BlackDragon98
Banned
Dieppe wasn't what most people think it was.
it was actually a cover op for an intel raid on the Kriegsmarine HQ in a attempt to get ciphers, Enigma boxes, codes, etc.
but it screwed up. BADLY.
What were the worst Allied mistakes after 1942?
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it was actually a cover op for an intel raid on the Kriegsmarine HQ in a attempt to get ciphers, Enigma boxes, codes, etc.
but it screwed up. BADLY.
1) Market-Garden. It's the obvious one, no thanks to the vanity of one Sir Bernard Law Montgomery and the lack of consultation with the Dutch (exiles and the Resistance). Antony Beevor's book on the operation is on par with Ryan's A Bridge Too Far, and goes into detail about the planning and the combat, along with the tragic consequences for the Dutch for the operation's failure.
2) Anzio: good idea, lousy execution by a Corps Commander who was way too cautious.
3) Hurtgen Forest: Fault there lies with First Army Commander Courtney Hodges, who rejected out of hand all suggestions to go around.
And in the PTO: Pelileu: the unnecessary amphibious operation. Bull Halsey was right in saying that the island could've been bypassed.
2) Anzio: good idea, lousy execution by a Corps Commander who was way too cautious.
3) Hurtgen Forest: Fault there lies with First Army Commander Courtney Hodges, who rejected out of hand all suggestions to go around.
And in the PTO: Pelileu: the unnecessary amphibious operation. Bull Halsey was right in saying that the island could've been bypassed.
Especially for teaching William Childs Westmoreland everything he knew.
1) With hindsight, its easy to argue that the strategic bombing forces were very poorly utilized even in 1943. Had the allied commands known of its own post-war assesments of the combined bombing offensive, believed it, and used it as a basis for their strategy the strategic bombing campaign would have yielded much better results earlier and at lower cost. Probably a strong enough change to shave up at least a month or two from the war easily.
2) The italy campaign had some real stinkers, but others have already mentioned that.
3) The allies underutilized the diplomatic screws on neutral countries. Several neutral countries still conducted very important trade with germany very late in the war, when they were in no position to resist serious allied demands, especially when it became clear they would shape the post war world, and once germany had lost its ability to seriously threaten neutrals with military action. Sweden, Spain, Turkey and others might have been forced to cancel some very important trade deals with the germans several months earlier than OTL, in which that often only ended once Germany literary lost physical access.
2) The italy campaign had some real stinkers, but others have already mentioned that.
3) The allies underutilized the diplomatic screws on neutral countries. Several neutral countries still conducted very important trade with germany very late in the war, when they were in no position to resist serious allied demands, especially when it became clear they would shape the post war world, and once germany had lost its ability to seriously threaten neutrals with military action. Sweden, Spain, Turkey and others might have been forced to cancel some very important trade deals with the germans several months earlier than OTL, in which that often only ended once Germany literary lost physical access.
Operation Star/3rd Kharkov has to be in the running as well.
For the Western Allies, not targeting the bomber offensive more on oil, power and transport infrastructure was a missed trick. The USAAF wanted to bomb factories and RAF Bomber Command had become obsessed with area-bombing cities.
Any votes for the Operation Dragoon landings in the South of France? Failed to trap significant numbers of Germans, didn't really extend the front the Germans had to defend and weakened the Allied armies in Italy just when a breakout into the Po valley was looking possible.
Really? I’d argue that Op. Dragoon was worth the resources spent and more. While the 19th Army succeeded in escaping, the U.S. and French forces still dealt staggering losses to the retreating Germans (captured 131,250 German soldiers-40% of Army Group G), secured the ports of Toulon and Marseille in record time (supplying the US 6th Army Group and helping with Patton’s logistics), and secured Patton’s right flank. In fact, the 6th Army Group was inarguably the only WALLIED army group to succeed in reaching the Rhine in November 1944 (after smashing the German 19th Army) and was ready to cross the Rhine until Ike called it off.
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I'm biased, but all the faffing and waffling about the Cassibile armistice. Might have had most of Italy into the war against Germany by the end of '43, ended up having to slog up all the way from the point of the boot (which includes other stinkers, like the very much mentioned Anzio).
