Stalin apparently had ideas to recreate cavalry armies in 1942. How would Soviet performance have been affected (positively and negatively) if such an army were created instead of cavalry mechanised groups and tanks corps being the highest armoured unit?
Best U.S Army
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I agree that Lee did a fantastic job with his resources, but I can’t say his Army was better. It is just that his oponents army was so poorly led.
I guess you have to have been in the army around 1990s to appreciate what a phenomenal crush Schwartzkopf gave the Iraqis. On their turf, with a fantastic number of political constraints, he whacked the Iraqis so bad that General Powell felt he had to call an end to it (in the first quarter, instead of letting Schwartzkopf have a whole game).
I can still remember my older step brother gone oversea to fighting in Desert Storm.
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Even though the US Army during Desert Storm utterly overwhelmed the Iraqis in terms of training, leadership, and equipment, I think that an army that can emerge triumphant despite insufficient supplies and training clearly proves its effectiveness. That’s why I voted for Washington’s Revolutionary Army, which was outnumbered, outgunned, and lacked basic supplies, and even though it was defeated a majority of the time, its victories were descisive enough to disillusion and defeat the British.
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Even though the US Army during Desert Storm utterly overwhelmed the Iraqis in terms of training, leadership, and equipment, I think that an army that can emerge triumphant despite insufficient supplies and training clearly proves its effectiveness. That’s why I voted for Washington’s Revolutionary Army, which was outnumbered, outgunned, and lacked basic supplies, and even though it was defeated a majority of the time, its victories were descisive enough to disillusion and defeat the British.
The American Civil war wasnt won through breaking British resolve, there wasnt a great deal of resolve in the first place to fight for a land that at the time only had 25% of the GDP of the island of Jamaica. For the first time in centuries the British were fighting the British regardless who’s banner they served under. The British parliament had no apetite for a war where British citizens were killing each other, the resolve of the loyalist colonists was unwavering they wanted to continue the war long after British support was gone, instead the decided to go to Canada which made Canada a safe bet for staying part of the British empire for centuries to come.
Its a myth that somehow the United States defeated the might of the entire British empire, at the time of the American war of independence the United States was a insignificant colony compared with Jamaica or India, the tax revenue was literally insignificant and actually 10-20 times lower than that in mainland Britian. The United States won the war for the same reason the United States lost the war in Vietnam, the powers that be couldnt be bothered winning a war for a country that at the time was considered a economic non event. Never was even a small portion of the might of the British empire brought to bare against the American independence movement had the British committed a large number of its forces, a bloody massacre would of ensued which people on both sides had no desire for.
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Even though the US Army during Desert Storm utterly overwhelmed the Iraqis in terms of training, leadership, and equipment, I think that an army that can emerge triumphant despite insufficient supplies and training clearly proves its effectiveness. That’s why I voted for Washington’s Revolutionary Army, which was outnumbered, outgunned, and lacked basic supplies, and even though it was defeated a majority of the time, its victories were descisive enough to disillusion and defeat the British.
The Revolutionary Army needed French aid to end the war.
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i voted for the Third Army because it was facing good German units and had inferior equipment. also because it had some of the greatest leadership the US army has ever had excluding Washington.
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I would have voted for Schwarzkopf’s Army had they fought the Soviet Army to a similar defeat as they dished out to the Iraqis.
Lee’s Army got my vote.
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The problem I had with voting for the Revolutionary Army under George Washington was that soldiers would sometimes retreat without orders. For example:
Washington’s defeat [at Long Island] revealed his deficiencies as a strategist who split his forces, his inexperienced generals who misunderstood the situation, and his raw troops that fled in disorder at the first shots.[51] On the other hand his daring nighttime retreat has been seen by some historians as one of his greatest military feats.[52] . . . Heavy casualties mounted up between the Americans and the British and men on both sides fled out of fear.[60]
It’s also worth looking at the casualty figures for the American Revolution. The united States had 50,000 casualties, compared to 20,000 casualties for the British Army, 8,000 dead for the Hessians, and 20,000 British sailors dead.
