Bernard Law Montgomery Discussion (split from IWM)

[thejester]

Did you see the "Monty: Master of the Battlefield" exhibit? That made me laugh.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Why?

[Mr Bean]

Did you see the "Monty: Master of the Battlefield" exhibit? That made me laugh.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Why?

Monty, or Bernard Montgomery was many things. Master of the Battlefield he was not. The best comparison I've heard of him was as a smarter less political George B. McClellan. He built up a big army, he supplied it well, and he attacked an won several victories through shear force of numbers. There have been over a hundred books written on the subject, but the bare facts are. When ol' Monty "Master of the Battefield" had six to one advantages, he very often won.

As way of shorthand to paraphrase someone else, here is the patent pending sure fire B. Montgomery method of warfighting.

Step One
Build up a bigger Army than your enemy, try to at least outnumber them two to one. If you can, six to one is prefered

Step Two
Supply your army better than your enemies are. In fact supply them much better than the enemy. Be warned, your enemy may attack you to get those supplies, be sure to have at least twice as much in reserved.

Step Three
Attack!

IF at any point you lose a major battle please see Step 1.

And thus the Bernard Montgomery method of war fighting in simple form.
Of course Monty was more than this, but shear weight of numbers not excellent tactics won him many battles, as did positioning. Once of Montgomery's better strengths was defense fighting. And no matter how bland the General, if his soldiers were good, they could make up for some of his deficiency.

[CaptHawkeye]

Wasn't it Monty who came up with the idea that since the Allies had stalled in the Bocage following the landings, clearly the best thing to do was dig elaborate trench lines and fortifications around the Normandy area?

[thejester]

Did you see the "Monty: Master of the Battlefield" exhibit? That made me laugh.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Why?

Monty, or Bernard Montgomery was many things. Master of the Battlefield he was not. The best comparison I've heard of him was as a smarter less political George B. McClellan. He built up a big army, he supplied it well, and he attacked an won several victories through shear force of numbers. There have been over a hundred books written on the subject, but the bare facts are. When ol' Monty "Master of the Battefield" had six to one advantages, he very often won.

What utter horseshit. He won at Alam Halfa by deploying a sophisticated deception plan and reforming the Army to fight the Axis on their own terms - and the result was a decisive victory, as opposed to the Auk's earlier flirtation with disaster at First Alamein. He recognised the fundamental doctrinal problems with British armour and reformed them:

The point was, he said to me, that our armoured formations are too brave. They always attack. And all the Germans do is withdraw their 88s behind the line and then knock out all our tanks....Now, he said, I'm not going to have that. I want you to go up there, to go up on to the Alam Halfa ridge, and I want you to arrange to lure the Germans on. And when we've really got them into a trap, then we'll go for then. In other words all our anti-tank guns must be dug in, and all our tanks dug in. Everything dug in.

Nigel Hamilton, Monty, p. 643.

Montgomery scrapped the existing plans to fight a mobile battle, dug his armour in and drew the Afrika Korps onto them. The battle might be summarised by this phrase, issued to the 22 Armoured Brigade on the ridge: "...it is hoped that for once the enemy may have to attack us in good positions of our own choosing." The battle unfolded roughly as Montgomery saw it, with Rommel having to change the man thrust of his attack mid-fight to try and knock the British off Alam Halfa. The end result was failure - the creme of the Panzerarmee stalled under the ridge, at the mercy of the DAF and XIII Corps artillery. Note that tank strength was roughly equal during this battle.

As for second El Alamein - I've always been baffled by the criticism directed towards him. He didn't even have a 2:1 advantage in infantry and his opponents sat in tremendously strong defensive positions. Terrain dictated he couldn't outflank his opponents - he could only slog his way through. Reading any low-level account of the battle demonstrates the ferocious nature of the fighting, such as the 9th Division's battle in the Saucer (Ch 15). In the end he did what previous British generals, who had often enjoyed a measure of material superiority, couldn't - beat Rommel.

