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Bullet-Tooth Tony
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Comments by "Bullet-Tooth Tony" (@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-) on "Eisenhower’s Broad Front vs Monty’s Narrow Front in 1944" video.

Three prominent German commanders all thought the same, it was the wrong strategy. First is Field Marshall Von Runstedt “the best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Strategically and politically, Berlin was the target. Germany’s strength is in the north. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open.There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in early September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin. By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and 1st parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Maas and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany.” Second is Hasso Von Mantueffel, commander of the 5th Panzer Army. “I am in full agreement with Montgomery. I believe General Eisenhower’s insistence on spreading the Allied force’s out for a broader advance was wrong.The acceptance of Montgomery’s plan would have shortened the war considerably. Above all, tens of thousands of lives- on both sides- would have been saved.” Lastly, Gunther Blumentritt, one of the key planners of the German invasion of Poland and France. "After the war, Blumentritt disagreed with the Allies' strategy in the west at this time, noting the precarious nature of the German position with only one armoured division against the twelve of the Allies. He stated that had Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group been unleashed earlier for a concentrated armoured assault (as Montgomery had wished) rather than fighting on a broad front, "Such a breakthrough ... would have torn the weak German front to pieces and ended the war in the winter of 1944."
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@johnlucas8479 German tactics in general were focused on concentration of force ( Schwerpunkt) The German’s attacked on a narrow front using overwhelming numbers against the defenders at that point, with the French being unable to react quickly enough to reduce the odds.
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@TheImperatorKnight TIK you should do a video on the Falaise Gap controversy
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@xchen3079 Between Monty and Patton... Monty commanded more men, was concerned with bigger issues, and achieved greater successes. Normandy was Monty's success, and the Allied armies attained the areas that Monty had made as objectives for the campaign 3 days sooner than had originally been intended. Patton, by contrast, never commanded anything more than an army and was much of a tactical commander. His greatest success is the rush from Normandy to Metz and the 90 degree wheel in the Bulge... but the former was against a German army that had already been beaten by the slogging match in the Normandy campaign and the later was against the flank of a German attack that was beginning to run out of fuel and manpower. At Metz, where Patton faced a dug in and determined enemy... Patton was stopped dead by French and German made fortifications, some of which going all the way back to the 1800s.
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@Jameson-d8x Montgomery’s plan was to press the attack on the narrow front before the Germans had a chance to resupply and regroup. A concentrated attack on the disorganised German troops after Cobra would see more success than to spread the Allied lines along the broad front. Eisenhower ignored warnings that the Allies were overstretching their supply lines because he wanted to "Keep Patton moving", which proved futile. Moving forward beyond the Seine, the Allies had very long supply lines down to the south of the line. It was difficult to maintain offensive operations for extended periods of time. This was not helped by Patton’s brilliant run to the east, which further pushed the bounds of their supply. A narrow front in Monty’s zone would be closer to the main supply hubs. It could be kept in supply more easily than troops in the south. His plan was to capture additional ports as he moved to the north east. Thus, he would never be far from a supply depot.
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@Jameson-d8x " Considering that the Germans had enough reserves to effectively counter a single narrow thrust," Not after France they did not, the Germans had less than 13 weakened divisions to oppose over 40 Allied divisions. They only managed to build up those reserves in December 1944. " but were completely incapable of resisting a broad front" How do you explain the Ardennes offensive then? THAT is what occurred because the entire frontline was thinned out as a consquence of Eisenhowers Broad front strategy, which allowed the Germans to punch through, and the only reason they didn't fully drive them out is because they didn't have the fuel and the manpower as they originally did in 1940, BUT the Germans did exploit a weakness because of that strategy and created a huge hole in the Allied lines.
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@Jameson-d8x " Blumentritt disagreed with the Allies′ strategy in the west, discussing the precarious nature of the German position with its meager one armoured division against the twelve of the Allies, and he stated that had Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group been unleashed earlier for a concentrated armoured assault (as he had wished) rather than fighting on a broad front, "Such a breakthrough ... would have torn the weak German front to pieces and ended the war in the winter of 1944 ."
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@Jameson-d8x Leave them intact? The Allies were literally going to SMASH straight through the German army with everything they had, tanks, artillery, air power, soldiers etc. One must remember that Walter Model in 1944 had only 100 tanks available compared to over 2,400 tanks in 21st Army Group alone.
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Monty's proposal to Eisenhower to envelop the Ruhr with 40 Allied divisions instead of spreading the Allies out on a Broad front would have shortened WW2. In an interview after the war Von Rundstedt himself stated that there was no way the Germans could have prevented such a concentrated thrust from enveloping the Ruhr in the autumn of 1944; the necessary German Forces simply did not exist.
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Rommel "I remind you, that Montgomery is a British commander. And he has driven us halfway across Africa."
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@johnlucas8479 During the interwar period, aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with systematic application of the traditional German tactic of Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare), deep penetrations and the bypassing of enemy strong points to encircle and destroy enemy forces in a Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle/battle of encirclement) Wiki on Blitzkrieg.
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@johnlucas8479 The fundamental difference is a Broad front is more about a slow methodical build up of resources something that the Alies did for Operation Overlord, the Germans didn't operate that way, the narrow thrust was more akin to German methods.
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@johnlucas8479 The basic problem is that if you cover the whole front, then you spread yourself thin and are strong nowhere. Conversely, if you obey the fundamental military rule of concentration in one place, that lets you generate your full strength, but you can no longer cover the whole line. This inescapable dilemma hands the advantage to the attacker. The defence must try to be strong enough everywhere (impossible), the offence only has to be strong enough in one place (quite achievable) in order to break through. That is the basic reason why Montgomery’s plan for a big left hook was right and the broad front advance was wrong. The imperative of the defensive meant the Germans had no choice but to accept spreading their forces and being strong nowhere. The Allies, however, had the option of massing their force in an overwhelming concentration on one sector of the front, but they chose not to do it.
