Matrix Games Forums

During WW2 when the allied forces had Germany sorrounded do you think the Allies made a mistake by taking the cities instead of a siege type tactic?

Look at the first city fighting in Germany.Dont you think the Allies could have starved them out at Aachen and many other German cities?

I dont think the Russians would have held back at all,but if they did.

I think it would have worked with probably a slite chance of taking Hitler alive.It would have also saved lives on both sides.

Do you guys think the allies finding of death camps played a part in the taking of cities?I kind of vengeance thing?

Do you guys think the war could have been won by bypassing the German cities?

The goal of the allies was to end the war as quickly as possible. Seiging cities just does not contribute to a quick end to the war.

Most of the German concentration camps were not found till almost the end of the war...dont think that had to much of a factor determining if the Allies attacked cities....

And you also have to rember that the British and Amercians were in a race with Russia to get to Berlin. American high command realised that the more territory that they were able to capture would give them better standings to deal with the Soviets in the post war years.

Somewhat simplistic opinion on my part I know...but its early and I have had no caffeine to make deep thoughts with=)

Do you guys think the war could have been won by bypassing the German cities?

What do you mean by cities? What exactly constitutes a city? When trying to find a stable and permanent bridgehead over a geographic barrier called the "Rhine River," then I have to contend that no, the war could not have been won. I visited both Bonn and Cologne the last time I was in Germany and naturally those cities destroyed their municipal bridges over the river. The bridgehead, of course, was found to the South of Bonn in a little place called Remagen. Is that place a city? I think so! It is not the size of Cologne or Bonn, but there were several thousand people living there then and now. Aachen was then as now criticised as the wrong course of action. General Courtney Hodges felt that Aachen must be taken at all costs if any serious attempts to move across the Rhine were possible. He probably did not realize his men would be sucked into tight, door to door, city fighting for 2 months, while the remnants of the Heer escaped out the back door. Aachen just seemed like it would be an easy victory. In any case we could go down the road of all the hypothesis' you wish to consider. My most favorite is the allies actually succeded in Operation Market Garden! In fact they did not and the war dragged on all the way until may of 1945.

Bypassing the cities would merely have left enemy strongpoints in a position to threaten Allied rear areas. Also, the rail and road networks all tend to pass through cities. Without them, logistics and supplying the front line units becomes much more difficult.

To his credit, I don't think Eisenhower cared who liberated most of Germany. He had an agreement that said where his forces would stop and that was what he stuck to. Monty and Patton would have loved to strike at Berlin, but I think Eisenhower saw Berlin as the empty prize it was, a prize that cost the Russians 300000 casualties to claim. Churchill and Roosevelt/Truman might also have liked a little more of Germany under US/UK control at the end of the war, but Eisenhower just wanted it ended. I think he was right, and there are Commonwealth and US ex-serviceman who are alive today as a result.

On the bypassing cites aspect, and I'm pretty sure I've told this tale before, but I sure can't remember where I read it, and if true, should give you some pause as to what you believe about WWII happened so much that way.

As good as it may sound that bypassing cities sped up advances, as we know cases where that was the case (Barbarossa and so forth), part of the problem with the Allies doing it in the West, was, that if this man were right (sorry can't even remember the man - maybe it was Galland) that was exactly the trap the Germans were setting for them.

It does sound pretty plausible, and naturally, if true, those embarassed by it would likely cover it up, while if not true was said to make something out of a seeming mess after the fact.

The idea was this, that the Germans deliberately manned ports with great strength (great strength meaning that there was enough strength to hold them for extended periods of time) so the Allies wouldn't take them. Now, I'm telling you this may just have been somebody making this story to fit the facts of what was taken, but he said that the offensive in the Ardennes was Hitler's long dreamed goal of taking the West back. IOW, the holding of the ports was to deny the Allies fuel as best possible (though the man who said this mourned that they didn't Cherbourg better, though I think they destroyed the harbor to be inoperable for a good while), while the Ardenne offensive was to drive them to the sea (I got the impression that the Ardennes offensive was something thought about before 6/6/44). Naturally this plan, if there was one, had to be adapted to the circumstances, such that the later stated goal was Antwerp, but even so, it does make a little sense as to why Hitler would attack with a seemingly pretty impossible goal of Antwerp, when he was likely thinking all along that his plan to win the West had to keep having smaller goals. It's interesting to contrast Hitler's clinging to getting and holding the Bulge, while the last big offensive in the East at Kursk was actually a withdrawal ordered by Hitler IIRC (not that the battle was a withdrawal, but that he didn't hold to the last man sort of thing).

