The Battle of the Hürtgen Forest was a serious prolonged fuck up (the extent of the true scale of the disaster remained classified until the 1950's and it is still poorly understood today) on the part of the Americans during WWII. It lasted six months from September 1944 until February 1945 and cost about 33,000 American casualties. It potentially delayed the end of World War II in Europe by months, as the Americans were unable to break through the Westwall by the time winter hit and were forced to dig in and wait until the spring thaw (March 1945) to launch any sort of offensive into the heart of Germany. The Americans attacked blindly into the forest dozens of times without their usual advantages of armor and air support, and paid dearly for it. (the 28th Infantry Division affirmed its grim nickname (the "Bloody Bucket") by taking over 6,000 casualties in the span of a week; the 112th Infantry Regiment suffered 2,316 casualties out of an authorized strength of 3,207) The 9th Infantry Division suffered 4,500 casualties while advancing less than two miles. All or parts of eleven divisions and a Ranger battalion were thrown into the forest, chewed up, and spat out by a combination of poor weather and terrain, halfhearted planning, and a vicious, well-executed German defense;

• 1st Infantry Division
• 2nd Ranger Battalion
• 3rd Armored Division
• 4th Infantry Division
• 5th Armored Division
• 8th Infantry Division
• 9th Infantry Division
• 28th Infantry Division
• 78th Infantry Division
• 82nd Airborne Division
• 83rd Infantry Division
• 104th Infantry Division

General Courtney Hodges told in an interview in 1983 that he

"would never pick it (the forest) as the place to be. it was assigned as part of my corps sector, and reluctantly we had to fight in it..."

The tanks and tank destroyers that tried to fight in the Hürtgen Forest encountered severe difficulties when attempting to support the infantry, having to fight in areas where tanks are not very effective and tank destroyers are next to useless; airbursts in trees often killed the turret crews of the vulnerable tank destroyers. German Panther and Panzer IV tanks of the 116. Panzer-Division, Jagdpanthers of the 519. Schwere Panzerjägerabteilung, and Sturmgeschütze from attached brigades also took their toll. (Miller)

The terrain was often so bad, as in the Kall Valley and its namesake trail, that tanks could hardly pass at all

"Before daylight the next morning (4 November), the tankers of Captain Hostrup's Company A, 707th Tank Battalion, warmed up their motors for another try at traversing the precipitous trail across the river. The 1st Platoon, commanded by 1st Lt. Raymond E. Fleig in the forward tank, was to lead. Lieutenant Fleig's tank had only just entered the woods and begun to advance...an explosion. It had struck a mine...the mine disabled a track, and the tank partially blocked the trail. The platoon sergeant, S.Sgt. Anthony R. Spooner, suggested winching the other tanks around Lieutenant Fleig's immobilized tank. Using the tow cable from Fleig's tank and the tank itself as a pivot, Spooner winched his own second tank around and back onto the narrow trail. Fleig boarded what now became the lead tank and continued down the trail, directing Sergeant Spooner to repeat the process to get the remaining three tanks of the platoon around the obstacle. As Lieutenant Fleig continued to inch his tank down the dark trail, sharp curves...necessitated much stopping and backing. The lieutenant noticed that his tank was tearing away part of the thin left shoulder of the trail....he made his way toward the river, crossed the bridge, and proceeded up the opposite slope. There the route presented little difficulty except for three switchbacks where Fleig had to dismount and direct his driver. It was just beginning to grow light when his tank churned alone into Kommerscheidt. Back at the start of the wooded portion of the trail, Sergeant Spooner succeeded in winching the three remaining tanks of the platoon around the disabled tank. Sgt. Jack L. Barton's tank in the lead came to a sharp bend made even more precarious by a large outcropping of rock from the right bank. Despite all efforts at caution, Barton's tank partially threw a track and was stopped. Captain Hostrup came forward to determine the difficulty and directed the next tank in line under Sergeant Spooner to tow Sergeant Barton's lead tank back onto the trail. The expedient worked, and the track was righted. Using Spooner's tank as an anchor, Barton successfully rounded the curve. When he in turn anchored the rear tank, it too passed the obstacle and both tanks continued."

The 707th Tank Battalion supporting the 28th Division lost 31 of 50 M4 Shermans and the 893rd Tank Destroyer Battalion lost 16 of 24 M10s. (Miller)

This video shows how bad the terrain was. This was filmed on 11 October 1944 near Zweifall, on the northwest fringes of the Forest. The tanks are of the 746th Battalion, supporting the 9th Infantry Division:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nyZ-TrqPRuQ

The fall of 1944 was notoriously wet and gloomy. The P-47s of the 365th and 404th Fighter Groups (the main P-47 groups tasked to handle the Hürtgen area) could only bomb German positions when the clouds cleared. When the weather was good, (which was unfortunately not very much, only 10 days in the whole month of October if I remember correctly) their support to the infantry was excellent.

