Best Generals of ww2 and their role in this game

[Vanguard44]

hence they can't really be the ones commenting on how the Americans should have been more aggressive in 1944 when in reality they created the bigger delay to begin with.

Americans are not entitled to comment about delays in war.

It is, though, quite remarkable how Churchill revisited his Balkan fantasy. Knocking Italy out of the war had obvious advantages, since it was a major combatant with a large fleet in being, but I think the whole thing was a pointless mix of grand strategy and politics.

 

[Olfert Fischer]

Wow there's a few things in this thread that dance rather lightly over historical facts about the Italian campaign, Normandy invasion and all of the political/economic/production aspects of reality 1942-4.

1. Soviet pressure for the western Allies to open a second front as soon as possible. Granted an invasion in France would fit this requirement, but not any invasion, only one with a realistic chance of success.

2. Early invasion of France/Western Europe - Plans were made for joint operations shortly after the US entry into the war. Operation Sledgehammer was to be carried out in early autumn 1942 in the event the USSR was on the verge of collapse. The Brits would provide 6 divisions, the US could only provide about 3, and the plan was to attack the Contentin peninsula (Cherbourg) and hold a perimeter until the following spring where additional forces would be landed. Operation Roundup was the plan for an invasion in spring of 1943, drawn up by Eisenhower, for the invasion between Boulogne and Le Harve, would require 48(!) divisions. Normandy used only 39 divisions. As a side note, in January 1944 half the required US troops for D-Day were in Britain. How would those troops (and more) been able to be used in the fall/winter/spring of 42-43......

3. Casablanca Conference - the decision to prioritze Italy, made jointly by US/UK.

4. The Italian Campaign - the invasion of mainland Italy wasn't a separate, independent part of the war and needs to be seen in the overall picture. Completion of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, was delayed until Maj 43. Given the numbers of men required for Operation Roundup, one would think that all units involved in Torch would be needed for Roundup. Since Torch only ends in Maj 43, how would you have done Roundup ?

5. Advantages of the chosen strategy -
- Doable
- Tied German forces down, away from both the Eastern Front and the invasion areas of Normandy
- Applied pressure to and eventually forced one of the Axis coalition partners out of the war
- Ultimately ended with the unconditional surrender of all German forces in northern Italy, before Germany itself capitulated.

6. Problems with the Italian Campaign - It was never meant to be the main axis of engagement against Germany. Resource priority always went to Overlord, and subsequently to Dragoon as well. In other words, the bare minimum resources were kept in Italy to keep the Germans occupied. The progress of the campaign, while not impressively fast, was probably the best that could be achieved with the available resources.

7. Resources - contrary to popular belief, the arsenal of Democracy and the UK did not have limitless resources to fight both in Europe and the Pacific. Choices had to be made, and we must assume here 70+ years later that those choices were based upon the best information available at the time, the political realities of the situation and were taken by some of the best minds available. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but only works one way.

 

[Secret Master]

A question:

As we all know, the Italian surrender/switching sides was a complete farce. It was handled so poorly that Italy might as well have not bothered trying to change sides.

But, Italy could have handled it much better.

My question is this: What if Italy had handled the surrender much better, having its army mostly intact and not disarmed by their German colleagues? What if Italy changing sides had actually been accomplished in such a way that German forces defending Italy were put in far more precarious positions? What then? Could this have made a far bigger difference in the war, potentially putting Allied forces on the doorstep of Austria before the historical date of Overlord or forcing Germany to commit far more divisions to the Italian front, weakening her overall position substantially? Would this make the Italian campaign more worthwhile?

This is an honest question. While invading Italy is a huge mess, it's a far different prospect if the Allies gain 60-70% of Italy upon surrender than if they gain just about nothing upon surrender. Fighting up the boot is a pain in the arse; but if you don't have to fight with the Germans for every square inch, then you can still be in a position to launch Overlord while also sitting much closer to the German heartland via Italy.

 

[me987654]

It's not quarterbacking when the fundamental premise of the Italian Campaign was faulty to begin with; the result of the British trying to apply Napoleonic-era strategy in a completely different strategic situation.

Again, let's examine the premise: If you're going to be landing in Italy on the basis that it would be very hard to dislodge the Allied bridgehead due to rough terrain, then it must equally apply that the reverse is true and that any invasion of Italy will be ultimately a long, hard, slog against rough terrain.