Reality is that Montgomery consistently did the best he could with what he had to hand. The British Commonwealth armies were made up of citizen soldiers who had only a fraction of the doctrinal depth and professional understanding possessed by their opponents. In Africa he inherited an Army demoralised by a string of defeats, whose previous commander had them fighting in a style they were not trained for and lacked the professionalism or experience to execute; in Normandy he had an Army tired of a long war and running out of men. Certainly, he wasn't the all-knowing, all-seeing God of War he later painted himself to be. But you'd he hard pressed to argue that any of those who served alongside him in the Desert or Western Europe did better.

[Sea Skimmer]

What utter horseshit. He won at Alam Halfa by deploying a sophisticated deception plan and reforming the Army to fight the Axis on their own terms - and the result was a decisive victory, as opposed to the Auk's earlier flirtation with disaster at First Alamein. He recognised the fundamental doctrinal problems with British armour and reformed them:

Wow you’ve really fallen for the bullshit hook line and sinker. Monty won because the Germans did not have the fuel to outflank his static positions. Monty completely rejected the idea of fighting a mobile defensive battle and defeated the Germans using the exact same defensive brigade box strategy that had utterly failed at Galaze and just barely stopped the Germans at First Alamein. He then failed to turn the stalled German attack into a major victory precisely because he had not reformed any damn thing about British tactics or doctrine at all, and British forces continued to fight without proper tank-infantry-artillery coordination. That meant no big combind arms counter attack, something that could have pinned Rommels retreat against the breached minefields and destroyed him.

It wasn’t until the attritional battles after Alam Halfa, in which several British brigades were more or less wiped out, that 8th Army really started to learn something about mobile fighting and the very concept of combined arms. After that it did much better, but Monty sure wasn’t exercising brilliant leadership in the process.

Unfortunately while 8th Army ultimately learned, the British forces Monty then commanded in Normandy never got the chance before going into action. They were trained off the same outdated manuals 8th Army had used in 1940-41 and even had Monty wasnted I doubt he'd have had time to undo the damage. That then lead to another string of defeats as British tanks attacked enmass without so much as a rifle platoon to defend them from German infantry or anti tank guns.

Montgomery scrapped the existing plans to fight a mobile battle, dug his armour in and drew the Afrika Korps onto them.

The British had always fucking used static defenses in the Desert, and you’re trying to claim that Monty CONTINUING to use those tactics and abandoning the new idea of fighting a mobile battle is a fixing a doctrinal problem? How the hell does that work? The reality is Monty rejected the idea of fixing any problem; he with some justification felt he did not have time to retrain the men to do a proper job of it, and so cling to the old ways. Luckily Malta and the Desert Air Force ensured that this time Rommel could do nothing else but plow into those positions.

Of course Monty also had several huge advantages he predecessors didn’t, such as 6pdr anti tank guns having finally been issued in large numbers, allowing his field artillery to concentrate and do its proper job rather then acting as improvised anti tank guns that were endlessly defeated in detail. He also had a much higher proportion of tanks with 75mm guns then ever before, and far far more air power while the Luftwaffe had become virtually nonexistent.

The battle might be summarised by this phrase, issued to the 22 Armoured Brigade on the ridge: "...it is hoped that for once the enemy may have to attack us in good positions of our own choosing." The battle unfolded roughly as Montgomery saw it, with Rommel having to change the man thrust of his attack mid-fight to try and knock the British off Alam Halfa. The end result was failure - the creme of the Panzerarmee stalled under the ridge, at the mercy of the DAF and XIII Corps artillery. Note that tank strength was roughly equal during this battle.

So I guess you also fall for Monty’s bullshit that he ‘first recognized Alam Halfa as the decisive terrain’ when in fact his predecessor had already recognized it and deployed forces to defend it? Rommel didn’t change the thrust of his attack; he didn’t have any other choice but to drive at that ridge as he had no fuel for a wide outflanking move as he’d done at Gazala. The only reason he attacked at all was because to defend so far from his supply bases would be even more certain defeat.