The implied objective within the forest, the important series of Roer River dams, was not even defined as one until late in November 1944 when General Courtney Hodges pushed for air attacks (which never happened) on the dams to prevent their usage as a weapon by the Germans to delay the allied advance. If the Americans had not attacked into the heart of the forest, but had instead swung south, around it, and attacked the dams from the side and behind, the battle could have been won by late October or early November, offering American ground units a firm foothold in Germany and a chance to dig in before winter arrived.

Sources:

The Battle of the Hürtgen Forest - Scorpio's Website http://home.scarlet.be/~sh446368/home.html

Miller, Edward G. A Dark and Bloody Ground: The Hürtgen Forest and the Roer River Dams, 1944-1945. N.p.: Texas A&M UP, 1995. Print.

United States Army in World War II, European Theater of Operations: The Siegfried Line Campaign (Charles B. MacDonald) http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Siegfried/index.html

http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/Schmidt2/SchmidtCh3.htm

This wasn't a huge tactical error, and the body count wasn't high, but it was an embarrassing fuck-up regardless. Operation Cottage, part of the Aleutian Islands campaign. The two day fight left 32 dead, 50 wounded, and further men injured from various accidents when a combined US and Canadian effort landed on the island of Kiska.

The landings were unopposed. The Japanese forces had secretly evacuated the island a full two weeks earlier under heavy fog. The loss of Attu Island made their position on Kiska dangerous, and indefensible. In the subsequent two days the Allied forces blundered around a thick fog, running into each other, and getting into firefights. 28 Americans and 4 Canadians were confirmed killed in friendly fire, and another 50 wounded. Booby traps left by the Japanese killed some troops, and a Japanese sea mine was struck by a ship, killing another 71 soldiers. A further 191 troops just went straight up missing over the two days, likely dying from friendly fire incidents and booby traps.

Due to poor intelligence, the Allies attacked an unoccupied island, and shot at each other. In days prior to the landing, Allied planes received no anti-aircraft fire from the island which should've been a clue the Japanese had left.

The Dieppe raid was pretty disastrous. Of the 6000 men, mostly Canadians, who landed that day over half became casualties or POW's. There were multiple goals to the raid. The primary goal was to capture a port on the French coast and hold it for sufficient time to put it out of action. This would allow the allies to test their weapons, tactics and intelligence in preparation for the future invasion of France. It would also serve the purpose of boosting British morale and show the Russians that their allies were serious about opening up a second front.

The landings themselves were a clusterfuck. Intelligence on the landing site was poor, with many Germans positions having been overlooked and the beach terrain improperly researched for tank suitability. There was no preliminary bombardment from the air and the naval bombardment was minimal. An insufficient number of tanks landed late and promptly became bogged down. This forced the infantry to attack machine gun emplacements unsupported, leading to heavy losses. The RAF kept the Luftwaffe at bay in the beginning of the day but losses began to amount as British fighters were operating at the limit of their effective range. At this point in the war also RAF ground support tactics were very underdeveloped. The raiders were forced to call a retreat after just 5 hours.

Afterwards the heavy losses, which were particularly devastating for the Canadians, were called a necessary evil. They were justified by claiming the intelligence and experience gained on the beaches led directly to successful landings in North Africa and D-Day. Personally I think that was a convenient sop to the allied commanders conscience after a disastrous raid which was undertaken without sufficient preparation or consideration for its dangers.

Oh, to mention WW2 without mentioning the sheer scale of Soviet mistakes in the war is to ignore the main military lessons of that war

1) Do NOT ignore military intelligence.

In the West, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Japanese alone were capable of preemptive assault. Depictions and memories of Pearl Harbor don't die easy: they are iconic in showing a relatively peaceful nation being forced into a deadly war.

I'm surprised the Soviet Union didn't make any tragic war movies about their defeats in 1940-42. The story is terrifying. Actually, i'm not too surprised. They were a dictatorship that never wanted to admit defeat. But in the first year of the war, the massive disparity in casualties between fascist and soviet troops created the perception of an incompetent Red Army that gave its soldiers vodka before sending them out in human waves with only a desperate Hurrah! The truth is obviously different. There is a reason the Red Army had to fight under the constraints of 1940.

