The whole situation around the end of December near Bastogne is very confused (regarding the German side especially). 5th Panzerarmee had been ordered to take Bastogne and various formations were allotted to Manteuffel's command, but these were often ad hoc collections of men and vehicles 'cobbled together' into Kampfgruppe, launched into the fray under one commander, reinforced by another group under another, possibly senior, commander. The Germans were improvising in the way they had been on the Eastern Front for some time.
Reading through various histories of the battle, it seems relatively easy to piece together an account of the 'Bulge' up to the time of the relief of Bastogne by Patton's Third Army. The accounts of the battle to eradicate the salient following this are much less satisfactory. Even MacDonald's work (supposedly the 'definitive' account) falls away at this juncture of the battle. Of the 620 pages he gives to the battle (ignoring the epilogue and the appendices) less than twenty are concerned with 'Erasing the Bulge' (as he entitles the chapter) despite the fact that it deals with nearly a month of fighting. The first hundred 'set the scene' and the other 500 deal with around ten days of fighting.
If this is correct, than the Fuhrer Brigade would have had 40 tanks, and the 1SS Panzer would have had 40-50 tanks.
Or, are we talking about the same tanks here for both groups?
Any other sources to clear this up?
Anyone have the OoB for the Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade in the Ardennes?
Total operational tank strength (according to Jentz) "in all units in the West" (he could mean all units involved in the offensive, or actually mean all units in the West which would include those designated for Nordwind or in static defence elsewhere) for 30 December:
StuG: 335
PzIV: 345 (including PzIV/70(V), PzIV/70(A), FlakpzIV, and Sturmpanzer)
PzV: 240
PzVI: 58 (including Tiger I, Tiger II, and Sturmtiger)
Führer-Begleit-Brigade started the offensive with:
All the units that had PzVI (in Jentz this normally includes VIE and VIB but the total at least gives a ceiling):
s.SS-Pz.Abt. 501, att to SS-Pz.Rgt. 1 of 1.SS-Pz.Div "LSSAH": 45
Pz.Abt.(Fkl) 301: 27
s.H.Pz.Abt 506: 42, with 6 replacements in transit at 10 Dec 44
So the total Tigers available at the start of the offensive was 114 with a further 6 en route, I am sure I've seen a few sources that mention a "handful" of Tiger II amongst these but I haven't seen anything suggesting there would have even been a full company of those monsters. Also, the Tiger II was distinctly unsuited to operations in terrain like the Ardennes, due to its high ground pressure (258 kg/sq.cm as opposed to 238 for the Tiger I, 142 for the Panther G, 140 for the Panther D-A, and just 87 for the PzIV), bulk, and unreliability. In dense wooded or urban areas the 88mm/L71 gun was also at a disadvantage to the 88mm/L56 of the Tiger I, due to its greater length which caused problems trying to traverse when close to trees or buildings.
According to Jentz, the total inventory (I believe this is for all German forces) of Tiger II was 174 on 1 Dec 44, and 195 on 1 Jan 45, while the inventory for Tiger I was 274 and 276 for those dates respectively. The reported losses on those dates were:
Tiger I: 1 Dec 44, 2; 1 Jan 45, 62; 1 Feb 45, ??
Tiger II: 1 Dec 44, 30; 1 Jan 45, 11; 1 Feb 45, ??
I interpret this to indicate that Tiger II were relatively uninvolved in the Ardennes fighting during December as their losses were marginal during that month compared to the losses of Tiger I. This is of course all complicated by these figures which are not for any particular battle or even front, but are overall stats for the whole tank fleet.
I think that the absence of reported losses for Jan probably indicates the near-total destruction and complete disorganisation inflicted on the German army during the misbegotten disaster that was the Ardennes.
The Germans did well when they had air superiority and numerical/qualitative superiority, and when they didn’t they faired poorly. So what? Should the accomplishment of the Germans in 1940 against France be dismissed because they attacked second rate troops with overwhelming force, while having air superiority?
In my opinion, German commanders as a group are overrated by most people, and Erich von Manstein is no acceptation. He understood the nature of armored warfare during this period, a rarity among German commanders, but was not a miracle worker. When in a tactically disadvantages situation he achieve no radical victories, and while his handling of Panzer forces was very good, his command of infantry forces was adequate. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t brilliant, just that his victories were achieved under similar circumstances you dismiss so easily in your post.
1. He did well with 56th Panzer Corps in 1941 with a superior force and air superiority, against a surprised and poorly lead Soviet troops.
2. His handling of 11th Army in the Crimea can best be described as adequate, but before Sevastopol fell his Army was spent.
3. His action while commanding forces attacking Leningrad can hardly be called brilliant.
4. His command of Army Group Don was not successful.
5. The counter attack in the winter of 1942/43 was excellent, but it was concentrated German armor against an exhausted, strung out and poorly supplied Soviet force.
6. His commander of Army Group South consisted of a failed offense and endless retreat.
"Field-Marshal von Manstein had proved the ablest commander in the German Army. He had a superb sense of operational possibilities and an equal mastery in the conduct of operations, together with a greater grasp of the potentialities of mechanised forces than any of the other commanders not trained in the tank army. In sum, he had military genius."
Captain B.H. Liddell Hart
PS. I am not comparing the abilities of any general, just pointing out that the “circumstances” that are dismissed when helping an Allied victory were also used by the Germans.
Stirring the pot. [;)]
Culiacan Mexico:
Excellent summary [:)]
And of course you make very valid points.
You are not stirrig the pot, when what you say is true.
Most of all the early German victories; most of all the fame the German armies gained; much of the reputation gained by German generals; was done against weaker, poorer, and inferior forces in Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, France, Norway, etc, etc. . .
Cheers!
HAHAHA!
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only? No wonder Patton is so popular. He's invincible![;)]
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions. Luckily for us, logistics and strategic planning left much to be desired.
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only
This is what some Patton critics do to Patton.
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions.
Oh?
I seem to remember the Germany Army outside the gates of Moscow in Dec/41 was not only stalled, but it was beaten back.
At Kursk, the German armoured forces simply impaled themselves upon multiple lines of heavily prepared Soviet defenses and they had to withdraw. . .
What about Stalingrad?
Or El Alamein?
Or Bastogne?
Or. . . .
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
Some critics knock Patton's victories because they feel his opponents were weaker.
This was to show that the same can also be said about early German victories.
Patton was a great believer in Combined Arms. The information below is presented to show the reader about Patton's early thoughts and successes in Combined Arms.
NOTE: In part the following excerpts have been extracted from The Secret of Future Victories by Paul F. Gorman, General, U.S. Army, Retired; Combat Studies institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900; Feb, 1992
In early 1939 Patton read a translation of Guderian's writings, and was powerfully stimulated by Guderian's suggestion that, precisely opposite to U.S. doctrine, infantry ought to be used to assist the advance of tanks. Patton's voluminous notes to himself on Guderian reflect the tactical style for which the American later became famous, well-summed in these sentences: "Mobile forces should be used in large groups and [be] vigorously led. They must attempt the impossible and dare the unknown."
It seemed possible to Patton that tanks in conjunction with closely supporting airplanes, self-propelled artillery pieces, and motorized infantrymen could break defensive lines and roam at will through enemy rear areas, completely demoralizing outflanked and confused combat troops, and paralyzing command nerve centers.
Tennessee Maneuvers, 1941
GHQ maneuvers scheduled for 1941 offered Patton, who was itching to use his new instrument of war, his first opportunities to show the Army what an armored force could accomplish.
In Tennessee, Patton and the 2d Armored division... launched a well-reconnoitered night attack, followed by a four-pronged exploitation that by 9 a.m. had captured the enemy commander and his battle staff, and forced the umpires, at 11 a.m., to stop the exercise well ahead of schedule. Major General Lesley McNair witnessed this feat of arms.
In the next phase of the maneuvers, Patton's forces knifed through the defenders with such speed that the umpires stopped the action after nine hours instead of the allocated two days. And for its finale, the 2d Armored Division swept wide around the defenders, disrupted their rear area, and captured its assigned final objective several hours ahead of the planned end to the maneuvers. Secretary Stimson was a witness to that triumph, and Patton was able to point out to him that although the division had covered long distances, "in some cases over 110 miles, every fighting vehicle in the division, except two tanks and a scout car, got to the place it was supposed to be in time to deliver the attack. . . ." Patton emerged from the Tennessee maneuvers as the rising star of the Army.
Nonetheless, on 27 November General Marshall took time to fly down to Carolina to watch the conclusion of the maneuvers, and was once more favorably impressed with Patton's willingness to dare, and with the appearance and evident high spirits of the soldiers in his division. Later, after Pearl Harbor, one Senator questioned Marshall's judgement for leaving Washington on that day with war clouds plainly in sight. Marshall's rejoinder was that the trip had enabled him personally to confirm Patton's abilities, and to decide to promote him.
