patton didn't move up the command chain as far as Monty did. And second, Patton, while often denigrating of Monty, was not Monty's most ardent rival in the full course of the NW Europe campaign. That instead would be Bradley after he had gotten out from under Monty's wing. Anyway, my own follow-up on Sir Bernard Law Montgomery is going to stay focal to the Normandy campaign in this post, much of which links to my earlier reading this year of D'Este's "Decision in Normandy." How Monty conducted himself at the Scheldt, Market-Garden, and the Ardennes can be taken up in later posts. Recognizably, even in the planning of the Normandy operation, Montgomery often strove for the meticulous and the methodical. This paid off in a way as that Monty (as did Ike & Bedell Smith) recognized that Gen. Morgan's original COSSAC plan of assaulting with just three divisions risked too narrow a beachhead, and argued emphatically to revise to a five-division assault front. However, the notion of Monty also being "overly cautious" is something as that can be used to the point of outright misrepresentation. Monty, whatever his methodical and precautionary natures for "set-piece" battles, still had one enduring quality throughout the war: he sought to fight the Germans, to take the ground war to them wherever he could. This quality truly came to the fore when the final "go" decision was needed on D-Day. The weather premise was bad enough as that others like Tedder or Leigh-Mallory were more discouraged to press forward on 6th June. When Ike turned to Monty, Monty's reply: "I would say....Go." Monty was resolute enough to see the matter pressed through even though the weather conditions, while "tolerable", were certainly not optimal. Whatever all else is assessed of Monty in being risk-evasive, he wasn't being evasive at that moment. It certainly must have played on his mind that there were still some real chances for the invasion to founder. D'Este also related in detail that Monty's plan for the Commonwealth invasion forces was actually quite ambitious in a few ways. While the stock history often holds that Monty only wanted to "pin the German armor" in the Caen zone, it is certain that Monty did NOT want his British troops to be contained in a shallow beachhead. Thus why he wanted Caen as a D-Day objective; not for Caen in itself, but to allow the British 2nd Army to then quickly drive on to the higher country between Caen and Falaise as the later "hinge" of the Allied beachhead. A shallow beachhead, if entertained in pre-invasion planning, ran too much the risk of another Anzio premise, something as that Monty and Churchill wanted to AVOID if at all possible. A shallow beachhead also challenged the deployment of reinforcing echelons, and prior to Goodwood, this indeed did become an issue for activating Creare's Canadian Army under 21st Army Group in July. What Monty proposed to help prevent an Anzio situation was to keep the Germans "unhinged" from forming a congealed and continuous front. To aid in this, he further proposed that independent British armoured/tank brigades would land quickly and "race ahead" to form strongpoint pockets within German lines. In proposing this, Monty acknowledged that such a move might instead hazarded the armoured brigade to be ultimately lost, but if the higher operational goal of keeping the Germans "unhinged" was achieved, he felt it was worth it. But it didn't work out that way. The armoured brigades were unloaded more slowly than planned, for one. For another, it did not take much in a German ambush as to force even a British armored brigade advance to stall. The last chance to prevent a congealed German line came with Villers-Bocage on 13th June. Monty's input to this planned operation was to use British 1st Airborne in a drop just behind the German lines in the region between Caen and Villers, to link with the planned 7th Armoured's drive east from Villers. Such a plan on face value did have its risks, but also some good potential. However, Leigh-Mallory inferred that the air transport for the job would not be fully on hand, and was overall pretty averse to risking 1st Airborne. L-M may have ultimately been right about this risk (especially given how quickly the battle in Villers had turned), but Monty's later regard of L-M is a bit ironic: "He (L-M) could just fly over in a Mosquito to check out the form for himself. But he doesn't, the gutless bugger." Anyway, as is known, the Villers op was abortive, due in part to the storied Wittman ambush, and Villers itself was given up back to the Germans. Worst of all, the Germans had by now brought up enough troops to "congeal" the line and constrain British 2nd Army to the shallow beachhead that Monty wanted to avoid. He wanted to keep up the initiative over Rommel, but now