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@markskeldon1347 The Metz and Hurtgenwald campaigns in particular
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@walterm140 Breaking into the Saar is absurd because of the fact there is nothing of strategic value to be gained. You don't end the war by taking the south, you end it by taking the North, and grabbing the Industrial Rhur . nothing you say is logical and you clearly don't understand strategy.
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@walterm140 Von Runstedt and Blumentritt disagreed with that.
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I too want to see a video on it, it would expose the lies that have been spread about Monty, just like the lies about Caen not being a holding action.
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@nickdanger3802 Did the Germans invade France on a broad front? No, they concentrated their forces in the Ardennes.
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@johnlucas8479 Would logistic problems have defeated Monty’s big left hook? If I may put in another word, the question of logistics is often raised. The Allies in autumn 1944 had great strength in manpower, armour and all equipment, but prior to opening up a large Channel port, it was impossible to bring all their strength to bear on the front line. Eisenhower stated this problem meant Montgomery’s planned thrust could not have been maintained logistically. Carlo d’Este echoes that view. However, Monty’s plan, if implemented as he intended, would actually have solved the logistic problem more swiftly than any other approach. First, you take all the armour and motorised units of four armies (Crerar, Dempsey, Simpson, Hodges) and make one mobile attacking force, under a single commander (Montgomery or Bradley). Secondly, you take the logistic resources (engineers, pioneers, transport, fuel, etc.) of five armies (the above four plus Patton) and use them to support the attack. You send this mighty force driving ahead on the left wing through Belgium and Holland, leaving non-motorised troops behind in static defence. The attacking force is now more mobile than ever, because it is 100% motorised, and has more fuel than ever, because it has five armies’ worth of fuel in place of four. At the same time, the combined engineering and pioneer resources of five armies give it the ability to surmount rapidly any and all physical obstacles it may meet. It is also easier to resupply these forces, as they are all in one place, not dispersed on a wide front. In this way, the immediate logistic problems are solved. The nub of the matter is this: the amount of fuel and resources initially available under Ike’s plan and Monty’s plan is the same. As events showed, that amount was sufficient to let five entire armies move forward steadily in line abreast along the whole front. If you extract the armour and mass it in one sector, and give it all the fuel and support, you can then drive that smaller but much more powerful force ahead a lot faster and a lot further. What can the enemy now do against this fast-striding behemoth? Any German armoured force in or near its path faces a sharp dilemma: either fight where you stand (suicide) or withdraw to concentrate with other units (surrendering territory). The only logical course for the German armoured and mobile units is to withdraw, pull together whatever strength they have and postpone battle until it becomes unavoidable. However, it is quite possible that Hitler, initially at least, would have issued non-withdrawal orders. In that case, each Panzer force would have been destroyed in turn as it came up against the Mighty Mobile. Either way, the Allied advance would rapidly clear the Low Countries of German armour. Now Antwerp and other ports could be opened up. In this scenario, German occupying troops left stranded by the disappearance of their armour and supplies would no doubt resist for a time and would sabotage and destroy port facilities as much as they could (as happened in the actual event). However, the difference in this case is, first, the time they have available for sabotage is less, because the clearance of the region has been that much quicker, and secondly, the resources the Allies have for repairing facilities are that much greater (five armies’ engineers instead of one or two). As a result, Antwerp and other ports would have been in operational use by the Allies a good deal earlier than actually happened, and the Allied thrust would have been reinforced all the more.
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@johnlucas8479 Would logistic problems have defeated Monty’s big left hook? If I may put in another word, the question of logistics is often raised. The Allies in autumn 1944 had great strength in manpower, armour and all equipment, but prior to opening up a large Channel port, it was impossible to bring all their strength to bear on the front line. Eisenhower stated this problem meant Montgomery’s planned thrust could not have been maintained logistically. Carlo d’Este echoes that view. However, Monty’s plan, if implemented as he intended, would actually have solved the logistic problem more swiftly than any other approach. First, you take all the armour and motorised units of four armies (Crerar, Dempsey, Simpson, Hodges) and make one mobile attacking force, under a single commander (Montgomery or Bradley). Secondly, you take the logistic resources (engineers, pioneers, transport, fuel, etc.) of five armies (the above four plus Patton) and use them to support the attack. You send this mighty force driving ahead on the left wing through Belgium and Holland, leaving non-motorised troops behind in static defence. The attacking force is now more mobile than ever, because it is 100% motorised, and has more fuel than ever, because it has five armies’ worth of fuel in place of four. At the same time, the combined engineering and pioneer resources of five armies give it the ability to surmount rapidly any and all physical obstacles it may meet. It is also easier to resupply these forces, as they are all in one place, not dispersed on a wide front. In this way, the immediate logistic problems are solved. The nub of the matter is this, the amount of fuel and resources initially available under Ike’s plan and Monty’s plan is the same. As events showed, that amount was sufficient to let five entire armies move forward steadily in line abreast along the whole front. If you extract the armour and mass it in one sector, and give it all the fuel and support, you can then drive that smaller but much more powerful force ahead a lot faster and a lot further. What can the enemy now do against this fast-striding behemoth? Any German armoured force in or near its path faces a sharp dilemma: either fight where you stand (suicide) or withdraw to concentrate with other units (surrendering territory). The only logical course for the German armoured and mobile units is to withdraw, pull together whatever strength they have and postpone battle until it becomes unavoidable. However, it is quite possible that Hitler, initially at least, would have issued non-withdrawal orders. In that case, each Panzer force would have been destroyed in turn as it came up against the Mighty Mobile. Either way, the Allied advance would rapidly clear the Low Countries of German armour. Now Antwerp and other ports could be opened up. In this scenario, German occupying troops left stranded by the disappearance of their armour and supplies would no doubt resist for a time and would sabotage and destroy port facilities as much as they could (as happened in the actual event). However, the difference in this case is, first, the time they have available for sabotage is less, because the clearance of the region has been that much quicker, and secondly, the resources the Allies have for repairing facilities are that much greater (five armies’ engineers instead of one or two). As a result, Antwerp and other ports would have been in operational use by the Allies a good deal earlier than actually happened, and the Allied thrust would have been reinforced all the more.