If Rommel had a proper fuel supply, and his near total lack of fuel had nothing to do with anything Monty accomplished, then he could have driven straight to El Hammam and encircled the entire British force. As it was the battle that was actually fought could have been won by any even slightly competent general and probably more then one idiot. The Panzers never even tried to make a proper all out attack at Alam Halfa, they couldn’t because they never concentrated for such an attack owing to constant bombing and quickly burned through so much of the remaining fuel stocks that it was not clear they could even hope to exploit a successful capture of the ridge. .

[thejester]

Wow you’ve really fallen for the bullshit hook line and sinker.

Ironic, but we'll continue on.

Monty won because the Germans did not have the fuel to outflank his static positions.

Even had the Germans had the fuel to maneuver past Alam Halfa, all it would have left was an armoured brigade sitting astride their LOC - as the orders issued to the 22nd on the 19 August demonstrate. Rommel recognised this and knew he needed a quick penetration to throw the 8th into confusion and get well into their rear; he never got it. His decision to attack in this sector was in part because deception plans coming out of the 8th had convinced him of the paucity of defences in front of Alam Halfa and that a quick penetration was possible.

Monty completely rejected the idea of fighting a mobile defensive battle and defeated the Germans using the exact same defensive brigade box strategy that had utterly failed at Galaze and just barely stopped the Germans at First Alamein.

I specifically said Monty rejected mobile defence, so I don't know how you think that's point scoring - and he clearly didn't share the same ideas as the Auk. Auchinleck and Dormann-Smith wanted to beat the Germans at their own game - fighting a mobile defensive battle based on combined arms 'battle groups'. If attacked the positions around the front line would be considered little more than a screen, and the 8th would withdraw through phased box positions (Dormann-Smith's 'cowpats') with the battle groups fighting in between. The 8th Army simply did not have the skill to do this.

Montgomery outright abandoned this in favour of concentrating all available forces along the existing front line and abolishing plan for a withdrawal or indeed a mobile battle full stop. He knew the British armour couldn't match it with the panzers in a fluid situation, so he ensured that it didn't happen.

He then failed to turn the stalled German attack into a major victory precisely because he had not reformed any damn thing about British tactics or doctrine at all, and British forces continued to fight without proper tank-infantry-artillery coordination. That meant no big combind arms counter attack, something that could have pinned Rommels retreat against the breached minefields and destroyed him.

I never said he did, and to expect him to have done so in the short time between his assumption of command is absurd. What he did 'reform' was the 8th's propensity to fight beyond its means, as detailed above. A massive counterattack was beyond the 8ths ability; to have attempted it was to simply invite unnecessary casualties.

It wasn’t until the attritional battles after Alam Halfa, in which several British brigades were more or less wiped out, that 8th Army really started to learn something about mobile fighting and the very concept of combined arms. After that it did much better, but Monty sure wasn’t exercising brilliant leadership in the process.

I'm not sure what to make of what you're arguing here. The nature of the battles in second Alamein would have been familiar to generals in 1918; they were classic static set-pieces. Certainly, many of the lessons needed to be re-learned, but they seem to have come in the wake of the failed July offensive action, not after Alam Halfa (the brigade attacks being the immediate counterattacks by the 2nd NZ and the 132nd?)

I don't know enough about the 8th's campaigns to comment on how much their mobile operations had improved by the Tunisian campaign, or in Italy.

Unfortunately while 8th Army ultimately learned, the British forces Monty then commanded in Normandy never got the chance before going into action. They were trained off the same outdated manuals 8th Army had used in 1940-41 and even had Monty wasnted I doubt he'd have had time to undo the damage. That then lead to another string of defeats as British tanks attacked enmass without so much as a rifle platoon to defend them from German infantry or anti tank guns.

