German success against the Nijmegen and Remagen bridges.

[tcolvin]

The following suggests that the GAF had lost confidence in their ability to destroy bridges from the air, and even believed that the Allies had surpassed them technically in this regard. However, the inability of the RAF/USAAF to destroy the Wesel bridges would imply that this conclusion was unfounded.
The right conclusion seems to be to that GAF/RAF/USAAF air power lacked the means of reliably destroying bridges in 1945.
It remains to be seen whether this was true of the Red Air Force.

"In the campaigns in Poland and France the destruction of bridges contributed largely to the success achieved in operations on the ground. In the opening stages of the Russian campaign this was also true.
However, events were to prove as early as 1941 that the growing strength of the defences at bridges was to make their destruction increasingly difficult with the means then available, and that even large bridges could be repaired within an astonishingly short time.
Thus, the destruction of bridges did not represent a decisive factor for the German side as the war continued. The unsuccessful efforts of the German Command in 1945 to destroy the Vistula River bridges by air attack, in which even the most modern means were employed, was nothing short of tragic.
Since the Western Allies in 1944 did succeed through the destruction of bridges in France - and this applies particularly to the bridges across the Seine River – in preventing the timely forward movement of German reinforcements against the invading Allied forces, it must be assumed that the failure of the Luftwaffe to accomplish similar missions must have been due to inadequate technological developments on the German side, quite apart from the general inferiority of German airpower at the time."
Source: German Air Force Operations in Support of the Army, by Paul Deichmann.
Numbered USAF Studies Number 163.
http://www.afhra.af.mil/studies/numb...ies151-200.asp

Tony