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@Julian the German 10th army.
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"Bradley and Patton did not trust Montgomery to carry out the plan, given his failure to close the northern pincher at Falaise." It was as much Bradley's fault as anyone else. He and his Chief of Staff ordered Patton to halt and pull back XVth Corps in several phone calls on Aug 13. He did not contact Montgomery to ask that the Army Group boundary be shifted, and discouraged Eisenhower's offer to do so. Omar Bradley was thought Patton’s forces were too few to halt the "stampede" and Patton’s forces would be “trampled.” He ordered Patton to halt and gather his strength at Argentan saying “I much preferred a solid shoulder at Argentan to the possibility of a broken neck at Falaise.” Patton had reached Argentan on August 13th. He was ordered to retreat to an arbitrary line south of Argentan.
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@xchen3079 "Ruhr plan is the most stupid one you can think. Allies huge armed forces fall into a swamp of industrial towns and compounds, which is the most horrible nightmare any general can imagine" I don't know if you have even bothered to look at a map but the terrain to the South is very hilly in places, Ideally suited to static defences. Southern Germany is a defender’s paradise. A drive across the Rhine there would make good progress until it ran into the other side of the Rhine River Valley. Nothing but forests and hills. And it’s further from Normandy where all the supplies are coming in. The Ruhr district on the other hand to the North lies in flatter country at the edge of the almost featureless North European Plain, ideal for an Allied mechanised advance. Much German armour had been destroyed in the Battle of Normandy, and given the Allies successes with armour, it seems only logical to have pressed very hard across Northern Germany where the remainder of the German army would be finished off in a mobile battle over the North German plains , rather than hull-down in front of the hills with artillery placed on top. Thus it makes ZERO since to head South, even SHAEF supported a Northern advance.
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@phann860 But there are at least 2 examples during WW2 where his armies did move with speed, after El Alamein the Eighth army advanced over 780 miles in 20 days, during the break out of Normandy, his 21st army also advanced 350 miles in four days taking Amiens and Antwerp.
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@phann860 You know that Patton also got bogged down in the Lorraine right?
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@ditto1958 "and for most of my life I’ve been told by other Americans that if Ike had assigned Montgomery to do a narrow front offensive, he would have failed miserably," I think it would have worked, Monty's plan made the most sense and would've brought the Allies closer to the channel ports of Antwerp thus shortening supply lines, whereas Pattons would've stretched all the way back to Cherbourg, he would not be able to get very far into Germany with such stretched supply lines. Compare the distance of Cherbourg to Berlin to Antwerp to Berlin, it's 13 hours away from the South and only 8 hours through the North, the Netherlands is much closer to Germany. Thus why 21st Army Group should be given priority.
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Most people forget that Monty was the most experienced of the Allied commanders and played the key role in Normandy, which was needed to kick start the reconquest of France.
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@bigwoody4704 The operation was a success, with both divisions capturing Rhine bridges and securing towns that could have been used by Germany to delay the advance of the British ground forces. The two divisions incurred more than 2,000 casualties, but captured around 3,500 German soldiers.
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Right so a bigger hindrance who wanted to shorten the war? How does that make him a hindrance exactly? Can you please stop spamming this comment on every WW2 video, it's getting tedious now.🙄😴
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The Germans after getting mauled in France, could only assemble 13 divisions, mostly battered units with little to no heavy armour, which would've clearly have gotten crushed by a single Allied punch from 21st Army Group.
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@dongilleo9743 I’m not sure a lot of people realise just how disorganised the German army was after Normandy. One of the reasons they pulled all the way back to Germany was to tighten up their lines and give themselves some breathing room. Montgomery’s plan was to press the attack on the narrow front before the Germans had a chance to resupply and regroup. A concentrated attack on the disorganised German troops would see more success than to spread the Allied lines along the broad front. Eisenhower ignored warnings that the Allies were overstretching their supply lines because he wanted to "Keep Patton moving", which proved futile. Moving forward beyond the Seine, the Allies had very long supply lines down to the south of the line. It was difficult to maintain offensive operations for extended periods of time. This was not helped by Patton’s brilliant run to the east, which further pushed the bounds of their supply. A narrow front in Monty’s zone would be closer to the main supply hubs. It could be kept in supply more easily than troops in the south. His plan was to capture additional ports as he moved to the north east. Thus, he would never be far from a supply depot.
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@johntrottier1162 Monty’s concept was of a concentrated mass of Allied armour, with all available logistical support devoted to it, directed against the Ruhr, a threat which would force the remaining German armour to give battle, and then let the great Allied superiority in armour and air power destroy it. When you have that level of superiority, what you need is a large set battle to exploit it. If this basic concept had been applied, the Germans would have been forced to come out and fight for the Ruhr, just as the Japanese were forced to come out and fight for Leyte. Once the German armour was finished off, the road to Berlin then really would lie open. This was the Schlieffen plan in reverse: a wide flanking move to reach round and stab the enemy in his industrial heartland. The appearance of the mass of Allied armour on their west flank heading round towards the Ruhr would inevitably force the German armour to come to meet it. The Allies would then be able to fight their decisive tank and air battle, on the flat plains of North Germany. It is worth noting that the Germans used the Schlieffen plan, or a variant of it, in each world war. Each time, their idea was an outflanking move in the west, sweeping round through the Low Countries, not a broad front advance. This shows that, in strategic terms, the German General Staff agreed with Monty or it shows that Monty took a leaf out of the Germans page.