In May 1941, Patton mailed to friends a copy of remarks he had made to his division:
"An armored division is the most powerful organization ever devised by the mind of men.... An armored division is that element of the team which carries out the running plays. We straight-am, and go around, and dodge, and go-around.... We must find out where the enemy is, we must hold him, and we must go around him.... One of the greatest qualities which we have is the ability to produce in our enemy the fear of the unknown. Therefore, we must always keep moving, do not sit down, do not say "I have done enough," keep on, see what else you can do to raise the devil with the enemy. . . There are no bullets in maneuvers, and things sometimes get a little dull. But play the game ... the umpires have the job of representing the bullets ... Try above all things to use your imagination. Think this is war."What would I do if that man were really shooting at me?" That is the only chance, men, that you are going to have to practice. The next time, maybe, there will be no umpires, and the bullets will be very real, both yours and the enemy's."
Within a few weeks, Patton's units were undertaking their first extensive exercises in the desert, and shortly thereafter Patton initiated a steady stream of correspondence on "lessons learned" from operations. No experiment was unworthy of his attention, no detail too small, if he thought it might improve readiness for battle. Patton was tireless in observing his units; he spent much time on a solitary hill between the Orocopia and Chuckwalla Mountains that the troops dubbed "The King's Throne," a point of vantage from which he could watch units moving about the plains below. Any slightest departure from march discipline, or any minor prospect for improving a formation or a tactic, would elicit a radio call from the "Throne." He also spent much time aloft in his light plane--he had flown his own Stimson Voyageur out from Georgia for the purpose--similarly observing and criticizing. He told his officers that "if you can work successfully here in this country, it will be no difficulty at all to kill the assorted sons of bitches you will meet in any other country."
Patton also kept in close touch with Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, head of the Armored Force, who was responsible for armor materiel, manuals, and training techniques. Patton wrote of a three-day exercise in which his entire corps had been deployed, culminating in a "battle" between two opposing forces. He urged Devers to look into installation of a compass in the tank, and to adopt a heavier gun for the light tank, and he endorsed Devers' campaign for a better medium tank. Patton sent him ten sheets of diagrams of armor formations he had evolved by trial and error, noting that they were not perfect, but "viewed from the air and from the ground, and I have done this on every occasion, they certainly present targets practically invulnerable to aviation."
Soon, Patton had reduced what he had learned to his own manual of sorts, entitled Notes on Tactics and Techniques of Desert Warfare (Provisional), July 30, 1942.38 In it, Patton was quite didactic about air support operations, dispersed formations, and road marches. But command in battle, he asserted, was an art-form, and while he was willing to define battle's phases, he emphasized use of combined arms, and left the rest to the initiative and imagination of the commander on the ground. That commander should cope flexibly with the unexpected, relying on massive fires and maneuvers to bring fire to bear from the enemy's flank or, preferably, rear:
Some of Patton's thoughts:
Formation and material are of very secondary importance compared to discipline, the ability to shoot rapidly and accurately with the proper weapon at the proper target, and the irresistible desire to close with the enemy with the purpose of killing and destroying him. Throughout training, these things must be stressed above all others....
The force commander can exercise command from the air in a liaison plane by use of the two-way radio. He should remain in the plane until contact [with the enemy] is gained, after which one of his staff officers should be in the plane, and he himself on the ground to lead the attack....
[Reconnaissance and advance guard units] acting as ordered by the higher commander always remembering that they must never lose a chance of hurting the enemy. Sitting on a tank watching the show is fatuous--killing wins wars....
As the fight progresses, and dust clouds prevent observation, the reserve tank unit should move out to encircle the enemy and attack him from the rear. When its in position to make this attack, it should signal the force commander so that a synchronized assault may be executed....
[When attack aviation notifies it is ready] the fronts of our main assault and encircling force are outlined by clouds of specially colored smoke produced either by grenades or by artillery. This smoke gives the air a datum line as they are then able with safety to attack the narrow zone of the enemy front between the two lines of smoke....
As soon as the air attack is complete, the final assault from the front and rear is ordered. In this assault the tanks move rapidly forward to close with the enemy, while the enveloping tanks attack him from the rear. The armored infantry, moving in their carriers, follow the tanks until they are forced to dismount by hostile fire, and then rushing forward mop up and secure the spoils of victory. I repeat that the foregoing description is a great generalization. For example, in the situations where the enemy is covered by a minefield or we have been unable to locate and destroy his guns the infantry will attack first supported by the fire of all guns--Tank, Artillery, Tank Destroyer, Dual-Purpose Anti-Aircraft, and by the Air Force.
Patton held that there ought to be very little difference between the design of an infantry division and the design of an armored division, except that in the former, "the purpose of supporting weapons--primarily tanks--is to get the infantry forward. In an armored division, the purpose of the infantry is to break the tanks loose."
Patton and Combined Arms - The Battle of the Bulge
The following article will show the reader Patton's belief in Combined Arms, and will use the Battle of the Bulge as an example of how this was employed.
NOTE: the following article is taken from Combined Arms in Battle Since 1939, Roger J. Spiller General Editor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 1992
Flexibility
The U.S. Third Army at the Battle of the Bulge, 1944
Dr. Michael D. Pearlman
On 15 December 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, gave Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, commander in chief, British 21st Army Group, permission "to hop over to England" to spend Christmas with his son. Meanwhile, intelligence reports on the German Army were identifying more than normal amounts of railroad movement by the enemy, signs of engineers with bridging equipment, and requests for aerial reconnaissance around the Ardennes Forest. Nonetheless, the Allied high command remained confident that the Germans were doing nothing truly significant. On his part, Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley, commander of the U.S. 12th Army Group, expected just a local "spoiling" or a "diversionary attack" by the Germans and went off to visit Eisenhower for a game of whist.
At dawn the next day, 16 December, two German panzer armies... launched an attack on the U.S. VIII Corps and the right wing of the V Corp at rest in front of the Ardennes Forest. This onslaught, according to Adolf Hitler's plan, would split the British and the American forces in the European Theater of Operations (ETO); isolate the British and Canadians in the north; and open a corridor to Antwerp, the principal Allied port in northwestern Europe (see map 14). Hitler told his subordinates that a great victory on the Western Front would "bring down this artificial coalition with a crash."
The Allies were shocked. "No Goddamned fool would do it," said Bradley's G2 (assistant chief of staff for military intelligence). Not everyone, however, was completely astonished. In August 1944, when Eisenhower's own G2 was writing that "the end of the war in Europe [is] within sight," the G2 of the U.S. Third Army, Colonel Oscar W. Koch, remained cautious and alert. According to Koch, the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht from Normandy "had not been a rout or [a] mass collapse." He warned that the Germans would "wage a last-ditch struggle in the field at all costs."
In the succeeding months from August to mid-December, Koch kept his eyes on quiet sectors adjacent to the U.S. Third Army. He and its commander, Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr., recognized that inactivity can foreshadow an enemy assault. Because the Germans were not under attack in front of the Ardennes Forest, it was the very place where they might choose to build up their strength. Koch, at a staff meeting on 9 December, specifically said that the Germans might be concentrating their combat power opposite the VIII Corps at the Ardennes.
Koch's boss, Patton, had no interest in heading north toward the VIII Corps, since Germany, his objective, was due east. For months, he had been planning "to go through the Siegfried Line [Germany's border fortifications] like shit through a goose." Nonetheless, after Koch's briefing on 9 December, he tasked his staff members to "be in a position to meet whatever happens." Thereafter, they began to survey the road net and bridges leading from Third Army's sector north to the Ardennes.
Patton, despite his own premonitions and plans, initially underestimated the strength of the German offensive launched on the 16th. He had been angry and embarrassed that elements of the First Army, to his north, and the 6th Army Group, to his south, had already reached Germany before his own troops. (They "made a monkey of me," he complained.) Now that he had finally battered his way through the defended towns of the province of Lorraine and the forts of the Maginot Line, he wished to move in only one direction, straight across the Saar River into enemy territory. Nonetheless, on 18 December, after Bradley showed him the extent and size of the German penetrations in the Ardennes, Patton responded that he would send one of his four army corps north within twenty-four hours. That contingent (III Corps) had been a planning cell removed from direct contact with the enemy. Now Patton would transfer three divisions to its command, approximately 50,000 men, to contain the German onslaught on the southern shoulder of the bulge. Meanwhile, Patton also planned to send another corps, an additional 50,000 men, northeast to cut the enemy salient at its base and trap the Germans, preventing their escape.
Not the least of Patton's many contributions during this operation (which Americans would call the Battle of the Bulge) was his style of leadership and his manner of command. Patton, according to Bradley, "naturally radiated unbound confidence and dogged determination." It was now his outspoken conviction that Germany's surprise attack was not a defeat for the Anglo-American coalition but, instead, a great opportunity for the Allied armies. In mid-August, the Allies had failed to destroy the entire German Seventh Army in France when they allowed [tens of thousands of]... enemy soldiers to escape through the Argentan-Falaise gap in Normandy. After that, supply shortages (especially gasoline fuel), constant rain, and stubborn German resistance on broken terrain dramatically limited mobility. It took Patton's Third Army sixteen miserable weeks to fight its way across Lorraine (approximately seventy-five miles wide). Now, in December, as the Germans moved out from behind their fortifications, exposing their combat assets and logistical tail, a brand new chance at a decisive victory existed-if the Allies were fast, daring, and aggressive. (Bradley later called it "a 'Falaise Gap' on a far grander scale. But this time we would have to act with much greater speed and boldness" than the Allies had done in August.)....
