Comments by "TheEvertw" (@TheEvertw) on "Imperial War Museums" channel.

  1. One element not mentioned here is that Market Garden delayed the capture of the approaches of Antwerp. When Monty came round to capturing them, he found that during the delay, the Germans had heavily fortified them, meaning Antwerp was useless for many more months.
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  2. Excellent video!' I well remember the days of nail-biting and pray immediately following 24 Feb. May we soon see Russia defeated. Slava Ukraini!
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  3. That, and it did genocide on the original population.
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  4. The problem was not so much that the English were outnumbered, but that the Germans had the tactical initiative: they decided when to attack and where. When the plans became apparent, there was limited time to respond to them, and fighters needed to be spread out geographically to be quick enough to catch them in time. The Big Wing hindered at the flexibility that is required to respond effectively to attacks. The only thing that saved Britain was Hitlers decision to become predictable in focusing on London. And, of course the Dowding system, that was incredibly effective in directing Britain's fighter resources. Leigh-Mallory might as well have been a German spy for the good he did.
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  5. The blunders at Nijmegen proved disasterous. The commander there should have sent a detachment to quickly take the bridge in the first hour, then consolidated the eastern flank. Just like they did in Arnhem where they held the bridge for four days in spite of heavy attacks.
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  6. The Big wing sounds like something many modern CEO's would like. Easy to understand & explain, easy to control, very impressive to onlookers. But falls flat on its face when you look at the details & consequences.
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  7. ​ @gerhardris  Wow, that is a lot of excellent analysis! Thanks! My opinion of Monty is pretty dismal. He always made intricate plans that somehow always got bogged down in slugging matches. I much prefer a general like Patton who just outflanks the enemy and forces him to retreat. Monty failed because he could not see the openings that presented themselves, could not adapt his plans to take advantage of mistakes by the enemy. He got a LOT of his men killed that way. His fame was only due to the extreme mistakes made by the other British field commanders in Africa, who were outclassed by the Germans. As the Dutch say: In the land of the blind, one-eye is King. I wonder if the British did not give their junior officers and NCO's enough freedom, so that it all came down to static, deeply-thought-out plans that they had to stick to doggedly. That was the great strength of the Germans and the Yanks, that their small units had a lot of freedom to take initiative. And of course good communications.
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  8. Sad that many place names were butchered to such an extent I could not recognize them.
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  9. Putin only wants Crimea to use it as a springboard for subjugating Ukraine, apart from the natural resources. From Crimea he can control export from Odessa, Mykolaiv, the Donetsk river, and the ports on the sea of Azov. Especially if he also controls Snake Island, which controls the approach to the Danube. The argument that Russia needs a safe, ice-free deep water port is false: the port of Novorussia also meets those requirements. Which is where the Russian black-sea fleet is now holed-up after Sevastopol became too dangerous for them, making this argument moot.
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  10. Funny how Putin, for all his admiration of Stalin, failed to learn the lessons from Stalingrad. He is currently making the exact same mistakes Hitler made.
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  11. Strategic bombing does not defeat a people. As demonstrated by the Blitz, but also by the Germans who continued fighting hard as their cities were being reduced to rubble. Even the atomic bombs on Japan only gave an added incentive to surrender: their military had already been mostly defeated, and horrifying bombing campaigns had already laid many cities low.
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