There were bright spots to the situation. Washington was an exemplary leader of men. When his men’s courage wavered, he would yell to them to remember what they were fighting for. There were times when he placed himself in harm’s way in order to shame his men into standing their ground and fighting. As I understand it, the question is about the quality of the soldiers, not the general who exercised command. While Washington’s army sometimes endured great hardships, the fact that its soldiers sometimes retreated without orders means it was not the best fighting force Americans have ever fielded.
Both Patton’s Third Army and Schwarzkopf’s Desert Storm force are difficult to evaluate for the same reason: the massive disparity they enjoyed in terms of available numbers or technology over their enemies.
The Allied forces in Western Europe consisted of 5.4 million troops, as compared to about 1.5 million Germans on the western front. Nor should it be assumed that the forces under German command were all able-bodied German men of military age. Some were foreigners uneager to die for Germany, some were boys, some were old men, some were amputees; and many had been thrown into combat after having been inadequately trained. In addition to their 3.5-to-one numeric edge in combat troops, the Allies also enjoyed large-scale quantitative superiority in anything which could be produced in a factory: tanks, artillery, and military aircraft. General Patton was clearly the best general the Allies had, and belongs in any discussion about the best U.S. general in history. But it’s not clear whether the men under his command were the best soldiers in American history.
Similar arguments can be made about Schwarzkopf’s Desert Storm force, except there the overwhelming American advantage was due to technological rather than quantitative factors.
Perform the following thought experiment. Take some number of randomly selected soldiers, plus a sufficient number of their commanding officers, and give them WWII-style weapons and equipment. Give them adequate time to train and develop unit cohesion. Then throw them into a conflict like the Nazi-Soviet land war in the summer of ‘42. (I.e., a large-scale land war in which neither side has an overwhelming advantage.) How would those soldiers perform? How would the Gulf War soldiers have performed in such a scenario? That question is difficult to answer, because the Gulf War did not constitute a test of soldiers’ mettle on the same scale as did American involvement in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII.
In contrast to the above, consider Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Even in defeat, this army generally achieved a 1:1 exchange ratio. More normal was the 2:1 exchange ratio seen in the Overland Campaign and elsewhere. During the entire U.S. Civil War, the North experienced twice as many men killed in action as did the South. These ratios occurred despite the North’s advantage in industrial capacity and its consequent ability to field much larger numbers of artillery than could the South. It is true that this industrial advantage was largely offset by the superior quality of the South’s generals. Even so, there can be no question about the fighting quality of the men under Lee’s command. Had those men found themselves in a Nazi-Soviet style land war, they would almost certainly have performed in an exemplary fashion. While the soldiers of Patton’s Third Army would also have fought well in a Nazi-Soviet style land war; I don’t believe they would have performed as well as the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia would have.
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General Patton was clearly the best general the Allies had.
Not in the view of the German Generals who were asked this very question.
They ranked him equal with Montgomery! -
Not in the view of the German Generals who were asked this very question.
They ranked him equal with Montgomery!I did some research, and did not find evidence to support the above claim. The evidence I did find argues against it.
On the German side of the conflict, there was little doubt that from 1943 on, Patton caused the greatest amount of concern to Germany’s senior command. Adolf Hitler himself was impressed by Patton, reportedly calling him “that crazy cowboy general”, and “the most dangerous man [the Allies] have.”[130] Referring to the escape of the Afrika Korps Panzerarmee after the battle of El Alamein, General Fritz Bayerlein opined that “I do not think that General Patton would let us get away so easily.”[131] Oberstleutnant Horst Freiheer von Wangenheim, operations officer of the 277th Volksgrenadier Division, stated that “General Patton is the most feared general on all fronts. [His] tactics are daring and unpredictable…He is the most modern general and the best commander of [combined] armored and infantry forces.”.[132] After the war, General der Infanterie Günther Blumentritt revealed that “We regarded Patton extremely highly, as the most aggressive Panzer-General of the Allies. A man of incredible initiative and lightning-like action.”[133] General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel, who had fought both Soviet and Anglo-American tank commanders, agreed: “Patton! No doubt about this. He was a brilliant panzer army commander.”[134]
In an interview conducted for Stars and Stripes just after his capture, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt summed up the predominant German view of the American general: "Patton, Rundstedt concluded simply, “he is your best.”[135]
Having read the salient portions of the article about General Montgomery, I saw no quotes from German generals (or anyone else, for that matter) equating him to General Patton. My impression is that most non-biased observers, on both sides of the lines, considered General Patton to be a significantly superior general to General Montgomery.