Between 19 and 23 December, in winter storms, the line and staff of the U.S. Third Army relocated 50 to 150 miles north. On unfamiliar roads and quagmires (after five weeks of steady rain from November to December), they deployed 133,178 motor vehicles; a new network of depots and dumps for 62,000 tons of supplies; 20,000 miles of field wire for a new communications network; numerous field and evacuation hospitals; and thousands of new terrain maps for troops entering a brand new sector. "It was," said a syndicated newspaper correspondent then serving on Patton's staff, "all wrought quietly and efficiently by a teamwork without parallel in the ETO, a teamwork rooted deeply in great know-how, in great confidence in itself and its Commander, and in great fighting spirit."
Patton, however, was not satisfied just moving his army north. His comment about letting the Germans go to Paris was only half in jest. If he had the authority, he would have let the Germans drive another fifty miles west and then cut the base of their salient. Eisenhower, having other responsibilities, could not be quite this daring. He already had committed the only strategic reserves he had, the U.S. 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions, to hold the transportation hubs and bottlenecks at the northern and southern shoulders of the German bulge.
The 82d, at St. Vith, was in the First Army's area of operations. The 101st, at Bastogne, was Patton's responsibility. Meanwhile, Hitler declared that his panzer armies "would crush everything in their path."
Patton, always looking to strike a decisive blow that could end the war then and there, would have preferred to bypass Bastogne and head straight for St. Vith, where he could rope off and destroy the entire German salient. Eisenhower, however, insisted that the 101st be rescued, although many of those cocky paratroopers later claimed that they were doing quite well on their own. (One said, "So they got us surrounded again, the poor bastards!") Whether the airborne divisions needed help or not, Patton, under orders, dispatched the 4th Armored Division, his favorite division, to relieve Bastogne.
What Patton was to the operational art of war, the 4th Armored Division was to tactics: the U.S. Army's most skillful practitioner of flexibility, initiative, and agility. "Speed, speed. Obsessiveness with speed permeated our lives," recalled a division sergeant; "no one even had to tell us; there were no orders from Patton to move faster." The 4th was one of only two divisions in the ETO to win a Presidential Unit Citation, the other one being the 101st Airborne Division, largely for its own exploits at Bastogne....
Under Wood's tutelage, the [4th Armored] division had developed an extremely flexible form of command and control that today is called "mission type orders." "Due to the swift movement of events" between July and September, "it was necessary," according to 4th Armored Division personnel, to "permit a latitude of decision to staff officers and subordinate commanders that at first appeared radical. On closer examination, however, the advantage of this system became apparent. It permitted the officer on the spot ... to make a decision quickly and take action when it was most needed and when it would do the most good."
This flexibility was necessary during the 4th Division's passage to Bastogne, 150 miles north. The lead unit of its relief column was the 37th Tank Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Creighton W. Abrams, a future Army chief of staff (1972-74). In World War II, Abrams won two Distinguished Service Crosses, two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star, and an accolade from Patton: "I'm supposed to be the best tank commander in the Army, but I have a peer-Abe Abrams."
Although Time magazine called the 37th Tank Battalion "a fearsome weapon of destruction," it was far from being at its best in late December 1944. When dispatched to Bastogne, it was short 230 men and 34 tanks-one-half of its organic firepower. It might never have arrived near Bastogne at all without close air support from the XIX Tactical Air Command and its P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers, each plane armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, rockets, and bombs to suppress German tanks and artillery.
The Army Air Forces (AAF) in World War II took great pride in flexibility, its capstone manual claiming that "the inherent flexibility of air power is its greatest asset. This flexibility," it continued, "makes it possible to employ the whole weight of the available air power against selected areas in turn." At the beginning of the war, the AAF had virtually no capability for accurate and effective close air support. By 1944, however, it had developed and fielded the best fighter-bombers (P-47s) in any arsenal. It had also perfected a surface-to-air communications system that enabled tanks and planes to maneuver together, identifying targets of opportunity for one another as they appeared without warning on the battlefield. This, by comparison, was a far more flexible system of close air support than any the Germans had ever fielded, the Luftwaffe being used in prearranged missions for prepared breakthroughs on static enemy positions.
The 4th Armored Division, despite close air support, was still out gunned on the ground by the time it arrived within striking distance of Bastogne, but the Americans maneuvered their weapons with greater rapidity. Therefore, Abrams' immediate superior decided to skirt heavily defended enemy positions by taking secondary roads-a more time consuming but less-direct procedure. Abrams was about to proceed as directed when he observed C-47 aircraft dropping supplies on Bastogne. Convinced that American troops there were in desperate straits, he immediately changed his approach plan to the direct route (forgetting, however, to inform his commanding officer). After the first tanks of the battalion fought their way into the outskirts of Bastogne on 25 December-the day after Patton said they would arrive-Abrams received a radio inquiry from his superior: the colonel asked him to consider a breakthrough attempt and linkup with the paratroopers that night.
One would have liked to end the story of the Battle of the Bulge with the linkup at Bastogne. The airborne troops' resistance and their relief by U.S. armor was surely one of the great exploits in the history of the U.S. Army. Unfortunately, as Patton recognized from the beginning of the entire operation, Bastogne was just a road junction at the waist of the bulge. As such, it should not have become the ultimate Allied objective. Instead, the decisive point of the campaign should have been a linkup from the north and the south somewhere at the base of the German salient. There, the Allied armies could trap all the Germans they had not killed or captured. However, the Allied high command, especially Montgomery, chose a more cautious but less-rewarding plan pushing the Germans out of the bulge back into Germany.
Patton thought this plan made no sense: "If you get a monkey in the jungle hanging by his tail, it is easier to get him by cutting off his tail than kicking him in the face." Nonetheless, Patton did not get his way and was not allowed to begin his drive into the base of the bulge until 18 January. By that time, most of the Germans had escaped.
To be sure, the Bulge was a victory. The Allies killed or captured at least 100,000 Germans and destroyed 800 tanks and 1,000 planes. In the words of the German Army's official historian, the Ardennes offensive of 1944 "broke the backbone of the western front." Still, most of the German soldiers and approximately half their equipment slipped through the noose that Patton would have tied around their neck if the entire Allied force had been as flexible as his command.
The Army's capstone manual, FM 100-5, Operations (1986), says the following about flexibility:
The commander must foresee developments as far as possible. However, he must also expect uncertainties and be ready to exploit opportunities.... The defender must be agile enough to counter or evade the attacker's blow, then strike back effectively.... Reserves prepare to move anywhere in sector and make counterattack plans to cover all likely contingencies. Once the attacker has been controlled, the defender can operate against his exposed flanks and his rear.
At the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, the U.S. Army fought one of the greatest battles in its history. It did not, however, completely fulfill the high standards its doctrine now sets for itself. It blocked the enemy's main avenues of attack and rushed reserves into the critical sector, but it did not act quickly against the enemy's exposed rear areas.
Bibliography
Blumenson, Martin. Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885-1945. New York: Morrow, 1985.
Bradley, Omar Nelson, and Clay Blair. A General's Life: An Auto biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.
Farago, Ladislas. Patton: Ordeal and Triumph. New York: L Obolensky, 1963.
Franke, Nat, and Larry Smith. Patton's Best: An Informal History of the 4th Armored Division. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1978.
MacDonald, Charles Brown. A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge. New York: Morrow, 1985.
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
Some critics knock Patton's victories because they feel his opponents were weaker.
This was to show that the same can also be said about early German victories.
D'oh! I was about to post something along those lines and you beat me too it. Oh well. [:)]
[:)]
And what also should be remembered by Patton's critics is that when Patton took charge of Third Army in England in 1944, it was basically an inexperienced, green army. In contrast, it would be facing enemy soldiers who had been at war for five years. . .
As Patton stated when he took command of Third Army: he had to start all over again, in training, discipline, toughening up the men, etc. . . before they landed in Europe.
The 4th Armored Division of Third Army, was quite the outfit.
It alone is worth reading about.
Some highlights:
Fact Sheet of the 4th Armored Division
TYPE OF DIVISION: Regular Army
NICKNAME: “Breakthrough” Division. However, no nickname has ever been officially adopted; troopers have preferred to be known simply as members of the 4th Armored.
SHOULDER PATCH: Triangular design divided into three area: red (representing Field Artillery), blue (representing Infantry), and yellow (representing Cavalry). Superimposed on three area, in black, are the track of a tank and a cannon. A bolt of lightning, in red, is superimposed on these. The Division’s number appears in the upper portion of the triangle.
ACTIVATION DATE: 15 April 1941..
INACTIVATION DATE: 26 April 1946 at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey.
COMPONENT UNITS: Hq Co; Res. Com.; CCA; CCB; 8, 35 and 37 Tank Bns; 10, 51 and 53 Armd Inf Bns; 24th Armd Engr Bn; 25th Cav Rcn Sq (Mecz); 144 Armd Sig Co. Division Artillery: 22, 66 and 94 Armd FA Bns. Division Trains: 4th Armd Med Bn; 126 Ord Maint Bn; MP Platoon; Band.
