Rommel vs Montgomery

I've read that during the battle of El-Alamein that the R.Navy,did a diversionary raid to spoof the Germans into thinking that a landing was going to take place west of the battle area.is this true.?I know the R.N.successfully supplied Tobruck,when the 9th Australian div was besieged by the German-Italian army,and reinforced the garrison there with the 70th inf div,as the tired Aussies were pulled out.Were these operations carrie d out by destroyers.? Did the R.N.take part in bombardments of the axis armies near the coast,not just during Alamein,but before then.?cheers.

 

During the first campaign against the Italians, the Mediterranean Fleet carried out numerous bombardments with everything from battleships to gunboats. On April 21, 1941 they even bombarded the port of Tripoli. I'm not aware of much after that, likely due to the threat of Axis airpower, especially after Crete was taken, not to mention actual losses of ships. Also less of the action in the desert was taking place along the coastline. I've read that before Alamein Rommel had 90th Light and Trieste divisions positioned to guard against amphibious landings, not sure how much the British did to create that impression.

One indicator of the ships used to supply Tobruk would be losses, from Rohwer and Hummelchen, Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-45. Lost were the minelaying cruiser Latona, two destroyers, three sloops, seven corvettes and minesweepers, a gunboat, seven transports and six A-lighters, a type of landing craft. Damaged were seven destroyers, a sloop, eleven corvettes/minesweepers, three gunboats, seven transports, and three A-lighters.

 

Wonder when a light bomber becomes a dive bomber? Read an account where Dauntless' were dropping depth charges into steep ravines in Guadalcanal. Is there a certain angle achieved only for dive bombing?

 

Ive got vision of tanks being individually hit with bombs i think from typhoons...massive blast...direct hits...turrets just dissapear...awesome stuff...

 

Its not so much an angle thing but a "technique and aircraft thing"... dive bombing requires a steep enough angle to acheive accuarcy...this angle means that the aircraft must be able to pull out of the dive, so dive brakes and even a mechanism to assist the pilot to pull out is often needed...without your aircraft being purpose built you will simply pick up speed and the control surfaces will lock in place, or at least you wont have the strength to pull yourself out...so dive bombers must be purpose built...Stukas had a simple diagram on the side of their cockpits...they dive their aircraft and line up the line on the glass with the horizon, when the two lines were parralell the pilot new he was at the right angle...

 

Aimed bombs ? And if you look at all the photos of the Falaise Gap, very few tanks are completely destroyed ; most were disabled by damaged running gear or just abandoned because the narrow lanes were so clogged with wreckage from softer vehicles destroyed by Typhoon attacks. Again, I'm not arguinng effectiveness ( blast was very effective indeed ). But aiming at individual tanks in the Desert would have been beyond the Typhoon's capabilities.

 

Maybe you are thinking of rocket firing typhoons in NWE, Circa 1944.?

 

Yeah i was thinking that waw what i was thinking... : ) except that the blast was enormous...far too much exlposion for just a rocket...the Tank was alice and hunting one second...a twisted burning mass the next....remember thinking it was a set up, packed with explosives for the camera (film taken about 500 feet away on the ground)...so i watched frame by frame and could actually see the bomb fall...awesome...cant be sure it WAS a Typhoon though...

 

Rudel claimed most of his tank victories using the Ju 87G which was armed with 2 X 37mm cannon. However due to the weight of these guns the Ju 87G couldn't dive bomb ( in fact it even had the dive brakes removed to give it a slightly higher top speed), and the attacks on tanks using these weapons were done in a shallow dive.

 

When Monty came to the desert he made a point of emphasizing the importance of hunting what he nick-named 'rabbits', these were the soft-skin support vehicles which supplied the Panzer divisions in its attacks. Monty realised that hitting these far more vunerable targets, was more effective in reducing the enemies combat performance than in targeting its well protected and difficult to hit front-line formations

 

Thanks for putting me straight on Rudel, redcoat ! I'd forgotten about the 'G's lack of divebrakes....