Meanwhile, the American Army had been designed from the ground up to fight in France, which is why it had so many Armored Divisions in the first place (which are not exactly useful in the mountains), Tank Destroyer Brigades to counter German armor, and no real Mountain Divisions to boot.

So why are you sending an armor-reliant American/British Army to fight in a country whose terrain is ill-suited to armor? Why would you instead send them to a place full of mountains, when they don't even have real Mountain Divisions to begin with?

The Italian campaign was simply a loser strategy from the get-go - a front of stalemate that was unsuited for US and even British Army operations - which is why the Soviets were pretty angry at the Allies in 1943. An invasion of Normandy could have been done in 1943 - the number of Divisions landed in Sicily roughly corresponds to the number landed in Normandy and through a longer sea passage to boot; and again the Atlantic Wall was more a decoration at this point than a serious defensive feature.

Western histories are just too hooked to the drama of D-day to seriously consider that it could have in fact been done a year earlier, and this was in large part the Brit's fault that it wasn't, hence they can't really be the ones commenting on how the Americans should have been more aggressive in 1944 when in reality they created the bigger delay to begin with.

According to Beevor Churchill pushed very hard for the Italian campaign due to his fantasy of being able to save more of the Balkans from Stalin.

 

[me987654]

No, I'm pointing out that German Generals do in fact keep resorting to the "Hitler made me do it" excuse, and they in fact had the advantage not of "superior leadership", but of strategic surprise against the Soviets. For the French, there was very bad generalship involved on the French side, but that still doesn't change the fact that the balance sheet of regular Divisions ultimately favored the Germans.

This does not at all support these constant attempts to find "middle ground", because that kind of silliness is how you get 1+1=3 because delusional people insist that 1+1=4 (3 being in between 2 and 4, hence "middle ground").

The reality is that German Generalship wasn't all that cracked up to be. Decent tacticians, but were outdone completely by 1944 in this regard; and they were never particularly good at figuring out how to win a war in the first place. Because again, winning a battle and winning a war are two very different things, and people seriously need to stop believing winning battles automatically leads to winning a war and no amount of "If only Hitler..." is going to change that. Heck, again, America won every battle in Vietnam and yet still lost the war.

I'd argue that it's the responsibility of the political leadership to figure out how to win a war in any case.

To use an example on the Soviet side, much of the blame for the thrashing of the red army in 1941 can be put directly on Stalin who refused to listen to military leaders warning him about the German buildup on the border. The Soviet military leadership tried to make the best of the terrible situation their political leadership put them in at that time.

 

[Dalwin]

This does not at all support these constant attempts to find "middle ground", because that kind of silliness is how you get 1+1=3 because delusional people insist that 1+1=4 (3 being in between 2 and 4, hence "middle ground").

This reminds me of a sign that I had up on my office wall for months. It said, "2+2=5 for sufficently large values of 2." For those who don't follow, this is a computer joke based on the precision of data.

 

[misterbean]

A question:

As we all know, the Italian surrender/switching sides was a complete farce. It was handled so poorly that Italy might as well have not bothered trying to change sides.

But, Italy could have handled it much better.

My question is this: What if Italy had handled the surrender much better, having its army mostly intact and not disarmed by their German colleagues? What if Italy changing sides had actually been accomplished in such a way that German forces defending Italy were put in far more precarious positions? What then? Could this have made a far bigger difference in the war, potentially putting Allied forces on the doorstep of Austria before the historical date of Overlord or forcing Germany to commit far more divisions to the Italian front, weakening her overall position substantially? Would this make the Italian campaign more worthwhile?

This is an honest question. While invading Italy is a huge mess, it's a far different prospect if the Allies gain 60-70% of Italy upon surrender than if they gain just about nothing upon surrender. Fighting up the boot is a pain in the arse; but if you don't have to fight with the Germans for every square inch, then you can still be in a position to launch Overlord while also sitting much closer to the German heartland via Italy.

Especially considering that the Allies were working with the maffia to facilitate things (Lucky Luciano's contacts from jail, I think). I mean, they had the cooperation of organised crime and the national military.The italians couldn't even surrender properly. That's even worse than France. At least they knew how to surrender.

 

[D Inqu]

A question:

As we all know, the Italian surrender/switching sides was a complete farce. It was handled so poorly that Italy might as well have not bothered trying to change sides.

But, Italy could have handled it much better.