was losing it and had to play to Rommel's tune at times. The failure of Villers can't be held on Monty's head in the main. More of the blame for the lack of initiative belongs to the 7th Armoured's Erskine and 30th Corps CO Bucknall. However, in the critical time period to keep operational inertia from setting in, both Monty and the 2nd Army CO Dempsey were curiously inactive in their own turn. And this wasn't the only time that Monty seemed to misstep in the grand-tactical realm. Another time was in Goodwood (which actually was Dempsey's concept) when Monty, by giving 8th Corps CO O'Connor an added tactical directive before the battle, brought on the premise that those tanks which broke through were short-handed on infantry support and thus more vulnerable. Even less easy to explain is that during the later formation of the Falaise Pocket, Monty could have easily shifted 30th Corps over from being "stalled" at the Vire sector and used it to reinforce the hard-pressed and bloodied Canadians pushing to Falaise itself. Yet he didn't. Overall, in Normandy, there isn't very much to show Monty to have inspired tactical or grand-tactical thinking. In this lower realm of warfighting, Rommel's own performance in Normandy seemed to outpace. But in the higher-level operational thinking, it is here where Monty had Rommel's measure and then some. For one thing, Monty may have asserted that "I never had to alter my master plan", which is since proven untrue. Monty DID revise his plan, and did so several times. But adaptation to unplanned events and circumstances is not a weakness, but a strength, to an operational commander. Recognized that sometimes he had no other choice, of course. Monty was also thinking ahead of Rommel in the game of coordinating air operations with the ground battle. Rommel felt that the Luftwaffe had to be more subordinated to army control, but Monty argued less for direct control and more for direct coordination, arguing that the tac AF and army HQ should neighbor each other to enhance this coordination. In general, it worked out quite well, either with Broadhurst's 83rd Group (2nd TAF) to Dempsey or Quesada's IXth TAC to Bradley. The coordination between Broadhurst and Quesada was also well applied. This is hardly reflective of the "World War I General" mindset as asserted earlier for Monty, IMO. And in Normandy, while Monty had his share of higher-level detractors that would've been quite happy to see Monty replaced (Tedder & Coningham as a couple such), it is to his credit that he didn't lambast his Normandy subordinates in a comparable way. After Bradley's botched "distributed" attacks in early July, Monty could've harangued and shredded Bradley over the matter, but instead (per Dempsey) subtlely hinted, "I would concentrate my thrusts more." It would be much for Monty to claim that COBRA was part of his plan too, when it was really Bradley who formulated it in the main. But Monty held the reins loose and give a hint, all the while as he was dealing with higher-level sniping above him, sometimes even from Eisenhower. (And to fairly note, it is also to Ike's credit that he stuck with Monty through the Normandy operation when he was given opportunities, even from Churchill, to make a change if he saw fit to do so.) One other thing to remind is that the resultant breakout and forming of the Falaise Pocket was not --- repeat, NOT --- originally envisaged in Monty's grand plan. Originally, Monty planned for the balance of Patton's 3rd Army to drive into the Britanny Peninsula to seize Brest as an added offloading port, affirmed as late as 28th July. But when Patton, Bradley, & Ike proposed instead for most of 3rd Army to instead turn east to Le Mans by 3rd August, Monty was astute to see the new opportunities and quickly approved. Whatever his sum shortfalls and virtues, and his recognized missteps in Normandy, the Normandy campaign was still one of Montgomery's finest moments as an operational commander. As the overall ground forces commander in this one campaign, he was most likely the right man for the job at the right time, a job for which I'm unconvinced as that Bradley or Alexander could have done as well at just then. [ October 29, 2003, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Spook ]