TRAINING: Upon activation the unit was assigned to the Armored Force and stationed at Pine Camp NY. From 14 Sep through 26 Oct 1942, it maneuvered under the Second Army in Tennessee. In Nov 1942, it was transferred to Camp Young CA and participated in Desert Training Center maneuvers from 1 Dec 1942 through 22 Feb 1943. From 19 Apr to 10 Jul, it took part in further Desert Training Center maneuvers and then moved to Camp Bowie, TX, under the VIII Corps, Third Army.
DEPARTED U.S. FOR FOREIGN DUTY: 29 December 1943 from Boston..
OVERSEAS TRAINING: The Division conducted training in England prior to seeing combat on the continent.
DATE ENTERED COMBAT: Division 28 July 1944, First Elements 17 July 1944.
COMBAT DAYS (DIV): 230.
RETURNED TO U.S.: 25 April 1946.
BATTLE CREDITS: (Division) Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe.
SUCCESSIVE COMMANDING GENERALS: Major General H W Baird from April 1941 to May 1942; Major General J S Wood from May 1942 to December 1944; Major Genera l H Gaffey from Dec 944 to March 1945; Major General W M Hoge from March to July 1945; Major General F B Prickett from September 1945 to inactivation in April 1946.
CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR WINNERS: 1st Lt James H Fields, Houston TX. He led his platoon in the seizure and defense of a vital hill position near Rechicourt, France, 27 Sep 1944, though greatly weakened and speechless from a serious head wound. He so inspired his depleted platoon that it faced an overwhelming rush of Germans in a stand that grabbed victory from the grasp of the Nazis.
Sgt Joseph J Sadowski, Perth Amboy NJ, for heroism near Valhey, France 14 Sep 1944. AS his unit, 37th Tank Bn, pressed towards the town under heavy fire, Sgt Sadowski’ tank was disabled, and burst into flame. He ordered his crew to take cover, but one member was unable to dismount. In the face of almost certain death, the sergeant returned to the tank and tried to pry open the turret, being killed during his efforts.
S/Sgt James R Hendrix of Lepanto AR, Company C of the 53rd Armored Infantry Bn, for wiping out two enemy artillery positions and saving the lives of three of his wounded comrades on 26 Dec 1944.
DISTINGUISHED UNIT CITATION: The division became the first Armored Division to receive the Distinguished Unit Citation, given the entire personnel for “extraordinary tactical accomplishment” from 22 Dec 44 to 27 Mar 45 in spearheading the Third Army across France into Germany.
FOREIGN AWARDS: Awarded the French Fourragere for 27 July to 11 August 1944 action at Avranches and 12 to 29 September 1944 action at Nantes and the Moselle area, France by French Decision #272, dated 22 July 1946.
COMBAT HIGHLIGHTS: From the time the 4th ArmdD entered combat on the Normandy peninsula, 17 Jul 1944, its action was nearly continuous during long trek through France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and Czechoslovakia. First real test of the Division was the battle for the city Coutances, France, on 28 Jul.
Coutances was taken the day it was attacked, and from there the Division started a marathon sprint that carried it across France to the German border in an unending chase. From Coutances, the unit swung south and lopped off the Brittany peninsula in a lightning thrust. The outfit then swung due east and Combat Command “B” drove 264 miles in 34 hours to reach Prunay, south of Vendeme, France. In mid-September the 4th smashed across the cold, swift Moselle River and drove into the heart of the Germans’ winter defense line. Two columns of steel flanks the French City of Nancy and the famous old city fell as the Germans fled to the east.
Three weeks after the 4th’s crossing of the Moselle River it saw some of the toughest fighting the Division ever encountered. The Germans counterattacked with two Panzer brigades and a Panzer Div, supported by Grenadiers. All attacks were repulsed w/o loss of ground, and at the end of three weeks men of the 4th ArmdD counted 281 German Panther and Tiger Tanks littering the hills.
On 18 Dec 1944, tankers of the organization had heard vague reports of a 2 day German offensive in Belgium & Luxembourg. Suddenly that night orders were issued for the outfit to march north against the breakthrough. Elements raced northwest thru Morhange, crossed the Moselle at Pont-a-Mousson, turned north to Briey and Longwy, then into Belgium to Arlon, before arriving at an assembly area at Vaux-les-Rosieres. The 151-mile march had been made in 19 hours. For 4 days, 22-26 Dec, the 4th pounded away at von Rundstedt’s offensive from the flank and finally on 26 Dec, the first Sherman tank lumbered the last few hundred yards over the mine strewn Arlon – Bastogne highway to signal the relief of the 101st AbnD which occupied besieged Bastogne.
After six weeks of waiting for another German attack that never materialized, the 4th plunged into action again.. This time it went thru the Siegfried Line in the wake of the 90th InfD, drove to the Kyll River, paused briefly and then took off on a historical drive that carried to the Rhine River – - 66 miles in 58 hours. Enroute the outfit had surged across the Moselle River at Trois and made a non-stop trip to the ancient city of Worms on the Rhine, after capturing Simmern, Bad Kreuznach and a huge total of Nazi prisoners.
This time the outfit passed thru the 5th InfD’s bridgehead and crossed the Rhine 24-25 Mar. The Division advanced all night and by morning straddled the Main River south of Hanau, w/4 bridges intact. From here it was a lightning advance all the way to Chemnitz and into Czechoslovakia. After V-E Day the Div was given an occupational mission at Landshut, Ger until departure for the US and inactivation. Some elements of the Div were redesignated as Constabulary units to remain in Ger as occupation forces.
These fact sheets are from The Information Section, Analysis Branch, Hq Army Ground Forces, Washington 25 DC, 1 Mar 1947, as found in the records of the National Archives and Records Administration, RG 407, Archives II, College Park MD. Not all of the Division’s Fact sheets have survived and they are being presented here in random order as new ones are found.
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only
This is what some Patton critics do to Patton.
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions.
Oh?
I seem to remember the Germany Army outside the gates of Moscow in Dec/41 was not only stalled, but it was beaten back.
At Kursk, the German armoured forces simply impaled themselves upon multiple lines of heavily prepared Soviet defenses and they had to withdraw. . .
What about Stalingrad?
Or El Alamein?
Or Bastogne?
Or. . . .
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
Some critics knock Patton's victories because they feel his opponents were weaker.
This was to show that the same can also be said about early German victories.
'Could' but not 'would' is the appropriate word up there. At 'Kursk' the Soviets knew exactly what the Germans were going to do and prepared accordingly. Hitler delayed the offensive in order to deploy more tanks giving the Soviets even more time to build up their defences. When the Germans attacked they had none of the advantages an attacking force needs - surprise, materiel superiority, attacking at a 'weak spot'. Much the same can be said of Rommel at 'Alam Halfa' (I presume this is what you are referring to when you write 'El Alamein') after which his army was forced onto the defensive. I understand the point you make about Patton's critics but the brilliance of the 1940 German campaign in France (to serve as a suitable example) is in the planning - attack where the enemy is weakest (Sedan) and then maintain the initiative, never allowing the opposition the opportunity to recover and counter-attack. Manstein was its architect and you have to give Hitler some credit for approving it against the advice of his senior commanders in the West.
Thankyou for using the World Wide Web. British designed, given freely to the World.
Patton was a great believer in Combined Arms. The information below is presented to show the reader about Patton's early thoughts and successes in Combined Arms.
NOTE: In part the following excerpts have been extracted from The Secret of Future Victories by Paul F. Gorman, General, U.S. Army, Retired; Combat Studies institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900; Feb, 1992
In early 1939 Patton read a translation of Guderian's writings, and was powerfully stimulated by Guderian's suggestion that, precisely opposite to U.S. doctrine, infantry ought to be used to assist the advance of tanks. Patton's voluminous notes to himself on Guderian reflect the tactical style for which the American later became famous, well-summed in these sentences: "Mobile forces should be used in large groups and [be] vigorously led. They must attempt the impossible and dare the unknown."
It seemed possible to Patton that tanks in conjunction with closely supporting airplanes, self-propelled artillery pieces, and motorized infantrymen could break defensive lines and roam at will through enemy rear areas, completely demoralizing outflanked and confused combat troops, and paralyzing command nerve centers.
Tennessee Maneuvers, 1941
GHQ maneuvers scheduled for 1941 offered Patton, who was itching to use his new instrument of war, his first opportunities to show the Army what an armored force could accomplish.
In Tennessee, Patton and the 2d Armored division... launched a well-reconnoitered night attack, followed by a four-pronged exploitation that by 9 a.m. had captured the enemy commander and his battle staff, and forced the umpires, at 11 a.m., to stop the exercise well ahead of schedule. Major General Lesley McNair witnessed this feat of arms.
In the next phase of the maneuvers, Patton's forces knifed through the defenders with such speed that the umpires stopped the action after nine hours instead of the allocated two days. And for its finale, the 2d Armored Division swept wide around the defenders, disrupted their rear area, and captured its assigned final objective several hours ahead of the planned end to the maneuvers. Secretary Stimson was a witness to that triumph, and Patton was able to point out to him that although the division had covered long distances, "in some cases over 110 miles, every fighting vehicle in the division, except two tanks and a scout car, got to the place it was supposed to be in time to deliver the attack. . . ." Patton emerged from the Tennessee maneuvers as the rising star of the Army.