Montgomery was a good general. In 1940, he correctly predicted that the Allied plan to defend France would fail; and he prepared his own soldiers for the consequences of that failure. (Preparation which paid off.) His arrival in Egypt in late '42 yielded almost immediate benefits for Britain. His contribution to the Battle of the Bulge was good, but cannot be compared with the brilliance of Patton’s contribution.
Montgomery was at his best when given time to build up for a methodical offensive. But unlike Patton, Montgomery didn’t seem to understand that when you succeed in pushing an enemy off-balance, your next step should be to go for his throat. Montgomery received part of the blame for the Allies’ painfully slow progress in Italy against badly outnumbered German forces.
In late ‘44, Patton had wanted to strike at the heart of Germany, which was reeling from Patton’s earlier advances. Instead, Montgomery persuaded Eisenhower to allocate nearly all the Allies’ scarce fuel supplies to Montgomery’s failed, and poorly planned, Operation Market Garden campaign. (Montgomery had suggested Patton’s role be limited to defending the western shore of the Rhine.) Eisenhower’s decision to go forward with Operation Market Garden, instead of allowing Patton to move forward with his own requested offensive, gave the Germans facing Patton precious time with which to recover. Even so, Patton’s accomplishments in Europe were remarkable.
Since becoming operational in Normandy on 1 August 1944 until 9 May 1945, [General Patton’s] Third Army was in continuous combat for 281 days.[3] It had advanced farther and faster than any army in military history, crossing 24 major rivers and capturing 81,500 square miles of territory, including more than 12,000 cities and towns.[3] With a normal strength of around 250,00-300,000 men, the Third had killed, wounded, or captured some 1,811,388 enemy soldiers, six times its strength in personnel.[3][87][88] By comparison, the Third Army suffered 16,596 killed, 96,241 wounded, and 26,809 missing in action for a total of 139,646 men, a ratio of enemy to U.S. losses of nearly thirteen to one.[89]
While no one can reasonably dispute the fact that Montgomery was a very solid general, his achievements fall well short of Patton’s. The very favorable exchange ratios achieved by Patton’s Third Army confirms that Patton’s offense-oriented instincts were valid. Patton favored rapid advances, going for the enemy’s throat when he was off-balance, and decisive actions intended to encircle or destroy large numbers of enemy soldiers. This aggressiveness resulted in much lower Allied casualty figures for the military benefit than Montgomery’s slower, more cautious, plodding tactics would have. The Third Army’s 13:1 exchange ratio was many times better than that achieved by the European forces under General Eisenhower’s European command as a whole.
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Then your research was not thorough enough:
_“What did the Germans think of their Western opponents? They were diffident in expressing an opinion on this matter, but I gathered a few impressions in the course of our talks. In reference to the Allied comanders, Rundstedt said: “Montgomery and Patton were the two best that I met. Field Marshall Montgomery was very systematic. He aded: “That is alright if you have sufficient forces, and sufficent time.” Blumentritt made a similar comment. After paying tribute to the speed of Patton’s drive, he added: “Field Marshall Montgomery was the one general who never suffered a reverse. He moved like this” – Blumentritt took a series of very deliberate and short steps, putting his foot down heavily each time.” --”
The German General Talk", pp.257-58, by B.H. Liddell Hart_
The original quote above has been altered by later authors to make it look like it was about Patton alone
The Wiki article says:
_Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt summed up the predominant German view of the American general: "Patton, Rundstedt concluded simply, “he is your best.”[135]
Footnote ‘135’ states:Hanson, Victor Davis, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day", New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0684845024 (1999), p. 13_
A third rate book is used to alter history and distort Rundstedt’s quote.
Wiki is at the mercy of those with agendas and the above is a perfect example where the original interview is ignored in favour of a garbled altered account that better fits the myth perpetuated by the Patton fan boys.
.The figures given for 3rd Army are complete fiction and Montgomery was several steps above Patton in the food chain.