In any event, though it's long stated that bypassing cities speeds offensives, as though that's good, remember, planned or not, if the Allies are low on fuel, and certainly they were to some extent, and on Germany's border, and for the Germans hopefully 'they' would have more fuel, it's almost a brilliant plan. The psychological damage to the Allies would've been immense had it succeeded. Think about something else. What do you do to someone you can't reach, assuming Hitler believes he couldn't invade London any longer? You let them come to you, to get them where you can get them. Of course that would do nothing to stop the bomber offensive, but if you could pull off the Ardennes offensive having such an immense impact, be that when it happened or earlier, the Western Allies might've pretty much lost their appetite to fight, or in any case, I think the more likely, reinforced the efforts in Italy or actually managing somehow to join up with the USSR in an Eastern attack. To think of it that way, it sort of makes the idea of throwing the Allies into the sea somewhat superfluous, but, then again, it might be enough to at least keep that front from having to be manned with very much.

As far as political considerations for such a plan succeeding, the USA would only sue for peace if the losses fell into the Vietnam sort of thing, where the government might stop backing it for people becoming unruly. If what I heard from another forgotten source is true, as well, that had the Brits had the V weapons been raining down for another 1-3 monthes, would've definitely surrendered, needless to say getting forced again off the continent would be worse still (for one thing the V weapons would resume firing).

This sort of thing fascinates me, but how timely the Allied victory was. With the Germans really coming into some advanced design, and given more breaks to their direction, say more fuel for example, what a hell it could've been if the war lasted another 6 monthes, but especially if it lasted another year. Of course, maybe had that happened, even the successful Ardennes offensive for that matter ocurring too, how much more incentive the Allies might've had for getting weapons which might've have only been thought up if things had gone that bad. Maybe British V weapons even the score. Maybe the Allies make the 10 Hamburg raids that Speer said would've brought about Germany's surrender.

And then, of course, there would be the A-bomb

If the A-bomb was a Japanese vengence weapon, do you waste them on a somewhat resurgent Germany? Do you halt the plans? Do make more than they did?

riverbravo wrote:During WW2 when the allied forces had Germany sorrounded do you think the Allies made a mistake by taking the cities instead of a siege type tactic?

To be honest RB I think the Allies only had to cast their eyes to the Russian Front where Leningrad (being the most famous of dozens) was a shocking example of exactly how seiges did not work on that front.

As well I think by that time the Germans simply could not maintain a cohesive front in many places and hence the werewolf and militia type defences were built up to asist local battlegroups. Because of this I think cities in siege would simply have tied up too many resources for little gain.

Another would be that I guess you could argue the Allies did in fact bypass many towns, particulalry in the race across France in 1944. A seige was unnecessary ascoherent resistance simply evaporated.

What other cities did you mean in your question (apart from Aachen)? That city in particular was one of the Nazi Empire's jewels so it is probably the last you want to conduct a siege in.

This is why ask these questions.

I was flipping the channels and saw some WW2 footage on the History Channel.Stephen Ambrose was on and said we shoulda bypassed a lot of German cities and used Aachen as a prime example.

As far as reasons why he stated the loss of allied,mostly American (probably),lives.He also said somthing about the war being lost for Germany and they would surrender in time.

Also the Allied air supremacy and the ability to bomb them into submission.

I thought about it,I thought some more,I finaly decided to post the question because I couldnt figure out why not take the cities.I thought I mite have missed part of the tv show or somthing.

I dont know how accurate it is to compare the the eastern sieges and battles to those of the west.The Eastern front was a vacuum of death on both sides with different outlooks on the enemy.The whole commie/nazi thing raging made for a different scenario.

