Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "How Rommel became the Desert Fox | Operation Sonnenblume" video.

I agree. I think he was a victim of the Peter Principle. He was a great fighting general at the divisional level (Does that mean a good colonel?), but not a good commander of generals, from what I gather. His sub-commanders tended not to like him and sabotage his plans. For all that he flew around in that spotter plane, there were some major battles fought in North Africa where he was grounded by weather, and both sides were playing a kind of stupid game of blind man's bluff.
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@petermalloy5360 Yes. They both kicked ass in N. Africa.
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@jobvanhetkaar8848 There were many factors, but air and sea superiority was a huge factor in the North African campaign. So was the quite mundane digging of latrines, and using a wooden box with a hole in the top that they covered with burlap to keep out the flies. German troops just took a dump over the next sand dunes and poisoned themselves with their own rotted feces, courtesy of the flies that were all over them and their food. I think Monty cost lives by being too cautious most of the time. You're wasting manpower and materiel if you just wait until you have overwhelming forces. Those are resources that could swing battles, elsewhere, but he wanted to protect his percentage of troop losses. If you can get there sooner, it might cost you 50% losses on 10,000 men, which is less costly than 5% losses on a quarter of a million men. Rommel was clearly overstretched, when he failed to capture Tobruk, it should've been over, but the Germans weren't done.
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