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Artillery was the great killer in the 2nd world war. Besides the weapons mentioned the US also used 8 inch artillery - if more rarely than the 105 or 155. The US had a wide range of self propelled artillery, such as the Priest. I think its questionable if the US artillery was better overall than the Soviets who used it in pulverising quantities. This included the awesome Katuska rocket batteries, an arm the US army largely ignored. What made the US artillery effective is that they had a map grid system that brought artillery down more accurately and quicker than any other nationality.
One reason that artillery does not get its full credit among non-professionals (proffessionals certainly stressed it) is that movies and other accounts rarely show it. Its expensive and dangerous to display and people would rather see individuals. Incidently a key reason that the Russians held onto Stalingrad were the guns across the river.
I don't think Patton was stoped because of Eisenhower's disagreement with his tactical decisions. He was initially stoped because there was simply not enough gas to keep his units going, when Eisenhower chose to shift the fuel to Market Garden. Later the fixed fortifications around nancy were a serious problem (in part because Patton badly underestimated the power of fixed fortifications).
Just like in most things the Russians valued quantity over quality. Russian artillery while numerous and powerful generally used WW1 style tactics of mass bombardment. This is versus the U.S. and British with their better command and control systems who used their more accurate artillery to provide direct support to individual combat units. The U.S. artillery is generally rated as the most effective in the war do to the high degree of accuracy, excellent ammunition quality and superior command and control systems. It was possible for any U.S. unit to call down immediate and direct artillery support when needed. I suppose most effective can be measured in different ways, but I venture that even if the Russians had more artillery kills in the time period both the U.S. and Russians were active, the U.S. certainly had the better ratio of kills to rounds fired.
If you read up on Patton's 3rd Army when they were stopped they had been planning on surging forward and capturing Metz while it was lightly defended which would have opened up the road into Germany proper. Patton believed that thrusts supported by close air support to cover the flanks was the most effective strategy with the infantry cathcing up after the tanks had reached their objective as had been used in France. Eisenhower believed that a broad front approach was best and the only way to ensure adequate flank support. There were no other allied armies in a position to advance at the same pace as Patton to provide flank support and Ike believed that air power alone was not enough to secure a flank. Therefore he halted Patton and moved the supplies to support Montgomery's gambit at Market Garden. Had Market Garden gone to plan, Patton would have been released to advance through Metz and into Germany in support of Montogmery with Bradley pushing the broad front in the middle with a high chance of surrounding the remaining German units in the west. As it was Market Garden failed and the delay gave Metz time to reinforce and further fortify. Patton had to launch a frontal assault on a now heavily fortified position, which is not what he wanted to do, but was the only option at that point.
One has to wonder what might have happened had Ike allowed Patton to sieze Metz when he wanted and open the road into Germany. The war may have been over by Christmas of 1944 or the 3rd Army may have been cut off and slaughtered, which was Ike's fear.
One has to wonder what might have happened had Ike allowed Patton to sieze Metz when he wanted and open the road into Germany. The war may have been over by Christmas of 1944 or the 3rd Army may have been cut off and slaughtered, which was Ike's fear.
Nice post. Good to see a person open to the second possibility; the Germans at that stage of the war were capable of rapid local recovery and in the east Red forces that stuck their necks out too far were still being cut off.
Bing maps bird's eye view gives some nice close in aerial views of the Metz fortresses. Check out Bing maps view of Vauban's works at Belfort; amazing.
Nice post. Good to see a person open to the second possibility; the Germans at that stage of the war were capable of rapid local recovery and in the east Red forces that stuck their necks out too far were still being cut off.
Bing maps bird's eye view gives some nice close in aerial views of the Metz fortresses. Check out Bing maps view of Vauban's works at Belfort; amazing.
It is an interesting moment in the war. A lot of war gamers and theorists seem to think that Patton would have steam rolled all the way to Berlin and "personally shot that paper hanging SOB". However, with all deference to Patton's abilities, while Metz itself was vulnerable the German Army that was concentrating in the west was far better supplied, led and equipped then the units he faced in France. In addition Germany's terrain is very different then the open plains of France and the mobility advantage that the U.S. enjoyed would have been limited in Germany do to terrain.
The supply situation was overall very stretched and Market Garden at the time had the added bonus of opening the Scheldt to Allied supply ships. At this point in the war the bulk of Allied supplies were still coming in at the Normandy beaches and Cherbourg. While Antwerp had been captured, with the Germans still holding the Scheldt it had limited capacity. This combined with the need in London to take out the V2 bases made Market Garden the more attractive plan.