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Then your research was not thorough enough:
_“What did the Germans think of their Western opponents? They were diffident in expressing an opinion on this matter, but I gathered a few impressions in the course of our talks. In reference to the Allied comanders, Rundstedt said: “Montgomery and Patton were the two best that I met. Field Marshall Montgomery was very systematic. He aded: “That is alright if you have sufficient forces, and sufficent time.” Blumentritt made a similar comment. After paying tribute to the speed of Patton’s drive, he added: “Field Marshall Montgomery was the one general who never suffered a reverse. He moved like this” – Blumentritt took a series of very deliberate and short steps, putting his foot down heavily each time.” --”
The German General Talk", pp.257-58, by B.H. Liddell Hart_
The original quote above has been altered by later authors to make it look like it was about Patton alone
The Wiki article says:
_Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt summed up the predominant German view of the American general: "Patton, Rundstedt concluded simply, “he is your best.”[135]
Footnote ‘135’ states:Hanson, Victor Davis, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day", New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0684845024 (1999), p. 13_
A third rate book is used to alter history and distort Rundstedt’s quote.
Wiki is at the mercy of those with agendas and the above is a perfect example where the original interview is ignored in favour of a garbled altered account that better fits the myth perpetuated by the Patton fan boys.
.The figures given for 3rd Army are complete fiction and Montgomery was several steps above Patton in the food chain.
One possibility is the one you seem to have embraced: that there is only one real Rundstedt about the best Allied general or generals, that Liddel Hart reported it correctly, and that the original quote was deliberately altered by the authors of third-rate history books in an effort to perpetuate “myths” favored by “Patton fan boys.”
A second possibility–one which you do not seem to have considered–is that Rundstedt may have said different things at different times. In the quote you mentioned from Liddell Hart, Rundstedt described Patton and Montgomery as the “two best” he’d met. But in that quote, he did not indicate whether he thought those two were equally good, or whether he felt one was better than the other. His remark that Montgomery’s approach was “alright if you have sufficient forces, and sufficent time,” seems to leave the door wide open to concluding that Patton was the more flexible and the better of the two generals. While he did not make such a remark in the quote from Liddell Hart’s book, it’s entirely possible he said as much at some other time.
But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the quote from Liddell Hart’s work is the only recorded comparison Rundstedt made between Patton and Montgomery. According to the quote you provided, Liddell Hart wrote that the German generals were “diffident in expressing an opinion on this matter.” The quote from Bumentritt which followed did not contain any comparison between Patton and Montgomery. Instead, he simply praised the things Patton did well (the speed of his advance) and the things Montgomery did well (advancing methodically and never suffering a reverse). Not even the quote from von Rundstedt indicated that he thought Montgomery was Patton’s equal–merely that he was among the two best generals the Allies had. (Which very well could have been the case.)
The Wikipedia quote which mentioned praise for Patton among the German generals cited five sources: Carlo D’Este, Martin Blumenson, Brian Sobel, Tim McNesse, and Victor David Hanson. D’Este is the source for:
General Fritz Bayerlein opined that “I do not think that General Patton would let us get away so easily.”[131]
Blumenson is the source for:
Oberstleutnant Horst Freiheer von Wangenheim, operations officer of the 277th Volksgrenadier Division, stated that “General Patton is the most feared general on all fronts. [His] tactics are daring and unpredictable…He is the most modern general and the best commander of [combined] armored and infantry forces.”.[132]
Sobel is the source for:
After the war, General der Infanterie Günther Blumentritt revealed that “We regarded Patton extremely highly, as the most aggressive Panzer-General of the Allies. A man of incredible initiative and lightning-like action.”[133]
McNesse is the source for:
General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel, who had fought both Soviet and Anglo-American tank commanders, agreed: “Patton! No doubt about this. He was a brilliant panzer army commander.”[134]
Victor Davis Hanson is the source for the fifth quote–the one from von Runstedt, which you claimed was deliberately altered. You’ve already described Hanson’s book as a “third rate history book.” Do you intend to similarly attack the other four sources in order to support your claims about German generals, Patton, and Montgomery?
