Patton also had fuel supply issues while taking his armored across europe into Germany. His Lorraine campaign was a classic logistics allocation problem.
Originally Posted by Unique_Carpenter
see below about Churchill and Monty
it really depends on how big this naval excerise is before it becomes too obvious.
its been said that u need 1 million men to invade taiwan.
this d-day level operation. there were I think 1000 ships involved that operation.
Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
the Taiwan straight is 100 miles. the shortest distance in the English channel is 20 miles at Calais which is largely why the Germans thought the D-Day invasion would be at Calais. mainly this was Hitler and some top Generals but others weren't convinced like Rommel.
the distance to Normandy is about the same as the Taiwan straight, 100 miles. your guesstimate of 1,000 ships isn't even close, it was nearly 7,000 ships. over 4,000 of those landing ships. i don't think it's likely China has that kind of force built up to duplicate the Allied armada.
6,939 vessels
How many Allied ships were involved in D-Day? Operation Neptune, including D-Day, involved huge naval forces, including
6,939 vessels: 1,213 naval combat ships, 4,126 landing ships and landing craft, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels
Yes LL, and Ike reamed him for that, but then gave him the fuel.
Originally Posted by Unique_Carpenter
the fuel issue was also influenced by Churchill asked for resources to Monty because the German V1 and V2 rockets were coming form the area Monty was attacking.
It was reported he did bitch about not being "in the fight"! He also bitched about not resisting the Russians' spread by holding tight at imaginary-political lines.
A "politician" he was not. Few warriors are.
Originally Posted by LexusLover
Patton was never going to be out of the fight, not for long anyway. the slapping incident was never going to have him sent home. the US press made it a bigger deal than it was and Eisenhower's reprimand was private and personal, not official. Eisenhower has never going to not use Patton at some point during the D-Day and later advance in Europe. while it was 11 months between command in combat for Patton a lot of that had to due with Operation Fortitude where the allies used the fact that the Germans had more respect for Patton than any other allied commander so they built a fictions Army around Patton, complete with "divisions" of tanks and armor and trucks that were inflatable decoys. in fact Patton was formally given command of of 3rd Army a newly formed unit months before D-Day and the plan all along was for him to train the new Army then be brought in after the initial invasion.
and it worked. Hitler was convinced Patton would lead the invasion at Calais. the allies played him. yet another mistake Hitler made was denying Rommel's request to move panzer divisions immediately south to counter the actual invasion once it began. no guarantee that would have been enough to stop the landings as the allies landed at multiple points just to account for that. they knew Rommel was a highly capable commander and left to him he would have attacked immediately.
Eisenhower and Patton were close friends since their early days in the Army. the war did strain their friendship but that slapping incident was never going to keep Patton from a command in Europe. everyone from Eisenhower to General Marshall to FDR knew Patton was way too valuable to be sent home.