Due to communist-ideological distrust and a solid fear of being drawn into a large war, Stalin ignored accurate intelligent reports from British SIS & Churchill. British sources were ironically accurate, but hindsight is harsh: the reports definitely seemed self-serving coming from an island nation desperately in need of an ally. Yet Stalin also ignored his own international agents, deserters from the gathering Wehrmacht forces, as well as common-sense observations from the front. His own preconceived notion of how Hitler would behave led Stalin to a stupid decision: ignore reports and shoot scouts. Simply put, Stalin was a lucid pragmatist with an irrational dislike of hearing contravening opinions; he couldn't dream of a gambler like Hitler throwing his weight against a nation twice as large as Germany, and wouldn't let outside sources change his view.

The result: the first week of Operation Barbarrosa was Pearl Harbor times a thousand. A fairly sophisticated Red Army Air Fleet was massacred on the ground. Thousands of airplanes were destroyed, giving the Wehrmacht a healthy technology edge they retained into 1943. If modern history shows anything, air power coupled with a strong army creates a very powerful offense. The Germans were able to easily take advantage of other Soviet mistakes throughout the war. They were aided and abetted by simple Soviet incompetence. The Red military was led by political appointees and sycophants, not effective soldiers. The best had been killed by their own Soviet secret police.

2) Do not murder your best officers

This really should go without saying, but Stalin was more afraid of his own people than military invasion from abroad. Russian weapons were closer to his person after all, and he was the beneficiary of a coup against Russia's previous Democratic-Socialist government. The high reputation gained by the officer corps during the civil wars, its ties to foreign socialists and its preference of scientific objectivity over political subjectivity all combined to lead Stalin to massacre. Even Marshals of the army, such as the combined-arms theorist Marshal Tukhachevsky who developed blitzkrieg techniques with Wehrmacht officers Great Purge.

The result of course of butchering capable officers was to discourage innovation and create an ossified system unable to tactically adapt to the complexities of war. Good officers like Rokossovsky who later conquered Prussia in 1945, were imprisoned and tortured in the gulag for ethnic or politically obscure reasons. Antony Beever's books on Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin make for excellent readings, but they also identify a major reason for Red Army gains after 1942: their generals regained confidence and were allowed under desperate circumstances by Stalin to occasionally disagree with him over tactics (in closed door sessions of course).

3) Do not subordinate military strategy to politics without just cause

Another major tragedy for the Soviets in the Eastern Front was the combative nature of Stalin. His courage and determined, aggressive personality of course encouraged the nation during its darkest hours, but his determination to always counterattack led to millions of unnecessary combat casualties. After all its immense losses in trained officers and aircraft crews, the Red Army simply wasn't equipped to win. Their early victories were grudging and costly, even with the help of General Winter during the winter of 1941. They were victories nonetheless.

The desire to impress the Soviet people with vigorous leadership had its price. 1942 is overshadowed by Stalingrad, but there were [defeats borne from overconfidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Voronezh_(1942) throughout the summer prior. Stalin ordered his still untrained armies into destructive counterattacks or holding actions which might have weakened the morale of the Wehrmacht but also nearly shattered the Soviets a second time. The Soviets were severely defeated by the Germans two summers in a row, primarily due to Luftwaffe superiority and Wehrmacht efficiency. The desperate winter resistance required by Zhukov's men at Stalingrad never would have been necessary if Stalin hadn't thrown men away during the summer. To simplify a description of tactics during that period: even well-armed soldiers and T-34 tanks without radios cannot defeat a combined-arms military with effective dive bombing and deep operations.

4) Comparative Western Mistakes: a different political tradition

The Soviet Union was a nation with official élan and confidence. They were the Homo Sovieticus, a morally superior type of man untainted by bourgeois sentimentality, Christian imperialism or capitalistic greed. WWI was a psychologically devastating event for France and England. For the Soviets however, the costs had gained something incredibly valuable for the Russian people: self-determination under socialist principles.

We cannot underestimate the pessimism and defeatism running through the French, and to a lesser extent, the English armies of 1939. Militarism was tempered by bleak postwar views of the war. Bravery was countered by a civilian desire to return home after the war.

The costs-benefits are hard to determine. The Soviets' confidence led them into incredibly wasteful tactics of attack. The Western self-critical spirit however nearly lost the war in 1939 by failing to match German aggression. While Hitler invaded Poland, where do we think his people came from? The strength of the Polish campaign was a direct consequence of severely weakening formations on the Western Front, and were a calculation by Hitler on the political attitudes of the French and English. The West never took advantage of German weakness during the winter of 1939 during the Phoney War. They let Germany focus on Poland when an early attack might have ended the war sooner.

Yet there was also a methodical, professional element to the Western armies that did not value flashy aggression for its own sake. This cost them against the swift German armies in the Low Countries in 1940. It also cost the Soviets a priceless second front for three years, but it saved countless Anglo-American lives. The Western Allies never launched premature invasions over the Channel. They had the benefit of time and patience. When their attack came, it was overwhelming and victorious. After D-Day in France, Eisenhower advanced along a broad front, potentially lengthening the war in exchange for keeping his flanks well protected. Despite our perception of an aggressive Patton, such a general was an anomoly amongst the Western Allies. He created risks that his colleagues did not appreciate. The West nearly lost the war in 1940 but they also never suffered shattering defeats after 1943. Their cautious attitude during the war was a duel-edged sword.

