Yamamoto's operation to capture Midway. Even without considering the unexpected presence of the USN and the heroism and luck of the US fliers, the Midway plan was a confused and unneccessarily complicated division of effort.
Barbarosa. Other than planning on destroying the Soviets near the western border and wait for the Communist party to collapse, there was no strategic goal to the operation.
Market Garden was a huge one, vey poor intell. Weak divisions? Hell no, the Germans had I think it was either the 2nd SS or the 17th SS.
Ardenoffensive. With the words of Sepp Dietrich: "All the Fürher wants me to do is to take antwerps by advancing through the ardennes, where the snow is to our knees and with soldiers who have no experiance and that all with christmas"
Get's my vote. There were remmenants of Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg SS divisions (Arnheim itself), as well as parachute corps (Student) which were send from Germany after the collapse of the fron in France and XIV. army (von Zangen) which was evacuated across Shelde canal to hold the line. Not to mention other units in the are. Basilc Brits and US forces landed on top of entire German army group.
9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen", 10th SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg". These were organized into the 2nd SS Tank Corps. And yes, they were weak at the start of Market-Garden. While this plan is certainly one of the greatest tactical follies of the war, it's not entirely accurate to say that the British and Americans landed on top of "the entire German army group". There were very few units in the area on September 17th 1944, and most of these were ad-hoc units of limited fighting ability.
Blau One of the worst operation´s was the plan for the German summer offensive in 1942.Why?Firstly because of the Goal : The Caucasian Oil. Even with succesfull completion of this plan there was no guarantee that USSR would colapse.The USSR had enough oil on Siberia and Middle East so he did not rely on Caucasian oil fields.The only way how to bring solution to the war on east was direct strike on Moscow or complete destruction of russian armies in large scales and this could not be achieved by this poorly designed plan.
Re: Blau The Caucasian oil fields were indeed not enough but when the germans got a hold on Bakoe where 80 % of the Sovjet oil came from, then they had a big problem I agree, summer 1942 should have been as followed: Capture Leningrad in the spring, use the troops that come free from the siege to attack moscow from the north together with army group center (brought back to strength in the spring) and try to capture Moscow.
The "Ten Go" or Celestial Plan. The last sailing of the Battleship Yamato, lt. Cruiser Yahagi and a smattering of destroyers. Plan was to disrupt the landings at Iwo Jima... a one-way suicide mission, without enough oil in the Yamatos fuel bunkers for a return-trip. What a waste of fine ships and crew. Tim
Didnt they blow off the guy who warned of armored divisions in Arhem? They sent him home sick so to speak. Was it not the 9th SS and 10th SS stationed there for refit?
What I meant by the Brittany campaign as a mistake is this. Did it make sense to move west when the German Army was moving east? Did they expect to find the ports in any better condition than Cherbourg? Why waste the energy that the Americans had gained with operation Cobra? Major General John Wood of the 4th Armored division said of the Brittany diversion “...It was one the colossally stupid decisions of the war.” Only a couple of days later did Bradley change his mind and allow Patton to send two corps east. Only another poorly thought out plan, operation Luttich, saved Bradley from missing encircling the German army in France. Hmm.. That sound familiar. tikial is that you?
Well, later Brittany (mainly Brest) was a good place for ships comming from the US so that made supplying better and faster. Remember, the ports at Calais surrendered at the end of the war and where never libarated by the British so all suplies had to come from cherbourg (and later Brest). + The biggest tactical mistake you can make is advance to Paris (and germany) with an enemy army in your back.
Im suprised that nobodu mention Stalingrad.That city had only ideological meaning,not strategic.Germany lost they best troops there,and many of them ,and i can consider that as a front,more then operation.
Acctualy Stalingrad had huge strategical meaning. Volga river traffic was huge as it was the simplest, most cost effective and most difficoult to disrupt means of transport of equiment, supplies and men. Stalingrad was also important as production centre. STZ (Stanigrad Tank Zavod) was the only factory producing T-34's tanks in late 1941 and early 1942. All other important factories (Moscov, Leningrad...) plants were dismantled and transported behind Urals. In 1942 most of them were in process of starting the production but had huge problems (technological, logistical, personell) and their production was negligable. Basicly STZ was purposly sacrificed as flow of equipment was too important to disrupt even if running significant risk of being overrun. The biggest idioticy of Stalingrad battle was, that wen it was obvious that 6. army would be encircled Hitler forbade retreat. Even bigger stupidity was decision to ressuply 6. army by air. Considering sucessfull ressuply operations at Demyansk pocket previous winter decision seamed feasible. Problem was that at Demyansk pocket German foces were smaller and Soviets had no serious means to cut the line as Germans had air superiority at the time which was not the case of Stalingrad. But probably most important factor was faliour to consider weather conditions which are completly different in the open steppes of the south to those few hundred km to the north and as consequence much smaller number of flying days.
Nevertheless, the Germans would have been at a considerable advantage if they had encircled the city, rather than try to take it. A river crossing inside a city, while under artillery shelling, is bound to fail. The Germans would have benefitted immensely from either crossing the river further to the north, or make a combined naval landing and paradrop to the south (or combined the two). This would have cur off the Stalingrad industrial centre, leaving it without supplies, while at the same time opening up the front beyond the Volga.