Magpie_Oz

Actually he had drop zone around the south and south east of Nijmegen. The capture of the Grave bridge was via a drop nearby. They could have easily dropped further units in those zones to take Nijmegen Bridge. The heights were unoccupied when he got there but for sure heavy fighting ensued to hold them. A Battalion was assigned to capture the bridge but they did not move quick enough to get there. A decision made by Gen Brereton whom Ike appointed in command and who had little knowledge of airborne operations. And yet we much prefer to say "Monty stuffed it" and move on.

And yet we have no problem ensconcing into history the notion that US paratroopers paddled across the river in broad daylight into the muzzles of the guns, while the British made tea. As mentioned elsewhere it was the other of the 2 options, land by coup-de-main, as 6 Abn did in Normandy at Pegasus Bridge or land, concentrate and advance on the objective. As the brdges were essentially unoccupied and it was felt they were not in imminent danger of being blown the beter option is to concentrate and then capture. True enough but by the time any one realised that the orders had not been carried out it was too late. We touched on this earlier, how far up does responsibility go? I would content to the immediate superior. The 508 PIR was tasked with taking the bridge, they did not move with sufficient urgency to do so. Gavin who undoubtedly was distracted by the need to defend the heights did not pick it up until to late. "Eventually" was too late and spent the lives of brave men needlessly. XXX Corps got to Nijmegen early. As I have said it is undoubtedly unfair to point the finger solely at Gavin, just as it is unfair to point it at Monty, you may as well point it at Ike at that level. But the fact remains that by the time that XXX Corps go to Nijmegen the operation still had a huge chance of success, instead it took 3 days to resume the advance.

At the end of the operation the 21 Army Group was in possession of the larger percentage of the Netherlands and in a good position to continue operations. Sure they did not achieve full success but the gains that they made were significant. Perhaps also consider one factor, what commander is going to carry out a major operation and sustain significant casulaties and then say to his me "Well we stuffed that one up, your mates died in vain" Sadly the Dutch people were going to suffer casualties whatever took place. The French civilians suffered just as much if not more in the liberation of their country, things like this help no one.

Double taps at close range.

Picking a non-text book line of advance is kinda what victories are made of, remember the Ardennes anyone? (the first one, not the second one) And in spite of all that XXX Corps reached Nijmegen ahead of schedule. At that point all of the required bridges were in Allied hands...... except one. The one that on the first day of the landings was completely unoccupied. The Recon Co from one of the SS Pz divisions rolled into Nijmegen on day 1, saw nothing and turned around to head back to base north of Arnhem. Upon reaching the Arnhem bridge they were torn up by 2 Para. That is what drives me bonkers about the whole thing, "conventional wisdom" is to say Monty was rash and threw away lives because he was too pig headed. For me it was the 82nd Airborne ..... "How did you go at the bridge mate? " "Bridge? which one is that ?" "The big one, the highway bridge, y'know.. in town ?" "Oh that one ... yes ummmm goooood ... we're ahh ... we're working on it " "WHAT ?!" Instead we are sold some line of crap about British tanks finally crossing the bridge and then stopping to make tea.

Not the way I was taught to shoot but like I say I have no idea what basis BFC are going off

We have kinda talked about this before but it comes down to volume of fire v accurate fire. 40 to 50 rounds for a Garand is what I have seen too. Can't imagine you would hit anything at that rate. 2 to 3 seconds is standard engagement time for aimed shots. Having said that research shows troops rarely hit anything with rifles anyway so volume of fire became more important. Not sure what BFC have modelled their game on.

i have never understood the whole toilet lid thing? Is it because it is machinery and they don't understand how to move it to the required position?

Tell me gentlemen, which is gayer, "holiday snaps from hell" or "format wars" ?

well at least you have learned the first principle.

Yep for sure but gaining the Scheldt would still have faced the transport issue that any other offensive in the area would have. Of course once the Schedlt was secured the transport problem went away, more or less

In my case it takes both

Good point. I usually play down the Browning aspect because you don't get half the bites and debate if you shift blame from one Englishman (Monty) to another Browning. I do often wonder why it was that Browning dropped with the 82nd. Of course they were in the middle, sort of, but I often think that he did that so as to look over Gavin's shoulder as he was new to the role. I have nothing to support this, just a gut feel. Strangely browning does not figure prominently in most accounts of the Op. Cornelius Ryan just mentions he was married to Daphne Du Maurier and leaves it at that. Other references are limited to the number of gliders he used for the drop. I've not see much else in relation to his command of the op.

Yes I was intrigued to know how one would survive that encounter, much less if your relationship would survive.

