Comments by "Bullet-Tooth Tony" (@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-) on "TIKhistory" channel.

  1.  @lufasumafalu5069  Brits are far from overrated the Germans respected them for their discipline
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  2.  @lufasumafalu5069  Lol the Germans outnumbered the British at Tobruk and Alam El Halfa and still lost. Stop lying.
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  3.  @bigwoody4704  On paper though the Allies never truly matched the Germans ability at mobile warfare. The only thing to counter German operational efficiency was turning the whole thing to static and attritional operational warfare which British excelled at but Germans could not cope with when firepower and logistics determined everything and reduced casualties in frontal attacks. The reforms that Montgomery made like big division sized organisations kept under firm hand by army commander, close cooperation between various arms like infantry , armour and artillery and RAF for close air support etc..should have been done long time ago by his predecessors like Cunningham ,Norrie,Ritchie, Auchinleck etc. I certainly wouldn't say Montgomery lacked flexibility since he wanted a concentrated thrust straight to Berlin after D-day instead of a wide push.
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  4.  @bigazza7829  Im not being arrogant
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  5.  @Wolf-hh4rv  They also relied too much on counter attacks.
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  6. @Tinker Tailor "You hold armor static.... and the enemy's artillery will turn it in to scrap" It worked at Alam Halfa. The Panzers were drawn out into the open onto the British positions and destroyed.
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  7. "How many British troops were directly involved with the BotB' 111,000
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  8.  @mgt2010fla  Initial and Final manpower commitments for all units in Ardennes Campaign American British German Initial 687,498 111,904 498,622 Final 680,706. 111,100 *425,941 Source - Dupuy, Trevor N.; Bongard, David L.; Anderson, Richard C. Jr. (1994), Hitler's Last Gamble: The Battle of the Bulge, December 1944 – January 1945, HarperCollins The Americans and British under Montgomery’s command engaged 2 armoured battle groups of the German 5th Panzer army near Dinant by the Meuse.
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  9.  @bigwoody4704  "he was getting his portrait painted" I thought he was in Brussels meeting with Eisenhower?
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  10. The Germans were ready to defend across a broad front, a slashing blow would've been harder for them to concentrate troops against with any depth.
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  11.  @NotchEvident  MG was on a shoestring budget using a single corps, it wasn't a narrow front attack like the real plan to use 40 divisions and XXX corps took 60 miles of German held territory in 3 days, one of the fastest advances of the war.
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  12.  @AnthonyBrown12324  ". LIGHTLY ARMED PARATROOPS CANNOT survive A SUSTAINED ATTACK" Except the British had been preparing their airborne brigades to face heavily armed German forces. Each British para brigade was accompanied by an air landing anti tank battery (equal to a battalion) of 24 guns. The British Airborne division had 48 guns with it plus another 24 guns in the attached Polish Parachute air landing anti tank battery. Better yet, the British (and the Polish) 6 pounder guns were supplied with both HE and APDS, which could penetrate the frontal armour of German heavy tanks (except King Tiger) at a decent range. Moreover, only 2/3 of the British guns were the 6 pounder, the remaining 1/3 were the extremely effective 17 pounder gun, which could punch through a King Tiger's frontal armour at over a mile. (King Tiger front armour was 180 mm) The British used the massive Hamilcar glider to land the 17 pounder gun and it's tractor into battle.
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  13.  @AnthonyBrown12324  Operation Market Garden fell far short of expectations but it wasn't a total failure as it advanced the front in that sector by around 90 miles and inflicted almost twice the number of casualties on the German's than what the Allies suffered. It was certainly a better operation than Omar Bradleys Hurtgen Forest campaign.
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  14.  @bigwoody4704  Same here in England, food prices, petrol and heating etc have skyrocketed
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  15.  @bigwoody4704  One key to this operation was to land enough airborne units in the first lift to secure both sides of the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges to secure them, and the route between the Rhine and Waal rivers. Had they done that, and with as little as a company in place to prevent SS Pz 10 from crossing at the ferry, there are few if any scattered small German units that could threaten this vital section of road. Browning and Brereton's inept rationalisation that Arnhem and the route south to Nijmegen could be captured by a single British brigade on the first day, while devoting 3 full American regiments to the far less important canal bridges was the root of most of the later problems.
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  16.  @bigwoody4704  Operation Market Garden was entirely winnable for the Allies. (I'd even suggest easily winnable), but was crippled by some truly inept planning and operations by 1st Airborne Army. Had Market Garden been given proper support and been properly executed by 1st Airborne Army, the operation could have cut off the German 15th Army in Holland, making the Scheldt operation much easier for the 1st Canadian army, as it would force the 15th Army to withdraw units from the west to defend it's eastern flank.