My question is this: What if Italy had handled the surrender much better, having its army mostly intact and not disarmed by their German colleagues? What if Italy changing sides had actually been accomplished in such a way that German forces defending Italy were put in far more precarious positions? What then? Could this have made a far bigger difference in the war, potentially putting Allied forces on the doorstep of Austria before the historical date of Overlord or forcing Germany to commit far more divisions to the Italian front, weakening her overall position substantially? Would this make the Italian campaign more worthwhile?

This is an honest question. While invading Italy is a huge mess, it's a far different prospect if the Allies gain 60-70% of Italy upon surrender than if they gain just about nothing upon surrender. Fighting up the boot is a pain in the arse; but if you don't have to fight with the Germans for every square inch, then you can still be in a position to launch Overlord while also sitting much closer to the German heartland via Italy.

The first question is why. Italy by 1943 had no real desire or ability to fight on any side. The level of troops in Italy after all the equipment and manpower losses in Africa and Stalingrad was very low. Most importantly, the Italian troops knew full well how strong Germans were, so they did not want to die in vain. It would take some amazing political leadership to force Italian troops to resist their former ally, and even a miracle would not make them a threat to German forces.

The problem of gaining 60-70% of Italy is that it's not that much better than getting the south alone. The key industrial centres and population of Italy were in the north (Milan, Turin...).

The final problem that even obtaining all Italy in some insanely lucky scenario would not make Germany commit more troops. The Alps would form a great natural barrier protecting both Austria and France.

 

[Secret Master]

Especially considering that the Allies were working with the maffia to facilitate things (Lucky Luciano's contacts from jail, I think). I mean, they had the cooperation of organised crime and the national military.The italians couldn't even surrender properly. That's even worse than France. At least they knew how to surrender.

True story:

In Mario Puzo's novels (not just The Godfather, but some others about Sicily), Mussolini's only claim to fame was that he was the only one who could effectively neutralize the power of the old dons. But since Mussolini arrested them without due process, they were classified as political prisoners, so they got a mulligan as the Allies rolled in. And since they hated Mussolini for what he did, they had no problem wielding their considerable influence to assist the Allies. This did nothing to change the fact that they were murdering criminals who had no problems whacking their enemies.

He fictionalizes the historical stuff fairly well in a few books.

 

[Opanashc]

To use an example on the Soviet side, much of the blame for the thrashing of the red army in 1941 can be put directly on Stalin who refused to listen to military leaders warning him about the German buildup on the border. The Soviet military leadership tried to make the best of the terrible situation their political leadership put them in at that time.

Considering, that the same leadership was telling Stalin, that Germany concentrated less than 50% of its troops on the Soviet Border - Stalin had very good reasons to what he did.

 

[tommylotto]

My take after reading Churchill's weighty tome was the the UK was Muhammad Ali and the USA was Mike Tyson. The UK survived since 1939 by bobbing and weaving, doing a little rope a dope, and sticking the pestering jab. They planned to wear Germany down. When the USA joined the fight they wanted to know the straightest line to Hitler's chin because they had a big uppercut to deliver. Then Churchill managed to convince the USA that the straightest line to Berlin was, ahh...., through the French in Casablanca and Tunisia, then the Italians in Palermo and Rome. And if the American's had not wised up to Churchill and stood up to him, the landing craft for Overload would have been in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1944 assaulting the Dodecanese Islands.

As far as the botched Italian surrender, maybe it was impossible to extricate Italy from the Axis without civil war. The Regia Marina was ready to go over, but the Regia Aeronautica were hardcore fascists defending Italy from Allied bombers. I have read how there were plans to land an Allied airborne division near Rome concurrent with the announcement of the Armistice to give some material, but mostly moral, support to the Italian infantry divisions switching sides. However, the Allies only gave Badoglio a single days warning before the announcement of the Armistice and the arrival of the Paratroopers in Rome. Badoglio asked for a few more days to prepare for the landing, but the Allies said screw it, called off the paratroopers, and made the announcement before Badoglio was ready. Clearly the Allies were guilty of not doing everything necessary to facilitate a clean changing of sides, but Badoglio's plea for time may have been seen, and may have been, dithering. That being said, knowing what eventually happened and the position Italian divisions, like the Acqui, were put into, it would be hard to argue that the surrender could have been handle worse by all involved.

 

[Klausewitz]

The problem with Italian surrender was that a) neither side really trusted the italians and b) more than getting the Italians out of the war neither side was willing to have the other anything of substance from the italians.
That meant that the Allies would rather see Italians massacred then let them fight alongside the Germans and that Germans would rather fight and neutralize Italian troops were they stood then let them get away or even go over to the Allies.
Add on the level of duplicity displayed (required?) by some of the Italian officers and it becomes almost unavoidable that the whole affair will end in tears and bloodshed.
Ideally the italians could have surrender, attained a status of neutrality, their troops would have been interned whereever they stood and that would have been that.
But neither Allied nor German leadership would have stood for that.

