AHC: Successful Operation Market Garden

That requires getting Montgomery to do that, and Monty would never listen to anyone else on such matters. :rolleyes:
You're right that Monty should have seen the need, and done it, but Eisenhower should have given orders to that end too. Nobody at SHAEF or Army group level appeared to give many clear orders which weren't open to interpretation or littered with more objectives than there were forces to achieve them...
 
You're right that Monty should have seen the need, and done it, but Eisenhower should have given orders to that end too. Nobody at SHAEF or Army group level appeared to give many clear orders which weren't open to interpretation or littered with more objectives than there were forces to achieve them...

Ike giving the orders is zero guarantee that Monty, who had zero respect for Ike, would obey them. If Ike gives them, Monty disobeys them, and he attempts to make Monty realize who commands who, the result is a massive command crisis and a result not any different from OTL. The real factor that doomed Market Garden is that the democracies had outrun their logistics, the Nazis had asserted a near-total control of the German people, and as a result the regime was actually recuperating its strength. A Nazi regime collapsed enough to have Market Garden work means the Allies meet the Soviets not on the Elbe, but on the Rhine.
 
A Nazi regime collapsed enough to have Market Garden work means the Allies meet the Soviets not on the Elbe, but on the Rhine.

I doubt that for two reasons:

- collapsed or not; the German fighting spirit and readiness to work against their collapse was in 1944/45 mostly more visible on the Eastern Front. One motive against the decision to wage an offensive of the scale of the "Battle of the Bulge" in the West was a move to counter this development.

- at the time of Market Garden, the Red Army still is really far away. If Germany actually collapses as it did in the west in April '45, this might allow the Soviets to move earlier across the post-war Poland, OTL they had just reached a point where the needed to recuperate. As the Wallies were actually not in shape to go across the Rhine and on to Berlin, neither were the Soviets.

- if Market Garden works due to Germany collapsing, from Arnheim on you have basically free reign to the Weser and downriver to the Ruhr. Even if Market Garden worked for other reasons, I would assume that the Germans probably lose the Netherlands and most of Westfalia before the end of '44.

- and on to the original question; no, even with Market Garden, the WAllies won't be in Berlin by Christmas (and that is the only possibility to end the war). Berlin is far away, the Elbe, the Weser and the Teutoburg Forest are in-between. Additionally, it is not advisable to purely concentrate on such a drive to Berlin with a huge open flank to the South reaching all the way back to the German-Belgian border.
 
1) What you're missing is that Market Garden failed because the regime *also* bounced back in the West. What happened in Aachen and the Huertgen Forest, two battles forgotten because US memory of WWII begins and ends with D-Day also shows this pattern. For Market Garden, a foolish, idiotic attempt to charge straight for Berlin without worrying about the flank, to work requires the Nazis be so far gone the USSR will have already taken Berlin.

2) If Germany collapses, the collapse comes in the East first in this timeframe. They were able to move reserves around to both the Rhine and to Hungary. Their inability to do so in Hungary in particular means they won't do so near the Rhine, which means that with the biggest army and relatively simplest supply situation the USSR gets the happiest outcome. The democracies were screwed by a ghastly logistical situation, and to alter this requires a lot of changes in other PODs, the great bulk of which aid the USSR just as much.

3) And likewise the USSR will be able to move into the Vienna-Prague region much earlier, as such a collapse means no idiotic, stupid, prolonged Budapest Siege.

4) Which is precisely why Market Garden only works with a general German collapse all along the Front resulting in Soviet-democratic mutual joyrides.
 
Ike giving the orders is zero guarantee that Monty, who had zero respect for Ike, would obey them. If Ike gives them, Monty disobeys them, and he attempts to make Monty realize who commands who, the result is a massive command crisis and a result not any different from OTL.
I don't disagree with you that Ike giving the order does not necessarily mean compliance, but if the upshot of this is that Brooke sits on Monty, it might improve matters.

The real factor that doomed Market Garden is that the democracies had outrun their logistics, the Nazis had asserted a near-total control of the German people, and as a result the regime was actually recuperating its strength. A Nazi regime collapsed enough to have Market Garden work means the Allies meet the Soviets not on the Elbe, but on the Rhine.
As Cook so rightly states in his "Forgoing Market Garden" post, the lost chance was Pip Roberts and the 11th Armoured. Had they sealed off Beveland, those logistical problems would have been much eased. This might have kept the Allied armies moving at the crucial time. Earlier in September, pretty much every army stopped for couple of days due to shortages - mainly fuel, IIRC. Then again, had that happened, the ridiculous throw of the dice that was Market Garden would have been completely unnecessary.

MY question is why was this op even attempted? A bit of "victory disease" for the Allies?
 
Maj. General Stanislaw Sosabowski (Portrayed by Gene Hackman)

"Doesn't matter what it was. When one man says to another, "I know what let's do today, let's play the war game."... everybody dies."
 
Maj. General Stanislaw Sosabowski (Portrayed by Gene Hackman)

"Doesn't matter what it was. When one man says to another, "I know what let's do today, let's play the war game."... everybody dies."
 
MY question is why was this op even attempted? A bit of "victory disease" for the Allies?

Indeed. Same thing with the US Army at Hurtgen. They just meatgrinded thousands of troops into a forest which prevented them from using artillery or air support, costing far more lives than Market Garden and achieving nothing. Indeed, some in the Allied command feared that stalemate could be returning, akin to WWI. Obviously we now know that this stalemate was temporary, since the Germans were getting eaten up in the East.
 

ccdsah

Donor
Indeed. Same thing with the US Army at Hurtgen. They just meatgrinded thousands of troops into a forest which prevented them from using artillery or air support, costing far more lives than Market Garden and achieving nothing. Indeed, some in the Allied command feared that stalemate could be returning, akin to WWI. Obviously we now know that this stalemate was temporary, since the Germans were getting eaten up in the East.

There can't be any stalemate when you have air supremacy and a couple of nukes on the way ;)
 
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