Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "From the perspectives of many folks, THAT was a quagmire. The US taking on two military juggernauts by effectively by itself (not discounting the strategic role played by the Brits using US made equipment)."
Uh, what about the Russians? And the Chinese ate up a lot more Japanese troops than we did.
Re: " Thinking they would be in Berlin by Xmas, 1944 only to see that dream fall apart as Hitler launched "Watch on the Rhine" with 250,000 troops."
You make such a big deal about such little actions, presumably because the US was involved. The fact is that the action you're talking about preceded the complete fall of the German empire only a few months later. There were many more important battles in that war. Here's a reminder:
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The Casualties in the battle of Stalingrad were catastrophic for both sides. The Germans lost 147,000 men and 91,000 were taken prisoner. The Red Army paid a huge price for victory, some half million men were killed in the battle.
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campus.northpark.edu
Here's the truth about the "Watch on the Rhine":
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The problem with Hitler's plan was that it needed everything to go right at once. It needed German troops to advance in fog and snow at high speed through hills and forests along dirt roads, reaching the River Meuse in two days and Antwerp in four, before the Allies could respond. It needed the British and Americans to quarrel and collapse in the face of the German offensive. It needed a small German armoured force to out-fight three or four times its own number of troops, showing a superiority over the Americans that - for a scratch force in the fifth year of the war - was scarcely to be expected. None of Hitler's generals had any faith in his plan, and only loyalty and fear compelled them to carry it out. This was very much Hitler's personal battle.
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geocities.com
In other words, you're making a big deal about a weak German attack that was, at best, a suicide mission against an enemy 3x as large. Here's an official US Army description of the attack:
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Hitler alone conceived the Battle of the Bulge. His purpose was to knock the Western Allies out of the war with a great victory that would "bring down the artificial coalition with a crash."8 With this objective accomplished, he would turn to the east and "effectively" concentrate against the Soviets. However, the Germans had not launched an offensive outside the Soviet Union in nearly three years, and it was the first time an offensive had been attempted in the face of an opponent who had achieved air superiority. On the other side, this was the first time American air power had been assigned a large-scale battle mission not planned in advance as part of an offensive.9
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Hitler believed that a successful offensive through the American sector would trap Montgomery's forces and drive a political wedge between the British and the Americans. He hoped that it would create enough tension between London and Washington to make possible a negotiated armistice on the Western front. Thus, Hitler's blow was aimed at the will of the Allied high command.12 He reasoned that Churchill and Roosevelt would have to consult to counter his attack, and that this delay would in turn give the Wehrmacht the time needed to seal the fate of the Allied front. Hitler did not believe that Eisenhower had the authority to act on his own.
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On the ground the operational plan was simple though overextended. ...
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The Germans had attained surprise, and their tempo of advance became the center of gravity for Hitler's offensive. While consuming supplies at a very high rate,29 they had to quickly seize key roads, communications hubs, and bridges. Hitler's forces required hard, frozen ground to support supply movements around obstructions, and to bypass Allied strong points. They also needed low clouds and fog to ground Allied air forces. Unhindered movement was essential.
It was not to be. Constricted and everlengthening transportation routes compounded the German logistics problem.30 This was a condition magnified by malpositioned war materiel and gasoline. Nearly half of the German supplies were located east of the Rhine-more than 60 miles from the attack's starting point. Hitler had directed this positioning as a security measure, so as not to draw unnecessary attention to the Eifel buildup area prior to attack. It became a serious flaw in the face of Allied air interdiction. Additionally, above-freezing temperatures combined with the wet weather to make offroad traffic a muddly impossibility through the first critical week of the offensive. The poor weather channeled the German attack to the already limited number of east-west roads in the Ardennes-a situation that left their army even more vulnerable to disruption by air attack.31
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The Allied effort maintained air supremacy to the point that the Luftwaffe did not significantly hinder a single Allied ground movement or operation during the battle. ...
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Despite losses, the Luftwaffe managed to fly as many as 1,200 sorties on some days. However, the effort was one of "despair."51 ...
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... The Luftwaffe was rarely seen again in any appreciable strength.69 Bodenplatte was more than a total defeat. "The Luftwaffe [had] received its death blow."70
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airpower.maxwell.af.mil
-- Carl |