 

I have recently been reading about the Commonwealth Middle East Airforces and their equipment early on. Quite a few of these obsolete aircraft were still being used operationally in 1941 (albeit as night bombers and even then not regularly).
Bristol Bombay
Vickers Valentia
Vickers Wellesleys
Fairey Battles
Ju 86 (SAAF)
Vickers Vincent
Hawker Hart, Audax, Hardy, Hartebeeste (Variations of the same)
Londons

The Swedish Air Force used the Hart as a Dive Bomber, was it ever used in Commonwealth service as such.

 

IIRC the desert saw some of WWII's few biplane duels, between Gladiators and CR42s.

The Anglo-Iraqi conflict in 1941 saw Gladiators on both sides, though I don't know if they met for a uniquely even combat. The British used quite a few biplanes in the defense of Habbaniya which was an RAF training base.

 

Starting thinking about Montgomery's tactics last night after I watched "The Battles of El Alamein" in "Greatest Tank Battles". The Allies had 13,500 casualties in the second battle primarily caused by Montgomery giving Rommel several weeks to resupply and set up defensive positions. As the Allies had air superiority and the Germans would have been in fixed positions, why not just get the Desert Air Force to bomb and straffe the Germans until they were too weak to defend. I would have thought it was relatively easy to identify and target tanks and artillery positions. Especially as the length of defended line was quite small as it was between the sea and the Qatarra Depression. Then we wouldn't have had to send our tanks against their tanks and 88 AT guns. Am wondering if this suggestion has merit or are there factors that I haven't considered.

 

I am a critic of Monty at times, but I think he did need the time to train the troops to attack. Th British had been very poor in their attack tactics and had been schooled by Romell for 2 years so I believe Monty wanted time to prepare his troops.

 

As always the proof was in the pudding..Monty proved his theory at Alemein. And has not been forgiven for beating Rommel ever since. Granted he made mistakes in his career before, and after and had more successes and failures..Name me one General that did not. But the whole who was better thing...I'll just ask, who eventually buggered whom up in the desert?

 

Yep, Urqhy....

Sucess speaks volumes. Rommel was a loser. Puffed up by Nazi propaganda, a political appointee like Rommel cannot escape the fact that his actions were ultimately on the losing side of the war. Despite his obvious humanity and very well juged sense of fair play, and all the other chivalric accolades that the Rommel 'legend' seems to enjoy, he fought for a detestable regime and did not answer the call from his brother officers to cease propping up this sordid ideology until it was far too late.

I think the British Army indulged in a little bit of Romanization of their exploits in the Desert, puffing Rommel up into a far larger and more dangerous figure than he was in the true ancient style of Rome, seeking to enhance it's martial reputation by this end.

 

I grant that Monty did figure out how not so much to defend against Romell, but how to attack him. Monty had so many advantages that it was all but inevitable that Romell would have to retreat. What Monty did so well was destroy the myth of Romell for the British army.

 

Now this may be giving too much credit to either or both of them but ...
Rommel may have realized that if the Germans didn't win a quick victory then they would loose. Thus his push for quick victories.
Montgomery may have realized the same thing thus his decision to make sure Germany was denied the quick victory she needed. Monty also seems to have realized that Britain didn't have an inexaustable source of manpower. Now I'm not much of a fan of his but this was an important fact and it's pretty clear that it influenced many of his decisions from what I've read. Much like the "Anaconda" strategy the US used in the ACW Monty chose a strategy that was almost guaranteed to succed and tactics that fit it rather than letting "brilliant" tactics leave in out on a strategic limb.

 

Both Rommel and Montgomery owe a substantial share of their reputations to Monty's predecessors in command in North Africa. They had the power to beat Rommel in both Operation Crusader and Gazala, the latter one of the most mis-managed battles of the war IMO. I don't know if Montgomery would have turned either one into a decisive victory, but he certainly would not have made the fundamental mistake of allowing his forces to engage the enemy piecemeal. Too much of the history of 8th Army, whether on offense or defense, consisted of individual brigades being chewed up one at a time by the Afrika Korps, one thing that would not happen under Montgomery.