Poorly though out plans

Street fighting in Stalingrad was a huge problem as it drained german forces considerably. Soviet forces were butchered in street fighting but their objective was not to push Germans out of the city but rather denying them clear victory and forcing them to be concentrated towards tha city rather than to the oviet forces prepairing for offensive. With hindsight encircling of Stalingrad would be preferable solution. Germans simply did not anticipate that soviet would defend Stalingrad as stubornly as they did.
Another problem was logistic. Main trust in 1942 summer strategic offensive was to the south towards Caucasus. Stalingrad operation was more or less for protecting the flank of army group south and at the same time cutting main route of suplies and taking strategicly important city thus denying Soviets possibility of cutting od Army group south. German forces were considerably overstreched but gemans failed to consider Soviets would find enough forces (considering huge losses of 1941) to start such offensive operations as they did.

Stalingard itself was also failed opportunity to soviets. With some additional forces they could cut off entire army group south. According to original planning Germans were to be cut off at Rostov on Don, but Stalin decided that he will be satisfied with enshured smaller victory than huge uncertain victory at Rostov.

 

I doubt if the germans had the fuel to operate behind the river. Nevertheless, if they had, they would be able to advance unapposed resulting in bey bey Russia

 

Cutting the entire german south front ? The Soviet had not enough forces to do that.This was caused by Mansteins relief operation Winterstorm .Although it was unsucesfull it drained soviet rienforcements needed for finalizing operation Saturn.Without Malinovski´s 2nd Guard Army the South West and Voronežsky front were unable to seize important strategical points like Millerovo,Tačinskaya and Morozovsk.Without these cities captured no onslaught in direction Rostov was possible.

 

I'd also like to offer an old and recurrent mistake: the failure to take Antwerp in the autumn of 1944. This caused prolonged and intensified problems with the supply of Allied armies as they moved further away from Normandy, which is both predictable and logical... Not taking precautions or countermeasures against this is a huge failure of SHAEF.

 

oke, but then again, the ports near calais never surrenderd in 1944. Mayby SHEAF thought that these ports could be quickly taken and then used for supplying, thus shorten the supply lines. It's obvious that they never had a plan B for in case those ports were never taken.

I wonder, how come that the British and Canadians never took those ports? Was it because they were too busy chasing the fleeing Germans and later forgot about it?

 

Good point. These ports in Brittany were part of the original D-day plan. In Carlos D’este’s book Patton: A Genius for War he states, “The Capture of Brest had been intended to relive the logistical problem of resupplying what by the end of the Normandy campaign were more than two million Allied troops....However, the great success of the Cobra breakout suddenly made the need to execute the plan [to capture Brittany] highly questionable, and after Brest fell they realized that the port was simply much too far to be much use.”

In John C. McManus’ book The Americans at Normandy, states that, “Even if the Allies could seize the ports and get them operational in a couple of weeks , there was still the problem of moving supplies (especially fuel) over the damaged roads and railroads...to the advancing armies”

Eisenhower and Montgomery had envisioned the employment of a smaller force to capture the ports, a Corps at the most, instead Bradley used the majority of the entire Third Army. This blunted the momentum after the breakout. There was hardly any sizeable Germany defenders in front of Third Army. Even as the third army was allowed to move two corps to try and close the gap actions in Brittany drained resources from the attack east.

Another good point. I think this is reason Bradley sent a force to capture the ports and eliminate the German forces there. “We can’t risk a loose hinge” Bradley had said. But the 4th Armored Division had moved south of Rennes by early August and was moving south-east toward Chateaubriant. The peninsula was on the verge of being cut off. The Germans in Brittany were not exactly mobile and really, if cut off, were not a huge threat. Of course, it would be risky to leave the Germans in Brittany and turn east, but war is a risky business. Forces were landing in Normandy all they time, they could have been brought forward to deal with the Germans in the ports.

In the end it is hind sight that allows these criticisms above. It is hard to say even if the Third Army had been allowed to move east and try to close the Falaise gap that they could have in fact done it. The Germans, especially the veterans of the eastern front, were accustomed to being surrounded. They would have tried to break out. It is possible that events would have ended much the same way.

 

The "Sitzkrieg" was possibly the worst thought out military strategy of all time... There were so many squandered opportunities to stop Hitler... Well, at least two

Fall Weiß: France could have crushed Germany by invading from the west

Invasion of France: The USSR could have crushed Germany by invading from the east

By the time Barbarossa had begun, what remained of the Allies were feeling the consequences of letting Germany take on each allied army one by one... Once Poland was invaded, it would have made sense to all enroach at once... Instead the Allies just sat around waiting for their turn to be invaded...

 

That does not fit the description of badly thought out plan - they knew it was a suicide mission which was, almost certainly, doomed to fail and that is exactly what they got. This demonstrates the mentality, desperation and martial attitude of the Japs but was not actually bad planning. Was a Kamikaze pilot who died in action guilty of bad planning - I think not. The objective in a suicide mission is to either succeed or die trying - anything else would be a bonus to a westerner but in the Japanese mind of the day to return having failed would have brought great shame.

 

german overconfidence i think ..they had trounced the red army in the open so many times that they didnt think pushing them out a city would be a big deal ..german air ,armour and tatical superiority were negated in the house to house fighting of stalingrad...not letting von paulus break out when he had the muscle to do it was THE
major german fubar of ww2

 

i also think the defence of berlin was a falure

 

You know this is my favorite. Securing Antwerp and the Scheldt made much more sense than going for a pyschological knock out at Arnhem.
The full Third Army was not used to take Brest, only VIII Corps was used to isolate the Brittany penusila and ports. I think it was actually US 9th Army HQ taht oversaw the final attack. 40,000 relatively immobile paratroopers and fortress troops were not a major threat to the ALlied armies.