Here goes: In the Peng challenge thread I would just say, no just you being here is obnoxious enough but it isn't so I won't No, the issue of closing the Falaise too slowly is a historian thing brought up many years later. At the time it was seen for what it was, the crushing end note to the Normandy campaign, the utter defeat of the German Army in Normandy. A number of plans had been put forward to use the 1st Allied Airborne Army to capture crossings of the Rhine, many more ambitious and many less so. Eisenhower favoured a broad front advance, however attacking Holland presented numerous opportunities to trap large numbers of Germans against the sea. At Monty's insistence, and under pressure from the US to use the 1AAA, Ike agreed to a spearhead thrust as part of the overall advance. The old "not enough supplies for both" argument is BS. The shortage was transport not supplies. There were remedies put in place to alleviate the supply problem and a fair amount of transport was diverted from the US armies to help with Market Garden but mainly as a support to the 2 US divisions involved. The transport problem would have existed what ever Ike decided to do. Securing the Schedlt Estuary was going to be a long drawn out exercise and the opportunity to hit the Germans when they were down was slipping away. Isolating it was a good start, which the XXX Corps thrust did. No Yes You forgot the U and rumours are for sewing circles. Monty had just annihilated 8 Panzer Divisions, the cream of the German Armed Forces, guess he was feeling confident, and rightly so. Remember too there was no "German Armour concentrated in his path". What was left of II SS Panzer Korps was North of Arnhem, putting itself back together. It had not fully done so by the time MG rolled around. Actually that would mean the whole thing was Ike's fault as the Supreme Allied Commander. As the commander on the ground Gavin had the direct responsibility to capture the Nijmegen bridge. His orders to is commanders were not clear and he did not ensure that the subordinate responsible carried them out correctly. Not sure what he was doing but up until that point Jumpin' Jim had earned his reputation by performing deeds that were more akin to the role of a platoon commander, I suspect he had difficulty in charge of a division and the hands off approach required at that level. Actually that last bit is true.

For those of you not wishing to read further detail or re-quote the longer posts, please use this post to quote when calling me a idiot, f***tard or know nothing Aussie git.

Generally it is best to wait until I wake up. There is only one person who gets a rise out of me late at night or in the morning Inevitably discussions on MG end up being discussions on Monty. One could ague, and I probably will, that Monty was the architect of the Western Allied victory in WW2. Alamein, Tunisia, Sicily, lodgement in Italy, Normandy, MG, Battle of the Bulge, Crossing of the Rhine, advance to the Elbe and finally the German surrender at Lundberg Heath. Airborne ops, in particular the British Airborne have captured my imagination from a very young age, largely because of the borderline treasonous of the movie. So I have read a great deal of accounts of all of the various actions in particular MG. Sometime ago my opinion diverged from the generally held view that - "Monty was a toss pot who tried to do too much and just goes to show that the US won the war despite his fumbling."

Some of the dumbest morons I know have Masters Degrees, good at the books but have no idea on the real world.

Thing is if you are lying on the ground the rounds don't have far to fall before they hit the ground, usually happens between 200 and 300 metres. Up on a tripod the barrel can be elevated and hence the rounds go further, then of course you get into "quality" of tripod. Then the sight and lastly on occasion some Sustained Fire MG's used "boat-tail" bullets that had a profound effect on the range, increasing it by half as much again in some instances. The barrel on the MG34 was slightly longer but probably not enough to have a big effect on range, the MG 34 bullet was slightly larger too which could give it a little better carrying range, 7.92 as opposed to 7.62 The M1919 was never really meant to be a LMG so quick barrel changes were not a top priority at design stage, also as it was really an air cooled variant of the water cooled weapon the design did not lend itself to rapid barrel changes. Later models had a much heavier barrel and so required changes less often, probably not as often as an MG34. Offsetting this is the fact that the MG34 fire from an open bolt, i.e. the breech is open and when you pull the trigger it flies forward, feeds the round into the chamber and then fires. The M1919 however effectively has 2 rounds in the breech/chamber at any one time and the bolt is closed against the round in the chamber. This means the MG34 can get hotter and not run the risk of a round going off due to the heat of the barrel so barrels can be changed less often.

I know the ones you mean, I have seen some like chain mail, my 9 year old has far better dexterity that me so i'll just read the instructions I think.

Gosh I wish I could do even half of this sort of stuff. Looks great mate.

I have just bought a Tamiya M1A2 to make with my son this weekend. Wish me well..........

Or maybe go do that voodoo that you do so well ?

deep doodoo

Actually the best way to take a bridge is when no one is there at all as 2 Para did. This avoids the need to send your men across a river protected only by canvas. The men of the of the 504th performed one of the bravest acts perhaps of the entire war. The fact that they had to do it at all was a total cock up. Sure saying "It is all Gavin's fault" is not really fair but it is a major factor in the failure.