Nonetheless, on 27 November General Marshall took time to fly down to Carolina to watch the conclusion of the maneuvers, and was once more favorably impressed with Patton's willingness to dare, and with the appearance and evident high spirits of the soldiers in his division. Later, after Pearl Harbor, one Senator questioned Marshall's judgement for leaving Washington on that day with war clouds plainly in sight. Marshall's rejoinder was that the trip had enabled him personally to confirm Patton's abilities, and to decide to promote him.
In May 1941, Patton mailed to friends a copy of remarks he had made to his division:
"An armored division is the most powerful organization ever devised by the mind of men.... An armored division is that element of the team which carries out the running plays. We straight-am, and go around, and dodge, and go-around.... We must find out where the enemy is, we must hold him, and we must go around him.... One of the greatest qualities which we have is the ability to produce in our enemy the fear of the unknown. Therefore, we must always keep moving, do not sit down, do not say "I have done enough," keep on, see what else you can do to raise the devil with the enemy. . . There are no bullets in maneuvers, and things sometimes get a little dull. But play the game ... the umpires have the job of representing the bullets ... Try above all things to use your imagination. Think this is war."What would I do if that man were really shooting at me?" That is the only chance, men, that you are going to have to practice. The next time, maybe, there will be no umpires, and the bullets will be very real, both yours and the enemy's."
Within a few weeks, Patton's units were undertaking their first extensive exercises in the desert, and shortly thereafter Patton initiated a steady stream of correspondence on "lessons learned" from operations. No experiment was unworthy of his attention, no detail too small, if he thought it might improve readiness for battle. Patton was tireless in observing his units; he spent much time on a solitary hill between the Orocopia and Chuckwalla Mountains that the troops dubbed "The King's Throne," a point of vantage from which he could watch units moving about the plains below. Any slightest departure from march discipline, or any minor prospect for improving a formation or a tactic, would elicit a radio call from the "Throne." He also spent much time aloft in his light plane--he had flown his own Stimson Voyageur out from Georgia for the purpose--similarly observing and criticizing. He told his officers that "if you can work successfully here in this country, it will be no difficulty at all to kill the assorted sons of bitches you will meet in any other country."
Patton also kept in close touch with Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, head of the Armored Force, who was responsible for armor materiel, manuals, and training techniques. Patton wrote of a three-day exercise in which his entire corps had been deployed, culminating in a "battle" between two opposing forces. He urged Devers to look into installation of a compass in the tank, and to adopt a heavier gun for the light tank, and he endorsed Devers' campaign for a better medium tank. Patton sent him ten sheets of diagrams of armor formations he had evolved by trial and error, noting that they were not perfect, but "viewed from the air and from the ground, and I have done this on every occasion, they certainly present targets practically invulnerable to aviation."
Soon, Patton had reduced what he had learned to his own manual of sorts, entitled Notes on Tactics and Techniques of Desert Warfare (Provisional), July 30, 1942.38 In it, Patton was quite didactic about air support operations, dispersed formations, and road marches. But command in battle, he asserted, was an art-form, and while he was willing to define battle's phases, he emphasized use of combined arms, and left the rest to the initiative and imagination of the commander on the ground. That commander should cope flexibly with the unexpected, relying on massive fires and maneuvers to bring fire to bear from the enemy's flank or, preferably, rear:
Some of Patton's thoughts:
Formation and material are of very secondary importance compared to discipline, the ability to shoot rapidly and accurately with the proper weapon at the proper target, and the irresistible desire to close with the enemy with the purpose of killing and destroying him. Throughout training, these things must be stressed above all others....
The force commander can exercise command from the air in a liaison plane by use of the two-way radio. He should remain in the plane until contact [with the enemy] is gained, after which one of his staff officers should be in the plane, and he himself on the ground to lead the attack....
[Reconnaissance and advance guard units] acting as ordered by the higher commander always remembering that they must never lose a chance of hurting the enemy. Sitting on a tank watching the show is fatuous--killing wins wars....
As the fight progresses, and dust clouds prevent observation, the reserve tank unit should move out to encircle the enemy and attack him from the rear. When its in position to make this attack, it should signal the force commander so that a synchronized assault may be executed....
[When attack aviation notifies it is ready] the fronts of our main assault and encircling force are outlined by clouds of specially colored smoke produced either by grenades or by artillery. This smoke gives the air a datum line as they are then able with safety to attack the narrow zone of the enemy front between the two lines of smoke....
As soon as the air attack is complete, the final assault from the front and rear is ordered. In this assault the tanks move rapidly forward to close with the enemy, while the enveloping tanks attack him from the rear. The armored infantry, moving in their carriers, follow the tanks until they are forced to dismount by hostile fire, and then rushing forward mop up and secure the spoils of victory. I repeat that the foregoing description is a great generalization. For example, in the situations where the enemy is covered by a minefield or we have been unable to locate and destroy his guns the infantry will attack first supported by the fire of all guns--Tank, Artillery, Tank Destroyer, Dual-Purpose Anti-Aircraft, and by the Air Force.
Patton held that there ought to be very little difference between the design of an infantry division and the design of an armored division, except that in the former, "the purpose of supporting weapons--primarily tanks--is to get the infantry forward. In an armored division, the purpose of the infantry is to break the tanks loose."
I don't want to get drawn back into this, but as impressive as this source sounds it is in fact as prone to bias as Whiting. It is no more or less a work of history than his. In essence, I'm yet to see a US Military source criticise Patton. One easily noticeable omission from this (and if the ommission is yours in quoting, please say and I'll retract my comments about this section of the source) is in the following section:
Tennessee Maneuvers, 1941
GHQ maneuvers scheduled for 1941 offered Patton, who was itching to use his new instrument of war, his first opportunities to show the Army what an armored force could accomplish.
In Tennessee, Patton and the 2d Armored division... launched a well-reconnoitered night attack, followed by a four-pronged exploitation that by 9 a.m. had captured the enemy commander and his battle staff, and forced the umpires, at 11 a.m., to stop the exercise well ahead of schedule. Major General Lesley McNair witnessed this feat of arms.
McNair was a very senior Officer. I seem to remember he was killed in Normandy, the highest ranking American to die in the war to enemy fire, or rather friendly fire as I seem to remember he was killed by allied bombs. However, he was indeed at the manouevres, and he is no doubt cited by the Author to show how much important attention Patton's efforts were drawing. However, McNair was not pleased with what he saw (which is not mentioned in the source).
McNair had been critical to the point of exclaiming "This is no way to fight a war." His problem had been that whilst Patton had blazed across the countryside, bypassing enemy forces, his emphasis (as it was throughout the war, and as McNair complained here) was less on destroying enemy forces, but more on gaining ground. (Quoted in Weigley: "Eisenhower's Lieutenants")
The point is further developed by Weigley with quotes from one of Patton's biographer's Farago, illustrating how the preferences Patton displayed on the fields of Tennesee were illustrated on the field of battle. Speaking of Patton's great wartime dashes, Farago concluded.
"While he did penetrate to the enemy's rear in these lightening raids, he usually confined his piecemeal operations to skirmishes with stragglers, instead of interfering strategically with the enemy's communications zone. While he did succedd in places and in parts in preventing the enem,y from forming a front, he did not destroy enough of his units to make more than a dent in his strength."
My point here is that offical US histories are as likely to be biased as anyone else. Post War official British histories stuck rigidly to the line that everything that happened in Normandy was according to Monty's plan. They were wrong and biased and I suspect the official US histories display similiar problems. I do not doubt them as sources of fact, but doubt them as unbiased sources of interpretation.
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only? No wonder Patton is so popular. He's invincible![;)]
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions. Luckily for us, logistics and strategic planning left much to be desired.
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
Von Rom
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only
This is what some Patton critics do to Patton.
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions.
Oh?
I seem to remember the Germany Army outside the gates of Moscow in Dec/41 was not only stalled, but it was beaten back.
At Kursk, the German armoured forces simply impaled themselves upon multiple lines of heavily prepared Soviet defenses and they had to withdraw. . .
What about Stalingrad?
Or El Alamein?
Or Bastogne?
Or. . . .
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
Some critics knock Patton's victories because they feel his opponents were weaker.
This was to show that the same can also be said about early German victories.
I seem to remember the Germany Army outside the gates of Moscow in Dec/41 was not only stalled, but it was beaten back.
Context, this is all about comntext. Can you tell us how many battle casualties the Germans had suffered at this stage of the campaign, the supply situation at the front, how many men short the individual divisions were on average? Remember, the Russian offensive was actually designed to break Army Group Centre, it failed.
At Kursk, the German armoured forces simply impaled themselves upon multiple lines of heavily prepared Soviet defenses and they had to withdraw. . .
No army in the world would have succeeded.
What about Stalingrad?
Irrelevant, the Russian assaults that surrounded the city broke through mainly Allied formations, Hungarians, Rumanians and Italians.
Or El Alamein?
Rommel had fewer men, no fuel for the tanks, ammunition shortages and Montgomery had air supremacy.
Or Bastogne?
