Screaming Eagles in Arnhem

Markus

Banned
none of this changes the fact that the operation was in the wrong place!

Not at all. Arnhem is a mere 50 miles form the Ruhrgebiet. An allied bridgehead on the east bank of the rhine would be the worst case scenario for Germany. Logistically the situation might be challanging for the Allies but given their qualitative and quantitative superiority the LOC to Arnhem would be safe and improve quickly.
 
but thats the rub... the germans would blow all the dikes in the countryside and flood the hell out of eastern holland. hitler had no qualms about scorched earth warfare and would not hesitate to do this. on top of the fact that the armies would now have massive obstacles infront of them it would destroy all the farmland in the country side with salt water.

the major built up western parts of the country which were not liberated yet would face starvation very quickly... there is an excellent work on this in tsouras battle of the bulge compilation. one of his chapters has the allies drive all the way up and through to arnehm but are faced with terrible casualties and a humanitarian crises because of the flooding
 
All in all, Market Garden suffered from the fact that it was too ambitious, too complex, too confident, reliant upon too much going right, and didn't allow for enough to go wrong. If the Allies were extremely lucky they could have successfully pulled it off, but that's not the best thing to rely upon for success on the battlefield. Actually, I'm not sure how it got passed Ike, the guy was notoriously cautious, it doesn't seem like him to approve of such a plan.
 
IIRC, the original M-G plan called for the Polish Airborne Brigade to land on the south side of Arnhem bridge on D+2 or 3. Would the bridge be held longer if Taylor put a regiment (the 506th, maybe :p) on that DZ, and have them take the bridge from the south?

Marc A
 
A Bridge Too Far is one of my favorite books by far and most of my knowledge of Market Garden is based off that. That being said going to school full time hasn't given me much time to re-read it lately.

As for my thoughts on the subject. My opinion is that if the Americans had used the same drop-zones as the British the result would have been basically the same. However these were not the only drop-zones available. In fact there was one drop zone just south of the bridge that was ruled out early on due to it not being able to support gliders (the field was too soft). Also I believe there was also a ferry nearby that was missed by the initial planners of MG if the Americans notice that they'd be able to land their heavy equippment closer to the actual combat zone and bring it into action around the bridge earlier and more effectively than the British. Couple that with a purely infantry force being landed at the LZ south of the Bridge itself and you have a paratrooper group in a much better position than the British were. It would still be hell but they'd have a much better chance at holding out considerably longer.

But that all assumes that they choose closer drop zones...

The ferry you speak of was at Driel and, had the allies not overlooked it, and made it a foccus of the attack (that is, thrown sufficient forces in to take it and secure the area around it) it could have been a major game changer...

Arnhem bridge was not the only Rhine crossing. In fact, had the Market Garden planners realized that a ferry was available at Driel, Frost's paratroops might well have secured that instead of the Arnhem bridge, making a profound difference in the campaign because at a shorter distance away from their western drop and landing zones — the whole of the 1st Brigade could have concentrated to hold the Oosterbeek heights instead of just one battalion farther away at the road bridge. In this case, Arnhem was "one bridge too many". A contrasting view is that the attack into Arnhem was intended to capture the rail bridge, the pontoon bridge and the road bridge; that the rail bridge was blown in the face of Frost's 2nd parachute battalion, the pontoon bridge had been disabled by the removal of several sections and that this left only the road bridge intact. Clearly the Heveadorp ferry was no substitute for a bridge[107].

Cribbed from Wiki, the sources is respectable though. When reconciled with other works written since, I believe the theory presented by the author still holds up for the most part and was a plausible course of action to achieve perhaps not all of the arguably over ambitious goals of Market Garden as we know it, but could have achieved siggnificant gains and a desireable allied disposition by the end of the operation in it's own right.

Still depends on the men in the field actually "hitting their holes" (to use the American football expression) and the brass could have selected some better DZs, but I believe, as the author posits, it would have been far likelier to succede than Arnhem as the final objective.

As to the com problems the British encountered, one of the big problems (not the only one, but a big one) was batteries. During prep, the British spent a lot of time cycling the batteries on their com gear and that drained them significantly. Also, delays in the operation had a lot of the British com gear "plugged in" but for longer than anticipated periods prior to deployment which drained the batteries further. It's not carelessness, more so a state of over-preparedness mixed with the usual problems that arise from delays.

If the delays are butterflied away by quicker deployment to different objectives with more allied force concentration to take and hold said objectives, a lot of the batteries will be drained but nowhere nearly as bad as they were OTL. Yeah, they'll have some problems, but not nearly as severe as OTL and probably will be in a better position to be resupplied with fresh ones and sooner.

That could be said for resupply on the whole though; ammo, replacement small arms, etc...

I'd say a change of objectives might have made all the difference for Market Garden and the ferry at Driel held the potential to have made a huge difference in the course of the war in Sept. '44.
 
major airborne operations in ww2 were always a disaster holland(although successful took tremendous casaulties and loss of aircraft) crete, normandy, market garden, sicily take your pick.

the two ss divisions that held up the airborne were just shells... good personel but zero equipment.

