In June of 1944 my Uncle's first action took him to Hill 192, where his units encountered German parachute units. This claim was met with total disbelief up the chain of command. He was severely wounded leading one of the first attacks against Hill 192, a major obstacle in breaking through to St. Lo. He had argued for a much different type of attack, but was overruled - by men who refused to believe they were facing crack German units. The area where he was wounded became known as Purple Heart Draw.

Hill 192 was not taken for another month.

I think Patton was a brilliant combat General, but I also think the 3rd Army had been magnificently trained and prepared by General Krueger, who was snatched away by Mac to Australia to lead the 6th Army in the Southwestern Pacific.

Originally Posted by Charge_7

Thank you for your insights, AussieJohn.

One point however:

"There air superiority had crippled the German attempts to mount a counter-attack; in the approach marches, the formation for attack, and the attack itself. The only hope was to bring in sufficient infantry to hold the line, thus releasing the panzer forces for another more concentrated effort. If the attack was to be mounted it should be against the weaker Americans".

By "weaker" it could just as easily mean weaker in that specific area of the battle, and not mean _anything_ about the Americans as a whole. Without the full context that observation is just conjecture.

On June 10th, Rommel considered the Americans to be the weaker of the allied forces at that stage. He was hoping to be able to direct most of his armour at the Americans but was unable due to the reasons I and others have already stated. I think Rommel had it right.

Obviously the American strength changed dramatically from early June to mid July, 1944.

Aussie, you're right about Patton.

The Allies went to great lengths to conceal what Patton was up to prior to the Normandy landings.

Can't understand what all the fuss is about. The USA and UK combined to tie up a maximum of 30% of Germany's forces and were only actively involved in Europe for about a year and a half. Two for the UK if you count "the Phony War" and 40 days worth of getting the crap beaten out of you in France. The USA and UK can bicker and quarell about their tiny overall impact on World War II Europe, but what is the point? The Soviet Union paid the all important price in blood, iron and human suffering. They stopped Germany. Nobody else did. The USA and UK were there as sideshows to support and distract. The Russian People won it.

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

Can't understand what all the fuss is about. The USA and UK combined to tie up a maximum of 30% of Germany's forces and were only actively involved in Europe for about a year and a half. Two for the UK if you count "the Phony War" and 40 days worth of getting the crap beaten out of you in France. The USA and UK can bicker and quarell about their tiny overall impact on World War II Europe, but what is the point? The Soviet Union paid the all important price in blood, iron and human suffering. They stopped Germany. Nobody else did. The USA and UK were there as sideshows to support and distract. The Russian People won it.

I agree with you up to a point but Normandy was hardly a "sideshow" .

.

Stalin _demanded_ it. So I wouldn't say it was inconsequential to the Russians either.

Originally Posted by Strongbow

I agree with you up to a point but Normandy was hardly a "sideshow" .

.

Remembering that the Western Powers never managed to divert anymore than 30% of German forces at anytime ... "sideshow" may be too the wrong word. It shouldn't matter so much as long as you get my point: The Russian People were the biggest player by far in defeating Nazi Germany. Normandy was one of the few tastes the West had of the mamoth battles that were happening on the Eastern Front nonstop.

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

Remembering that the Western Powers never managed to divert anymore than 30% of German forces at anytime ... "sideshow" may be too the wrong word. It shouldn't matter so much as long as you get my point: The Russian People were the biggest player by far in defeating Nazi Germany. Normandy was one of the few tastes the West had of the mamoth battles that were happening on the Eastern Front nonstop.

They also never faced the same level of quality as by 1944, the quality of new German recruits was in most cases very low. Even the elite Panzer and SS Panzer Divisions assigned to the West were in many cases battered units sent from the Eastern Front for refit and were in some cases rebuilt almost from scratch. Their combat replacements in terms of men were of the same low quality.

"They also never faced the same level of quality"

Wrong. We were in Africa, Sicely, and Italy in 1942. We faced "quality" units then and defeated those too.

Originally Posted by Charge_7

"They also never faced the same level of quality"

Wrong. We were in Africa, Sicely, and Italy in 1942. We faced "quality" units then and defeated those too.

I thought we were talking about Europe?? Also, the Afrika Korps were a tiny fraction of Germany's military strength. That were good, sure. We also outnumberd them by a huge margin. Not much for making a fair fight, but such is war. You win however you can.

Tying all this back to the original topic, the West tends to pat themselves on the back and give themselves far too much credit. Quibbling over who was the most important Western Power is just silly.

"Was Montgomery over rated?" Lets face it, everything the West did is over rated. This is not intended to instult anyone's swelling pride in their respective countries. Its just being realistic.