Conclusion: the Western allies and Soviet tactically and strategically made different types of mistakes due to the underlying psychological nature of the conflict. While the Soviet mistakes cost more in blood, the West's mistakes would have been more costly had it not been for the Channel.

The first Arakan campaign (1942-43) had all the elements of both strategical and tactical failure. It was planned by a man who underestimated his enemy, by a general who was too stubborn to see that what he was doing was simply not working and by soldiers who did not have the training for the task at hand.

In late 1942, the British forces in India were at a loss. After a disastrous retreat from Burma, they were only now recovering from such a set-back and actual experience amongst higher staff was low. Few had faced the Japanese and those who had were treated with contempt and blamed for the disaster. The soldiers who had endured the long retreat were too treated with ill contempt by both men and staff as they arrived in India after a long, arduous and fearful trek from Burma. William Slim, now solely a corps commander, was the highest ranking commander in India with actual experience fighting the Japanese and during the campaign that was going to proceed, he was marginalized by General Noel Irwin (commander of the Eastern Army) who would be in command during the campaign. Slim's advice was constantly ignored by a man who irrationally disliked him.

Why the Arakan peninsula? First of all, it belonged to Burma. It was a strategic peninsula that at its tip had the island of Akyab which was strategically important: It had an airfield and a port which could later be used for operations into Burma as well as a base for Allied bombers to hit targets in Burma. There was also a feel of urgency to take the war back to the Japanese after the retreat.

As the Eastern Army entered the Arakan peninsula in Burma in late 1942, it didn't seem like a complete disaster. They entered the Arakan just as the monsoon period was passing and the difficulties that brought with it. While there were logistical issues, other factors were certainly working in the favour of Maj. Gen. W. L. Lloyd who was the commander on the ground during the campaign; he had both air and numerical superiority over his foes and as his forces moved down the Arakan peninsula to news that the Japanese was retreating from nearby positions, they had all the reasons to be optimistic while fighting weak rearguard actions that the Japanese were throwing at them. Yet I suppose that anyone reading this can assume what happens next: Lloyd walks straight into a trap. General Takeshi Koga, commander of the Japanese forces on Arakan, had built defensive bunkers at Donbaik, a narrow point of the peninsula and very close to its most southern point. It was perhaps a perfect position to build concealed bunkers, with natural anti-tank positions in the form of a chaung and the fortifications themselves were built to take whatever the British could throw their way. These fortifications did have a weakness though: They were surrounded by jungle and if only an imaginative commander with a trained force could flank the positions using the jungle, the bunkers would have been an easy task.

Unfortunately, such a commander and such troops were not available. The main issue was not Lloyd since one could make the argument that he was barely in command of his own troops. Irwin had an overbearing tendency to micromanage Lloyd's troops down to battalion level and always appeared to trust no one but himself and his own abilities. The individual initiative which was vital in jungle warfare was thrown aside under Irwin's watch and he had no intentions in changing a plan he had already decided upon. For Lloyd and his men, this meant frontal attacks on heavily defended bunkers. Since these men were tasked to attack on a very narrow front, the casualties were heavy as expected. While tanks were used, they were used in smaller numbers than necessary and by the time March came around, the battle seemed all but lost. It was at this time that Irwin decided to send Slim into the campaign, essentially trying to "coopt the dested Slim to share some of the blame" in the words of Frank McLynn.

However, Slim was not in operational control and was only there to assess the situation. Trying to reason with Lloyd to stop with the frontal attacks led nowhere, since Lloyd argued that this couldn't be done and Slim did not have the operational power to overrule him. Even Wavell entered the discussions and urged on for yet another attack which predictably ended in more casualties for no gain. by the end of march, the decision was made to retreat but not before General Koga himself decided upon a counter-offensive which ended in a disaster for the British. The initial set-back led to Lloyd being sacked. General Samuel Lomax and Slim were now put into command and while their cooperation was good, it was difficult enough to make sense "out of the nonsense" that Irwin seemed to bring to the table. They tried to trap that Japanese in a tactical maneuver that would be successful during the second Arakan campaign, but the soldiers were simply too demoralized and without proper training to pull it off, the trap failed and Slim and Lomax found themselves in May in safe positions. While they managed to skillfully extract the soldiers from more danger and avoided making more mistakes like Lloyd, it had still been a disaster.

