Re: D-Day was Shermans

>>
>> 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.

Good point.

>> 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.
>

I was more referring to the Higher command echelons, but mistrust
between
the political and military branches of the German leadership had had
such
an impact on the lower echelons that in some instances it caused command
paralysis.  The actual unit leaders had some initiative, but here's an
example of what I'm talking about:  The (IIRC) 21st Panzer was stationed
around Caen on D-day.  At 0800 the commander had his tanks warmed up and
ready to counterattack, but he had to wait until the higher HQ gave him
the
ok to do what he knew was the right thing to do.  This is a perfect
example
of how a mess at higher echelons neutralized the initiative of a lower
level commander.  Had the lower levels not been subject to a mess of an
upper command structure the Germans would have given the Allies a much
harder fight, and quite possibly defeated the invasions.

>> 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 ?

My point is that there wouldn't be a mass invasion against a "hot"
beach.
A debacle like Omaha wouldn't be excuted again simply because we have
the
capability and precision to neutralize the kind of defenses that were
present on the beaches then.  Also there's the sheer scale of the
operation.  I'm not sure a situation would arise where an operation on
that
scale would be necessary.  Of course there's also the argument that most
modern militaries wouldn't attempt a static defense simply because a
mobile
defense in depth has proven much more effective.

Bill