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  17.  @weirdshibainu  They should have just prioritised Russia and not divert resources to Italy and North Africa.
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  18.  @weirdshibainu  Then again there's also the problem of defeating the Royal Navy.
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  19.  @weirdshibainu  That's the thing, the Royal Navy is stationed in the places you want to attack.
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  20.  @fritz1816  If they got to the other side, production was: Oil production in metric tons in 1937, 1938. Iran: 10,331,000 10,359,000 Iraq: 4,255,000 4,272,000 Bahrein: 1,062,000 n.a. By contrast, Romanian oil was 6.6 million in 1938.
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  21.  @blakesutherland519  "the British army was simply hopeless in ground combat when fighting on the offensive. " Operation Compass and Operation Bluecoat says they're not hopeless. The British army advanced over 350 miles in just FOUR days after the Normandy breakout, a rate of advance unmatched by any allied unit.
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  22.  @bigwoody4704  Woody, it also took 4 years to take the Phillipines back.....after Dunkirk it would be a year before the army was ready to build up it's strength again, and in 1941-1942 no one was going to invade continental Europe while Germany still had a strong presence.
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  23.  @cfbythebeach  Yeah and good riddance. Men like Lumsden were the ones largely responsible for the armours lack of cooperation with the infantry, much preferring suicidal cavalry charges against the enemy armour where time and time again they ran straight into dug in anti-tank guns. Armour coordination improved when Horrocks arrived.
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  24. " how would bringing supplies from ports further away could have help the Allies driving toward Germany! " Well the ports of Rotterdam/ Amsterdam/ Antwerp were not 500 miles away in France.
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  25.  @mgt2010fla  The whole point of Market Garden was that it was a way to continue the advance without placing too much further strain on the failing logistic chain through France which was causing the main broad front advance to falter.
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  26. @Sargasso Sea Massive Don't forget Bill Slim and Richard O Connor
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  27. It wasn't even that narrow to be fair, the front would be from the coast to the rhur, so rather than a pencil, it was more like a bulldozer blade smashing through Germany.
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  28.  @prof_kaos9341  It's funny how the jock columns didn't work in the Desert and yet George Pip Roberts commander of the British 11th armoured division seems to have made them work in France in Operation Bluecoat, with a battalion of infantry supported by an armoured regiment.
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  29.  @cfbythebeach  Yes and for all the critcism about British tanks, they did at least get something right and that was to constantly upgrade their anti tank guns and artillery, even the Japanese and Italians didn't do that.
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  30.  @johnlucas8479  Yes and by being under Dempsey he was basically overruled, in Normandy because of the chain of commands "timetables" O'Connor was only limited to forward assaults, he didn't have the freedom of movement and open flanks to conduct his type of battle unfortunately as he had in the Desert. Dempsey IMO was too rigid at times, O Connor had suggested in Goodwood, infantry to sit on tanks, more air support etc and Dempsey just didn't listen. I'm certain O'Connor could have planned it better, probably with an approach more similar to like Totalize.
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  31.  @johnlucas8479  Who's your favourite British commander btw, despite my defences of monty, my personal two are O Connor and Slim.
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  32.  @johnlucas8479  Whats your opinion on the view that Japan should have attacked the Soviets through Siberia instead of going after the US? Many people on the content about those sort of scenarios seem to think it would have prevented Siberian troops from reinforcing Moscow and making the situation worse for the Red army. I know that, before they got involved with the Americans they had plans to strike the Soviets in a plan called "Kantokuen" From what I read the Japanese had 1.5 million men, 40,000 trucks, 2,000 tanks, 3,100 aircraft, 450,000 horses and 10,000 pieces of artillery ready to do it. It was all set for September 1941 until the US took action against Japan. Would it have worked?
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  33.  @johnlucas8479  To be fair to the Japanese they had less than 30,000 men against 73,000 Soviets and yet the Japanese were able to inflict 27,000 casualties while the Japanese lost 20,000. The Japanese were planning on using seven armies to attack the Red army in 41. That does sound like a serious threat.
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  34.  @johnlucas8479  We all know Stalin began moving Siberian units in about October, transferring 17 divisions and formed 11 new armies behind Moscow for the counter offensive in December. But these units would not have been in Moscow. What is the impact for the Soviets? Will the Red army be cut in two or could they still hold the 1.5 million strong Japanese invasion at bay even while dealing with over 3 million Germans?