The reasons for that disaster was many, yet this was a valuable time for the British Army in the Pacific to learn. This campaign revealed many shortcomings which would later be fixed and the dismal performance of the British during this campaign made the Japanese underestimate them even further, something that would cost them dearly in the next Arakan campaign. In the end, however, it was not the soldiers themselves who lost the battle but rather the generals involved. Wavell's absence and lack of knowledge of what was happening on the ground made him commit to orders which were already too late to have any effect. Noel Irwin's micromanagement and personality made him incredibly difficult to work with and despite having men like Slim around him, urging him to change his tactics, he stubbornly held onto the irrational resentment he felt towards Slim and continued throwing soldiers into fortified positions that couldn't be breached with frontal assaults.

In late May, Bill Slim received two telegrams. One was from Noel Irwin, criticizing him for his efforts during the campaign and guaranteeing that Slim would get relieved from his command. The other was an order telling him to report to Barrackpore. It was an ominous telegram. The latter telegram had to be to tell him that he was going to get sacked. It was at that time that Brigadier Tony Scott delivered the good news: Noel Irwin had been relieved of his command.

Nigel Bruce who delivered the telegrams remembered years later that upon doing so, Bill had said to him that "he thought he'd write a book titled 'From Corporal to General and Back Again.' Wouldn't it be fun if Irwin was sacked too, and we found ourselves in the Home Guard together?". It was this sort of humour and relaxed response that would one day turn Slim into a field marshal. Until then, the Eastern Army was going to be divided into two separate armies, one of which received the designation the 14th Army. The man set to command this army was William Slim. His first victory would take him to his latest defeat: The Arakan campaign in 1944 was a resounding success.

This might be strategic rather than tactical, but is Market Garden still viewed as a failure, whether of intelligence or command?

Hello everyone,

In this thread, there have been a large number of incorrect, speculative, or otherwise disallowed comments, and as such, they were removed by the mod-team. Please, before you attempt answer the question, keep in mind our rules concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Please don't leave a response that is only a few sentences long, vague generalities, or simply a link to a source (or simply incorrect!). Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed, and given the volume of the thread, most will be without comment.

Additionally, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Thank you!

Antony Beevor argues in Crete: The Battle and the Resistance that the Commonwealth and Greek forces under Bernard Freyberg should have been able to defeat the German invaders.

The Germans lacked the means to contest the Royal Navy and stage an amphibious landing, so they decided to launch an airborne assault instead, led by Kurt Student. This was to be the first (and last) major airborne German assault of the War.

Firstly, the Allies failed to improve the infrastructure and communications on Crete until the invasion was practically imminent. This made the shifting of supplies and issuing of orders difficult.

However, Beevor argues the biggest single failing was a misreading of intelligence. Freyberg had been convinced from the beginning that the main thrust of the invasion would be by sea, and that any airborne drops would merely be in support. However, it was exactly the other way around. He was given exclusive access to ULTRA transcripts that pointed towards a large airborne assault on the island, but misinterpreted it as supporting his own view. As a result, he kept back many of his reserves to guard against beach landings (geographical factors meant they knew where any potential landing would have to come).

When the eventual airborne assault came, it's main objective was Maleme, the island's airfield. The German paratroopers were bloodied extremely badly during the drop, due to poor German intelligence, stout Allied resistance and a very hostile civilian population (who would often kill any isolated Germans out of hand). But the Germans eventually managed to gain a very tenuous hold on the airfield.

But due to his misreading of German intentions and hindered by bad communications, Freyberg did not commit to a major counterattack until it was too late. By then, sufficient German forces had landed to make the ultimate conclusion of the battle certain. Many of the Allied forces' best formations were extremely demoralised to learn that despite their own decisive local victories elsewhere on the island, that they would have to evacuate regardless.

The defeat gave the Germans an important Mediterranean base and airfield and meant many Allies who couldn't be evacuated were taken prisoner.

Arnhem, otherwise known as Operation Market-Garden.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote to George Catleet Marshall that large scale airborne offensives took up too many resources and had too little effect for their human cost. Arnhem, arguably the biggest Allied airborne disaster of the Second World War, lived up to that.

In September 1944, the 1st British Airborne, and the American 82nd and 101st Divisions were to establish a narrow corridor in Holland. This would jumpstart the stalled Allied advance, open an avenue for provisions, and put the Allies in an excellent position to take the resource-rich Ruhr region and enter Germany. Indeed, the benefits of a successful operation in Holland would mean the prospect of the war ending in 1944, and would have resulted in several post-war advantages as well: “the Russians would not have had the favourable bargaining conditions which they wielded at the Yalta Conference in February 1945.” These positives combined with sheer frustration with the frequently cancelled operations (due to weather and the advancement of ground forces) pushed the continuation of the assault of Market-Garden.