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@davemac1197 Those armoured units also did that in the face of strong enemy resistance, facing SS Panzer divisions, unlike Patton who burst through a couple of undertrained panzer brigades at Arracourt. I've never understood the hype with him, even the US 2nd armoured saw more enemy armour than the 4th armoured division.
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The Germans had only 2 weakened armoured divisions and nine infantry divisions between them on the Western Front, which would not have stood a chance facing 40 Allied divisions supported by 4,000 tanks, 6,000 artillery guns and 1,600 air craft.
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It's easy to retreat when you leave 95% of your heavy equipment behind 🤷‍♂
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@butts-r-flyeffect2838 O Connor was very much a British Manstein. The Falaise trap might've resulted in the entire German army bagged. His tactical acumen with combined arms was excellent. Outside of the Eastern Front, rarely has an entire axis army been totally annihilated like Operation Compass.
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Market Garden was part of the Broad front strategy.
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You can't fail unless you try.. and no, the largest number of allied deaths of any WW2 battle was the Battle of the Bulge.
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@phann860 I don't see why not, this isn't exactly the first time the Brits came up with a bold plan that had potential. Even during WW1, Plan 1919 was drawn up by British officer J.F.C. Fuller in 1918 which called for Allied tanks to rapidly advance into the Germans rear area to destroy supply bases and lines of communication, which would also be bombed. He suggested a lightning thrust toward the command center of the German Army. The way I see it, is the British have been waging war for 2,000 years, they should know a thing or two about military operations with the amount of battles they've won. Why would you not trust the Brits with their knowledge and experience?
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@phann860 Montgomery was barely even involved in MG.
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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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@rexfrommn3316 "No invasion of Germany was feasible in 1945 without Antwerp secure in Allied hands with cleared shipping lanes." Which is what Market Garden would address, an advance to Zuider Zee, cutting off the German 15th army to free up the Scheldt.
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150 divisions in the Eastern front and only 20 battered divisions in the Western front, meanwhile the Allies have 40 divisions in the Western front.
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"Everyone hates Monty because he failed as a general in every battle and strategic plan," Eh? Did Monty lose at El Alamein? How about at the Mareth line? Tunisia? Avalanche? Overlord? Was Varsity a failure? What are you talking about? "His ego killed more soldiers than any single general on the Allied side" Monty's worst operation on paper as far casualties go is Market Garden with less than 9,000 casualties, Omar Bradley suffered 33,000 casualties in the Hurtgen Forest. Montgomery was more cautious by nature and kept casualties down compared to other generals.
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@johnlucas8479 One of the great what if's of WW2 History, is how things could have been had Richard O Connor not got captured on his recon patrol when he accidently ran into a couple of Rommels soldiers in North Africa along side his colleague Philip Neame. Maybe he would be the British armies field commander in France instead of Dempsey, with a more innovative commander in place like O Connor perhaps Goodwood and Epsom wouldn't have been such slogs in Normandy. I seem to recall O Connor had wanted APC's, infantry and air reconnaisance for Goodwood but he was denied those elements by Dempsey who chose to go ahead instead with just sending in his armoured divisions forward in a big frontal assault.
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@bigwoody4704 He was also given another chance in Operation Varsity, which succeeded.
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@bigwoody4704 In the official summary of the operation, Major General Ridgeway wrote that the operation had been flawless and that the two airborne divisions involved had destroyed enemy defences that might otherwise have taken days to reduce, ensuring the operation was successful. Several modern historians have also praised the operation and the improvements that were made for Varsity. G. G. Norton argued that the operation benefited from the lessons learned from previous operations. Historian Peter Allen states that while the airborne forces took heavy casualties, Varsity diverted German attention from the Rhine crossing onto themselves. Thus, the troops fighting to create a bridgehead, across the Rhine, suffered relatively few casualties, and were able to "break out from the Rhine in hours rather than days
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@bigwoody4704 "Never once getting driven off the continent " Driven out of the Phlippines though, i guess that makes us quits, lets just acknowledge that both our nations were unprepared against Germany and Japan in 1940-1941.
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@bigwoody4704 With regards to Falaise....the initial design of Cobra was to execute a deeper envelopment by attacking down the west bank of the Seine. Two divisions of XV Corps set out for Dreux on 15th August, and reached the Seine at Mantes on the 18th. .2 divisions ( 90, 2d Fr Arm) remained at Argentan, and reinforced by 80th division attacked north on 18th August. 5th armoured division turned left and attacked down the Seine on 20th August. XIX Corps came up on the left flank and attacked on the 21st, and neared Elbouf on the 24th, meeting the Canadians on the 26th. With Montgomery's approval, this attack had cut across the front of both the British and Canadian armies but was again unable to prevent many Germans from escaping across the Seine. There is another comment to be made about the number of Germans who escaped the partial encirclement which I don't think has been mentioned yet. Most of them were actually from support units rather than being fighting troops. According to Martin Blumenson in 'Breakout and Pursuit': "How many Germans escaped? No one knew. At the end of 20 August Army Group B reported that "approximately from 40 to 50 percent of the encircled units succeeded in breaking out and joining hands with the II SS Panzer Corps." This was an optimistic assessment. By the end of the following day, the strength of six of seven armored divisions that had escaped the pocket totalled, as reported at that time, no more than 2,000 men, 62 tanks, and 26 artillery pieces. Later estimates of the total number of Germans escaping varied between 20,000 and 40,000 men, but combat troops formed by far the smaller proportion of these troops. The average combat strength of divisions was no more than a few hundred men, even though the over-all strength of some divisions came close to 3,000. The explanation lay in the fact that a partial exodus had begun at least two or three days before the breakout attack--when shortages of ammunition, gasoline, and other supplies had already become acute.
