Operation market garden strategic goals

[Barbarossa]

The post at the start of this thread asked "....if Market Garden had been a success.....". It obviously wasn't an outright success as hoped for by the operation's strategic plans but did it achieve any secondary success? Did the cost in terms of men, materiel, planning resources, logistics etc achieve anything else along the lines of redirecting German forces, significant damage of German forces, early liberation of any parts of occupied Europe, political cohesiveness and so on?

My WWII history isn't as good as it could be...........


Patrick

[EricGuitarJames]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

The hard part would have been to find an American Army commander prepared to work under Montgommery. The interesting thing is that this too could have been avoided if Alexander had been given the nod for NW European sector over Monty.

Very interesting, hey?!![:)]

From my reading Alexander was even less of a 'battlefield commnader' than Ike was. In the Western Desert he basically let Monty get on with it and in Italy he didn't seem capable of dealing with an ego like Mark Clark. Agreed that American commanders may well have been more willing to serve under him but on the other hand would Alex have been up to the task of commanding 'Overlord' and its immediate aftermath? Also, there would have been no 'Market-Garden' so we wouldn't be having this discussion[:D]

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna


It's interesting that you always hear talk of having to placate Monty's huge ego. While this was true, it was equally true that there were huge egos amongst the American commanders which needed placating as well ( and not just Patton's ). In fact and not surprising, Ike favoured these egos and the natural bias for the pusuit of "national glory" despite the compelling military arguments for giving supply priority to the armies aimed at the most important objective. This in my view was where Ike fell short ( albeit not by much ). You need a Supreme Commander who can be objective enough and strong enough to make some tough decisions. I don't think this aspect had been thought through well enough before the sector allocations prior to D Day. In hind sight maybe a better option would have been to have had at least one American Army per Army Group. This may have avoided any bias from manifesting. It certainly could have made it easier for Ike to have favoured a push towards Antwerp. It may have also contributed to better inter-Ally cooperation and the pursuit of a common purpose. The hard part would have been to find an American Army commander prepared to work under Montgommery. The interesting thing is that this too could have been avoided if Alexander had been given the nod for NW European sector over Monty.

Very interesting, hey?!![:)]

Logistically having Army with different equipment group together in a single Army Group is a mess.

Did the British get most of the supply when they were in front of Caen right after Overload? Was not the original post Overload plan for the breakthrough is in the British sector, which was more suitable for tank?
Monty could have cutoff a small German force in the Zuider Zee when he captured Antwerp.
How long would the British lines be to surround The Ruhr from Arnhem with the American stuck in front the of the Siegfried lines at Aachen? How easy would it be for the German to cutoff the British?
Again I point out that The British launched their attacked on the Ruhr further to the South.

[EricGuitarJames]

How long would the British lines be to surround The Ruhr from Arnhem with the American stuck in front the of the Siegfried lines at Aachen? How easy would it be for the German to cutoff the British?

The British would have had serious problems with the Germans interdicting the supply route but on the other hand the Allied overwhelming superiority in air power would have partially negated this. Additionally, with the British driving into the enemy rear (what an image that brings to mind[X(]) the Germans would have had their own supply nightmare. 'Market-Garden' was a spectacularly bold and imaginative plan (and Bradley's quote on that is a corker!) of the kind that could have won the war (or at the very least shortened it considerably). Of course it ultimately failed and with hindsight it's easy to see that a less ambitious plan to capture Antwerp and isolate at least part of Zangan's 15th Army would have been more effective, especially as the Germans would probably have been forced to use the refitting SS Panzer divisions in a 'fire brigade' role (as they were in the east) rather than as a combined armoured force in the Ardennes.

The post at the start of this thread asked "....if Market Garden had been a success.....". It obviously wasn't an outright success as hoped for by the operation's strategic plans but did it achieve any secondary success? Did the cost in terms of men, materiel, planning resources, logistics etc achieve anything else along the lines of redirecting German forces, significant damage of German forces, early liberation of any parts of occupied Europe, political cohesiveness and so on?

Imho 'Market-Garden' was a failure. The losses sustained by the airborne forces, especially the British were inordinately high and when you consider that these were highly trained elite units this only makes it worse worse. The strategic cost was even worse with scarce supplies wasted and important harbours unsecured crippling the offensive capabilities of the Allied armies across the whole of the Western Front. Of course the Germans suffered losses too but the Bittrich's 2nd SS Panzer Corps does not appear to have suffered significant losses in the battle and Wacht Am Rhein does not appear to have been delayed. The only positive result that I can find is the tradition built in to the modern British 'Red Devils' for whom Arnhem is a 'badge of honour'.

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames

How long would the British lines be to surround The Ruhr from Arnhem with the American stuck in front the of the Siegfried lines at Aachen? How easy would it be for the German to cutoff the British?

The British would have had serious problems with the Germans interdicting the supply route but on the other hand the Allied overwhelming superiority in air power would have partially negated this.

I was referring to land forces cutting off the 30 Corp or more.
In regards to loses air transport loses were also important as they were able to supply a good portion of the Army. The Red Ball express used a large proportion of it forces just transporting the supplies to the front line.

[EricGuitarJames]

I think you misconstrued my answer. Allied air forces would have been able to negate Wehrmacht interdiction (to a certain degree) of the supply lines. I'm not saying they could have managed a complete job of that and neither am I saying that 21st Army Group could have been supplied from the air (at least not to an effective level anyway). [:)]

[Golf33]

ORIGINAL: RayWolfe

I think you’ll find it may have been General Melchet and Captain Darling in Black Adder Goes Fourth [8|]
But, of course, that series was so wonderfully bittersweet. [:(]
Ray

Oops. It's been a long time.

Regards
33

[brodieman]

Whenever you have a coalition army you're always going to have to soothe egos, that takes a politicians guile, Ike simply was able to soothe over a great many parties in a short amount of time - a military man couldn't do the same

If Market Garden succeeded it would mean that they kept the German forces in a fair degree of disarray. Enough to bring up and secure supplies? Maybe, maybe not, you could easily argue both points. I think that no matter what ,there would of had to be a large time frame allotted to reorganisation/refitting regardless, and any offensive operations would of had to have halted in the MG area. But i think that as a successful MG slowed other offensives would of launched off it's back, enough to keep the Axis forces reeling or at the very least prevent an Ardennes situation.

The other factor that i'm not sure on was how willing were the Red Army to drive harder if they knew the Allies had successfully launched such a major offensive? Would of they speared into Germany quicker? Or would of they halted and reinforced/resupplied given that it would offer them some minor leeway.

There's a heap of if's in any scenario if MG succeeded, but i think it would of been what they did immediately after it's success with it's other armies that would of been the deciding factor.

Well that's my country-boy assessment of a time i never existed in and only know through books