The overall objective of the operation was to secure a route for the British XXX Corps through to Arnhem, and so achieve the advantages listed above. This was to be done by the seizure of major bridges along the route. The American 101st Airborne Division would land at Eindhoven, just north of the XXX Corps’ position; the US 82nd Airborne would land and capture the bridges at Grave and Nijmegen, farther north; and finally, the British 1st Airborne, with the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, were to secure the route through Oosterbeek and Arnhem. While a bold and innovative plan, this operation was doomed to failure from the very beginning. J. F. C. Fuller explains, “the snag in the operation was that the resources in transport aircraft demanded four separate lifts. This, in view of the uncertainty of the weather, was a tremendous handicap.”

Market-Garden seemed to be successful on the first day, as the 101st Airborne successfully achieved their objectives, and the 82nd Airborne had captured the Grave bridge and were working on their Nijmegen targets. A small group had reached the Arnhem bridge, but only held one end. But by the second lift, surprise had been lost, the weather worsened, and troops were tied up defending landing zones instead of achieving objectives. This situation was worsened as the Germans organized and counter-attacked. The British were supposed to hold their positions for less than forty-eight hours; instead they held it for three days and four nights with less than a battalion. This was because the 82nd Airborne failed to capture the bridge over River Waal, north of Nijmegen, and so the XXX Corps was delayed. Finally on 20 September, that bridge was taken and the XXX Corps advanced. However, the British 1st Airborne’s situation was so dire that they were withdrawn on 25 September, after losing around 7000 men in killed, wounded, and missing. The operation had failed.

There are countless books describing the events at Arnhem and attempting to explain why the operation failed. Brian Nolan asserted that it was distance that doomed the operation: the airborne forces were too far from their objectives, as well as too distant from supporting infantry and artillery. Douglas E. Delaney asserted that surprise was lost because the airborne drops occurred over several days; the 1st Airborne was dropped too far away from its objective; the route XXX Corps was to take was too narrow and vulnerable; and the Germans were much stronger and more organized than anticipated. Furthermore, he stated that the fact the ground forces managed to advance ninety-five kilometers in nine days despite obstacles such as blown bridges and German opposition was “no small accomplishment.” Martin Middlebrook had a long list of reasons for the failure at Arnhem. These included the operational planners’ over- optimism, the failure to appreciate the strength of the Germans, the decision to bring the airborne headquarters (particularly since they arrived on the first day, occupied valuable glider-space, and contributed nothing), the refusal to consider a night drop, the decision to drop the troops too far from their objectives (due to worries over anti-aircraft defenses and proper landing zones), and the inability to deliver all of the troops on the same day, the failure to utilize the Dutch Resistance and general population more fully, the lack of support from bomber aircraft, the lack of priority given to the 82nd Airborne’s objective of the Nijmegen bridge, the failure of the commanders to convince the British soldiers of the necessity of speed in order to capture the Arnhem bridge, the failure to accept the Polish commander Sosabowski’s advice which led to the sacrifice of the 4th Dorsets, and the lack of push by the XXX Corps.

This last piece of criticism was echoed many times over. The commander of the XXX Corps, Brian Horrocks, replied to this saying, “my Corps has been accused of being slow. I can assure you that there was more desperate urgency about our operations in this battle than in any I have ever fought.” To hold the advancing infantry responsible for the failure of Operation Market-Garden was unjust. This was equally true of blaming the weather, as Montgomery did after the battle. It was not a single factor that resulted in the disaster of Market-Garden, but a multitude of them.

This operation was inarguably a failure overall. The British had delivered approximately 9000 troops near Arnhem, and less than 2500 returned. One soldier recalled his experiences at Arnhem, “each man was weary to his bones, and miserable, and most were wounded. Yet they were filled with such great spirit that they could never be defeated.” It was this kind of spirit combined with the fighting prowess of the airborne forces that allowed them to accomplish what they did in Market-Garden. Though Arnhem was abandoned, “the corridor was held against repeated attacks, and this in itself was a considerable achievement, because it included the important bridges over the Maas and Waal, as well as adding considerably to the security of Antwerp.” This operation under-estimated the enemy opposition; over-estimated the Allied ability to deliver, supply, and link up with the airborne forces; overreached the capabilities of the airborne forces; and everything that could go wrong, seemed to do so.

Sources:

Bradley, Omar. A Soldier’s Story. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951.

Delaney, Douglas E. Corps Commanders: Five British and Canadian Generals at War, 1939-45. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. ‘To George Catlett Marshall, Secret, February 19, 1944,’ in The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years, by Alfred D. Chandler, ed. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970.

Fuller, J. F. C. The Second World War 1939-45: A Strategical and Tactical History. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948.