You also wrote, “The figures given for 3rd Army are complete fiction and Montgomery was several steps above Patton in the food chain.” You seem to be asserting as fact that of which you have no actual knowledge. Patton’s Third Army consisted of both tank and infantry units; making a 13:1 ratio more credible than would have been the case had it been infantry-only. If you have actual data from a credible source to refute the figures for the 3rd Army, please provide it.
Your statement that Montgomery was “several steps above Patton in the food chain,” is ambiguous. If it’s a claim that Montgomery was a better general than Patton, it’s simply false, and almost not worth debating. (Especially not when you employ emotion-laden labels–such as “Patton fanboys” in an effort to discredit those who disagree with you.) If your intention was merely to point out that Montgomery had more rank/clout than Patton, your statement would be correct, but of dubious relevance. How does the question of the two generals’ respective ranks tie into your claim that the figures given for the 3rd Army are “complete fiction”?
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If you check back and find the full set of figures given for 3rd Army (i.e the total of tanks destroyed ect) then you will find the numbers greatly in excess of reality.
claim: Tanks and armored cars 3,833 destroyed by aircraft
Check the number of German tanks /AC lost in the last year of the war and tell me how a small part of the Allied Army destroyed the vast majority of the knocked out vehicles. Add the tanks claimed by Patton’s TD’s (Tank destroyers with the Third Army knocked out 648 enemy tanks and 211 self propelled guns) and the figures get more fantastic.
Claim : The Third had killed, wounded, or captured some 1,811,388 enemy soldiers, six times its strength in personnel
515,205 of those were taken in the last week of the war
The 13:1 ratio you give includes the vast number of POW’s taken at the end of the war. As the Allies ended up with 5 million POW’s then you could do the same calculation for all the other Allied Generals.
The figures are hype. Consider the source and ask yourself is it partial.As for the quotes well simply giving an author is not good enough.
When you have the full quotes and context (i.e someone being asked ‘who is the best U.S General’ is not going to say Montgomery) then you can speak with authority.
Wiki is not a credible source but a starting point for those after the full facts…
Thre quote I gave is from a respected author and complete. It has been (deliberately) altered in other books.
My quote trumps yours and the plain truth is the German Generals (or 3 of the most senior) did not say Patton was ‘the best’ -
If you check back and find the full set of figures given for 3rd Army (i.e the total of tanks destroyed ect) then you will find the numbers greatly in excess of reality.
claim: Tanks and armored cars 3,833 destroyed by aircraft
Check the number of German tanks /AC lost in the last year of the war and tell me how a small part of the Allied Army destroyed the vast majority of the knocked out vehicles. Add the tanks claimed by Patton’s TD’s (Tank destroyers with the Third Army knocked out 648 enemy tanks and 211 self propelled guns) and the figures get more fantastic.
Claim : The Third had killed, wounded, or captured some 1,811,388 enemy soldiers, six times its strength in personnel
515,205 of those were taken in the last week of the war
The 13:1 ratio you give includes the vast number of POW’s taken at the end of the war. As the Allies ended up with 5 million POW’s then you could do the same calculation for all the other Allied Generals.
The figures are hype. Consider the source and ask yourself is it partial.As for the quotes well simply giving an author is not good enough.
When you have the full quotes and context (i.e someone being asked ‘who is the best U.S General’ is not going to say Montgomery) then you can speak with authority.
Wiki is not a credible source but a starting point for those after the full facts…
Thre quote I gave is from a respected author and complete. It has been (deliberately) altered in other books.
My quote trumps yours and the plain truth is the German Generals (or 3 of the most senior) did not say Patton was ‘the best’In reference to the quote about the Third Army, I agree that taking 515,000 prisoners in the last week of the war represents a much easier task than capturing the same number of German soldiers in, for example, 1942 would have. But even if you completely discount those last 515,000 soldiers captured, that still leaves 1.3 million killed, wounded, or captured against losses of 140,000 men killed, wounded, or captured. That’s better than a 9-to-1 ratio; whereas Montgomery failed to achieve even a 1-to-1 ratio in Market Garden. Nor am I aware of other operations in which he achieved a significantly better ratio than 1-to-1.