My understanding was that the disaster of GOODWOOD was a reflection of the nature of the fight - despite Montgomery's hopeso f a breakthrough and later claims that it all went to plan, the attack was essentially brought about by the hemorrhaging of the infantry and the relatively intact nature of the armour.

The British had always fucking used static defenses in the Desert, and you’re trying to claim that Monty CONTINUING to use those tactics and abandoning the new idea of fighting a mobile battle is a fixing a doctrinal problem? How the hell does that work? The reality is Monty rejected the idea of fixing any problem; he with some justification felt he did not have time to retrain the men to do a proper job of it, and so cling to the old ways. Luckily Malta and the Desert Air Force ensured that this time Rommel could do nothing else but plow into those positions.

As outlined above, under Auchinleck plans for a mobile battle based around 'battle groups' and 'jock columns' were in place, and there remained key differences between Montgomery's idea of fighting along a continuos line and in the 'boxes'. The doctrinal problem was that the British simply didn't have adequate doctrine to match the German method of fighting; Montgomery's solution was to ensure they didn't go off playing cavalry.

Of course Monty also had several huge advantages he predecessors didn’t, such as 6pdr anti tank guns having finally been issued in large numbers, allowing his field artillery to concentrate and do its proper job rather then acting as improvised anti tank guns that were endlessly defeated in detail. He also had a much higher proportion of tanks with 75mm guns then ever before, and far far more air power while the Luftwaffe had become virtually nonexistent.

Yeah, that's all true, and he certainly used the DAF to great advantage. I'm pretty sure at Alam Halfa he had less 75 equipped tanks than the 8th had at Gazala,

So I guess you also fall for Monty’s bullshit that he ‘first recognized Alam Halfa as the decisive terrain’ when in fact his predecessor had already recognized it and deployed forces to defend it?

Are you joking? Under Auchinleck the ridge was held by a small force that was barely entrenched; he didn't even intend to seriously contest it if attacked, as outlined above.

Rommel didn’t change the thrust of his attack; he didn’t have any other choice but to drive at that ridge as he had no fuel for a wide outflanking move as he’d done at Gazala.

He clearly did. As you yourself pointed out, his initial aim was to flank the entire 8th position. When that didn't eventuate because of the thickness of British minefields, defences and the power of the DAF he shifted the axis of the panzers into the ridge.

The only reason he attacked at all was because to defend so far from his supply bases would be even more certain defeat.

And?

If Rommel had a proper fuel supply, and his near total lack of fuel had nothing to do with anything Monty accomplished, then he could have driven straight to El Hammam and encircled the entire British force.

With two armoured brigades astradle his LOC and the light forces of the 7th Armoured Division on his right flank. And as you pointed out, even his limited fuel stocks were severely strained by the depth of British defences in the south.

As it was the battle that was actually fought could have been won by any even slightly competent general and probably more then one idiot.

You could say the same thing about Gazala, and more than a few other battles in the desert. Reality is he certainly was competent and to compare him to McClellan is absurd.

[Sea Skimmer]

Even had the Germans had the fuel to maneuver past Alam Halfa, all it would have left was an armoured brigade sitting astride their LOC - as the orders issued to the 22nd on the 19 August demonstrate. Rommel recognised this and knew he needed a quick penetration to throw the 8th into confusion and get well into their rear; he never got it. His decision to attack in this sector was in part because deception plans coming out of the 8th had convinced him of the paucity of defences in front of Alam Halfa and that a quick penetration was possible.

If he’d had the fuel he would have countered the threat of an armor counter attack the way he always, did, a screen of anti tank guns. As British forces just plain failed at combined arms this sort of defensive tactic worked absurdly well. A pity too since the 25pdr was such a good gun for countering highly dispersed targets in the open with no overhead cover.