Middlebrook, Martin. Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle 17-26 September. London: Viking, 1994.

Nolan, Brian. Airborne: The Heroic Story of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion in the Second World War. Toronto: Lester Publishing Limited, 1995.

Norton, G.G. The Red Devils: The Story of the British Airborne Forces. London: Leo Cooper Ltd., 1971.

Before I get to my actual comment, I'd suggest reading the sources I thought back to here, as both are fantastic works:

• The Second World War by Keegan
• With the Old Breed by Sledge

While not the ETO, the Peleliu campaign is often criticized as being unnecessary, as the airfield it possessed was quickly rendered obsolete by the Allied advance. I personally don't know that that's an entirely fair criticism though, as quite a bit was learned from the campaign-- Not the least of which was the first real understanding of the ways in which Japanese defensive tactics would continue to evolve over the campaigns to come. Overall though, the cost and conditions were so much higher than the planners had predicted (they had anticipated a 3 day campaign) that, with hindsight being what it is, I am sure it would have been preferable to avoid the island if possible. For many, the terrible cost and fighting conditions are what set Peleliu down as a tactical mistake in the PTO. Further, history itself has born this out in many ways, as the campaigns surrounding it garner much more publicity and study than Peleliu itself. It's this last fact that has changed more than anything over the time that I have studied/been fascinated by the 2nd World War-- Sledge's book's rise to prominence in particular has brought the battle much more into the casual historian's eye than it was previously.

Here, I wouldn't necessarily qualify the Peleliu campaign as a poor campaign from a tactical perspective though, just from a strategical perspective (or at least primarily from that perspective, given the opinions of veterans/historians I mention above). Once on the island, there was not much room for variant tactical approaches to taking objectives, as is unfortunately the case with a well entrenched and well defended opponent. To the Navy/Marine Corps credit, they did what they could to dislodge defensive positions with pre-invasion bombardment, but these seem to have been largely ineffective in all of the campaigns that they were used (For instance, on Iwo, where the garrison stayed bunkered into Suribachi and was largely undamaged-- or at least not depleted enough to warrant the expenditure of ordnance).

I have a few other personal opinions that have been developed by reading works by some historians mentioned in this thread (I would highly suggest Anthony Beevor), but that starts to cross more into opinion as opposed to commonly held belief (for instance on subjects like Market Garden). I would encourage you to do some reading on particular allied failures that may not be so easily categorized, and then ask a question eliciting discussion of why a specific operation/battle failed, as opposed to coming at it from the other direction-- might provide something interesting that the scope of this thread, and the very active (this is a compliment) mods prevent from coming out.

(Edit: Improved massively as it was a bit half-arsed to begin with. Enjoy!)

Not sure if you mean particularly the western allies but the initial actions of most of the allied nations are a comedy of errors. I'd refer you to someone more knowledgeable RE: The failed defence of Belgium and France, the TL;DR there seems to be complete strategic incompetence on the part of allied generals. Inflexibility in defence, an over reliance on static fortifications and inexperience with machanised infantry tactics. Case in point: [The counter attack at Arras](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arras_(1940). British Matilda tanks were actually superior to the German Panzers of the time, mostly due to having vastly superior armour. They were able to break through German lines by the virtue of being impervious to German anti-tank weapons but were completely unsupported and eventually destroyed by the clever re-purposing of anti-aircraft weapons.

Now for something I can cover in a bit more detail, the Winter War. The Soviet union, having signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact felt that they were entitled to carve up eastern Europe between themselves and the Nazis. Part of this would be the establishment of bases in Finland similar to the Baltic states. They are also worried about a potential invasion towards Leningrad from Finnish territory, which is less than 20 miles away. On October 5th the Soviets demand wide areas of land near Leningrad, which happens to included all of the major boarder fortifications, that these defenses are destroyed and that Finland would cede other tactically valuable territory and allow the Soviets to establish military bases for the next 30 years. The Soviet union would give up an area of land twice as large but much less valuable both tactically and economically in return. Finland makes a counter offer, where they are prepared to offer approximately half the territory that the Soviet union is asking for, but not allow them to establish bases on Finnish soil. Here ends the negotiations.

On November 26th 1939 the Soviet Union reports that some of it's boarder guards have been shelled by Finnish forces, leaving 4 dead and more injured. The Soviets demand that the Finn withdraw 20 Km from their boarder and apologise. Finland refuses and request a join investigation into the incident. On November 28th the Soviet Union scrapped their non-aggression pact with Finland and severs diplomatic relations. On the 30th they invade Finland with almost half a million men and bombs Helsinki. It was later shown in join Finnish-Russian investigations that the NVKD was responsible for the Shelling to provide an excuse for the war. At this point the Soviet union outnumbers Finland at least 3 to 1 in men, 100 to 1 in tanks and 40 to 1 in aircraft. The Soviet soldiers were better trained and armed, with most of the Finnish force being reservists, and their tanks and aircraft significantly more advanced.

