Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl W Schwamberger
In terms of men & weapons elminated Bagration was more important. The Normandy campaign had a greater result in terms of economic results. The Anglo/US Armys stripped France & Belgium from Germanys war industry and place Germanys transport system within range of their shorter range medium bombers. With bases in France it was possible in the autum & winter to wreck the German transportation network the same as the French railroads & highway bridges had been wrecked the previous winter & spring.
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Yes, Carl, I agree with your points on economical importance, and the facility it provided for the medium bombers to expand on their transportation network campaign, even if all this still took some while to organise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl W Schwamberger
Neither did Bagration place Soviet armys or its airforces in effective range of German industrial regions like Silesia or Bohemia. At the end of the Normandy campaign in September the Anglo/US armys were a little over 100 kilometers from the Rhine river and Ruhr industrial region.
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Well, Bagration started from somewhat farther, didn't it?
In any case, by the time Op. Bagr. reached it's objectives the Allies were still fully busy with Op. Cobra and the Falaise Pocket, so still on their way to Paris for instance (which would fall soon anyway, Aug. 25)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl W Schwamberger
This forced the Germans to rebuild a large army in the west, allowing the Red army to make its next advance westwards.
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Well, so did Op. Bagration, it forced the Germans to remove troops from other areas in order to plug the immense void that was suddenly made between the North and South parts of the East front. Bagration started just west of Smolensk and went all the way until almost Warsaw on the Vistula, and entering Reich territory in East Prussia.
I'm not by any means denying the effects of Overlord, of course the regions liberated were of lesser industrial weight and there are also the other factors you mention, but the sheer amount of units eliminated (roughly 1/4 of the East Front manpower) that had to be made up somehow made a large dent in other parts of the front, and at the same time the Red Army was doing paralell offensives in the North and South as well, forcing the Germans out from large parts of the Baltic countries.
Elsewhere, among the effects were changes in the political and strategical outlook, as the Reichs's allies started throwing in the towel, like Romania in Aug. 23 (Ploesti kaput!) and Finland and Bulgaria 2 weeks later in Sep. 6th. (the USSR had declared war on Bulgaria on the 5th!!!). Hungary had been previously occupied so was forced to stay on.
I'm not comfortable with saying this or that operation was more important. Both Overlord and Bagration were very large operations, developed in the same timeframe, on different regions with different terrain characters. They were both important and they both were large steps to victory.