I specifically said Monty rejected mobile defence, so I don't know how you think that's point scoring - and he clearly didn't share the same ideas as the Auk. Auchinleck and Dormann-Smith wanted to beat the Germans at their own game - fighting a mobile defensive battle based on combined arms 'battle groups'. If attacked the positions around the front line would be considered little more than a screen, and the 8th would withdraw through phased box positions (Dormann-Smith's 'cowpats') with the battle groups fighting in between. The 8th Army simply did not have the skill to do this.

Montgomery outright abandoned this in favour of concentrating all available forces along the existing front line and abolishing plan for a withdrawal or indeed a mobile battle full stop. He knew the British armour couldn't match it with the panzers in a fluid situation, so he ensured that it didn't happen.

Okay you know I don’t know about you, but to me reverting to the status quo is not a reform. It’s an admission that you cannot reform.

I never said he did

Yeah actually you did say he reformed the army. Changing paper plans is not reforming an army. It might be important, but it does not rate the same thing or require anything like the same effort and personal accomplishment.

and to expect him to have done so in the short time between his assumption of command is absurd. What he did 'reform' was the 8th's propensity to fight beyond its means, as detailed above. A massive counterattack was beyond the 8ths ability; to have attempted it was to simply invite unnecessary casualties.

I don’t expect much from him, he won, good enough, anyone halfway competent would have when ones opponent is so weakened and so absurdly far beyond his lines of supply. The only way to lose would have been not only to just totally fail to stop the Germans, but also to in the process allow them to capture a couple thousand tons of fuel. Otherwise the Panzers would have just ground to a halt anyway. The number of tanks might have been about equal, but Monty had absolutely every other advantage except training and occupying prepared positions on the defensive should balance that out already.

Monty has been made out to be a fucking genius in popular literature and his achievements have been more overblown then even those of the German generals or Patton to support it. Monty didn’t reform his army, he won a relatively easy victory from fixed positions, then ground up the Germans with vastly superior supply, exactly as Bean alleged,. Maybe 6 to 1 odds aren’t accurate for everything (though if we looked at ammo and fuel stocks the advantage would be even heavier in favor of the British) but the point well remains.

I'm not sure what to make of what you're arguing here. The nature of the battles in second Alamein would have been familiar to generals in 1918; they were classic static set-pieces.

Somewhat. There was quite a bit of mobile fighting at the brigade/regimental level during that offensive. The lack of combined arms still prevented Monty from ever getting a proper breakthrough his overwhelming material superiority should have been able to accomplish. Instead the battle was ended on Rommel’s command, and a nucleus of Axis forces escaped to fight on for months in Tunisia. Only the walking Italian infantry could be captured… but they never got away from Monty’s predecessors either.

Certainly, many of the lessons needed to be re-learned, but they seem to have come in the wake of the failed July offensive action, not after Alam Halfa (the brigade attacks being the immediate counterattacks by the 2nd NZ and the 132nd?)

Those are the main ones I had in mind. The attacks before hand did see a bit of learning, but not much. The fact that many of them left so few survivors and so many men taken prisoner sure didn’t help the process. But this was in any case learning from the bottom up, not changes from the top down in action.

My understanding was that the disaster of GOODWOOD was a reflection of the nature of the fight - despite Montgomery's hopeso f a breakthrough and later claims that it all went to plan, the attack was essentially brought about by the hemorrhaging of the infantry and the relatively intact nature of the armour.

The problem was Monty assumed that if his infantry could overwhelm the first kilometer or so of the German position, then his armor could flood through the gap and race into the German rear. No artillery or infantry were assigned to that armor. Problem was the Germans did not defend 1km deep or even 5km deep; they had a 20km deep position. That’s EXACTLY what they’d done in WW1, and its EXACTLY what they did at Alamine… and yet he just did not anticipate it at all! This also meant that allthat massed air bombing was directed along the frontlines, and didn’t strike the depth of the German position either. This was really bad, because 20km was deeper then British field artillery could reach. The artillery had to displace forward to support the attack and knock out the Germans ever present anti tank gun screens. But with no artillery assigned that role it just didn't happen. Infantry would have found targets for the guns (its not easy to spot for artillery from inside a tank) as well as pushing back the German infantry hiding in every ditch with a panzerfaust.