One would think it would de-moralize youre troops not to take the cities and let the war drag on.

I think the russians were the main reason for pushing ahead fast and thoughts of post war Germany and the spread of Communism.

Had the russians not been gaining so much ground in the east then I think maybe sieges and air-power would work.

I think at this point everyone was sick and tired and would do whatever it took to end the war and go home.

QUOTE] was flipping the channels and saw some WW2 footage on the History Channel.Stephen Ambrose was on and said we shoulda bypassed a lot of German cities and used Aachen as a prime example.[/QUOTE]
:sleep:
Im not trying to pick a fight here, but IMHO the History channel is one of the least credible places to find anything historical. Also, Stephen Ambroses' book, The Victors, is an excellent short history of the Western Front. The book has excellent accounts of the campaigns and tidbits into the lives of some of the German commanders; naturally there is a big to do about Eisenhower. Ambrose is conisdered one of the better Eisenhower biographers. I am assuming Ambrose was trying to discuss that research he put into that book.

ShermanM4 wrote:QUOTE] was flipping the channels and saw some WW2 footage on the History Channel.Stephen Ambrose was on and said we shoulda bypassed a lot of German cities and used Aachen as a prime example.

:sleep:
Im not trying to pick a fight here, but IMHO the History channel is one of the least credible places to find anything historical. Also, Stephen Ambroses' book, The Victors, is an excellent short history of the Western Front. The book has excellent accounts of the campaigns and tidbits into the lives of some of the German commanders; naturally there is a big to do about Eisenhower. Ambrose is conisdered one of the better Eisenhower biographers. I am assuming Ambrose was trying to discuss that research he put into that book.[/QUOTE]

The HC is decent to look at the pics.

I believe it was a episode of "Dangerous Missions".

The bad thing about the HC is they tend to glorify the Allies to the extremes.Im all for the allies but the narations and facts are a bit twisted.

Anyway I thought it was a decent topic to get some different views.

Anything to get away from the religious wars that have brewing around here.

I think you also need to consider the geography of western Germany, cities are far closer together than in Russia or even the US, the Rhineland and the Ruhr in particular have cities where the suburbs virtually merge together. Would it even have been possible to bypass cities in general? Also, as ShermanM4 said cities tend to be in places for a reason, such as a river crossing or the nexus of a road network, so often you need to capture the city if you want to capture the feature it's sitting on.

I am not overly familiar with the battle of Aachen so I cannot speak of the strategy intended to capture it. I will say though, if you were to look at the Ruhr Pocket campaign, and countless smaller pocket battles by say the Third Army in the last couple of months of the war, it could be argued the Allies were indeed conducting seige mentality (as a by-product of a blitzkreig mentality). I wonder if the battle of Aachen developed simply because after the race across France, it represented the first massive defensive position seen since Normandy and hence tended to 'suck in' surrounding Allied forces before Ike had been able to take stock and prepare for the next stage?

I think Patton at Metz is a similar example - not enough resources or support to continue advancing movements so instead content with joining battle where it was met.

You only have to look at offensive operations in January 1945 (after the bulge was settled) to see that the Allies were not afraid to bypass cities if neccesary. I do note however in the epilogue of MacDonald's official history of this part of the war (The Last Offensive) that there was quite some criticism in not allowing the US southern armies and in particular Patton for continuing their thrusts south of the Ruhr and therefore avoiding major defensive forces.

"Anything to get away from the religious wars that have brewing around here."

Amen to that one! I couldnt agree with you more and you definately picked a good topic!

World war II was in 1945, not in 1472 when siege was an option. You can´t just let an entire city population, including women and children starve to death. You copuld actually bomb them, but letting them starve is another degree of sickness, and probably bad for public opinion also.
Another point is that you could not leave german veteran units threatening your supply lines.

Furthermore, the problem with laying siege to German cities required more men than the allies had. There wasnt one point, except for maybe April of 1945, where the Germans were outnumbered in men. Man for man the allies were outnumbered. Naturally that was offset by supply and materials, something that the Germans could never match.