Us troops performing exceptionally well. The Germans were also a victim of mission creep. Throw everything forward and reach the Meuse was the plan. Some of the Bastogne assaults were made by VGD formations, which were not the equal of the US infantryman, and certainly not the equal of the Screaming Eagles. This is the German Kasserine. The German attackers weren't good enough, the American defenders were very good. As your post on Patton's drive illustrates, airpower was becoming crucial, and the Allies held all the aces. I think it's difficult to draw too many conclusions in these circumstances.
Your other post illustrates a point I made initially that it was Koch who foresaw the German attack in the Ardennes, thank you for posting and confirming it.
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only
This is what some Patton critics do to Patton.
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions.
Oh?
I seem to remember the Germany Army outside the gates of Moscow in Dec/41 was not only stalled, but it was beaten back.
At Kursk, the German armoured forces simply impaled themselves upon multiple lines of heavily prepared Soviet defenses and they had to withdraw. . .
What about Stalingrad?
Or El Alamein?
Or Bastogne?
Or. . . .
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
Some critics knock Patton's victories because they feel his opponents were weaker.
This was to show that the same can also be said about early German victories.
'Could' but not 'would' is the appropriate word up there. At 'Kursk' the Soviets knew exactly what the Germans were going to do and prepared accordingly. Hitler delayed the offensive in order to deploy more tanks giving the Soviets even more time to build up their defences. When the Germans attacked they had none of the advantages an attacking force needs - surprise, materiel superiority, attacking at a 'weak spot'. Much the same can be said of Rommel at 'Alam Halfa' (I presume this is what you are referring to when you write 'El Alamein') after which his army was forced onto the defensive. I understand the point you make about Patton's critics but the brilliance of the 1940 German campaign in France (to serve as a suitable example) is in the planning - attack where the enemy is weakest (Sedan) and then maintain the initiative, never allowing the opposition the opportunity to recover and counter-attack. Manstein was its architect and you have to give Hitler some credit for approving it against the advice of his senior commanders in the West.
There are explanations for many bungled battles/assaults on both sides.
However, when it comes to Patton, explanations don't seem to satisfy Patton's critics.
I would never take away from the German plans and what they accomplished in France in 1940. It went perfectly.
However, as I have pointed out in several posts above, France was a rotten egg that was ready to crack. It looked impressive on paper, but its military forces and leadership were sub-par. At least half of France's army was walled-up inside the maginot Line and never engaged the enemy.
Defeating your enemy, while enduring minimum casualties, is the aim of brilliant commanders. The Germans achieved this in France in 1940, and Patton achieved this in France in Operation Cobra.
Had Patton's superiors not interferred at the Falaise Gap (Patton was denied closing the Gap and 75,000 Germans escaped); at Metz (denying Patton gas meant he could not seize Metz quickly, and instead had to take it by assault); and in the Ardennes (denying Patton the ability to close the salient behind the Germans, thus allowing thousands to escape, while costing many thousands more in Allied lives); meant many more Axis troops would have been captured, many more Allied lives would have been saved, and perhaps a few months might have been shaved off the ending of the war (which would also have saved many thousands of civilians' lives).
Patton's execution of 'Cobra' was exemplary although it was not really his plan. Like the closing of the 'gap' at Falaise it's something we've covered already and I don't feel we need to go over them again. [:)]
With the available intelligence at the time, would it have been wise to allow Patton to try to cut off the base of the 'Bulge'? In early January the Germans still appeared capable of offensive action, 'Nordwind' was launched and the Luftwaffe launched a massive raid on 1st January 1945, surprising the Allied commanders once again. We have already discussed how confused the fighting had become and how splintered German forces were leading to reports of formations all over the battle area. After the shock of the German offensive of 16th December I doubt whether Eisenhower and Bradley would have considered allowing 3rd Army to stage a risky encircling offensive.
Metz is a whole different ballgame, still wish to discuss this one Von Rom?
Thankyou for using the World Wide Web. British designed, given freely to the World.
Patton was a great believer in Combined Arms. The information below is presented to show the reader about Patton's early thoughts and successes in Combined Arms.
NOTE: In part the following excerpts have been extracted from The Secret of Future Victories by Paul F. Gorman, General, U.S. Army, Retired; Combat Studies institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900; Feb, 1992
In early 1939 Patton read a translation of Guderian's writings, and was powerfully stimulated by Guderian's suggestion that, precisely opposite to U.S. doctrine, infantry ought to be used to assist the advance of tanks. Patton's voluminous notes to himself on Guderian reflect the tactical style for which the American later became famous, well-summed in these sentences: "Mobile forces should be used in large groups and [be] vigorously led. They must attempt the impossible and dare the unknown."
It seemed possible to Patton that tanks in conjunction with closely supporting airplanes, self-propelled artillery pieces, and motorized infantrymen could break defensive lines and roam at will through enemy rear areas, completely demoralizing outflanked and confused combat troops, and paralyzing command nerve centers.
Tennessee Maneuvers, 1941
GHQ maneuvers scheduled for 1941 offered Patton, who was itching to use his new instrument of war, his first opportunities to show the Army what an armored force could accomplish.
In Tennessee, Patton and the 2d Armored division... launched a well-reconnoitered night attack, followed by a four-pronged exploitation that by 9 a.m. had captured the enemy commander and his battle staff, and forced the umpires, at 11 a.m., to stop the exercise well ahead of schedule. Major General Lesley McNair witnessed this feat of arms.
In the next phase of the maneuvers, Patton's forces knifed through the defenders with such speed that the umpires stopped the action after nine hours instead of the allocated two days. And for its finale, the 2d Armored Division swept wide around the defenders, disrupted their rear area, and captured its assigned final objective several hours ahead of the planned end to the maneuvers. Secretary Stimson was a witness to that triumph, and Patton was able to point out to him that although the division had covered long distances, "in some cases over 110 miles, every fighting vehicle in the division, except two tanks and a scout car, got to the place it was supposed to be in time to deliver the attack. . . ." Patton emerged from the Tennessee maneuvers as the rising star of the Army.
Nonetheless, on 27 November General Marshall took time to fly down to Carolina to watch the conclusion of the maneuvers, and was once more favorably impressed with Patton's willingness to dare, and with the appearance and evident high spirits of the soldiers in his division. Later, after Pearl Harbor, one Senator questioned Marshall's judgement for leaving Washington on that day with war clouds plainly in sight. Marshall's rejoinder was that the trip had enabled him personally to confirm Patton's abilities, and to decide to promote him.
In May 1941, Patton mailed to friends a copy of remarks he had made to his division:
"An armored division is the most powerful organization ever devised by the mind of men.... An armored division is that element of the team which carries out the running plays. We straight-am, and go around, and dodge, and go-around.... We must find out where the enemy is, we must hold him, and we must go around him.... One of the greatest qualities which we have is the ability to produce in our enemy the fear of the unknown. Therefore, we must always keep moving, do not sit down, do not say "I have done enough," keep on, see what else you can do to raise the devil with the enemy. . . There are no bullets in maneuvers, and things sometimes get a little dull. But play the game ... the umpires have the job of representing the bullets ... Try above all things to use your imagination. Think this is war."What would I do if that man were really shooting at me?" That is the only chance, men, that you are going to have to practice. The next time, maybe, there will be no umpires, and the bullets will be very real, both yours and the enemy's."
Within a few weeks, Patton's units were undertaking their first extensive exercises in the desert, and shortly thereafter Patton initiated a steady stream of correspondence on "lessons learned" from operations. No experiment was unworthy of his attention, no detail too small, if he thought it might improve readiness for battle. Patton was tireless in observing his units; he spent much time on a solitary hill between the Orocopia and Chuckwalla Mountains that the troops dubbed "The King's Throne," a point of vantage from which he could watch units moving about the plains below. Any slightest departure from march discipline, or any minor prospect for improving a formation or a tactic, would elicit a radio call from the "Throne." He also spent much time aloft in his light plane--he had flown his own Stimson Voyageur out from Georgia for the purpose--similarly observing and criticizing. He told his officers that "if you can work successfully here in this country, it will be no difficulty at all to kill the assorted sons of bitches you will meet in any other country."
Patton also kept in close touch with Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, head of the Armored Force, who was responsible for armor materiel, manuals, and training techniques. Patton wrote of a three-day exercise in which his entire corps had been deployed, culminating in a "battle" between two opposing forces. He urged Devers to look into installation of a compass in the tank, and to adopt a heavier gun for the light tank, and he endorsed Devers' campaign for a better medium tank. Patton sent him ten sheets of diagrams of armor formations he had evolved by trial and error, noting that they were not perfect, but "viewed from the air and from the ground, and I have done this on every occasion, they certainly present targets practically invulnerable to aviation."
Soon, Patton had reduced what he had learned to his own manual of sorts, entitled Notes on Tactics and Techniques of Desert Warfare (Provisional), July 30, 1942.38 In it, Patton was quite didactic about air support operations, dispersed formations, and road marches. But command in battle, he asserted, was an art-form, and while he was willing to define battle's phases, he emphasized use of combined arms, and left the rest to the initiative and imagination of the commander on the ground. That commander should cope flexibly with the unexpected, relying on massive fires and maneuvers to bring fire to bear from the enemy's flank or, preferably, rear:
Some of Patton's thoughts:
Formation and material are of very secondary importance compared to discipline, the ability to shoot rapidly and accurately with the proper weapon at the proper target, and the irresistible desire to close with the enemy with the purpose of killing and destroying him. Throughout training, these things must be stressed above all others....