The result was the infantry easy did overrun the German frontlines, then the armor flooded pasted the infantry who had no orders and no assigned reverses to support the tanks, and with no artillery moving up behind them or on call for support, and then promptly got slaughtered by hoards of intact German anti tank guns.

Monty latter claimed ‘all went to plan’ on the basis that he had only ever planned to draw in German reverses and thus allow the Americans to breakout. That much did more or less happen. But the claim is utter bullshit, everything indicates he fully expected HIS attack to be the breakout, and nothing much supports the idea that he would have ever supported the idea of his attack being the secondary attack from the onset. Certainly the commitment of three armored divisions onto a very narrow front and employing such massive air power would make little sense as a holding attack. It was clearly meant to be the glorious breakthrough and mass encirclement that he knew he had failed to win in the Desert.

As outlined above, under Auchinleck plans for a mobile battle based around 'battle groups' and 'jock columns' were in place, and there remained key differences between Montgomery's idea of fighting along a continuos line and in the 'boxes'. The doctrinal problem was that the British simply didn't have adequate doctrine to match the German method of fighting; Montgomery's solution was to ensure they didn't go off playing cavalry.

Okay I know that, I just do no see how it is a reform of an army. A reform of the army headquarters maybe.

Yeah, that's all true, and he certainly used the DAF to great advantage. I'm pretty sure at Alam Halfa he had less 75 equipped tanks than the 8th had at Gazala,

I said higher proportion, in absolute numbers of tanks he had significant less then at Gazala but so did the Germans. However he did have plenty of fuel and ammo for those tanks, the Germans had been well supplied at Gazala too but not at Alam Halfa.

Are you joking? Under Auchinleck the ridge was held by a small force that was barely entrenched; he didn't even intend to seriously contest it if attacked, as outlined above.

Yeah because if Rommel could mount a proper attack Auchinleck knew that the ridge would be swiftly outflanked and irrelevant. Auchinleck had repeatedly seen brigade strength positions destroyed in a matter of hours by German forces. He could not know just how desperate the German supply situation was so he planned for the worst.

He clearly did. As you yourself pointed out, his initial aim was to flank the entire 8th position. When that didn't eventuate because of the thickness of British minefields, defences and the power of the DAF he shifted the axis of the panzers into the ridge.

His ideal desire was to outflank the whole British position but he never had the fuel to do this, ever and did not launch the offensive with such a sweep in mind. He attacked because he saw no other option and gambled that the British would just fall apart like they already had so many times before. Didn’t work; but I’ve never fallen for the cult of Rommel either.

And?

And this is another reason why Monty is no fucking master of the battlefield for holding off tanks with no fuel at Alam Halfa.

With two armoured brigades astradle his LOC and the light forces of the 7th Armoured Division on his right flank.

The way the British army was able to lose tanks at the time those armored brigades would have been slaughtered had they charged across the open desert to do anything. An infantry attack meanwhile would be damned by a lack of any good terrain to go out and hold. Light forces could be held off by the Italian infantry mass moving up, just as they had been in previous battles. You yourself agree with the decision not to make a major counter attack above if you forgot. Remember Alam Halfa is already past the narrowest area of passable terrain, by the time the Germans must pass it they had more space to the south, giving them a margin of space for an anti tank defence.

And as you pointed out, even his limited fuel stocks were severely strained by the depth of British defences in the south.

Yeah, and this is about Monty and what he did and did not accomplish. Having the enemy blunder into you’re fixed defensives simply because logistical factors beyond the scope of the battlefield prevented any other course of action is not some triumph of a generalship. Not to mention Monty had the luxury of Ultra telling him the exact time and place of the Axis attack so that his screening forces didn’t get annihilated.

You could say the same thing about Gazala, and more than a few other battles in the desert. Reality is he certainly was competent and to compare him to McClellan is absurd.