Ike even thought that Market Garden was too ambitious and ran contrary to his broad front strategy, but the benefit of a succesful Market Garden campaign were greater then what Patton could have achieved in the south at Metz and Ike wanted to keep the pressure on. Also, if Patton advanced as far as he thought he could, it is highly unlikely he could have stayed in supply. There was enough tonnage coming in at Normandy to supply all the armies, but they were running woefully short on trucks to move the supplies and the rail lines in France were a complete mess. A long advance by Patton would have stretched Allied logistics to the breaking point.
I think had Patton gotten the green light for his advance it would have either been one of the most gallant actions ever undertaken or an utter disaster. As it was I think it would have been even more disastorous then Market Garden.
I think the possibility that Patton could have won the war by a narrow front attack is unlikely. His supply lines would have been entirely in the air and US forces required massive ammounts of fuel and ammunition to operate. Moreover, without ports supply was essentially impossible and nothing Patton did could open the ports. In any case, Eisenhower was a cautious commander and was not going to take such risks. It should be noted that Patton was openly contemptuous of fortifications, which was an error on his part given other campaigns in the Second World War. So his views here are subject to a lot of doubt.
Another point rarely brought up in discussion of a narrow front is that Eisenhower had to consider national politics in making decisions. Montgomery was immensely popular with the British public and simply giving American troops all the fuel and supplies would have created serve problems for the alliance. Eisenhower had to consider this in making his decisions.
The real blunder in the Western campaign occured earlier. A revolt in Antwerpt had thrown that port into the hands of the allies without serious damage to the facilities. This was unexpected to bot the allies and the Germans. Caught by surprise the allies failed to clear the then weak German forces from the approaches to the harbor. By the time this was corrected, those defenses were much stronger and took a long time to clear. Had the allies operated quickly, the huge capacity of this city would have ended many of the problems that led to the stoping of Patton and Montgomery.
Pretty much echoes my follow up post. Supplies and politics are what drive wars and was what drove the decision to go ahead with Market Garden even with Ike's misgivings about the whole deal.
The interesting point is that while the port of Antwerp would have certainly helped the situation that port alone could not supply enough material to the Allied war effort and they would have needed additional Brittany coast ports (eg Dunkirk) or still been reliant on supplies from Normandy.
The entire Allied advance hinged on supplies reaching the front. There was plenty of tonnage coming in at Normandy, but they only had the truck and rail capacity to move a fraction of it. Before Market Garden commenced the Allies had been stripping trucks from combat units for sometime and adding them to the Red Ball Express. There were over 18,000 men, including 5,000 POW's, assigned to repair and replace rail infrastructure destroyed during the preps for Normandy. It wasn't until late September '44 that the first supply train was even able to reach 3rd Armies command and supply area. To compound the problem further over 1,400 British supply trucks broke down do to poorly cast pistons and those vehicles simply couldn't be replaced at the time.
Certainly getting Antwerp 100% operational and accessible would have helped, as it would have drastically shortened supply lines versus driving every bullet, shell, meal and drop of gas clear across France. Everyone really focuses on the actual combat, tanks, artillery, etc. but the war was really won with 2.5 ton trucks and Liberty Ships.
From what I have read Antwerpt would (and eventually did) have made a huge difference. It had the facilities Normandy did not to unload a huge quantity of supplies. Interestingly, if absurdly, the goal of the Bulge offensive was the port of Antwerpt because the Germans realized its importance.
One thing rarely discussed is that the gas resuply problem was made much worse because what was to have been the primary gas mover for the British (a large truck, essentially a tanker) ended up having a defective piston and was unusable.
It should be noted that Patton was openly contemptuous of fortifications, which was an error on his part given other campaigns in the Second World War.
Did he still believe this even after the Hurtgen Forest and the Sigfried Line? Two US Army divisions were rendered combat ineffective for the rest of the war, but yet "fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man" ...
People also tend to forget that Union rifled artillerry in the Civil War ended the souths ability to attack. Union gunners had three times the range and killing power late in the war. Between that, the gatling gun and repeating rifles the south was on the wrong side of a 10-1 kill ratio
Did he still believe this even after the Hurtgen Forest and the Sigfried Line? Two US Army divisions were rendered combat ineffective for the rest of the war, but yet "fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man" ...
That is a good question. Or for that matter Aachen. My guess is he probably did not change his mind; he was not a very flexible general.
Artillery has been called the "king of war" for a couple of centuries now...with good reason. From what I've read and heard from those who have seen both, the only thing that supposedly approaches well-placed and fired artillery in effect and psychologically-shattering results upon troops is a well-placed B-52 strike...
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