What were the worst Allied mistakes after 1942?

What were the worst Allied mistakes (military, political etc) between 1942 and1945 and why?

How would the war have gone if the Allies made better decisions from 1942 on?

Could the Reich and Japan have plausibly been defeated earlier (without the Axis making worse decisions than they did IOTL)?
 
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Operation Market Garden was basically a large land and airborne Operation in the Netherlands in late 1944 as part of an attempt to enter Germany and end the war sooner than OTL. However it turned out to be a mess as it turned out that there were a large number of 1st Rate German units (including SS ones) in the region instead of what they thought was Rear Area troops in the area. The Allies would only capture a few of the bridges at Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Son, and Grave with the British Paratroops at Arnhem being surrounded and then surrendering to SS troops in the area around the city.
 
Anzio -badly planned and badly executed original landing, lack of initial exploitation, the direction of eventual breakout and exploitation

caused many more allied dead and wounded than Axis
allowed 100,000 plus Germans to escape & continue the campaign for another year
 
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Believing the USSR when they "promised" free and fair elections in Eastern Europe.

In terms of battles, I gotta go with the already mentioned Market Garden and Anzio.
 
Market-Garden is a pretty good case: had there not been confusion among the US airborne officers at Nijmegen the bridge that was there could have been captured very early on very easily, which could (depending on German resistance beyond that) have allowed the British 30th Corps to reach Arnehm and the British airborne troops in time and might have allowed the operation to succeed. That said better planning was still needed to make the operation guaranteed to succeed.

Anzio certainly was a questionable operation because the forces sent there simply weren't enough to reach the planned objectives. In general the Italian front could have been somewhat better handled, for example the Allies may have been able to capture more German forces in Sicilia before they escaped, and they should honestly have dug in when the important objectives were reached because the Americans were already focusing on Op Overlord by this point and simply didn't have any shipping to spare to land meaningful forces further North to flank German forces. I assume not doing it would mostly save manpower and resources, though maybe they could be used in more limited but more reasonable operations.

There were opportunities to encircle German forces at Falaise earlier, capturing more veterans and officers which proved valuable for Germany in the Netherlands and likely the Bulge. Alternatively such an encirclement might have been achieved later during the Seine crossings with similar results. Could make Market-Garden more likely to succeed.

The first and third cases could accelerate the last phase of the war in Europe by allowing the Allies to get to the Rhine earlier and with possibly lower logistical issues due to more limited opposition. A successful MG would also help secure Antwerp more quickly helping with logistics and liberate most of the Netherlands by Autumn/Winter 1944 which would greatly reduce the suffering of the Dutch population OTL (no harsh winter under German control).


One could also argue that Normandy could have been better handled but it went fairly well all things considered and the Allies advanced faster than expected. But such things like a less difficult Omaha landing (better use of specialized vehicles, more accurate bombing possibly by changing landing schedules in that area or accepting a "danger close" situation) and more accurate airborne drops could help take important locations more quickly (however, a faster Normandy may end up saving the late German units from encirclement later on as they may be too far by the time the Allies break out of Normandy, so not sure how useful that would be overall).

I'm actually curious about the possibility of taking some French Channel ports earlier, before the german garrisons could dug in them.
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
(1) Churchill delaying the war effort to attack Greek communists who had been fighting on our side. In fact, given the potential downside of the Nazis developing the A-bomb first, any delay was inexcusable.

(2) That the Allies didn’t bomb at least a few major rail bridges to slow down the Nazi death camps, and

(3) in the Battle of the Bulge, I understand we pushed back directly against the bulge, rather than pinching it like a balloon and cutting off supply lines (at least should have gone somewhat heavier on this logistics side).
 
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Does the Soviet Union count as one of the Allies? If so, the escape of the 1st Panzer Army during the Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive is perhaps the Red Army's largest mistake in the later period of the war.
 
The tactical mistakes by 43-45 are there and when it comes to a World War relatively small on the Allied side.

On the political side there was a big glaring one. Not providing even the illusion that overthrowing the regime might tweak policy and then floating in the press various plans to dissolve Germany and turn the population into feudal peasants violated one of Sun Tzu's core maximums on war.

(The enemy) must see that there is An alternative to death. —Sun Tzu

Now Sun Tzu's philosophy doesn't mean what they see has to really be a really an alternative to death or in this case the end of their nation. But, one has to be made to believe there is a path or they will fight to the death. For those about to get angry and comment that destruction and occupation is all Germany/Japan must endure and no negotiation ever my answer is ok, but it doesn't change Sun Tzu's maximum that creating hope even false hope in your adversary is highly effective at getting them to not fight to the death.
 
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Operation Market Garden was basically a large land and airborne Operation in the Netherlands in late 1944 as part of an attempt to enter Germany and end the war sooner than OTL. However it turned out to be a mess as it turned out that there were a large number of 1st Rate German units (including SS ones) in the region instead of what they thought was Rear Area troops in the area. The Allies would only capture a few of the bridges at Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Son, and Grave with the British Paratroops at Arnhem being surrounded and then surrendering to SS troops in the area around the city.
They were not at full strength and being refitted. And there weren't that many.
What really screwed the paras over was that a glider with the operational plans crashed at Nijmegen and the Germans found it.
Also, most of the paras radios fucked up.
They couldn't coordinate with each other and their relief force and were destroyed piecemeal.
 
To be honest if Market Garden is a worst it must've been going pretty well. Market Garden destroyed 1 division, made 2 unavailable, and misused one corps (but by winter, the corps and 2 unavailable divisions were back, the 2 airborne divisions going on to fight the same SS Panzers in the Bulge), and achieved little but not nothing.

Compared to Anzio, that's somewhere between half and a quarter, and more a missed opportunity than a worst mistake.
 
MacArthur 's demand that he be allowed to retake the Philippines.

The political reasons for doing so were more important than MacArthur. We would have retaken them if he were never born. It was our most important colony in Asia and simply ignoring its occupation was not an option.
 
The political reasons for doing so were more important than MacArthur. We would have retaken them if he were never born. It was our most important colony in Asia and simply ignoring its occupation was not an option.

MacArthur’s father led a bloody and mostly forgotten about anti-insurgent campaign there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with over four thousand Americans dead.

Its not a big deal today, but it was an huge deal to that generation.
 
Trying to take dieppe a complete cluster f**k. I understand the western allies needed a deep water port but the amount of deaths could and should have been avoided.
 
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