Comments by "Alan Pennie" (@alanpennie8013) on "Eisenhower’s Broad Front vs Monty’s Narrow Front in 1944" video.

  1.  @colinplatt1963  I think you're right about Dragoon. The operation didn't make sense except as part of a "broad front" strategy. Though I suppose it could have been used to liberate Northern Italy if that had been thought desirable.
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  2. It may all have worked out in the end, however frustrating the three - month delay in clearing Antwerp was.
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  3.  @sean640307  Nonsense.
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  4. It's interesting how some episodes of WW2 have simply been forgotten. Without "The Guns of Navarone" no one at all would remember The Dodecanese Campaign.
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  5. That seems rather tautological. That a broad front allows you to establish a broad front is only an advantage if there's some actual reason to prefer a broad front.
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  6.  @EdAtoZ  They didn't spread out though. Instead they concentrated in The Ardennes, though that didn't work out too well for them.
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  7.  @lyndoncmp5751  Bad country for paras.
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  8. Good explanation of what looks like an extraordinary delay in clearing the approaches to Antwerp on which depended the success of every other operation in this theatre.
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  9.  @johnpeate4544  Such an "inference" strikes me as insane. But then I reflect that there was no reason to believe that The Allies would be able to capture Antwerp intact before The Germans could wreck it. They were handed an amazing stroke of luck, and then threw it away.
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  10.  @johnpeate4544  As Tik the Brittany ports were utterly irrelevant. Allied planning really seems to have been bad. Though I guess only a choice of bad alternatives was available, until Antwerp fell. Interesting question how usable the southern French network would have been after the northern had been utterly destroyed.
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  11.  @johnpeate4544  I am highly sceptical about the feasibility of that "original planning". Certainly after Antwerp fell intact Chastity would have been completely pointless.
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  12. No doubt it could be repaired eventually but the allies have devoted the spring and summer of 1944 to wrecking it totally employing heavy bombers, light bombers and The French Resistance. If The Allies could reinforce Normandy faster than The Germans the battle there could be won. And if not, not.
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  13. The southern French ports (notably Marseilles) allowed the US armies on the southern part of the front to be maintained but I don't know whether it was a good idea to make an effort in the south. I suppose it did tie down a great many German soldiers.
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  14. This is an ex post facto rationalisation. The Anglo - Americans were incapable of advancing any further (until Antwerp was cleared) whatever their "intentions" may or may not have been.
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  15.  @legbreaker2762  14.38
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