Metz and Market Garden

I know the following, while a possibility with NATO, was a no go during WW2.
To me, Patton and his team were better at a campaign like Market Garden while Montgomery and his was better suited to a slog like Metz. What if Eisenhower had been able to switch the two?
 
You'd have to switch the positions of the 21st British Army Group and the 12th United States Army Group in the advance from Normandy, so the Americans are advancing through Belgium and the Netherlands and the British and Canadian troops are moving into France towards the Upper Rhine. Besides giving the British responsibility for the North Sea coast, the more heavily armored American formations were better suited for the attack into France. You could end up delaying the progress of the offensive by months trying to do that.
 
I wasn't positing so much a change in the troops. I was positing a change in the leadership team. Like I said, such would not have been possible in WW2. Though, with 2016 NATO practices, it might be an outside possibility.

My ASB take is:
Ike sees the bog down in Eastern France due to the stretched out logisitic tail. He knows Patton isn't at his bes is a slog. Monty on the other hand is.
Ike sees the need for a more energetic commander for Operation Market Garden than Monty.
So, in late September Ike switches the two and their staffs.​

As I said above, such would not have been possible in WW2.
But, it makes for a nifty what if.
 
I heavily doubt that the UK would allow its troops to be commanded by Patton and worse, that the US troops would to be commanded by that "Limey Bastard" Montgomery. Neither commander would want to leave "their'" boys behind.

So in this case, I would say it would need an ASB get this to happen.
 
Are you asking if Patton, inserted by whatever crazy means you need, could have made Market Garden work? The operation failed when the airborne drops were unable to take the bridges at Son and Nijmegen, which allowed the Germans to reinforce their positions. Any subsequent Allied ground offensive would have proceeded as if the drops had not happened.
 
Or cancel Market Garden and give Patton all the gas, ammo and Paratroopers on September 1, 1944, and Metz wouldn't have turned out like OTL
 
At least two factors underlaid Patton's logistics problem.
  • One was the excellent job the USAAF had done blowing up the French rail network. The road system was choked with trucks carrying supplies.
  • The other was the lack of a regular port on the French coast. Supplies were still coming over the Normandy Beaches.

Or cancel Market Garden and give Patton all the gas, ammo and Paratroopers on September 1, 1944, and Metz wouldn't have turned out like OTL
 
I know the following, while a possibility with NATO, was a no go during WW2.
To me, Patton and his team were better at a campaign like Market Garden while Montgomery and his was better suited to a slog like Metz. What if Eisenhower had been able to switch the two?

Why?
Both are secondary operations - the main Allied thrust should have been through Aachen.
 
At least two factors underlaid Patton's logistics problem.
  • One was the excellent job the USAAF had done blowing up the French rail network. The road system was choked with trucks carrying supplies.
  • The other was the lack of a regular port on the French coast. Supplies were still coming over the Normandy Beaches.

Ironically enough, had the USAAF been less effective, almost the entirety of the German western armies would've already been destroyed by the OTL start date of Market Garden. The 12th SS Panzer was slated to take part in Operation Luttich as mandated by Hitler, but they had logistics difficulty in getting the gas to do so. Had they gotten such gas, they wouldn't have been in place to deal with the Canadians when said forces rolled into the area as part of their Operation Totalize. Had such occurred, the Falaise Pocket would've been decisively closed with no major escapes and the operations likely would've concluded possibly almost a week sooner. This has some pretty big knock on effects (See below).

Or cancel Market Garden and give Patton all the gas, ammo and Paratroopers on September 1, 1944, and Metz wouldn't have turned out like OTL

Given the above, the Anglo-Canadians are going to be rolling in Belgium sooner. Being less exhausted then OTL (Wrapping up the Falaise Pocket sooner), the Canadians will be in position (As they were IOTL with the means to do so, a BIGLY missed opportunity from OTL!) to seal off the Beveland Peninsula and prevent the Heer's 15th Army from escaping into it. OTL, they were able to mine the straights to Antwerp and force the Allies into a two month operation to clear them out which and thus kept the aforementioned port closed until November. Here, they could have it opened by early to mid September. With such a major port, they will have the supplies to do both Monty's and Patton's individual thrusts. Monty will be further helped here by the fact that the two SS Division, that destroyed the forward airborne landings, will have been lost by the Germans at ATL Falaise. I can definitely see the Anglo-Canadians on the Wesser by the onset of Winter, while Patton and the Americans will have cleared out the Rhineland and Alsace-Lorrain, and established lodgements on the East bank of the Rhine for exploitation come Spring (Devers had the ability and means to cross the Rhine in December IOTL but Ike shot him down despite there being almost no Germans in front of him, again, another missed opportunity!).
 
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hipper

Banned
I wasn't positing so much a change in the troops. I was positing a change in the leadership team. Like I said, such would not have been possible in WW2. Though, with 2016 NATO practices, it might be an outside possibility.

My ASB take is:
Ike sees the bog down in Eastern France due to the stretched out logisitic tail. He knows Patton isn't at his bes is a slog. Monty on the other hand is.
Ike sees the need for a more energetic commander for Operation Market Garden than Monty.
So, in late September Ike switches the two and their staffs.​

As I said above, such would not have been possible in WW2.
But, it makes for a nifty what if.

It was entirely possible in WW2 montogomery had recently been ground force commander in control of all allied ground forces in forces in Europe, while later he took Conroll of two US armies during the battle of the bulge.