You wrote, “My quote trumps yours and the plain truth is the German Generals (or 3 of the most senior) did not say Patton was ‘the best’.” The conclusion you’ve drawn here goes well beyond anything even remotely supported by the quote from Liddell Hart’s book. First, the quote only mentioned two German generals by name. Of those two, one of them did not even come close to making a comparison between Patton and Montgomery. Only von Rundstedt’s quote even addresses your central contention; and then only by defining Patton and Montgomery as “your two best.” If (for example) someone had defined Generals A - J as “your ten best,” would that comment necessarily imply that the person making it felt that A - J were all equally good? No? If “your ten best” doesn’t mean “all ten are equally good,” why does “your two best” have to mean “both generals were equally good; and any subsequent statement which might imply otherwise is an obvious fabrication”?
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That’s better than a 9-to-1 ratio; whereas Montgomery failed to achieve even a 1-to-1 ratio in Market Garden.
You would have to know how many German POW’s 21st Army Group had in May 1945 to give an informed opinion on that. You are winging here becsause you have no like-for-like numbers.
Perhaps you could give me Patton’s exchange ratio for a specific battle How well did Patton do whilst stupidly banging his head on the walls of Metz?I have provided the only COMPLETE quote here, question and answer. The meaning is obvious but if you want to spend hours analysing every full stop and comma to twist the meaning then be my guest.
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That’s better than a 9-to-1 ratio; whereas Montgomery failed to achieve even a 1-to-1 ratio in Market Garden.
You would have to know how many German POW’s 21st Army Group had in May 1945 to give an informed opinion on that. You are winging here becsause you have no like-for-like numbers.
Perhaps you could give me Patton’s exchange ratio for a specific battle How well did Patton do whilst stupidly banging his head on the walls of Metz?I have provided the only COMPLETE quote here, question and answer. The meaning is obvious but if you want to spend hours analysing every full stop and comma to twist the meaning then be my guest.
Patton has been described in the following words:
A voracious student of military history, Patton was by far the best tactician–and arguably strategist–of any Allied military leaders . . . But Patton, unflinchingly honest in public and infuriatingly impulsive, had repeatedly challenged his superiors’ tactical and strategic decisions, as well as the post-war U.S. occupation policy . . . Largely unrecognized by most news writers was the fact that he used his trademark swift, relentless, and crushing attacks–what they generally deemed brutal and uncaring–to save lives by enabling victory to be more quickly attained. Hesitation, he preached, was a soldier’s worst enemy. A commander had to act swiftly and decisively to take advantage of fleeting, critical opportunities in battle. But his enemies, many of whom never served and probably thanked God for it, thought him devoid of compassion–as if that were a requisite for fighting–and a warmonger. He did love war but, as most warriors do, he loved it as a crucible, a test of his prowess and courage and, in his own peculiar religious way, a fulfillment of his destiny. But he was mindful of war’s horrors and pointed them out often.
His rivalry with British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, who outranked him but whom he regarded as timid and indecisive, was a volatile story that had gotten him public attention, good and bad. The two field commanders had clashed repeatedly, most publicly during the Sicilian Campaign in 1943 when Patton had beaten the cautious Viscount to Messina and had made sure the world knew it. . . . Patton had raged at his superiors’ decisions to halt his advances, most notably at Falaise where he could have killed thousands of Germans who escaped through a narrow pocket and returned to fight at the Battle of the Bulge; at the German border, where he could have crossed early and, he believed, shortened the war and saved American lives; and at the conclusion of the European conflict, when his pleas to go deeper into Eastern Europe and beat the Russians to crucial objectives, especially Berlin, had been sternly rejected. Fearing he might advance in spite of their orders not to, Eisenhower and General Omar Bradley, Patton’s immediate superior, several times cut off his gas supply.
From Target: Patton by Robert Wilcox, pp. 3 - 5.
Earlier in this thread, I posed a question about how various American military units might perform if placed in a land war like the one between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in '42. Now I’ll pose a similar question about the Allied generals. Suppose Montgomery had been placed in overall command of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union back in '41. How would he have done? How would that have compared to Patton’s performance, had he been the one in charge? The tactics Patton used in France and Germany would have been very well-suited to such a war.