 

[Dina1954]

I like Armageddon but Hastings' thesis that Western Allied leaders could have ended the war sooner, I feel, lacks sufficient argumentation. His only argument is that the Allies could have been "more aggressive" like the Germans or Soviets or Patton, but really I don't think that's a very good argument because "aggressiveness" is subjective. To prove that the Allies could have ended the war earlier, you need logistical analysis, terrain analysis, and force ratio analysis - all of which Hastings fails to provide. And based on what I know, given the very real gas shortages, the strength of the Rhine river defensive positions, and the fact that the Wermacht losses were not as bad as supposed in the aftermath of Falaise, I don't think it's reasonable that the Allies could have ended the war sooner even if they hadn't made the Market-Garden mistake.

Besides, the real delay in the invasion of Western Europe was the one year delay imposed by the British on the invasion of France. The Allies in fact could have landed in Normandy in 1943 rather than in 1944 - guys who look at logistics can see that the Allies landed almost as many Divisions in Sicily as they did in Normandy, and back then the Atlantic Wall's construction hadn't even really started yet. But no, instead thanks to British insistence we have that whole (largely pointless and forgotten) Italian campaign.

Wow there's a few things in this thread that dance rather lightly over historical facts about the Italian campaign, Normandy invasion and all of the political/economic/production aspects of reality 1942-4.

1. Soviet pressure for the western Allies to open a second front as soon as possible. Granted an invasion in France would fit this requirement, but not any invasion, only one with a realistic chance of success.

2. Early invasion of France/Western Europe - Plans were made for joint operations shortly after the US entry into the war. Operation Sledgehammer was to be carried out in early autumn 1942 in the event the USSR was on the verge of collapse. The Brits would provide 6 divisions, the US could only provide about 3, and the plan was to attack the Contentin peninsula (Cherbourg) and hold a perimeter until the following spring where additional forces would be landed. Operation Roundup was the plan for an invasion in spring of 1943, drawn up by Eisenhower, for the invasion between Boulogne and Le Harve, would require 48(!) divisions. Normandy used only 39 divisions. As a side note, in January 1944 half the required US troops for D-Day were in Britain. How would those troops (and more) been able to be used in the fall/winter/spring of 42-43......

3. Casablanca Conference - the decision to prioritze Italy, made jointly by US/UK.

4. The Italian Campaign - the invasion of mainland Italy wasn't a separate, independent part of the war and needs to be seen in the overall picture. Completion of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, was delayed until Maj 43. Given the numbers of men required for Operation Roundup, one would think that all units involved in Torch would be needed for Roundup. Since Torch only ends in Maj 43, how would you have done Roundup ?

5. Advantages of the chosen strategy -
- Doable
- Tied German forces down, away from both the Eastern Front and the invasion areas of Normandy
- Applied pressure to and eventually forced one of the Axis coalition partners out of the war
- Ultimately ended with the unconditional surrender of all German forces in northern Italy, before Germany itself capitulated.

6. Problems with the Italian Campaign - It was never meant to be the main axis of engagement against Germany. Resource priority always went to Overlord, and subsequently to Dragoon as well. In other words, the bare minimum resources were kept in Italy to keep the Germans occupied. The progress of the campaign, while not impressively fast, was probably the best that could be achieved with the available resources.

7. Resources - contrary to popular belief, the arsenal of Democracy and the UK did not have limitless resources to fight both in Europe and the Pacific. Choices had to be made, and we must assume here 70+ years later that those choices were based upon the best information available at the time, the political realities of the situation and were taken by some of the best minds available. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but only works one way.

An invasion in 1943 I doubt it could have any chance to succeed.You are right about the atlantic wall but you forget that the invasion of Italy was not without big problems and the lessons the allied learned about this campaign was certainly very valuable for
the planed invasion in 1944 and this probably saved thousands of lifes of allied soldiers.I think this outweight the absence of fortress in normandie.The most important thing not enough with divisions and horrible thought maybe general Clarke would have been
one of the comander in the assult against festung Europa Let us not forget the airwar Luftwaffe was not beaten in 1943.So now the allied had to struggle for airsuperity and only Spitfire IX could match FW 190.The two great american fighters P-47 D and
P-51 B and C was not in service until the end of that year.RAF had not so many Typhoon units in 1943 as in 1944.So the german armour and vehicles can use the roads and assemble withouth such heavy attacks as in 1944. In my opinium that was the
superb fighterbombers units of USAAF and RAF who was the key why the allied defated the german panzer divisions in 1944.Otherwise will I give an applausefor Olfert Fischer who has explained the tread in an exellent way.