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If they were out of their depth then why did Horrocks make the FASTEST allied advance of the war to Antwerp?
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@hdfoster5507 Marshall was already crying out for the 1st Allied Air Borne army to be used as it just sitting in England doing nothing, Eisenhower made the call for it to go ahead.
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@michaelmazowiecki9195 Not at all, we're talking about an advance of 40 divisions, thousands of tanks and air craft involved. The Germans on paper had only 13 weakened divisions to hold the front after over 400,000 of their men had been wiped out in France. it is obvious that their whole frontline would have been utterly smashed. Even the German commanders agreed that the narrow front was the best approach to defeat Germany.
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@michaelmazowiecki9195 "Putting a single attack front under his command failed at operation Market Garden. " He WAS NOT in command of Market Garden.
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@michaelmazowiecki9195 "If someone like Bradley or Patton had been put in charge then the chances of success would be greater but that still left the logistical problem." I disagree, because going south is irrelevant. It ignores strategic areas to the North like the Rhur industrial region. The Ruhr district to the North lies in flatter country at the edge of the almost featureless North European Plain, looking at the terrain on google, it seems ideal for an Allied mechanised advance. Much German armour had been destroyed in the Battle of Normandy, and given the Allies successes with armour, it seems only logical to have pressed very hard across Northern Germany where the remainder of the German army would be finished off in a mobile battle. It makes sense why Montgomery would want the Allies to advance there.
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@FlyMysticalDJ He wasn't even involved it was his subordinates that did the planning.
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@robinsattahip2376 Still had less casualties than any of Bradleys operations.
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@DovahFett Wellington is another great logistician, moved his armies through 5 countries ( Spain, Portugal, France and Belgium) and never lost a battle to Napoleon.
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@evinoshima9923 Is that what Hollywood told you? Monty was urging the Poles and Canadians attacking the gap to advance as quickly as possible, it was Bradley who refused to let Patton try and close the gap from the other flank. And when exactly did Patton move fast in September 1944 when he was bogged down for 3 months at Metz? British forces advanced 350 miles in six days, it took Patton 2 weeks to advance 60 miles after Cobra.
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@BobSmith-pn2yo Montgomery was correct that neutralizing Caen would effectively cut off all the Germans towards the beach heads, rendering Cherbourg practically useless. Even an attack on Caen would force the Germans to redeploy and rethink their strategy.
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@matthewgabbard6415 The Germans didn't have air superiority or enough supplies at the time.
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@phillipmiller1247 It was not the narrow front. The narrow front proposal of Monty would have entailed a 125 mile wide advance with 40 allied divisions in a big left hook. Market Garden took place while Ikes Broad front advance was still moving forward since all the attacks in the Hurtgen forest and Lorraine took place in the exact same month.
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@phillipmiller1247 You didn't read my comment properly, the Narrow front proposed in August to Ike as shown above by TIK was NOT Market Garden.
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@phillipmiller1247 Market Garden was an entirely different plan.
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@Jameson-d8x Apparently an opportunity might have been missed. Quote "The city and port fell to the 11th Armoured Division in early September, but Montgomery halted ... Corps for resupply short of the wide Albert Canal to the north of the city, which consequently remained in enemy hands.[94] Horrocks regretted this after the war believing that his corps might have advanced another 100 miles (160 km) with the fuel available.[95] Although some doubt this could have been achieved without delays,[93]*it is now known that...Corps was opposed by only one German division , although Allied forces were unaware of this at the time.[96] The pause allowed the Germans to regroup around the Scheldt River, and by the time the Allies resumed their advance, the First Paratroop Army (General Kurt Student) had arrived and set up strong defensive positions along the opposite side of the canal"* Quote "the 11th Armoured Division could have advanced 18 Miles further North to the base of the South Beveland Peninsular, thereby preventing German movement to and from the Peninsular. As it was, no such order was given and consequently Von Zangen was able to extract the remnants of his Fifteenth Army from the pocket around Brekens by ferrying them across the Schelde, mostly by night and then moving along the South Beveland Peninsular and from there into Holland."
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@phann860 "but I think that attacks were not really their forte." Blenheim, Operation Compass, the Hundred Days Offensive, and Cambrai shows the British could be very good on the attack. In 1918 whilst on the offensive they captured over 188,700 German troops and 2,840 guns!
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@phann860 "Waterloo a successful defence against Napoleon but it was the Prussians who really won the battle." That's like saying it was the British who won the Battle of the Bulge....
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@phann860 You clearly misinterpreted my comment. I said you comparing the Prussian efforts to the British, is like saying the British won the Battle of the Bulge, in other words you're trying to claim the Prussians did the equivalent of what the British did ( or in the Bulge's case, the USA) when they did not. Wellington fought the bulk of the French army the entire day.
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@phann860 Wellington had 68,000 men, the Prussians had 50,000 ( and didn't arrive until 5-6 hours after the battle started) and the British in that time managed to repulse the French army at Hougomont, Papelotte, drove back Napoleon's cavalry and broke the Imperial Guard in the Centre etc. Prussians only lost around 6,600 men while Wellington lost 15,000 so the Prussians didn't do most of the fighting.
