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Hi guys thanks for the replys and compliments. this thing was a bit of a lbaour of love. i might one day make into something larger. maybe a thesis. we shall see. now for some of the points raised.
Crazy - TOE - table of organisation and equipment. On monty and goodwood. yeah basically monty never fully believed that it would be the breakthrough that dempsey did. dempsey pushed him on it and eventually in order to get the support from the strategic bomebers he claimed it would lead to a breakthrough. most of what i have read on monty and the op has claimed that he never beleievd in it. alos he never liked using an all armoured corps especially after the fiasco at the begining of the battle of el alamein. goodwood was dempseys idea, he believed it would work and therefore, to get the necessary firepower he wanted monty had to play up its aims harris and spaatz. this almost got him fired as tedder tried to have him removed after its so called failure.
The tactics were really poor they were badly implemented. the use of tanks over inafntry was a through back to earlier theories of armoured warfare most notably fuller and liddell hart. they both believed tanks didn't need inafantry and this permeated into the RAC and led their doctrine in the early years and due to certain inter service rivalries and traditions was very hard to get rid of. this led to some of the early failures until some of the younger commanders most notably Roberts and Adair came on the scene. Tanks were also greatly used as there were more and easily replaceable, infantry was not. by 1944 the british army had a manpower shortage especially with infantry. this led to the development of tactics to reduce their casualties. most notably the use of overwhelming firepower be it strategic or tactical. this was why there was very little inafantry in Goodwood. This is support by a recent Phd thesis by stephan hart who concluded that it was montys startegy to use his Collassel Cracks startegy in order to preserve casualties. this permeated at all levels of command. this is why some of the early mistakes were made as they tried to replace infantry with overwhelming firepower.
Erich - while stratgic bombing had an awe factor it very rarely affected the opposing troops for long. it did damage vehicles but as long as troops dug in they were unlikely to be hugely effected. the bombing also tended to be to deep aswell. for example at goodwood by the time the brits had reached the positions of th 12ss the effects had worn off. for good infor on this read Terry Copps 'Montgomerys scientists' this is a collection of reports by the operational reseacrh scientists of the time and has some good info on the effects of startegic bombing on the campaign.
Wilconqr - i have got any info on me but if your interested to know more on the funnies PM me. The cromwell did have an experimental DD device fitted to it but was not used operationally. so did the valentine.
Kai - you are right the prep bombing di create as many problems for the advancing troops. that is why by tatalise/tractable they were bimbing to side of the adavnce so tanks didn't fall into craters. they ahad stated to use marked out corridors with high powered searchlights to direct the advances.
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