You can add the Soviet go across the Dniepr in 1943 with 2 of their airborne brigades landing on two German divisions and a HQ and getting wiped out. Only one brigade managed to get down and being reinforced only to have the combined force being pushed back across the Dniepr by the German counter-attack.
 
2nd post on forum, lots of fun here, can't help but chow down on this one.

Read ABTF long time ago, good book, as were all his.

Some comments:

9th, 10th SS - I thought about 6K-9K a piece, though Wiki says about that between the two of them - wonder about that, but would argue not nothing equipment wise: Stugs, King Tigers, MkIV's ect. Between them at least a panzer brigade of combat power. Some knowledge here borrowed from Advanced Squad Leader detailed treatment done on Arnhem. Side note, one advantage Brits have in ASL is the PIAT -better to fire inside buildings, no backblast as with a bazooka.

Respect opinions posted, but I'd bet on US Para firepower over British, even considering the Bren.

Key point mentioned above - my recollection is reading that not having an assault from both ends of the big bridge was critical to failure.

Leadership & POD:
Embarrassed to not know off the top why US ends up over on left instead of on the right - but that makes it why all points above about fearing the Americans getting let down by British valid - British ground component somewhat inherent in arrangement of troops. If other way round and its Patton as the Army ground commander, 4th Armored leading Garden, Ridgeway as overall airborne commander - might make a big difference, independent of where 1st Airborne lands.

Probably a good thread there, if its not already written. for Blair Witch judging from his great Manstein threads - your assignment?

Another one would be Montgomery killed in France '40, O'Connor not captured in NA, and somehow its Wavell/O'Connor British leadership in 1944.

Pre-battle:
Dim memory, long time since read, but from Horrocks' own book, lot of problems for MG come from XXX Corps not cutting off troops when taking Antwerp, 15th Army I think, they end up fighting MG. Not to mention post MG cleaning out the Schelde Estuary. Horrock's even admits error about all this in his book. Part of overall supply problem - Antwerp not fully usable until after MG.

Leads to combination question of why and WI:
Looking at timeline, the Schelde campaign and extensive use of commandos and amtracks comes about 1 month after MG.

Then more extensive use of amtrack use in final battles after MG and Schelde getting nearer and over Rhine.

What prevented amtrack/commando use - even one or too battalions worth to go around losing a bridge, if not amtracks then DUKW's - certainly better than the boats used at Nijmegen - don't know the answer.

Would a significant amphibious capability helped and complimented?

Airborne is getting you at crossing sites normally out of reach, but they are still water obstacles which are either bridging problems or amphibious ones, bottom line - if the bridges you came to take are gone, and if your planning like you should for things to go wrong like they always do.

And further bring along the bridge stuff in column planning for bridges to go down, again looking nearby soon to what happened at Remagen - yes bridge captured, but they were building 1 or 2 others right beside, right after, over a much more physically challenging crossing I'd think - been to both crossings and seen them.

Another great WI - the Combat History of the 7th US Marine Division in NW Europe 1944-45, specialty riverine crossings, littoral work in Belgium/Holland/NW Germany. Great part of story would be how they hated Monty, hated Army even more, politics of getting put under British command thereby, and how they worked around Monty anyway, and became key part of European war ending in late March '45.

Finally, from a Military Journal on 1SS in Battle of Bulge, and something Peiper said about part of why Bulge fails for Germans from his perpective, very similar to MG problem - two few or one road spearheads - he thought they'd done better advancing over more roads, not that there were many more to advance on mind. Applied to M-G have to confess would have to look at maps and see what the options were, but seems like similar problems, similar possible approaches - - doesn't mean axis of advance isn't limited, just a little more spread out, more than one line connecting the airborne eggs.

Here's another hindsight, step back from the map too:

Let's say Allies, or at least key leadership get real about supply situation and slow down just a month, to get a more prepared M-G going, demonstrate and press Germans elsewhere to keep them pinned, mislead like Normandy meantime, avoid some of the stalemate fall battles like Hurtgen.

My opinion M-G was not a bad idea, just how to do it right.
 
Can't remember where this came from, but there were several Dutch staff officers that tried to get through to Monty that this sort of attack up a single road had been wargamed by the Dutch before the war, and found to be a disaster. The ferry was visualized on pre D-day imagery but nobody picked up on it.

Given that the US, particularly the Marines, had been doing CAS very well for some time in the Pacific by now - with pilots dropping very close to troops - it surprises me that nobody gave any thought to comm between the paras and the fighters. Nobody checked out the gear for compatibility before the drop, and there were no fallback comm methods like panels or smoke as far as I know.

Overall a poorly planned affair that would only work if everything went well AND the enemy reacted just like predicted in the script. Any military plan, no matter who makes it (US, UK, USSR, Germany, Japan, etc) that fits that description you want nothing to do with. Run away, run away....
 
Given that the US, particularly the Marines, had been doing CAS very well for some time in the Pacific by now - with pilots dropping very close to troops - it surprises me that nobody gave any thought to comm between the paras and the fighters. Nobody checked out the gear for compatibility before the drop, and there were no fallback comm methods like panels or smoke as far as I know.

From what I've read and understand, Marine air-ground coordination even in 1942 at Guadalcanal was better than anybody elses, anywhere - including Germans.
 
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