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@sean640307 Yes Montgomerys build ups might have been methodical but his army was definitely capable of fast advances as was pointed out above. That's where people are getting the facts wrong, when they say slow, they are always relying on his supply build up but forget about what he did when his army got moving, i'm pretty sure that the advance from the Seine to Brussels 250 miles in just 4 days was a rate of advance unmatched by any other allied unit.
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@bigwoody4704 "Monty lost over 400 tanks" The chief problem with how Operation Goodwood has been looked at is tank losses and the fact it's been calculated differently for the two sides. The losses for Allied tanks have normally been counted by the number of tanks still operational at the end of each day of the operation, even though a large number of those counted as lost will be operational within a couple of days. While German tanks losses only count those tanks which are completely lost and unrecoverable after the end of the operation. So you end up with Allied losses of nearly 500 tanks against German losses of around 100 tanks, but if you use the same type of calculation for both sides, in this case the German system, Allied losses fall to 150-200 while German losses remain the same at 100
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@ToolTimeTabor The Germans thought such an attack would've torn the German front wide open. "Blumentritt disagreed with the Allies′ strategy in the west, discussing the precarious nature of the German position with its meager one armoured division against the twelve of the Allies, and he stated that had Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group been unleashed earlier for a concentrated armoured assault (as he had wished) rather than fighting on a broad front, "Such a breakthrough ... would have torn the weak German front to pieces and ended the war in the winter of 1944."
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@ToolTimeTabor Of course that's hindsight, but the reality is the situation for Germany in August 1944 was dire. Their army had been mauled in France and comprehensively routed and driven all the way back to the Rhine. The Allies had air superiority in the West, the Germans did not, the narrow front strategy had a good chance of working given these circumstances.
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@ToolTimeTabor This wasn't the first time ideas like this have been thought up either, look at Plan 1919 by JFC Fuller. The concepts are similar.
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@ToolTimeTabor The Broad front strategy was to encircle the Ruhr in the fall of 1944. Instead the Allied armies were stopped at the Rhine and fought a series of very costly battles (Aachen, Metz, Hurtgen forest) for small gain. By March they were still stuck behind the Rhine, and stayed there until the Red army broke down the front door in the Vistula-Oder offensive., at which point German resistance degraded rapidly. The Broad Front strategy would only work if the Germans were in disarray, otherwise all 3 attacks would fail. Brooke and Monty believed (correctly) that the Germans were reconstituting their defences, therefore a single powerful thrust at a decisive point to seize a Rhine crossing was the best option. Plus the narrow front plan would open more ports quicker and thus make the supply issues be at least partially resolved quicker.
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@johnlucas8479 If the Scheldt was addressed after Market Garden, Antwerp, Rotterdam etc would recieve priority in supplies. The attacks towards Hurtgen and Aachen would be more like diversionary moves to draw German troops away. The main strike would be through the North German plains. The thing is with the Broadfront the Germans managed to defend everywhere and still build up a 25 division reserve and launch it into the Ardennes and almost split the US line. Frederick the Great said that “he who defends everything defends nothing” By trying to attack everywhere Eisenhower could attack nowhere with the strength needed to force a decision. Each thrust was weak enough to be held and that allowed the Germans to build their reserves and take the initiative. A concentrated attack on the disorganised German troops would see more success than to also spread the Allied lines along the broad front. A significant factor in this is that had the Germans tried to hold on the Seine, the Allied supply lines wouldn’t have terribly far to travel. Moving forward beyond the Seine, the Allies had very long supply lines down to the south of the line. It was difficult to maintain offensive operations for extended periods of time. This was not helped by Patton’s brilliant run to the east, which further pushed the bounds of their supply. A narrow front in Monty’s zone would be closer to the main supply hubs. It could be kept in supply more easily than troops in the south. His plan was to capture additional ports as he moved to the north-east. Thus, he would never be far from a supply depot.
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@johnlucas8479 The best chance would've been after the liberation of Paris the situation on August 25th was that the Germans were in full retreat all over, on the northern front, the Germans had only 2 weakened armoured divisions and nine infantry divisions. Montgomery had 13 infantry divisions and 5 armoured divisions under his command. His plan further called for Hodge’s 4 infantry and 1 armoured division. This would have been more than enough to push in through the narrow front. Not only that, but supplies would be funnelled to his troops while the German supply lines were in disorder at best The Germans did not have the means to counterattack to the north. Any attempt to do anything but retreat would see them cut off by the 7th Army. They also did not have the manpower to both hold back the Allies in Italy and attack Patch's army to the west. Overlord and Dragoon forces linked up by mid September. They would have sooner, yet Dragoon troops were trying to chase down the German Army Group G before they made it to the more defensible mountains. The Allies could have had a defensive line from Normandy to the French Riviera by the end of August, thus allowing for a narrow front attack in the north without fear of a surprise attack from the south. Even if they had waited as they did, it was not possible for the Germans to mount any kind of attack that was more than an inconvenience.
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@blakesutherland519 Fifth largest economy in the world, not what i would call irrelevant.
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It doesn't mean that Monty himself is going to be carrying it out, it would be his Corps commanders on the ground, who were well suited for this nature of warfare ie Horrocks, Pip Roberts, Miles Dempsey, etc
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@bigwoody4704 First of all, The British 21st Army deployed to France in 1944 with over 1,020,581 men, and of those only 30,000 were killed at Caen. That still leaves 990,581 soldiers in France to take the fight into Germany. German Army Group B on the other hand lost over 158,930 men. So in fact German losses were much worse as proof by the fact on the evening of the 1st July 1944 in a conversation with Von Rundstedt said to his officers " Make peace, you fools "
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@thevillaaston7811 And it's still less than the number of prisoners that the Eighth army captured in Tunisia.
