Hey, Gonk, I agree with you. I thought that I saw a mention of Waterloo somewhere above in the thread, but now that I look again, it's gone... coincidence??? I think not. Waterloo was won with some classic manuvers on the Allies part and lost due to a lack of flexibility on Napoleons's part, which always surprised me. But I do not believe that it belongs in this thread.

Dean.

Sheer bloody stupidity

Originally Posted by Dean

-The Russian series of defeats at the hands of the Germans after Barbarossa, (lack of... well... everything, but particularly skill)

To be fair to the Soviets though every army that had gone up against the Wehrmacht had suffered the same fate, including the French Army and the BEF, considered by many to be the two finest armies in the world at the time. That's not to say that there weren't inadequacies in the Red Army because there most certainly was. But a new style of warfare heavily compounded those inadequacies.

I would say Market Garden failed because of bad team work (bad intel played a big part too). In particular between between the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the tanks of the British 2nd Army.

If anyone remebers Band of Brothers there is a scene that illustrates this. Unfortunatly it was a rather common occurence has neither group had trained with the other until the drop. A rather large failing on the part of SHEAF.

mmarsh....Market Garden operation was put together rather quickly for some thing of that size, there were many failings that all helped to bring about a disaster, and the biggest was as this stage of the war was over confidence, then you can throw in poor planning, radios that did not work, refusal to accept the certain intelligence reports. Yet had this operation taken place just a few weeks earlier it could have have been a great success, but what really threw a spanner in the works was that an SS Armoured Division from the Russian front had just moved into the area for a bit of rest and to be reequipped.

LeEnfield

I'll agree that poor teamwork wasnt the ONLY reason, your points are valid. But lack of teamwork played a big part too. Basically SHAEF dropped the ball from part A to part Z on Market Garden. Even if the 2nd SS Panzer Corps hadnt been there I am still not sure it would have been a success.

Gallipoli

Opposite failures, the biggest success in teamwork and communication etc., was Blietzkrieg.