Not really, while I would not rate them as equal, the similarities are in fact quite numerous. Both did well at fixed actions, horrible at anything mobile to the point of rejecting mobile battles in specific favor of set piece action, both took command of poor situations under heavy political pressure ect.. if you missed it, Bean out of hand called him smarter then McClellan.

[Stuart Mackey]

Okay I know that, I just do no see how it is a reform of an army. A reform of the army headquarters maybe.

Montgomery's reform was to fight his army as just that, he abandoned binary brigade and jock columns and concentrated artillery at minimum at division but also at army level. More or less he was of the same opinion as Freyberg and Blamey, that the Germans just had to be rounded up and smashed with artillery, and let the infantry and armour mop up the remainder. Montgomery was no genius, but he did know what his army could do and couldn't do and above all he won, which is exactly what he was paid to do. As for criticism about him not playing fancy blitzkrieg games in the latest fashion, who gives a shit? I mean seriously the man played to his strengths and won, that's all that matters.

[Mr Bean]

Not really, while I would not rate them as equal, the similarities are in fact quite numerous. Both did well at fixed actions, horrible at anything mobile to the point of rejecting mobile battles in specific favor of set piece action, both took command of poor situations under heavy political pressure ect.. if you missed it, Bean out of hand called him smarter then McClellan.

And I do so with good reason, Montgomery managed to win with his superiority. McClellan managed to get to the brink of victory and sit there while his enemy retreated and reorganized for another attack. Montgomery still failed in his objectives and won by default. He did not defeat the enemy on August 30th of 1942 so much as grind Rommel down enough that further attacks would have been impossible due to supply and numbers. When he pursed Rommel he made a botch of the job(McClellan and where my comparison came from) time and time again.

Edit also a note on tanks
Numbers are not the only qualification, tank types come into play and the numbers tell a far different story as Rommel tank count not only includes Italian (From little pieces of shit, to medium sized pieces of shit) tanks but also light scout equivalent tanks such as the Panzer II and lash up conversions. Only the handful(Read six operational on morning of August 30th) of Panzer IV Specials(75mm Long) and Panzer III-J Lates(A dozen) could hope to hurt the Matilda II's, Valentine's and brand new Grants Montgomery had to work with. Where it not for the tried and true tactic of sending those unsuited light tanks out to lure the heavy tanks out to kill them then running said heavy tanks into an anti-tank gun screen then Rommel would have long since run out of useful armor.

The point is Alam Halfa is sited as the genius of Monty, when it can better be described as an inferior force attacking a well dug in superior force and losing badly. A force numerically, quantitatively, supplied and tacitly placed better than the enemy attacking them. Had the problem been handled to any second year West Pointer they could have won AT LEAST as well as Monty did.

[Sea Skimmer]

Montgomery's reform was to fight his army as just that, he abandoned binary brigade and jock columns and concentrated artillery at minimum at division but also at army level.

I already pointed that out, and it was no brilliant move on the part of Monty. No one had ever wanted highly dispersed artillery, but that concentration could only take because the 6pdr had at last arrived in significant numbers, enough for each brigade to get several batteries. That meant there was no more inherent need for the 25pdr batteries to be dispersed and deployed in every infantry position as the only effective anti tank weapon around. The Army had also simply lost more infantry brigades then artillery batteries in the retreat from Gazala. The process of concentrating the artillery began before Monty ever stepped into the field, and was a major factor in the British victory at First El Alamein.

[MKSheppard]

Split from the IWM discussion thread; because it's now revelantly cool to deserve it's own thread; and because photo spam and a discussion thread on Monty do not match.

[Samuel]

And I do so with good reason, Montgomery managed to win with his superiority. McClellan managed to get to the brink of victory and sit there while his enemy retreated and reorganized for another attack. Montgomery still failed in his objectives and won by default. He did not defeat the enemy on August 30th of 1942 so much as grind Rommel down enough that further attacks would have been impossible due to supply and numbers. When he pursed Rommel he made a botch of the job(McClellan and where my comparison came from) time and time again.