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@bigwoody4704 Just as the US had 4 years to take the Philippines back, pot kettle black. France is not a British colony either.
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@johnfleet235 "A British Admiral warned Monty about the need to take supply ports" Which is what Market Garden would address.
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@johnlucas8479 In hindsight, regarding Antwerp it seems that the order to stop might have been a mistake John. Quote "The city and port fell to the 11th Armoured Division in early September, but Montgomery halted ... Corps for resupply short of the wide Albert Canal to the north of the city, which consequently remained in enemy hands.[94] Horrocks regretted this after the war believing that his corps might have advanced another 100 miles (160 km) with the fuel available.[95] Although some doubt this could have been achieved without delays,[93] it is now known that ... Corps was opposed by only one German division , although Allied forces were unaware of this at the time.[96] The pause allowed the Germans to regroup around the Scheldt River, and by the time the Allies resumed their advance, the First Paratroop Army (General Kurt Student) had arrived and set up strong defensive positions along the opposite side of the canal Quote "the 11th Armoured Division could have advanced 18 Miles further North to the base of the South Beveland Peninsular, thereby preventing German movement to and from the Peninsular. As it was, no such order was given and consequently Von Zangen was able to extract the remnants of his Fifteenth Army from the pocket around Brekens by ferrying them across the Schelde, mostly by night and then moving along the South Beveland Peninsular and from there into Holland."
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@johnlucas8479 I would like to think he would have done a decent job, he was excellent at manuever warfare and didn't make the mistakes of the 'newbies' that took over after he was captured who were largely from the 'tanks can do anything, cavalry charge' school that played into Rommel's hands so often during the Battleaxe, Brevity and Crusader operations. Trouble with the British high command is that too often the bowler hat types ended up being picked over more forward thinking officers. I think that O'Connor should have been given much more opportunities in France, from what I discovered after he had broke through the German defences in Operation Bluecoat he had a chance to close off the German army in the Falaise Pocket but was halted. Monty ended up then giving the exploitation role to Horrocks over O Connor.
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@johnlucas8479 Yes and especially Slims planning of his river crossing to cut the Japanese off between Meiktila and Mandlay. Imagine that Slim didn't even have boats or pontoon bridges to start. He had to find a way to get 606,000 men across one the widest rivers in the world the Irrawaddy, so how did he do it? He ordered his men to chop down forest teak trees and they built 550 10 tonne barges.
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@johnlucas8479 Another underrated campaign is the late 1945 Italian Spring offensive involving Richard McCreery and Lucian Truscott together, they captured over a million German troops and kicked the Germans back into Austria. Unlike slogs like Monte Cassino, this operation involved a lot of manuever and dash.
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" The only reason why Montgomery is still even thought of is due to British inadequacy over their ultimate contribution to victory in WWII. The Americans and mostly the Soviets defeated the Germans." Bollocs, the British Empire stood alone for 20 months and after Dunkirk, it destroyed 30% of the fighting strength of the Luftwaffe, which was not fully rebuilt and entered the Soviet campaign greatly diminished.engaged the Germans in Africa, Greece, and tied up 300,000 German troops in Norway for the duration and captured 250,000 in Tunisia, destroyed the capital ship strength of the Kriegsmarine forcing them to rely on submarines, discovered the enigma codes that allowed the allies to decipher the German war plans, crushed 80% of the German armour in Normandy at Caen, which allowed the U.S 1st army to advance to Cherbourg, conquered all of Northern Germany and took the surrender of the German army at Luneberg in 1945 Not what I would consider inadequate....... "And it was their commanders that directed the battle" And for the record D-day was actually commanded by Frederick Morgan, Leigh Mallory, Admiral Ramsay and Bernard Montgomery not Ike.
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Monty's plan was to use 40 divisions.
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Mark Clarke as well.
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@davemac1197 I can't, utube is going bonkers
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@anthonyeaton5153 It was to be an envelopment.
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@treyriver5676 The Americans did grow larger around December 1944 7 months after the Liberation of France. But for most of the North African campaigns, Italy, Sicily, and including D-day, the British and Commonwealth forces did the bulk of the fighting.
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The German economy is in the Rhur, taking that would hamper the German war effort to produce war material, the South has nothing of value.
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There were 4 armies to be launched, 1 British, 1 Canadian, 2 American, so how does Montgomery get all the glory and others don't?
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@elessartelcontar6578 Having just recently read through the Normandy portion of the Official History of the Canadian Army, Col. Stacey (the author) provides ample documentary evidence demonstrating a holding action in the Caen sector was always part of Montgomery's plan. Excerpted from "Appreciation on Possible Development of Operations to Secure a Lodgement Area", produced by 21st Army Group Planning, May 7, 1944 (one month before D-Day). This was forwarded to First US Army Group, among others, on 18 May under a covering letter which reads in part, "With regard to the outline of action at Part IV, this represents the Commander-In-Chief's [Montgomery's] intentions as far as they can be formulated at this stage." IV. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS The type of country immediately South of the initial bridgehead does not favour a rapid advance. The Allied build-up relative to the estimated German build-up indicates that a period may supervene round about D+14, when there will be a grave risk of operations stabilising on a line which gives the Germans advantages in defence. The greatest energy and initiative will be required at this period to ensure the enemy is not allowed to stabilise his defence. Once through the difficult bocage country, greater possibilities for manoeuvre and for the use of armour begin to appear. Our aim during this period should be to contain the maximum enemy forces facing the Eastern flank of the bridgehead, and to thrust rapidly toward Rennes. On reaching Rennes our main thrust should be towards Vannes; but diversionary thrusts with the maximum use of deception should be employed to persuade the enemy that our object is Nantes. If, at this time, the enemy weakens hsi Eastern force to oppose us North of Redon, a strong attack should be launched toward the Seine. Part IV of the Appreciation continues, advocating alternating attacks on the East and West flanks of the bridgehead in reaction to German reinforcement moves, in order to bring German reinforcements sent to the American front back to the British front.