Tl;DR: The Finns were able to hold out all Winter until, eventually, their main defensive line was overwhelmed in March 1940. By the end of the Winter War the Finns had suffered almost 26,000 casualties, with almost 50,000 wounded or captured. They lost a further 30 tanks and 60 aircraft. On the other hand the Soviets suffered over 150,000 casualties with a further 190,000 wounded or captured as well as 3,500 tanks and approximately 500 aircraft.

There were several reasons for this. The biggest being the poor leadership in the Red Army at that time, including the confusing chain of command caused by political commissars and serious oversights in the terrain and climate of Finland.

I'm now going to split this into two parts. First I'll talk about the major Finnish defensive line, the Mannerheim line, and then about actions in the rest of Finland. Lumping everything else into "the rest of Finland" isn't perfect, but I'm not a historian so you'll have to live with that.

The Mannerheim line. The Mannerheim line was the largest set of static fortifications defending Finland from the Soviet Union. IT was over 100 Km long and contained 157 machine gun positions as well as 8 artillery positions. Even the strongest aprts of the line had only one reinforced concrete bunker per Km. Unlike the French Maginot Line and other contemporary fortifications made with huge bunkers and lines of dragon's teeth, the Mannerheim Line was mostly built utilizing the natural terrain. Many objects like fallen trees and boulders were incorporated into defensive positions. The Soviet intelligence of this line was extremely complete but was widely ignored by officers.

In November 1939 across the entire region, known as the Karelian Isthmus, the Red Army outnumbered the Finnish defenders 2:1, with 250,000 Soviets facing 120,000 Finns. In combat, the biggest cause of confusion among Finnish soldiers were Soviet tanks. The Finns had few anti-tank weapons and insufficient training in modern anti-tank tactics. However, Soviet tank doctrine was woefully inadequate, favouring a frontal charge which could easily be exploited when the tanks became isolate from their infantry. When this happens the Finns, showing remarkable resourcefulness, would jam crowbars or logs into the tank's tracks to immobilise it for later destruction or capture. Later the Finns developed the Molotov cocktail, a glass bottle filled with flammable liquids with a simple hand-lit fuse. Molotov cocktails were eventually mass-produced by the Finnish Alko corporation and bundled with matches to light them. Eighty Soviet tanks were destroyed in the border-zone fighting.

Typical Soviet assaults on the eastern section of the line in December were in the style of first world war engagements, artillery would open fire on Finnish positions, where soldiers protected by concrete bunkers would be unaffected. Followed by human wave infantry charges which were sometimes supported by tanks. These would be easily repelled by Finnish machine gunners and impromptu anti-tank methods. One typical Soviet attack during these battles lasted an hour and left 1,000 dead and 27 tanks strewn on the ice.

The area most strategically logical to attack was around Summa. Knowing this, Finns had built 41 reinforced concrete bunkers, making this section of the line in this area much stronger than the rest. However due to planning errors the Munasuo swamp nearby contained a 1 km wide gap in the line. During the first battle of Summa approximately 20 Soviet tanks broke through in this area. However, the Soviets could not exploit this situation because of insufficient cooperation between branches of the Red Army. The Finns successfully repelled the Soviet infantry assault leaving the tanks stranded behind enemy lines. These tanks then attacked strongpoints at random until they were eventually destroyed.

The Soviets were held up at the Mannerheim line until February, suffering from low morale and poor supplies, with many soldiers refused to participate in the more suicidal infantry charges.

By January Soviet high command was pissed. They updated their tactics and deployed 600,000 men on the front as well as 3,000 tanks, more than 3,000 artillery pieces and 1,300 aircraft, concentrated on a small area of the line near the Munasuo swamp. A massive artillery bombardment, which commenced on February 1st with over 300,00 shells, would weaken the defences before an armoured spearhead would achieve breakthrough followed by tanks supported by infantry. In spite of outnumbering the Finns more than 4:1 in men and by insane amount of tanks, aircraft and artillery the Soviets still suffered heavy casualties by advancing infantry in tight formations across open ground. On February 15th the Finns ordered a general retreat and were unable to effective prevent the soviet advance in Karellia from then on.

TBC

Not OP, but I have a specific question in line with OP's:

I am surprised not to find Kasserine Pass as one of the Allied mistakes (it's technically Africa, though). I once heard it was a major underestimation of the Axis forces by the U.S.

Could someone elaborate why it would or wouldn't compare to the excellent examples already provided? (Mods, please feel free to remove this if necessary, I didn't catch a specific rule about follow up questions by people other than OP)