Most Insane Airbourne Plans

What was the most impractical plan to drop airbourne forces?

  • Market-Garden

    Votes: 29 22.8%
  • Giant II (Allied drop on Rome, Spt. 1943)

    Votes: 10 7.9%
  • Operation Hercules (Axis invasion of Malta)

    Votes: 6 4.7%
  • Operation Stosser (Axis drop during Battle of the Bulge)

    Votes: 15 11.8%
  • US-British drop on Berlin, April-May 1945

    Votes: 43 33.9%
  • George Marshall's plan to drop an airbourne force on Evreux (45 miles from Paris), June 1945

    Votes: 6 4.7%
  • Dien Bien Phu

    Votes: 18 14.2%

  • Total voters
    127
Well, the western allies werent any better to surrender to in 1945 either. When the front collapsed the allies just put barbed wire around German POWs and they were left without shelter. Apperantly many died then.

Where did you get this idea?

The Allies actually re-armed some German units to serve as MPs in their occupied zones.
 
Where did you get this idea?

The Allies actually re-armed some German units to serve as MPs in their occupied zones.

There where REALLY shitty conditions in POW camps in france even a good two years after the war; lots of disease and death ran through them; plus the French where not friendly in the forced labor

that said, still better than a winter getaway to siberia
 
There where REALLY shitty conditions in POW camps in france even a good two years after the war; lots of disease and death ran through them; plus the French where not friendly in the forced labor

that said, still better than a winter getaway to siberia

What line troops were still being held in 1947?
 
Operation Market Garden. It was wretchedly planned and more wretchedly executed. Monty got absolutely everything requested from Eisenhower and had a chance to prove himself at more than the set-piece battle and showed why he'd limited himself to that beforehand.
 
Crete is indeed worthy of inclusion in the list; nearly half the paras were killed or wounded in the battle. In the aftermath Hitler banned any future airborne operations, and the Germans, recognizing that the paras were inadequately armed, started developing the Fallschirmgewehr, which was the direct ancestor of most assault rifles.

I don't think it really merits inclusion; plenty went wrong, but IMO the failures were more on the naval side than the Airborne one, and at the end of the day Crete was in Axis hands. Hard to call a plan insane when it works.
 
How could anyone pick Market Garden when it almost worked and would have shortened the war if it did work?

US troops to Berlin or Axis to Malta are doomed to fail. Market Garden was a calculated risk that happened to fail.

Only an airdrop to Kyushu would be stupider than Malta or Berlin.

No and no, respectively. The idea to put everything in the Allied armies under Monty's command and drive north ignores that there were a lot of German troops in the southern part of Germany which the broad front ensured could not be transferred up north. Monty's idea succeeds and Arnhem becomes a short-term success before the democracies get smashed horribly. The contrast with Vistula-Oder would be even more appalling for the postwar scenario.

While its easy to see with hindsight that the operation wasnt going to work, at the time that wasnt the case. Yes it was a very ambitious plan, and there were a number of big risks to be taken, but thats the way with large military operations.

I have read Band of brothers, and its clear that the author didnt like the plan, and personally disapproved of it. His condemnation of the operation seemed to stem not because of its military merits but largely because he just didnt like it. There is also a point that some of the blame of the failure could rest with the 82nd airborne as they failed to take several vital bridges when they were supposed to, allowing time for the defenders to dig in, and meaning that 30 corps had to help them take territory that was supposed to be open and waiting for them. Whether this also played a part in Winters writing, being a member of the 82nd, is impossible to say.

Fact is that the operation came very VERY close to succeeding despite all the mistakes and unforseen problems.

No it didn't. It vastly underestimated the number of Germans in the area, it never took into account either Antwerp or the Scheldt, and unlike the broad front it offered plenty of maneuver room for the Wehrmacht to inflict the kind of smashing defeat the democratic armies would have been a very long time recovering from. The high losses the German armies in the West would take doing this would be counterbalanced by the great success of Vistula-Oder.

The last chapter in the war becomes an entirely Soviet one if Monty does try to glacially move the entirety of Allied forces in the West right where the Germans could throw him back into the Low Countries, with the Nazis able to hit him front, flank, and rear.
 
MG involved sending an armored corps 80 miles down a heavily defended two lane road with thick forrests on both sides that concealed German at guns, which the infantry would have to keep dismounting to clear, and opened up abruptly into urban areas where the Germans could create road blocks and tank traps

what was worse was that a squad of the Royal household cavalry had scouted far up the road when the idea was being considered (the run was a terrifying high speed patrol up hells highway dodging 20 and 88mm guns and a shitload of hand held anti tank weapons)... they reported back to 21st army group that the road was heavily defended; this was ignored

the larger stupidity was that even if they broke through, 21st ag would be hoplessly overextended with their line of supply in danger from flank attacks for other 100 miles; with the spear points likely to be engaged and roughly handled by divisions assembling for wacht on rhine
 
MG involved sending an armored corps 80 miles down a heavily defended two lane road with thick forrests on both sides that concealed German at guns, which the infantry would have to keep dismounting to clear, and opened up abruptly into urban areas where the Germans could create road blocks and tank traps

what was worse was that a squad of the Royal household cavalry had scouted far up the road when the idea was being considered (the run was a terrifying high speed patrol up hells highway dodging 20 and 88mm guns and a shitload of hand held anti tank weapons)... they reported back to 21st army group that the road was heavily defended; this was ignored

the larger stupidity was that even if they broke through, 21st ag would be hoplessly overextended with their line of supply in danger from flank attacks for other 100 miles; with the spear points likely to be engaged and roughly handled by divisions assembling for wacht on rhine

IMHO that whole plan was Monty's nadir during the entire war. He had the blessing of knowing where his strengths and weaknesses were and sticking to them. If he'd kept doing that.....but he didn't. Every general tends to have his low points, and fortunately for Montgomery this one was not as ghastly as it could otherwise have been.
 
IMHO that whole plan was Monty's nadir during the entire war. He had the blessing of knowing where his strengths and weaknesses were and sticking to them. If he'd kept doing that.....but he didn't. Every general tends to have his low points, and fortunately for Montgomery this one was not as ghastly as it could otherwise have been.

Well he was overconfident in his paras, in Overlord they did everything right ( and had a lot of luck, in truth ), it happened the same to the Germans after Eben Emael ...
 
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