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  35.  @johnlucas8479  Hypothetically speaking though John, if they did launch an offensive, do you think they could have pulled it off? Especially with the vast number of manpower and material the Japanese were prepared to commit?
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  36.  @johnlucas8479  It probably depends on the strategy the Japanese used. I think a well organised campaign which was planned to coincide with Germany’s Barbarossa and exploit soviet weakness and avoid soviet strengths might have done a lot to Soviet moral. In a ground campaign in open country the Soviets did have a huge advantage. In mountainous country, it maybe harder. Also as you said the the red air force certainly did not compare to the Japanese air force in training and skill. The right strategy, would be to attack in the mountainous region in the USSR-Chinese border near Vladivostok, defend in depth with massive air support on the left flank on the open plains in Mongolia, to try and provoke Soviet tank units to outrun their fuel supply lines, and then hit fuel/supply trucks with aircraft. The objective being to immobilise Soviet tank units by denial of fuel. Plus perhaps an end run sea invasion of Siberia north of Vladivostok heavily supported by Japanese carriers and destroyers laying down naval gunfire.
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  37.  @johnlucas8479  If you were a betting man John, who do you think would win if Kantokuen went ahead, so those 7 Japanese armies, plus naval and air force elements against the Red army units in that area.
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  38.  @johnlucas8479  Were they really bogged down though, i mean on paper the Japanese seemed to have firm control over a lot of the coastal areas and cities in China. When the attack started they would be heading to Blagoveshchensk, Kuibyshevka, Lake Khanka, Sakhalin, followed up by Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk, Skovorodino, Sovetskaya Gavan, Nikolayevsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka Peninsula. Some of the targets would be taken by the navy not the army in Manchuria. Look at a map of the capital of Mongolia and draw a line up, that was where they planned to be at the end of 1942, then they planned on limited actions as they intended to dig in and hold. Baykalsk would be in operation range, but they would be setting up there main defences in Naushki/Lake Baikal.
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  39. Taking the Saar would not have shortened the war.
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  40.  @guyh9992  I think the type of commander who could get on with the Australians, would be a man like Bill Slim who managed to get the Americans, Indians, South Africans, Gurkhas, British and Chinese to work together. They usually referred to Slim as "Uncle Bill" and "the Soldiers soldier."
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  41.  @bigwoody4704  More like Albert Kesselring outgeneralled Patton since his army still escaped to Italy.
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  42.  @bigwoody4704  Admittedly Bill Slim is my favourite overall, but i still think that Percival, Wavell, Ritchie, and Auchinleck were not as succesful as Montgomery
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  43.  @bigwoody4704  Nah i keep hearing about that, send it over in a link
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  44.  @bigwoody4704  I think Winston did sum up Montgomery "in defeat, unbeatable, in victory, unbearable" he was a man in love with his own image as much as i do defend Monty, he was definitely an egomaniac with a difficult personality and always hell bent on getting to Berlin and having the glory of winning the war
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  45.  @bigwoody4704  Does Winston have any quotes regarding the issues with the taking of Caen?
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  46. ​ @bigwoody4704  Its almost as controversial as the Market Garden topic, i still don't get why on one hand he was supposed to take caen but then the other hand some say it wasnt his plan, i mean how do you explain what he said here i know its controversial Montgomery: Notes for address to General Officers of the Four Field Armies, 7 April 1944. 'Operation Thunderclap' "Second British Army To assault to the west of the R.Orne and develop operations to the south and south east, in order to secure airfield sites and to protect the eastern flank of the First US Army while the latter is capturing Cherbourg. In its subsequent operations the army will pivot on its left and offer a strong front against enemy movement towards the lodgement areas from the east"
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  47.  @bigwoody4704  Yeah but the difference i'm not trolling, i'm just pointing out that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the USA either, but if anything i think we can agree that, the worst defeat of early 1941 was Kiev, in the first year of German invasion of Russia the Red army lost 5 million men and 30,000 tanks, not even Dunkirk and the Philippines campaign compare to such HORRIFIC losses as that.
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  48. Starmer has also done what the government in the 1990's failed to do, united the catholics and protestants!
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  49.  @scottperry7311  The British did learn though at Alam Halfa in August 1942 instead of chasing the Germans and getting ambushed by their anti tank guns, they dug in, in hull down postions and waited for the Germans to come to them instead turning their own tactics against them.
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  50. Monty and Slim understood this aspect.
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