Montgomery was in favour of a main effort while Eisenhower's strategy allowed for now decisive concetration of force.

21 army Group was supplied from small ports in northern France and was supporting the American logistics effort with truck supply companies.

patrons efforts were doomed as he was moving beyond 300 moles from his source of supply and was dependent on truck Bournemouth supply. He would have done to a halt at the first significant German resistance even without the Metz fortifications.
Cheers Hipper
 
OTL, they were able to mine the straights to Antwerp and force the Allies into a two month operation to clear them out which and thus kept the aforementioned port closed until November. Here, they could have it opened by early to mid September.

Most of the mines in the Scheldt were laid in June 1944. This together with the problem of Walcheren Island mean that opening Antwerp quickly depends on having a naval landing force ready at the start of September. OTL they were still tied up at Le Havre. Antwerp in any case was not needed for 21st Army Group - they used the Channel ports (Dieppe, Calais, Boulogne, Ostend) instead.
 
Most of the mines in the Scheldt were laid in June 1944. This together with the problem of Walcheren Island mean that opening Antwerp quickly depends on having a naval landing force ready at the start of September. OTL they were still tied up at Le Havre. Antwerp in any case was not needed for 21st Army Group - they used the Channel ports (Dieppe, Calais, Boulogne, Ostend) instead.

The main issue is that they allowed an entire Heer force to move into the area, which required them to dig them out before they could handle the mines. In the proposed ATL, the Allies have about five weeks before Market Garden and can focus solely on mine clearing. In such a situation, I can definitely see them opening it by mid September. With regards to the supply issue, relying on said ports forced the 21st to massively strip itself of transportation capabilities and thus reduced its offensive capabilities OTL.
 
The main issue is that they allowed an entire Heer force to move into the area, which required them to dig them out before they could handle the mines. In the proposed ATL, the Allies have about five weeks before Market Garden and can focus solely on mine clearing. In such a situation, I can definitely see them opening it by mid September.

You do realise that Walcheren was an Atlantic Wall fortress with a garrison regiment, copious naval and AA guns, and a land approach over a long narrow causeway. The only way to capture it on the bounce would have been an airborne assault, in conjunction with at least an infantry division from the landward side, but FAAA said it was unsuitable for an airborne attack.

26. The enemy had concentrated most of his resources in guns and material on Walcheren. He had sited his cannon primarily to cover the entrance to the river (and provided cross fire from the south shore for that purpose) and devised his defences to prevent a seaborne landing from the west. The shores of the island were protected on the north~west, south-west and south by underwater obstacles, wire infantry positions end pillboxes set up on the sand dunes and the dykes. These were supported by some 25 batteries of guns and gun howitzers, including one with a calibre of 220 mm, five of 150 mm, one of 120 mm, thirteen of 105 mm, two of 94 mm and three of 75 mm, a forbidding armament, especially as it had to be assumed that all the coastal batteries would be capable of firing with an all-round traverse

http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/mdn-dnd/D63-4-188-1948-eng.pdf

With regards to the supply issue, relying on said ports forced the 21st to massively strip itself of transportation capabilities and thus reduced its offensive capabilities OTL.

What are you basing this on?
 
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Why?
Both are secondary operations - the main Allied thrust should have been through Aachen.

A point so often overlooked by the Patton Fan Club. It's rarely addressed where Patton would go even if he had gotten the gas he needed, because there's little of high importance on any axis mounted out of Lorraine.

As the 1985 US Army study of of the Lorraine Campaign noted:

"Moreover, once Third Army penetrated the province and entered Germany, there would still be no first-rate military objectives within its grasp. The Saar industrial region, while significant, was of secondary importance when compared to the great Ruhr industrial complex farther north."

"Was the Lorraine campaign an American victory? From September through November, Third Army claimed to have inflicted over 180,000 casualties on the enemy. But to capture the province of Lorraine, a problem which involved an advance of only 40 to 60 air miles, Third Army required over 3 months and suffered 50,000 casualties, approximately one-third of the total number of casualties it sustained in the entire European war."

"Ironically, Third Army never used Lorraine as a springboard for an advance into Germany after all. Patton turned most of the sector over to Seventh Army during the Ardennes crisis, and when the eastward advance resumed after the Battle of the Bulge, Third Army based its operations on Luxembourg, not Lorraine. The Lorraine campaign will always remain a controversial episode in American military history."

"Finally the Lorraine Campaign demonstrated that Logistics often drive operations, no matter how forceful and aggressive the commanding general may be."

Even so, my sense is that Patton wasn't going to get the gas he needed. The logistical tail was simply overtaxed, no matter had Ike given them every drop he had available. Patton might well have gotten over the Moselle, but he wasn't getting to the Saar, let alone Mainz. The terrain was becoming more difficult, and even older fortifications could be taken good advantage by the Germans. And it wasn't just gas he was running out of, either - he was increasingly low on ammunition, and lots else besides. As it happened, it wasn't until November that Patton was supplied well enough to resume serious offensive operations.

There is a sense in which Monty's and Patton's armies were better suited to each other's lines of advance. But there's nothing to indicate that Patton could have had any impact on how Market Garden played out.
 
Even so, my sense is that Patton wasn't going to get the gas he needed. The logistical tail was simply overtaxed, no matter had Ike given them every drop he had available.

Overtaxed logistics wasn't the problem, he got 1/3 the gas allocation after August 28 due to it being directed North, not that the Red Ball and restored RR couldn't get it to him
 
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