Re: D-Day was Shermans

----- Original Message -----
From: <bbrush@unlnotes.unl.edu>
>
> While the Allies certainly had access to more supplies than the
Germans,
> it's not the whole story.  The Allies had the intel war won handily.

Also, the Allies had Air superiority all the way from the Beaches to the
Reichshauptsadt.

> A further advantage that the Allies had,  was their command structure
and
training.
> The Allied forces trained their units to show initiative and to get
the
job done
> without directives "from the top".  The command structure also was
very
> "clean" in that the field commanders didn't have to get permission
from
> higher HQ's to use available assets.	The German command structure was
> quite frankly a mess, with the Panzer divisions being under Hitler's
> personal control and he was several hundred miles from the front, and
prone
> to sleeping till noon.  On top of that the troops were trained to
"Obey
> orders", and they didn't do anything without an order.

This is where I must disagree. From all what I've read, the tradition
for
German low-level unit commanders that they were trained to be very
flexible
to act on their own. Basically, the guy at the top would say: "This is
the
situation. I want this to happen. And that's what you got to make it
happen", leaving the detals to the subaltern - and expecting him to
protest
if the request was unrealisitic. This tradition goes back at least to
the
Kaiser's times and is reflected in writing from that time on.

My impression is that most Allied low-level units were rather less
flexible.

What was a mess was the German/Nazi high-level command structure and the
overall political and economic organization.

> Looking at the D-day invasions today I don't see how anything analgous
will
> ever happen again (at least not on Earth).  Today any country that
needed
> to amphibiously invade another country would first neutralize the
enemy
air
> force, use precision munitions to annihilate any defensive works, the
> airborne would secure the area immediately in front of the invasion
area
> and the hovercraft would come up on the beach and off would come the
> troops.

Errr..."anything analogous won't happen again..".?  Isn't what you
describe
precisely a modern analogue of D-Day ? Or did I miss your point ?

Greetings
Karl Heinz