The force commander can exercise command from the air in a liaison plane by use of the two-way radio. He should remain in the plane until contact [with the enemy] is gained, after which one of his staff officers should be in the plane, and he himself on the ground to lead the attack....
[Reconnaissance and advance guard units] acting as ordered by the higher commander always remembering that they must never lose a chance of hurting the enemy. Sitting on a tank watching the show is fatuous--killing wins wars....
As the fight progresses, and dust clouds prevent observation, the reserve tank unit should move out to encircle the enemy and attack him from the rear. When its in position to make this attack, it should signal the force commander so that a synchronized assault may be executed....
[When attack aviation notifies it is ready] the fronts of our main assault and encircling force are outlined by clouds of specially colored smoke produced either by grenades or by artillery. This smoke gives the air a datum line as they are then able with safety to attack the narrow zone of the enemy front between the two lines of smoke....
As soon as the air attack is complete, the final assault from the front and rear is ordered. In this assault the tanks move rapidly forward to close with the enemy, while the enveloping tanks attack him from the rear. The armored infantry, moving in their carriers, follow the tanks until they are forced to dismount by hostile fire, and then rushing forward mop up and secure the spoils of victory. I repeat that the foregoing description is a great generalization. For example, in the situations where the enemy is covered by a minefield or we have been unable to locate and destroy his guns the infantry will attack first supported by the fire of all guns--Tank, Artillery, Tank Destroyer, Dual-Purpose Anti-Aircraft, and by the Air Force.
Patton held that there ought to be very little difference between the design of an infantry division and the design of an armored division, except that in the former, "the purpose of supporting weapons--primarily tanks--is to get the infantry forward. In an armored division, the purpose of the infantry is to break the tanks loose."
I don't want to get drawn back into this, but as impressive as this source sounds it is in fact as prone to bias as Whiting. It is no more or less a work of history than his. In essence, I'm yet to see a US Military source criticise Patton. One easily noticeable omission from this (and if the ommission is yours in quoting, please say and I'll retract my comments about this section of the source) is in the following section:
Tennessee Maneuvers, 1941
GHQ maneuvers scheduled for 1941 offered Patton, who was itching to use his new instrument of war, his first opportunities to show the Army what an armored force could accomplish.
In Tennessee, Patton and the 2d Armored division... launched a well-reconnoitered night attack, followed by a four-pronged exploitation that by 9 a.m. had captured the enemy commander and his battle staff, and forced the umpires, at 11 a.m., to stop the exercise well ahead of schedule. Major General Lesley McNair witnessed this feat of arms.
McNair was a very senior Officer. I seem to remember he was killed in Normandy, the highest ranking American to die in the war to enemy fire, or rather friendly fire as I seem to remember he was killed by allied bombs. However, he was indeed at the manouevres, and he is no doubt cited by the Author to show how much important attention Patton's efforts were drawing. However, McNair was not pleased with what he saw (which is not mentioned in the source).
McNair had been critical to the point of exclaiming "This is no way to fight a war." His problem had been that whilst Patton had blazed across the countryside, bypassing enemy forces, his emphasis (as it was throughout the war, and as McNair complained here) was less on destroying enemy forces, but more on gaining ground. (Quoted in Weigley: "Eisenhower's Lieutenants")
The point is further developed by Weigley with quotes from one of Patton's biographer's Farago, illustrating how the preferences Patton displayed on the fields of Tennesee were illustrated on the field of battle. Speaking of Patton's great wartime dashes, Farago concluded.
"While he did penetrate to the enemy's rear in these lightening raids, he usually confined his piecemeal operations to skirmishes with stragglers, instead of interfering strategically with the enemy's communications zone. While he did succedd in places and in parts in preventing the enem,y from forming a front, he did not destroy enough of his units to make more than a dent in his strength."
My point here is that offical US histories are as likely to be biased as anyone else. Post War official British histories stuck rigidly to the line that everything that happened in Normandy was according to Monty's plan. They were wrong and biased and I suspect the official US histories display similiar problems. I do not doubt them as sources of fact, but doubt them as unbiased sources of interpretation.
IronDuke
Ironduke:
Actually, what you are reading was written in 1992 by a retired US Army General. His writing about Patton reflects his study of Patton's use of combined arms.
This paper was published by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. If you are unaware of this school, then I just wanted to mention that it was founded in 1882 and is THE most prestigious military command school in the USA and the world. All of the great military leaders were educated here: Ike, Patton, Bradley, MacArthur, Marshal, etc, etc. . . Only those selected for higher command attend it.
You compare these military papers and studies to Whiting's writing.
These military papers do not have an agenda like Whiting does. Instead, they examine the pure military accomplishments of Patton, and they are studied at the command school by military leaders.
There were actually several exercises and training programs throughout the US from 1939 to 1942. During these exercises, mistakes were made. But that is what exercies and training are for - to learn from mistakes. Obviously what Patton's critics latch onto are McNair's comments about the earlier field exercises. What you are reading from this included article, are those later exercises where many of the mistakes have been avoided. In fact Marshal attended the exercise and praised Patton.
As to Patton's encirclements:
Heheh
You will stand on your head defending the Germans at Kursk (one of the biggest, colossal blunders in military history by the way), and yet, when it comes to clear evidence about Patton's study and use of combined arms, you will dig for the most obscure piece of material, and expand it into some wide-sweeping criticism about Patton's ability.
Just as the Germans in France by-passed most of the French armies and sought instead to encircle their foes, Patton's Third Army also swept through France to encircle the German armies trapped inside the Falaise Gap.
Contrary to the critic you cited, Patton did NOT believe in capturing territory; he believed in destroying the enemy. Your cited source, in saying this, displays his complete lack of understanding of Patton's military philosophy.
Do I really need to say this? Is your hatred for Patton so deep that you are simply incapable of looking logically at ANY of his accomplishments?
What you have written above is just another example of why I stopped debating with you. There is NO debate. Your only goal is to destroy Patton's reputation regardless of the circumstances, regardless of how well he did, or regardless of any evidence to the contrary. [8|]
If Patton mentioned the sky was blue, you would write post after post trying to prove that Patton did not see a blue sky.
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only? No wonder Patton is so popular. He's invincible![;)]
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions. Luckily for us, logistics and strategic planning left much to be desired.
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
Von Rom
A valid statement, but oh my that's simplifying the picture. So we should interpret the tactics by looking at the final result only
This is what some Patton critics do to Patton.
On the tactical scale, the German army could take on prepared and well organized defenders and beat them, even in adverse weather conditions.
Oh?
I seem to remember the Germany Army outside the gates of Moscow in Dec/41 was not only stalled, but it was beaten back.
At Kursk, the German armoured forces simply impaled themselves upon multiple lines of heavily prepared Soviet defenses and they had to withdraw. . .
What about Stalingrad?
Or El Alamein?
Or Bastogne?
Or. . . .
But saying that they always failed if the opponent wasn't weaker? Nah.
Some critics knock Patton's victories because they feel his opponents were weaker.
This was to show that the same can also be said about early German victories.
I seem to remember the Germany Army outside the gates of Moscow in Dec/41 was not only stalled, but it was beaten back.
Context, this is all about comntext. Can you tell us how many battle casualties the Germans had suffered at this stage of the campaign, the supply situation at the front, how many men short the individual divisions were on average? Remember, the Russian offensive was actually designed to break Army Group Centre, it failed.
At Kursk, the German armoured forces simply impaled themselves upon multiple lines of heavily prepared Soviet defenses and they had to withdraw. . .
No army in the world would have succeeded.
What about Stalingrad?
Irrelevant, the Russian assaults that surrounded the city broke through mainly Allied formations, Hungarians, Rumanians and Italians.
Or El Alamein?
Rommel had fewer men, no fuel for the tanks, ammunition shortages and Montgomery had air supremacy.
Or Bastogne?
Us troops performing exceptionally well. The Germans were also a victim of mission creep. Throw everything forward and reach the Meuse was the plan. Some of the Bastogne assaults were made by VGD formations, which were not the equal of the US infantryman, and certainly not the equal of the Screaming Eagles. This is the German Kasserine. The German attackers weren't good enough, the American defenders were very good. As your post on Patton's drive illustrates, airpower was becoming crucial, and the Allies held all the aces. I think it's difficult to draw too many conclusions in these circumstances.
Your other post illustrates a point I made initially that it was Koch who foresaw the German attack in the Ardennes, thank you for posting and confirming it.
IronDuke
See what I mean about your double standard.
EVERY German operation that did not go well has a very valid explanation according to you, and should be understood within that context.
However, when it comes to Patton - NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES - it is wrong.
If there are mistakes, then Patton is white-washed as a bad general. NO CONTEXT is allowed.
That is why debating you is utterly fruitless.
It is like digging a hole that goes nowhere. . .
If this is the way you view Patton - then that is your perogative - but it has nothing to do with sensibly discussing Patton or anything he did.
These are not statements about you personally. I am sure you are a fine person. However, you have an extremely jaundiced view about Patton that is at variance with many of the facts. . .
