Worst generals

All those Luftwaffe airstrikes!

Surely the fact that the only major ports captured were the other end of France is a consideration here?

 

The Germans could use trains; the Western Allies had bombed those out, so were forced to use trucks over muddy roads (remember, the Autobahn was a new invention). This transportation is slow and tedious. Add the fact that the first major harbor was cleared in early November 1944 at last, and then had to endure bombardment by V1 bombs... They just weren't being very practical about it. Had the ports been given more of a priority, and had the tracks and trains of France been intact, who knows what might have been.

Anyhow, Patton is probably overrated indeed if you see what he faced and did in the Ardennes. His movement of troops was remarkable, without question, but it took him four days to cram two whole divisions, one of them armoured, through the remnants of 5th FJ division which was largely green. And the losses taken prevented him from exploiting anything for the next few weeks, in the Bastogne area; all praise to the 101st for holding out there. They faced a mighty German army.

 

Unfortuanetly for the Germans their bombing of the 101 was what kept them alive.

 

Please explain? :-?

 

From every source I've read I'm not aware of a single thing the Allies could have done to speed up the supplies. Monty dawdled in getting the estuary next to Antwerp cleared (it was stiff resistance though). Moreover, the storm that destroyed one Mulberry and damaged another in late June really put a crimp on things.

It's military strategy 101, the longer your lines of supply become and the shorter your enemy's become, the harder it is to maintain constant supply.
Ask Rommel.

If Patton was so overrated, why did the Germans fear him so much? They respected Monty(?) but they feared Patton. If you want an honest answer about competence, ask the enemy.

 

But supply lines througt North-West Europe were 800 kilometers long at their worst (500 miles). How could you expect the Germans to ever get a single bullet to their front lines in the East, 2,500 kilometers away, if you see how much trouble the supplying took for the Western Allies? I think they definitely could have improved it oir at least sped up the capturing or building of some efficient system to do so (harbours, trains).

 

Germany's supplies originated in Germany (already on the continent)whereas the Allies had the task of getting the supplies to the continent first, then finally moving them on to the front. Had the Chunnel existed then, it would have been a simple matter.

And the Autobahn was started (full bore construction) in 1933 and completed in time for the war. Though bombed, this system of highway was much more efficient than any other in the world. After all, we copied it in the 50's for our Interstates. Now how the Germans ever expected to maintain supply to their troops 2500 K's away is another matter.

 

Well I guess that could be answered by the fact that fear would stem from what would be facing Patton. I don't think the best of the best German forces and leaders would have feared Patton. As I said, there was very little opposition facing Patton. I think the Germans at that time of the war would have been weary of everything coming at them. Perhaps his reputation came before him because of his lightening quick advance across France and maybe the Germans gave him too much ceredit for this. I can certainly see very little actualities which occured that place Patton onto this high level of esteem which he seems to get. He did well in Sicily and was quick with the breakout in Normandy (mainly due to the fact that the British and Canadians had already born the brunt of the best German units there) but other than that I don't see much. No doubt he was a very able commander (better than Monty) and had a 'mystique' about his person but I really can't see much that tells me he was so briliant or a genius.

Maybe this is just one of these exapmles where I can't see what others do? I don't know.

 

With regards to the supply problems, as I said before in another thread the Germans faced logistical problems far worse but they seemed capable of pushing on early in the war and being defensive later in the war and supplies managed to get to their front lines deep into Russia pretty good. Russia was a third world country compared to western Europe with weather that was incomprehensible to us westerners. I recently read a book in which a German rear echelon supply convy had to get from Minsk to Kharkov, a distance of almost 1,000 km, all by road and in bad weather conditions and facing partizans, strafing from Russian planes etc but they managed it. That kind of thing was commonplace.

I would have thought the western Allies would have given the supply problems more thought in the build up to D-Day. After all they managed to think of everything else. They managed to land supplies in North Africa, Sicily, Italy (not to mention all the supplies that came from America to the fight against Japan around all those islands). Why did they not make better use of the ports in southern France? It's not a great distance from there up to the eastern France/ German border area. In fact it's about the same distance from there as from Normandy. EVERYTHING could have come through the southern ports and it should have reached the front lines ok. This southern/ south east area of France was relatively untouched by the war and we all know the western allies had inexhaustable supplies and men to shift them compared to the Germans.

 

All the early proponents of armored warfare were pretty much aware of each other; Lidell Hart, Guderian, Patton, others who I can't name off the top of my head. Patton commanded (as a captain I believe) the only major U.S. tank attack in WW I, a temporary success that bogged down (like all the tank attacks in WW I). When the U.S. finally got serious about armor again in 1938 they put Patton in charge (under Chaffee I think) to spearhead the formations. When we got our tails whipped at Kasserine (for a multitude of reasons) they brought Patton inland from the coast to fix things. Before that he had been in charge of a major part of the Torch landings, which were a cakewalk to be sure. His adventures in Sicily are well-known, effectively circling the entire length of the island while Monty bogged down.

