Quote:
Originally Posted by RodM
But at the end of the day, CAS and armor aside, I still ask the question as to why the British army struggled head-to-head against an enemy that fought with even less air support and with greater logistical and operational difficulties. Was it a question of leadership? The army was not without blame...
|
Rod.
I agree entirely, and have struggled to answer this question for 60 years - well, seriously for 35 years. It is, IMHO, a major question still unresolved. But I have written a book which hopefully will be published in a couple of years even if I have to do it privately, to address the matter. It describes hour by hour how 3 British Infantry Division fought three battles in four days against 8 Fallschirmjaegerdivision in the area Kervenheim-Winnekendonk between February 27 and March 2, 1945. You will then be able to see on an hourly basis - and can walk the ground if you wish - who was doing what and with which and to whom (including 609 Squadron with Typhoons and 197 Squadron with Bombphoons) in trying to make progress against, as you say, an army fighting on its own soil, almost devoid of transport, short of supplies, without CAS and worried sick by what BC and Russians were doing to their families, and by concerns for the future. The book is based on interviews with some of the main players who were still alive in the late 70s and early 80s when I did the research.
The answer to the question, my friend, was that the Wehrmacht was defending with good defensive equipment. The lack of LW CAS was not important in defending ground as it was for the Allies who had to seize it. The Allies could not attack effectively without a tank immune to the 88-mm and without accurate CAS for taking out mortars, which were the big killers, mg42, artillery and Paks, including the Stug, which would have been easy for a gun-firing CAS because Stugs stuck to roads having useless cross-country capability in a sodden countryside.
I don't blame the army leadership except Montgomery, and perhaps Horrocks who should have been invalided out. Montgomery was an arsehole who didn't know what he was doing. He thoughtlessly scuppered Brooke's campaign to establish an Army Air Corps, which I am sure would have rescued the Vengeances from target towing, and maybe built the IL-2 under license. Montgomery thought his armoured divisions could 'crack about' behind enemy lines, and this turned out to be another fraudulent claim like that of 2TAF. And Montgomery allowed Hobart, his brother-in-law, to take the Churchill VIIs for conversion to Crocodiles. Montgomery also failed to procure a tank immune to the 88-mm, and against the urgings of WSC. This blindness was akin to Portal's disbelief in a long-range fighter, and for the same reason. They feared that if you developed a long-range fighter or an immune tank that could take on the short-range fighter or the Pak, then the Germans would only up the ante and go one better. It was a race you could never win they said. But of course they ignored the German problem of having their fighters and Paks made obsolete. Simply, the Germans could not have replaced them.
Tony