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@Edax_Royeaux "Blumentritt disagreed with the Allies′ strategy in the west, discussing the precarious nature of the German position with its meager one armoured division against the twelve of the Allies, and he stated that had Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group been unleashed earlier for a concentrated armoured assault (as he had wished) rather than fighting on a broad front, "Such a breakthrough ... would have torn the weak German front to pieces and ended the war in the winter of 1944."
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@Bob Smith The reason Caen wasn't taken on the first day had a lot to do with the fact that a German panzer division (21st) containing 126 Panzer IV's attacked the troops from Sword beach heading towards the city, the Allied forces beat off the attack, but it gave the German's enough time to reinforce the defences around the city with the majority of their panzer divisions.
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Slow? Monty's 21st army carried out an advance of 250 miles in four days, a rate of advance unmatched by any allied unit.
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@sean640307 These comments from Martin Van Creveld's Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton book sum up the logistical situation. Quote "Compared with the Americans, the British forces were smaller, their line of communications was shorter, the road networks in Belgium were better than those in Lorraine, and the rail network in the British sector was comparatively intact . Perhaps most important of all, Montgomery's advance up to then had taken him closer to the Channel ports and shortened his supply lines, while Bradley's advance had moved away from the coast and had lengthened his supply lines"
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@sean640307 Yeah thats it
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@johnpeate4544 Hey John that Orangeman Bad guy is now mouthing off about Operation perch lol on the comment section of Rommel VS Montgomery Carol-Hannah 1 year ago " Montgomery, in defeat unbeatable, in victory unbearable. " - Winston Churchill 123 Reply 274 replies
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@bigwoody4704 I think they did try a wide hook around Caen during Operation Perch, but they were unfortunately hit by German counter attacks at Villars Bocages where a Heavy Panzer battalion and several Tigers, Panzer IVS under Michael Wittman was sitting.
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You realise that Monty was married right?
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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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@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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@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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@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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@bigwoody4704 Same here in England, food prices, petrol and heating etc have skyrocketed
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@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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" 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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@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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@Sargasso Sea Massive Don't forget Bill Slim and Richard O Connor
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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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@bigwoody4704 I think after what the Allies went through bashing against Caen and Metz, there's no way they'd desire to be put through urban warfare again at Berlin.
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@bigwoody4704 He wasn't supposed to take Rome though Woody, Mark Clarks orders were to cut off the German 10th army at Valmontone, instead he raced into Rome for the publicity, I don't think the Eigth army were too happy about that, that was a missed opportunity to encircle the Germans.
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@michaelkenny8540 I'm sure the 9th and 1st army soldiers were thankful that Monty didn't waste their lives needlessly and instead pulled them back to a defensible position.
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@bigwoody4704 "Please he got more men(paras) killed crossing the rhine j" It also has to be remembered there was a lot more German resistance in the Lower Rhine where 21st Army was, so of course casualties aren't going to be pretty.
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@bigwoody4704 At the start of the battle 9th Panzer had no tanks, just a few assault guns and a number of armoured half tracks, it also only had about 6,000 men, of whom only 3,000 were combat troops. 10th Panzer wasn't much better with just 8 Panthers, 16 Panzer VI's and 4 Stug III's. That is approximately it for armour around Arnham, of course, thanks to the closeness of Germany, armoured reinforcements were rushed to the area, but the claim there were large numbers of tanks in the area when the operation was launched is completely wrong.
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@johnpeate4544 El Guettar was a skirmish compared to El Alamein, which involved 300,000 troops.
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@bigwoody4704 Various eminent historians such as Max Hastings, William Weidner Carlo D’este have cast a poor light on the performance of 21st Army Group in NW Europe, characterising it as clinging onto WW1 attritional warfare methods and not learning from the combined arms doctrine adopted by the German and American armies. This is of course nonsense. The very fact that 21st Army Group defeated an obdurate and tactically enlightened German opponent in the difficult country of Normandy, Flanders and Holland in less than 6 months should point to that fact. Although there is much focus on the grinding battles of attrition around Caen in June-July 1944, and the heroic failure of Operation Market Garden in September, there are three much less well known major Commonwealth operational successes that stand out before the Rhine crossings. The airborne landings and combined operations of Richard Gale’s 6th Airborne Division and Commandos on the Orne river flank during and after D-Day (in particular the Battle of Breville from 7–13th June which secured the eastern flank of the invasion); Operation Bluecoat, the British breakout from Normandy on Bradley’s flank in late July and early August 1944 Operation Infatuate, the amphibious assault on Walcheren Island in the Scheldt estuary in November 1944.
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@bigwoody4704 "Imagine what this yapping jackel Repeate would say about IKE if he lost say 200,000 @ Dunkirk or 81,000 @ Singapore or 25-30,000 @ Tobruk but who the hell has losses like that?" We didn't lose 200,000 men at Dunkirk, British losses were 3,500 killed. so technically the worst battle for the British is Singapore.
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I would trust Montgomery, you know why? Because he had excellent staff like Philip Roberts, Richard O Connor, Miles Dempsey and Brian Horrocks under him to carry out such plans. I don't know why you think Monty is the one commanding tactically on the ground, he is a strategist, it would be his corps commanders doing the job ( the 4 generals above)
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