Montgomery had a larger margin of superiority than McClellan over his opponent. Comparing the two isn't entirely far. McClellan had to fight an enemy on their own territory, with shitty intelligence, low quality troops and a more open battlefield.

[Mr Bean]

Montgomery had a larger margin of superiority than McClellan over his opponent. Comparing the two isn't entirely far. McClellan had to fight an enemy on their own territory, with shitty intelligence, low quality troops and a more open battlefield.

McClellan like Montgomery however both did achieve through brute force if nothing else win victories which if perused would have become strategic wins but instead became tactical victories. Both are often sited in military circles as commanders who failed to vigorously purse a beaten enemy and thus let that enemy return to fight another day. McCleallan at every battle he fought at(pretty much) and Motgomery during Alam Haifa, the Tunisia offensive and during Normandy when his part of the encirclement failed.

[CmdrWilkens]

And I do so with good reason, Montgomery managed to win with his superiority. McClellan managed to get to the brink of victory and sit there while his enemy retreated and reorganized for another attack. Montgomery still failed in his objectives and won by default. He did not defeat the enemy on August 30th of 1942 so much as grind Rommel down enough that further attacks would have been impossible due to supply and numbers. When he pursed Rommel he made a botch of the job(McClellan and where my comparison came from) time and time again.

Montgomery had a larger margin of superiority than McClellan over his opponent. Comparing the two isn't entirely far. McClellan had to fight an enemy on their own territory, with shitty intelligence, low quality troops and a more open battlefield.

Except he didn't always. Malvern Hill while a defensive battle is probably the best counterpoint to Alam Haifa. McClellan was being pursued by an army which had run out of supplies and was living on captured stocks while retreating to solid defensive positions where he coudl concentrate his sitll superior numbers in close range to supply. The Army of the Potomac when they finally got the open battlefield (almost all of the previous Seven Days had been fought around the Chickahominy River swamps) slaughtered Lee who attempted one last attack. In the aftermath McClellan had at least two fresh Corps that hadn't been used, had fallen back on his supply base and had a strong defensive position from which to launch a coutnerattack and take the Confederates while they were exhausted from pursuit and sudden defeat.

Moreover I would actually rate Montgomery higher as the troops he fought his defensive battle with hadn't had the luxury of 8 or 9 months of continuous drill, corps commanders who were constant (and staff officers who were probably the best asset the Army of the Potomac had), and a huge superiority in guns. McClellan had the best trained and equipped Army that either side would field until the Overland Campaign while Montgomery had a largely dispirited bunch that was being reinforced with good supply but need a boost to its morale and quickly.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Except he didn't always. Malvern Hill while a defensive battle is probably the best counterpoint to Alam Haifa. McClellan was being pursued by an army which had run out of supplies and was living on captured stocks while retreating to solid defensive positions where he coudl concentrate his sitll superior numbers in close range to supply. The Army of the Potomac when they finally got the open battlefield (almost all of the previous Seven Days had been fought around the Chickahominy River swamps) slaughtered Lee who attempted one last attack. In the aftermath McClellan had at least two fresh Corps that hadn't been used, had fallen back on his supply base and had a strong defensive position from which to launch a coutnerattack and take the Confederates while they were exhausted from pursuit and sudden defeat.

The Confederate army was further confounded at Malvern Hill by the incompetence of Lee himself, who sent out multiple orders during the course of the day without bothering to mark each one with the time (not to mention based on faulty intelligence), which further confused his commanders. In the case of Rommel at Alam el Haifa, the unexpected thickness of the British minefields near Qarat el Himeimat, in combination with heavy casualties due to air raids and artillery, similarly disrupted the Afrika Korps plan and forced them into a relatively uncoordinated frontal attack on the ridge. There actually are some interesting parallels between the two battles, considering almost a century of time between them.