Having read both Doubler and D'Este's earlier cited books, I'll take note of D'Este first. I don't recall where in "Decision in Normandy" that Alanbrooke (AB) expresses opposition to landing in Normandy due to the bocage terrain, or of being shouted down due to US pressure, but for the moment I will allow AB's objections to be plausible. (I think that AB's greater pre-Normandy effort was trying to guide who would command the Second Front & SHAEF.) However, what I do recall from D'Este in regards to pre-invasion unit training would actually implicate AB for negligence as much as any other major Allied commander in that period. How so? D'Este doesn't finger any one commander in specific over tactics training shortfalls (especially for operating in "broken" terrain), but he nonetheless notes that many Allied units, even the British veteran divisions from the Med, just did not apply tactics training in earnest when they should have. And if AB anticipated that the bocage would be a big enough issue (as it did turn out to be), then it must be fairly asked: why didn't he, going down the chain, put the hammer down to get the message to the combat unit commanders to prepare for this? I don't think it a singular sin of omission from AB's part, however. The lower echelon CO's like Monty, Dempsey, Bucknall et al could have done more to anticipate on this too; the same, of course, for many US commanders like Bradley too. Part of it was due to a seeming "hands-off" attitude about training requirements, especially for the veteran British units. It was expected that the British 7th Armoured and 50th/51st Infantry, having "done their bit," would know what to do well enough without having to be put through the "chicken****" drills again. That proved to be a mistake for both the British 7th Armoured and the 51st Infantry. In spite of the expectations put upon the veteran British units, they rather significantly underperformed in Normandy (except for the 50th). For one thing, the Normandy terrain wasn't anything like North Africa or Sicily as to draw prior experience from. And for another, coordination and initiative often proved wanting in the divisions' command chains. It wasn't due to the fictional Stephen Ambrose assertion that the UK soldiers were "unmotivated" in the veteran divisions. Some were, but for others, it was a matter where leadership and training simply fell short from what was earlier assumed. It apparently changed significantly for British 51st Division when the capable Gen. Rennie took over later on. The other major sin of omission on the part of the Allied commanders was the assumption that the German ground troops, now "used up" and unwilling, would crack soon under battle. Some did, especially the pressed foreign "volunteers", but just as often the German combat troops proved resilient and determined enough, matched with an average maintained edge in small unit tactics at that time. And some Allied troops learned from all this; at least those who weren't killed or evacuated. But the German troops at Normandy, in sum, did not make it easy for the Allies to engage in close quarters. Another issue that D'Este points out very compellingly is that the pre-invasion estimations for UK infantry casualties and replacement rates were WAY off the mark for what resulted in Normandy. Again, D'Este doesn't seem to put the onus for this on any one UK commander or planner in specific, but IMO this is another thing for which Alanbrooke (and Churchill) must share some given bit of responsibility over also, proportioned on down to the operational commanders and planners. There is one error I regard in D'Este's book, however. He contends that the US Army forces in Normandy, as compared to the Commonwealth, were better adapted to apply combined-arms tactics. Concerning unit organizations, this might have been true, but experience-wise, the new US divisions also fell short at first in applying combined arms. Nominally, each US infantry division had one tank and one TD battalion assigned to it on a consistent if not permanent basis. However, in the pre-invasion training, Doubler points out that there was no real concerted effort to get the US tank battalions to fight with the infantry in coordinated small-unit actions. This had to be learned the hard way in the Normandy bocage, although the US divisions did adapt readily enough after their initial bloody noses. The US Armored divisions seemed to apply combined arms better at the get-go, but their more even proportioning of tank & infantry units probably helped drive this. What is also noteworthy is that the pre-invasion veteran US divisions generally performed fairly well in Normandy. The US 1st Division, bloodied from Omaha, still reached Caumont in six days. The US 9th Division shredded the German 77th Division while cutting off the Contenin Peninsula and later repulsed Panzer Lehr the following month. And the US 2nd Armored of course performed remarkably well in the days following the "Cobra" breakthrough. Not much of this addresses Monty in specific, but helps lay out some of the premise in Normandy for which Monty and other commanders had to deal with.

No fair. You know what a gentle, trusting soul I am. Seanachai said so. And you know he wouldn't lie, at least not when he's drunk. Or is it the other way 'round? </font>