Trying to supply a reinforced Corps up one two lane road is a huge gamble. And the whole operation depended on taking so many bridges intact; and yet the bridging equipment was all too often left behind by XXX Corps.
This is what you get when you try and plan an operation like that in a week.
Patton wanted to bounce METZ and reach the Rhine. If he had been given the supplies there is no reason to think it would not have happened.
And he was ready to attack right away-did not have to take a week to get ready.
That week was very important as the Germans were already starting to recover from their panic in Belgium.
The Brits blew a lot of intelligence calls in the war- if they were not reading Enigma they more often then not were wrong.
IMO the US forces were running into the Siegfried line and showed no sign of 'bouncing' anything . Look at the Battle of Achen and the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest for example. IMO there is no reason to think 3rd Army could 'bounce' Metz, which was one of the most heavily fortified areas in Europe. See this study for example which states that Third Army's capture of the province of Lorraine, involved an advance of only 40 to 60 miles, but required over 3 months fighting and 50,000 casualties.
I agree some of the Market Garden planning was poor, particularly the lack of priority for bridging equipment. However, the original plan called for the corps on either side of XXX Corps to advance to protect Hells Highway. Why didn't that happen? Because Patton, against orders had advanced into a precarious position and they had to cover the gap. The other corps also didn't get the supplies they had been promised by Eisenhower because of Patton's advance.
Eisenhower was also under pressure from the U.S. to use the Airborne Army for something having gone to the trouble of creating it. Not that organising an operation just to give your troops something to do is a good idea but I can see what the pressure was.
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