 

[keynes2.0]

Why do people think the Italian campaign needs to go to Berlin to be successful? Was the Fall of France a failure because Panzers didn't roll into London? Was Operation Saturn a loss because it didn't capture Berlin?

The Mediterranean from Torch onward for the western allies was about economy of force. The Brits+Americans fight a series of campaigns that reduce German resources available for other fronts. The Invasion of Italy wasn't as lopsided a victory as Tunisia or Husky but it was still a trade that favored the Allies.

 

[Zinegata]

For those questioning whether or not Normandy could have been invaded in June 1943, it bears remembering that Operation Husky was conducted in July 1943, landed almost the same number of troops initially as Overlord (you don't need to land all 50 Divisions at once; historically the Normandy breakout required several months of build up), departed from ports of greater distance than the Normandy invasion, and this would have been against almost undefended beaches because again the Atlantic Wall was just fiction at this point.

Invading France in 1943 was in fact doable - send the forces involved in Husky to Normandy instead. The idea that the Germans could also easily shift forces from Italy to France to counter this is also fiction. Only something like 50K of the 300K troops in Sicily were German - the rest were Italians who were again by this point pretty tired of the war and would be unlikely to fight very hard if sent to France.

The Panzer situation is even worse, because at the very same time that the Allies are landing in Normandy there is a battle called "Kursk" happening in the East at the exact same time, so instead of seven Panzer Divisions around Caen you'd have a grand total of maybe one Panzer Division to face Patton; and these would be still using Mk IIIs and IVs or Panthers that spontaneously combust from engine failure.

This wasn't done because the Brits prevailed in their arguments to follow the Napoleonic era strategy. Yes, it's a "joint" decision but the American position had always been invade France as soon as possible, which was crazy in 1942, but was in fact doable in 1943. The narrative was simply shifted to making a 1943 invasion unfeasible by British historians who are uncomfortable with the reality that their Balkan strategy may have delayed the war by a whole damn year.

Finally, putting an army in France was in fact a much more existential threat to Nazi Germany than the whole Italian sideshow - which one can in fact argue was a theater where the Germans actually sucked Allied resources into becoming impotent / irrelevant rather than the other way around.

 

[Dark Jakkaru]

I'd argue that it's the responsibility of the political leadership to figure out how to win a war in any case.

To use an example on the Soviet side, much of the blame for the thrashing of the red army in 1941 can be put directly on Stalin who refused to listen to military leaders warning him about the German buildup on the border. The Soviet military leadership tried to make the best of the terrible situation their political leadership put them in at that time.

There is a catch to blaming Stalin as prior to the Eastern Front he was not technically "People's Commissariat of Defense" but rather "General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party". This man here, the sword dropper, prepared the way to move the factories to the Urals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliment_Voroshilov

 

[keynes2.0]

A lot of weight is on that word "initially" there. I don't think anyone doubted that the allies could muster two hundred thousand men to capture a beach. The question is could they get the two million men to make use of that beach?

People can repeat that Italians were crappy soldiers until they are blue in the face but when the Italians switched sides the Germans captured about half a million Italian troops outside Italy, 100k Italian troops kept fighting and a sizable number went over to the Allies without capture. So even if we ignore the half million Italian troops inside Italy and suppose they would have stayed there, that's a very large number of troops to the Axis has to replace.

 

[Opanashc]

n the whole Italian sideshow - which one can in fact argue was a theater where the Germans actually sucked Allied resources into becoming impotent / irrelevant rather than the other way around.

But the theory was, to make Russians and Germans to kill each other as much as possible. How very ally-like of the Western Powers.

 

[keynes2.0]

The much less cynical version of that theory is that if the Germans are outnumbered 2-1 globally then forcing them to commit troops to a front where they are outnumbered 3-2 and the casualties are even means they end up outnumbered worse on some other front.

 

[me987654]

Considering, that the same leadership was telling Stalin, that Germany concentrated less than 50% of its troops on the Soviet Border - Stalin had very good reasons to what he did.

Well I have no idea who's right since I wasn't there... but that's not what I just read in Beevor's recent work on WW2