Originally Posted by Doppleganger

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One thing that Monty did do very well was to be concerned for the welfare of his men. Perhaps this explains some of his cautiousness for which he is to be applauded. However, the fact remains that as a commander he was solid rather than inspirational and he did not appear to fully understand how to exploit the use of armour.

I put down his problems with armour to two thinks.
Firstly, British armor in WW2 never showed itself to be fully in tune with the idea of all arms warfare. Its record of close co-operation with the other arms was not good.
Secondly Monty was an infantry general, he had worked his way up from the command of a platoon in infantry regiments. So unlike a cavalry man like Patten he was not trained in the art of breakout, but unlike Patten( ie Metz) he knew how to fight set-piece battles, like D-Day.

I must agree he was overrated.

By a number of Brits, yes, but with a number of Americans I would say he's underrated. I've seen too many claim he was a bad general, when the question should be on how good he was.

But, then again, so are many of the other senior commanders of the Western Allies. We as victors of WW2 were able to somewhat write the history of what happened. We've given ourselves too much credit and given the Soviet Union not enough for winning WW2 in Europe.

Very true

Originally Posted by Charge 7

He also wrote a book of memoirs in which he claimed to have single-handedly have won the war in Europe himself. After that none of his former colleagues among the Americans and more than a few of the British, would ever talk to him again. Not that wise a man.

His personality was an interesting one!!!

Monty always had to have the upper hand in relationships with others.

Unfortunately he made alot of enemies.

The Americans have put him down more than he deserves.

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.

What rubbish!!!!!

I think you better read over the details of Operation Torch.

Italy in 1942????????

1943, than. dose it make a diffrence as to the main claim that the Americans faced the same quality of troops as did the British.

Originally Posted by Baby700

What rubbish!!!!!

I think you better read over the details of Operation Torch.

Italy in 1942????????

I suggest you read page 9 of this thread for my answer to that one.

Originally Posted by Charge 7

I suggest you read page 9 of this thread for my answer to that one.

Then use your edit button.

Originally Posted by Baby700

Then use your edit button.

Come off it Baby700. I think Charge has made himself clear enough.

Build a bridge my good chap!!!

Edit schmedit! You don't edit conversations. Reading the thread before jumping in is always a good idea.

Market Garden is one of those battles filled with ifs, if it had taken place just ten days earlier then a Division of SS troops would not have been there refitting after a long spell on the Russian front. If all planners had not got so over confident as they could see the end of the war was in sight. If they had decided to drop the troops closer to the town rather than ten miles away from their objective it would have been taken. It was a bold stroke that went badly wrong, had the dice rolled in our favour then every one would have been saying what a brilliant plan it was, but no it worked out into a tragedy.

Originally Posted by LeEnfield

Market Garden is one of those battles filled with ifs, if it had taken place just ten days earlier then a Division of SS troops would not have been there refitting after a long spell on the Russian front. If all planners had not got so over confident as they could see the end of the war was in sight. If they had decided to drop the troops closer to the town rather than ten miles away from their objective it would have been taken. It was a bold stroke that went badly wrong, had the dice rolled in our favour then every one would have been saying what a brilliant plan it was, but no it worked out into a tragedy.

Good point.