 

I've often wondered myself why more supplies weren't brought in from the South of France once those landings occurred. I'm no logistics expert, so it's hard for me to say. I do know (weak reference perhaps) that the amount of supply allowed in board-based war games from the South of France was always fairly small. I would also guess the long distance around Spain and through to the Med played a large part.

 

Likely enough. Getting the supplies to England and then the Continent was not the problem; getting them to the frontline troops was. The roadnet in France was not, I believe adequate to keep a steady amount of supplies going to all Allied units, especially when you factor in the excellent job of railroad destruction performed by the RAf and USAAF just before D-Day. You would not believe how fast the armies went through everything, especially food, ammunition, and gasoline. And this last was what slowed the Allied advance; neither Patton nor Montgomery could get enough to fuel their armor, let alone the motorised components of the infantry divisions. It was so bad, Patton once captured a Luftwaffe fuel depot. Instead of reporting this to SHAEF, he instead doled the gas out to his units in order to keep them moving. Transportation difficulties have stalled and even ruined many campaigns throughout history, even when the supplies were technically available.

 

But still, if most supplies came through southern France, which was not a great distance all things considered, then the road and rail network in that area wouldn't have been as damaged as that in north east France so it should have been fairly simple. As I said the Germans faced inumerable problems being thousands of kms deep inside Russia but it didn't prevent them from being capable of crushing offensives.

The western Allies were on the European mainland in June 1944. By late September 1944 they were almost at the borders of Germany. Yet it wasn't until Feb/March 1945 (6 months later) that thet were able to make any great strides in that area. I just cannot see why it took six months for the Allies to get going. The Soviets were capable of offensives after offensives against far stronger German forces.

 

I respectfully disagree Corp. Until Antwerp was up and running at full capacity, the worst bottleneck was in getting the supplies from England to the Continent. The storm destruction of the Mulberries really upset the supply timetable for a good while. That's one of the primary reasons Hitler chose Antwerp as the target for the Bulge offensive. It would 1. Cut the British Army and the U.S. Army in two and 2. Recapture the Allies most crucial port.

 

After several years of research on exactly that question, I have only three words for you as the answer.

The Siegfried Line.

 

Ahahahahahahaha! WHAT line???:lol:

 

These six months, the Allies spent trying to break through the Siegfried line. This is fact, even though some historians still claim that the Westwall had no visible impact on the course of WW2. Some examples.

Market-Garden was not aimed at the closest Rhine bridge, which must be obvious for anyone viewing a map of the front line at the time; it was aimed at the nearest Rhine bridge that wasn't covered by the Westwall defences. That's where the idea sprouted to move north and around the Ruhr area then move back south: it was just a way to avoid this line.

The Hurtgenwald wasn't just a forest with dug-in Germans and bad weather. The Germans had access to extensive bunker systems with overlapping lines of fire, and minefields and tank obstacles to complete each other in a formidable line of defence. This system was carried all along the border, making access to Germany almost impossible for an invading army. The Saar had these bunkers, Limburg had them, the Alsace/Lorraine area had them, and they ran up to Nijmegen.

The Ardennes offensive knew no better launching station that the bunker lines of the Westwall. the bunkers prevented the Americans from moving into the German rear with recce missions, and thus concealed troop movements; they made perfect stations for all the new guns used for the opening barrage, and the line was invaluable to fall back upon when it all went wrong.

When in the early months of 1945 rivers had to be crossed, the bunker systems were more murderous than ever; the crossing of the Mösel for one became a violent bloodbath because of a few sick old men holding MG42s. Even in March 1945 when most of the Allied armies were deep into German territory, some units were still dealing with rear-echelon German troops in the bunkers, and having a hard time on it too.

 

.......Or it could be the simple answer and that is that the western Allies were just not as able and as experienced as the Soviets were in 1944/45 in pushing forwards over wide fronts. The western allies were given severe tests when there were NO defensive postition such as the Sigfried Line for the Germans to hide behind. Bare in mind the Germans had practically no air cover the last year of the war but it was still a tough slog to crack Germany in the west, even considering the relatively weak German forces there. And Patton thought he could push the SOVIETS out of Germany in 1945? The man must have been living in his own egotistical dreamworld. No chance. :roll:

 

Unfortunately, no wise man of war I know about discusses what might be the problem when good forces in good supply and with overwhelming superiority over the enemy still fail to achieve quick and decisive victory. So we are left to our own theses.

It is obvious if you study the history of the Western Front in WW2 that every offensie stalled and eventually halted at the Siegfried Line, even those designed to break that very line, unless a supreme effort was made by those already firmly established near or beyond these bunkers.

 

But offensives stalled and halted at other places in the western front away from the Siegfried Line such as Normandy (we all know how tough it was to push the Germans back there) and Holland, not to mention Italy. I see what you are saying with well prepared defences and of course this would have prevented a lot of problems but the western allies had such overwhelming advantages in men, equipment, supplies and air power by autumn/winter/spring 1944/45. They were in no means too bled white to step up a gear. Well not the Americans. I'll never understand why it took almost 7 months from September 1944 to properly breach into Germany.