The Third Army typically employed forward scout units to determine enemy strength and positions. Each column was protected by a standing patrol of three to four P-47 fighter-bombers as a combat air patrol (CAP).[50] Self-propelled artillery moved with the spearhead units and was sited well forward, ready to engage protected German positions with indirect fire.[51] Light aircraft such as the L-4 Piper Cub served as artillery spotters and provided airborne reconnaissance. Once located, the armored infantry would attack using tanks as infantry support.[51] Other armored units would then break through enemy lines and exploit any subsequent breach, constantly pressuring withdrawing enemy forces to prevent them from regrouping and reforming a cohesive defensive line.[51] Armored vehicles would often advance via reconnaissance by fire.[52] Each vehicle would alternate its machine guns and/or cannon to the left or right respectively, firing continuously to cover the flanks on both sides of the column and suppress enemy counterfire.[53] The U.S. .5 Browning heavy machine gun proved most effective in this role, often flushing out and killing German panzerfaust teams waiting in ambush as well as breaking up German infantry assaults against the armored infantry.[54][55][56] In its advance from Avranches to Argentan the Third Army advanced unopposed over vast distances, covering 60 miles (97 km) in just two weeks.
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I presume the propaganda piece above means you will not be comparing Arhem to Patton’s attack on Metz.
Perhaps you know it was a failure and wish to stick to ythe myth Patton was ‘the best’?
You seem to like clogging up the thread with cut-and-paste articles that add nothing to the debate so I thought I would add my own distraction:
_the Lorraine campaign. It was a hard slog in rough terrain and rotten weather against a tough German foe fighting from prepared positions. In the end, it took Patton three full months to reduce resistance in the area between the Moselle and Saar rivers, an advance of only 46 miles. It was a campaign filled with personal and professional frustration for the general, and even the fall of Metz in early December, with its paltry haul of just 6,000 prisoners, did nothing to lighten the mood. In other words, Lorraine found Patton completely out of his element. If flexibility is an attribute of all great generals, then Metz was an interesting test case for Patton. How does a general built for speed, a “master-motivator and prodigious ass-kicker,” behave when things slow down?
The answer, according to John Nelson Rickard’s Patton at Bay: not very well. Getting stuck in front of the Moselle River was not Patton’s fault. He ran out of gas, a result of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision in the tricky area of fuel allocation. What happened after that, however, was a different story. Despite reams of intelligence information from Ultra on down that the Germans had managed to re-form a defensive position in Lorraine, Patton persisted in his belief that the Wehrmacht was finished and would come apart at the first tap. The result was an ill-advised attempt in early September to “bull-rush” the Moselle, a series of improvised river crossings that misfired completely. German counterattacks at Pont-à-Mousson actually wiped out the tiny American bridgehead of the 317th Infantry Regiment, and the 318th barely held its own on the western (American) side of the river.
Rickard is suitably critical of this attempt to get over a major river obstacle on the fly, and indeed there is very little positive to say. Neither U.S. tanks nor armored doctrine were designed to punch through a well-defended line: They aimed at rapid exploitation of an infantry breach. The Third Army was down to half the strength it had possessed at the outset of Cobra and had to begin the Lorraine offensive without a reserve. Intelligence was inadequate, and Patton and his corps commanders seemed to have done most of their planning from Michelin highway maps. As a result, says the author, they “possessed only the vaguest idea of the extent of the Metz defensive system.” Above all, Patton continued to ignore intelligence about the German recovery, even when his staff officers were bringing it to him by the bushel. He continued to look to faraway objectives — Mainz, the West Wall, the Rhine — with unconquered Metz staring him in the face.
Certainly, there were moments of opportunity, and Rickard targets each of them vigorously. After the encirclement and fall of Nancy, the 4th Armored Division and its feisty commander, Maj. Gen. John S. Wood, had a clear path into the German rear. The overly cautious Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy was Wood’s corps commander, however. He soon slapped the cuffs on the 4th Armored, dispatching it hither and yon to shore up bridgeheads and to support neighboring infantry, and the moment passed._
The above is a review of the book Patton At Bay.
I ask again what was the exchange rate at Metz?
Why are you ignoring it but using Arnhem as a stick to beat Monty? -
I presume the propaganda piece above means you will not be comparing Arhem to Patton’s attack on Metz.
