On Sun, 07 May 2006 19:03:00 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:

Vince wrote:
Paul J. Adam wrote:
Opinions vary, to be honest (with a consistent grouping around "very
good", to be sure). Read Max Hastings' "Overlord" and you'll marvel at
how the far-superior Wehrmacht won the battle of Normandy (or at
least, be bemused how they could ever have been dislodged).

once we had landed in Normandy (an incredible feat to be sure) we had
overwhelming strength at any point.

Not really, no: we were landing and supplying forces across beaches,
subject to the caprices of Channel weather (which could be, and was,
very nasty), and pitting inexperienced troops against veterans on
terrain they'd had time to prepare.

The odds against on Overlord were very significant, but to give the
forward German divisions full 'veteran' status is probably overmuch,
many were 'white bread' garrison troops and not really that good.
But, the oft discussed medium deep maneuver reserve concept was just
plain bad, ObWest should have known better by then and been able to
count airplanes adequately to know the odds of a successful
counterattack response against that kind of tactical airpower as near
zero. Once again we owe a heck of a lot to Fuehrer 'intuition'.

Certainly the men who seized the Odon crossings, held off
counter-attacks by elements of six panzer divisions, drew in the German
strategic reserves, and withstood the attacks that were supposed to
break them, would disagree that they had "overwhelming strength", but
their success suggests that the Wehrmacht had similar difficulties
attacking in Normandy countryside as anyone else (it was the inability
of the Germans to destroy 15th Scots, despite throwing in their entire
reserve, that led Rommel on 29 June to propose a fighting retreat to the
Seine)


Flipping it around, though - if you can't make an attacker's life an
expensive and painful misery at places like Monte Cassino or the
Normandy bocage, what use are you? And when the Germans were faced
with assaulting an extensively-prepared defence - such as First
Alamein or even more dramatically Kursk, they failed too.

the Kursk was simply overwhelmingly strong.

Perhaps a maxim of excellent soldiers is "don't attack where the enemy
has built seven layers of defensive lines precisely in order to defeat
your plan"? While the Germans were good at "mission command" at lower
ranks, their commanders - with a few exceptions - ranged from spineless
to clueless.

Indeed, do pay attention: the enemy may have a plan of his own.

Mind you, when a senior Wehrmacht officer admitted to an inconvenient
truth, he could find himself out of a job very fast (cf von Rundstedt in
July 1944, telling Keitel that Germany's strategic options in the West
consisted of 'Make peace, you fools!' and being promptly replaced by von
Kluge) which has to be included in any assessment of their ability.