You do know that Cornelious Ryan's book was FICTION?
That it why a lot of shit hit the fan after the film was released because Edward Fox, Dirk Bogarde etc played characters in the film who were good friends in real life and found that their portrayal was factually incorrect.
Wait for it....Drumbeat....Drumbeat....Drumbeat....Drumbeat
1/4 of all Allied Merchant losses where during Admiral Kings mishandled response to Operation Paukenschlag (Operation Drumbeat and other follow on Ops) the German assault on East Coast shipping in 1942.
To confound this pretty much any available suitable Long Range Maritime Patrol Plane was being horded by the bomber barons with far too few British Squadrons operating VLR MPAs (only one barely in double figures of Aircraft operated the VLR version of the Liberator - No 120 Squadron) and the USN squadrons were operating everywhere the U-boats were not.
This very sorry situation was not really resolved until March 1943 when the US and British Governments were forced by events to override the Bomber Barons and massively increase the number of 'suitable' aircraft to the mission of Long Range Maritime Patrol at a time when the number of Escort groups, weapon systems, Escort carriers and the experience of USN and RCN approched that of the RN was reaching a tipping point anyway.
More should and easily could have been done earlier particularly with regards to providing enough Long Range planes.
As for Land campaigns
Yeah Italy could have been done better.
Other than that the Wallies did reasonably well considering their opponent!
But a few things -
Brest should have been captured - I think it was 4th Armoured Division was halted unnecessarily during Cobra - and by the time it got moving again the Germans had managed to massively reinforce the area.
Paris can wait - Logistics are more important.
I often see Op MG being critiqued - with the Schieldt operations being a better use of the resources (Monty agreed with that assessment after the fact).
One of the missed opportunities was the British army not pushing on after capturing Antwerp. The problem was that the Area was in the 1st Canadian Armys area of responsibility.
A simple fix with Ike shifting lines of responsibility etc reducing the area that 1st CDN Army was responsible for and freeing up British 2nd Army with perhaps Hodges First army taking over some of the responsibility from the British in turn - but this did not happen and it gave the Canadians too much to do in to short a time.
I think MG is an obvious operation as it outflanks Germany's Western defences and a lot of the unsuitable ground on the Franco-German Boarder and extends the front line and threatens the Ruhr with a right hook through the Peel Line and onto the North German Plain.
Despite all the issues had 82nd captured the Bridge on the afternoon of Day 1 then it possibly might have worked.
At the very least it pushes Rocket launch sites out of range of London and frees up much more of the Netherlands and likely traps 15th Army.
In addition it extends the front line by a good 100-150 KMs and likely butterflies the Bulge as those troops are likely used to defend this right hook into the Ruhr rather than be used in the hair brain scheme that was the Battle of the Bulge.
Better than butting heads along the German-French border and suffering losses like those in Hurtgen Forest and elsewhere
On the subject of the Ruhr
After the USAAF and Bomber Command are freed up from supporting the Normandy invasion - instead of going city busting - instead go round 2 with the Ruhr and target other specialised industries and knock out major transport hubs (viaducts, tunnels etc for both rail and canal).
The subsequent loss in production even if it was similar to the Earlier Ruhr campaign would be crippling to the German war machine and its likely to be more successful given the better technology available to the Allies and improved numbers over 1943!.
Obviously there is the Russians and there is a lot there to discuss!
1/4 of all Allied Merchant losses where during Admiral Kings mishandled response to Operation Paukenschlag (Operation Drumbeat and other follow on Ops) the German assault on East Coast shipping in 1942.
To confound this pretty much any available suitable Long Range Maritime Patrol Plane was being horded by the bomber barons with far too few British Squadrons operating VLR MPAs (only one barely in double figures of Aircraft operated the VLR version of the Liberator - No 120 Squadron) and the USN squadrons were operating everywhere the U-boats were not.
This very sorry situation was not really resolved until March 1943 when the US and British Governments were forced by events to override the Bomber Barons and massively increase the number of 'suitable' aircraft to the mission of Long Range Maritime Patrol at a time when the number of Escort groups, weapon systems, Escort carriers and the experience of USN and RCN approched that of the RN was reaching a tipping point anyway.
More should and easily could have been done earlier particularly with regards to providing enough Long Range planes.