Patton's execution of 'Cobra' was exemplary although it was not really his plan. Like the closing of the 'gap' at Falaise it's something we've covered already and I don't feel we need to go over them again. [:)]
With the available intelligence at the time, would it have been wise to allow Patton to try to cut off the base of the 'Bulge'? In early January the Germans still appeared capable of offensive action, 'Nordwind' was launched and the Luftwaffe launched a massive raid on 1st January 1945, surprising the Allied commanders once again. We have already discussed how confused the fighting had become and how splintered German forces were leading to reports of formations all over the battle area. After the shock of the German offensive of 16th December I doubt whether Eisenhower and Bradley would have considered allowing 3rd Army to stage a risky encircling offensive.
Metz is a whole different ballgame, still wish to discuss this one Von Rom?
Operation Cobra
Actually, Patton did plan Operation Cobra. He didn't call it that, but aside from some slight differences, it was the SAME plan he had discussed earlier with Bradley.
The Third Army staff never doubted that Bradley was making good in France by expropriating their boss's ideas. Patton's aide, Colonel Charles Codman, wrote to his wife, "As of August 1st, General Bradley has adopted practically all of General Patton's plans."
On august 14, 1944, Patton wrote in his diary regarding the St. Lo breakthrough, "It is really a great plan, wholly my own, and I made Bradley think that he thought of it."
One of Patton's Staff Officers has written a book claiming that Operation Cobra was Patton's idea and plan.
Col. Brenton G. Wallace, a staff officer under Patton wrote a book called "Patton and the Third Army", which claims that Patton was chiefly responsible both for the planning and execution of the famous St. Lo breakthrough, which swept on past Avranches and eventually hurled all the German armies out of France.
The battle plan credit, up until now, has gone uncontested to General Omar N. Bradley, who later commanded the 12th Army Group.
Wallace, who served as assistant chief of staff in G-3 (liaison) for the Third Army writes: "The First Army was given credit, whereas Gen. Patton planned it and executed it and used not only First Army troops but also a number of his own Third Army units."
The Bulge:
Patton believed in war you take chances.
At Falaise he could have closed the Gap.
At Metz he could have taken it with few casualties.
At the Bulge, he wanted to close the salient.
Not being allowed to have done any of the above cost many, many more thousands of lives. . .
History and the facts have vindicated Patton's views about the above operations. That is why Patton's military operations are studied in military schools today. He proved he was right. And history proves he was right.
Bodenplatte ("Baseplate")
This is the name of that German air operation you mentioned. It is yet another example of a colossal military failure on the part of Germany that cost her dearly.
The goal of Operation Bodenplatte ("Baseplate") was to break the air supremacy of the Allied fighter force and allow the weakened Luftwaffe to focus on the strategic bomber threat.
Set for early morning on New Year's Day—January 1, 1945—it was a desperate gamble that would cost the Luftwaffe dearly.
Poor planning, inadequate briefings, a lack of experienced pilots, and poor coordination with flak gunners on the ground cost the Luftwaffe a third of the 800-900 aircraft it threw into this large-scale surprise attack. More significantly, over 200 pilots, including almost 80 experienced leaders and commanders, never lived to see more than the first day of 1945.
A large number of German aircraft lost fell to "friendly" antiaircraft gunners, some of whom remained uninformed about the flight schedule. In other cases, bad weather delayed takeoff, putting pilots in the air over batteries that had expected them earlier.
The one thing Bodenplatte pilots had going for them was surprise. The last thing the Allies expected was a massive attack by an air force they knew was on the ropes, least of all on New Year's morning. Some Allied airfields suffered extremely heavy damage, while others were visited ineffectually by very small numbers of fighter-bombers. It took awhile for the Allied air forces to react, but they were soon flying multiple sorties to blunt or entirely stave off the low-level attacks.
By the end of the day nearly 500 Allied aircraft had been destroyed, almost all of them on the ground, with the heaviest damage falling in the British sector. This was a weighty blow, but all of these wrecked aircraft were replaced within a couple of weeks, while German losses, especially in pilots, were irreplaceable.
Now the full weight of the Allied tactical air forces fell on the German army, making it impossible to move troops or supplies on the ground without drawing the unwelcome attentions of free-roaming fighter-bombers with their guns, bombs, and rockets.
By January 18, the Battle of the Bulge was over. For Germany, the outcome was a double catastrophe: its last offensive in the west was decisively defeated on the ground, with the loss of 100,000 men and 600 tanks, and the Luftwaffe was finished as an effective fighting force at a time when Allied air power had never been greater. With Russian armies advancing into Germany from the east and British and American armies advancing toward the Rhine from the west, the outlook for the Third Reich was bleak.
Actually, what you are reading was written in 1992 by a retired US Army General. His writing about Patton reflects his study of Patton's use of combined arms.
This paper was published by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. If you are unaware of this school, then I just wanted to mention that it was founded in 1882 and is THE most prestigious military command school in the USA and the world. All of the great military leaders were educated here: Ike, Patton, Bradley, etc, etc. . . Only those selected for higher command attend it.
You compare these military papers and studies to Whiting's writing.
These military papers do not have an agenda like Whiting does. Instead they examine the military accomplishments of Patton, and they are studied at the command school by military leaders.
Why did he mention McNair yet not tell us what McNair said about the excerises, then? Does that not make them unbalanced? D'Este is a retired Army Officer. Whiting served in the armed forces as well. The fact someone is a soldier does not make them a good or unbiased historian. This gentlemen is honest, I'm sure, but his opinion goes into the pot with everyone elses. Credentials are earned in history. People read what you say, and your reputation is created on the basis of it. I would look at whiting's work the same as this Gentleman's and apply the same criteria when deciding their qualities. Rank or position does not impress me, just someone's history. If it impresses you, then your reading is destined to be one dimensional.
There were actually several exercises and training programs throughout the US from 1939 to 1942. During these exercises, mistakes were made. But that is what exercies and training are for - to learn from mistakes. Obviously what Patton's critics latch onto are McNair's comments about the earlier field exercises. What you are reading from this included article, are those later exercises where many of the mistakes have been avoided.
I would be interested to hear of the list of exercises undertaken. Can you provide it? Convenient that the Writer chose not to mention McNair's comments about the earliest excerises if this is indeed what they were. Can you quote us something from General McNair about the later exercises? Perhaps illustrating that he felt Patton had learned from his mistakes. If you can't, then your last sentence above is an invention.
As to Patton's encirclements:
Heheh
You will stand on your head defending the Germans at Kursk (one of the biggest, collossal blunders in military history by the way), and yet, when it comes to clear evidence about Patton's study and use of combined arms, you will dig for the most obscure piece of material, and expand it into some wide-sweeping criticism about Patton's ability.
Kursk was a colossal strategic blunder. The battle should never have been fought, ultimate responsibility rests with the man who decided to attack. It cannot be compared to an operational matter at Army level.
It is wrongheaded for you to do so. You have so far provided no analysis of Patton in the field. The piece you quote concerning combined arms mentions very little about it (and I don't believe you prove your point simply repeating ad nausum that Patton was good at combined arms). Feel free to analyse the drive on Bastogne, and we can discuss it's qualities as a combined arms operation.
Just as the Germans in France by-passed most of the French armies, and sought instead to encircle their foes, Patton's Third Army also swept through France to encircle the German armies trapped inside the Falaise Gap.
The crucial difference, is that the Germans did this on day one of the campaign. Guderian made the break through himself at Sedan. Patton moved his troops through the gap created by first army, after First Army had won a grim battle of attrition amongst the bocage. Once through the gap, Patton turned the wrong way into Brittany. As I've said, it is the supreme irony of unblinking, unthinking acceptance of the Patton legend that the good General himself never wanted to go to falaise, but wanted to go the Seine. It was Bradley who sent him to Falaise, yet you have never admitted this. Why? Becuse to do so detracts from the Patton myth.
Do I really need to say this? Is your hatred for Patton so deep that you are simply incapable of looking logically at ANY of his accomplishments?
To which I would reply:
Do I really need to say this? Is your love for Patton so deep that you are simply incapable of looking logically at ANY of his accomplishments?
What you have written above is just another example of why I stopped debating with you.
I love this. I stopped debating with you if memory serves, after publishing my list of unanswered questions. If you have quotes from the Patton thread to support you, post them. A la the Patton legend, it is now you who tired of me, and to hell with reality.
There is NO debate. Your only goal is to destroy Patton's reputation regardless of the circumstances, regardless of how well he did, or regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
Your only goal is to preserve the Patton legend regardless of the circumstances, regardless of how well he did, or regardles of any evidence to the contrary.
If Patton mentioned the sky was blue, you would write post after post trying to prove that Patton did not see a blue sky.
Another gem. Actually, I would indeed dispute this, if the source you had provided to support your contention that Patton had seen a blue sky was of your usual standard. I want only fact. I believe nothing until the evidence shows it.
Contrary to the critic you cited, Patton did NOT believe in capturing territory; he believed in destroying the enemy. Your cited source, in saying this, displays his complete lack of understanding of Patton's military philosophy.
I missed this section, although I know I won't get a response so I post it just for the hell of it.
Your proof? As I said, I don't believe this merely because you've said it. I want a source that analyses Patton's campaigns (as my historians did Weigly and Farago for the record) and explains why Patton liked encirclements.