Perhaps you know it was a failure and wish to stick to ythe myth Patton was ‘the best’?
“Propaganda piece” and “myth” are emotion-laden words: words which you have done nothing to substantiate. As for your copied and pasted description of Patton’s attack on Metz, I agree that Patton was not at his best during that battle. That being said, some background is in order.
In late August of '44, the Germans were in disarray, and Patton had advanced rapidly. But in late August/early September, Eisenhower called a halt to Patton’s advance, and diverted nearly all available fuel and ammunition elsewhere. (To Operation Market Garden, for example.) Metz had strong defenses. Instead of being able to overrun them quickly and easily–as almost certainly would have been the case had Patton been able to attack in early September–Eisenhower held Patton’s army in place for roughly a month. While it was right outside the strong Metz defenses no less! That gave the Germans the opportunity to fortify those defenses. Reining in Patton was clearly a strategic blunder on Eisenhower’s part. (At least assuming his goal was to win the war as quickly as possible, and with as few American casualties as possible.)
Patton was left in a situation in which his army had almost no gas, and was restricted, to a mere seven rounds of ammunition per gun per day. At this point, Patton was evidently convinced of the need to take Metz quickly, before the Germans could fortify it even more. To a large extent that reflects his failure to realize how much they’d fortified it already. But it may also be reflective of a larger lack of confidence in the Allied military leadership. He may have felt that the same political considerations which led to his army’s fuel and ammunition being cut off might also have prevented them from being restored to him–at least in any sort of timely fashion. Another argument in favor of speed was that a slow, ponderous Anglo-American advance would leave most of Europe in communist hands. (As later proved to be the case.)
Despite the above, Patton was clearly too aggressive, especially considering the level of forces Germany had already built up in Metz, and the sharp restrictions which had been placed on Patton’s available resources. Metz was Patton’s low point during the war. One crucial difference between Metz and Operation Market Garden was that Montgomery was given nearly everything for which he’d asked before launching the latter operation. Yet it still failed. In contrast, Patton was given almost nothing before launching his ultimately successful, but slow and painful, attack against Metz.
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Did a bit of checking on the 3rd Army fantasy figures.
The claim:
The enemy lost an estimated 1,280,688 captured, 144,500 killed, and 386,200 wounded, adding up to 1,811,388. By comparison, the Third Army suffered 16,596 killed, 96,241 wounded, and 26,809 missing in action for a total of 139,646 casualties. Third Army’s losses were only 12.97 percent of the German losses. That is only about 13 American soldiers for every 100 German soldiers
However the German loss figures for the same period are:
KIA……109,046
WIA…382,776
Missing…772,776
Total…1,264,282Now obviously this does not take into account the 6 million POW’s taken by the West right at the end but the KIA/WIA numbers can be compared.
144,500 claimed v 109,046 reality
386,200 claimed v 382,776 reality
3rd Army on its own claims more German losses than were actualy recorded.
Did no other Allied Army ever get into action?Incidently the German POW (West) numbers show:
September 1944 there were 545,756
December 1944 814,796
March 45 1,000,000
April 16th 2,000,000
May 1st 3,000,000
End of war 4,005.732
Final tally after war 6,155,732 of which 2,050,000 were classed as POW and 4,090,000 disarmed enemy personel.over 2 million POW in April/May 1945 and 3 million April/VE Day
I note that yet again you fail to give Patton’s ‘exchange rate’ for Metz.
Is there any reason why you are unwilling to post it?
Might it not compare well against the Montgomery at Arnhem? -
D/P
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Did a bit of checking on the 3rd Army fantasy figures. . . .
I note that yet again you fail to give Patton’s ‘exchange rate’ for Metz.
Is there any reason why you are unwilling to post it?There are two points I’d like to address. 1) If you’re going to post casualty figures for the Germans, please cite whatever source you used. 2) I didn’t cite the Third Army’s exchange rate for Metz because I haven’t taken the time to look it up. If you wish to introduce the actual datum about the Metz exchange rate (as opposed to vague hints about what that exchange rate might have been), then look it up yourself, and post both the rate and a citation to your source in this thread. It’s enough for me to do the research for the points I’m making, without also being asked to do the research to support the points you’re trying to make!
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