As for Land campaigns
Yeah Italy could have been done better.
Other than that the Wallies did reasonably well considering their opponent!
But a few things -
Brest should have been captured - I think it was 4th Armoured Division was halted unnecessarily during Cobra - and by the time it got moving again the Germans had managed to massively reinforce the area.
Paris can wait - Logistics are more important.
I often see Op MG being critiqued - with the Schieldt operations being a better use of the resources (Monty agreed with that assessment after the fact).
One of the missed opportunities was the British army not pushing on after capturing Antwerp. The problem was that the Area was in the 1st Canadian Armys area of responsibility.
A simple fix with Ike shifting lines of responsibility etc reducing the area that 1st CDN Army was responsible for and freeing up British 2nd Army with perhaps Hodges First army taking over some of the responsibility from the British in turn - but this did not happen and it gave the Canadians too much to do in to short a time.
I think MG is an obvious operation as it outflanks Germany's Western defences and a lot of the unsuitable ground on the Franco-German Boarder and extends the front line and threatens the Ruhr with a right hook through the Peel Line and onto the North German Plain.
Despite all the issues had 82nd captured the Bridge on the afternoon of Day 1 then it possibly might have worked.
At the very least it pushes Rocket launch sites out of range of London and frees up much more of the Netherlands and likely traps 15th Army.
In addition it extends the front line by a good 100-150 KMs and likely butterflies the Bulge as those troops are likely used to defend this right hook into the Ruhr rather than be used in the hair brain scheme that was the Battle of the Bulge.
Better than butting heads along the German-French border and suffering losses like those in Hurtgen Forest and elsewhere
On the subject of the Ruhr
After the USAAF and Bomber Command are freed up from supporting the Normandy invasion - instead of going city busting - instead go round 2 with the Ruhr and target other specialised industries and knock out major transport hubs (viaducts, tunnels etc for both rail and canal).
The subsequent loss in production even if it was similar to the Earlier Ruhr campaign would be crippling to the German war machine and its likely to be more successful given the better technology available to the Allies and improved numbers over 1943!.
Obviously there is the Russians and there is a lot there to discuss!
To some extent something like Kasserine Pass was probably neccessary. The US army of the time needed a pretty big shock to it's system to learn some very neccesary lessons.
Unless you have either foresight or the US starting mobilization a couple years earlier the US was in a bad position before Kasserine Pass. For the most part the entire US army was green and hadn't learned the lessons that the other combatants had.
That's 41 so outside of the scope of this thread and to be fair Wavell's offensive was intended to be a 5 day reconnaissance/raid in force, not a 2 month running battle to utterly destroy the Italian 10th Army!
They did not have the logistics to go much further - but that being said the Greek adventure was a mistake.
That, as well as the subsequent Crete and Sonnenblume defeats cost the British Commonwealth forces a total of 1.5 Divisions of Men and over 5 divisions worth of heavy equipment, motor transport etc that was left behind.
However between the Greeks and Yugoslavians they had something like 1.5 million soldiers.
And Britain knew Barbarossa was coming.....................So I understand why they did it.
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The enemy must see that there is an alternative to death, but so do you. Or, more exactly, your followers. In this case, what they needed to see was that the Germans weren't just going to get let off the hook for starting a world war again (as they saw it), and the peace wasn't just going to be an "armistice for twenty years," again. Because the Entente had done exactly what you said in World War I by signing an armistice with the Germans once they overthrew the Kaiser, and gotten badly burned by it. From a domestic point of view, holding out the possibility that overthrowing Hitler and doing some degree of reform would be enough to end the war was just unsupportable because it would stink, as I said, of leaving the problem for the next generation to deal with.
Of course, that doesn't mean that the Allies need to be talking about Morgenthau nonsense. But without at least some level of harshness along the lines of "Germany is dissolved and occupied until the Allies are good and convinced that it's given up its warmongering ways" it would be difficult to retain the necessary domestic support for prosecuting the war to its end. And even that, though far less harsh than Morgenthau (and, of course, more or less what actually happened), is probably not enough to convince the Germans that "there is an alternative to death," or more exactly that overthrowing Hitler will get them anywhere the way that overthrowing the Kaiser did.