Chapter 410 Planning (5)

After reviewing the paratroopers' individual equipment, Wilhelm was quite satisfied, but these alone were far from enough. After all, the "Market Garden" operation in the original timeline served as a lesson.

In 1944, towards the end of World War II, the German army, due to prolonged combat, had begun to show signs of fatigue, and its combat strength had significantly decreased. By this time, the Allies had achieved the Normandy landings, opening up a second front. Although Germany's combat power was not as strong as before, the Allies still faced massive resistance, and every step forward came at a heavy cost.

Therefore, the Allied high command decided to launch a large-scale war to completely destroy the German defense capabilities and end the war as soon as possible. The supreme commander of this operation was British Field Marshal Montgomery. Seeing the important role played by paratroopers during the Normandy landings, he devised the "Market Garden" operation.

First, three airborne divisions were to be dropped behind German lines to seize the bridges over the Maas, Waal, and Lower Rhine rivers, forming an 85-kilometer corridor; at the same time as the airborne operation began, an armored division and two infantry divisions from the British 30th Corps, using the bridges controlled by the paratroopers, would advance along the corridor to the Arnhem area. After meeting with the British 1st Airborne Division, they would bypass to the north of the German Ruhr area. As the 30th Corps launched an attack along the corridor, the British 8th and 12th Armies would conduct coordinated operations on the east and west flanks of the corridor. This operation plan was named "Market Garden," with the airborne operation called "Market" and the ground operation called "Garden." The initial intention of the plan was to advance the front line into German territory without needing a frontal assault, and most crucially, if the operation succeeded, it would capture Germany's most important Ruhr industrial area, undoubtedly becoming the last straw to break Germany's back.

The plan seemed flawless, so Montgomery, with his eloquent persuasion, began to explain his "perfect" plan to the Allied nations, convincing them to invest heavily in it. In the end, a total of 13,500 aircraft and nearly 2,000 armored vehicles were confirmed for participation in the battle.

Thus, on September 17, 1944, the "Market Garden" operation was implemented!

However, what Montgomery did not anticipate was that he had made a grave mistake.

Due to Montgomery's failure to analyze the German deployment in detail, many paratroopers landed directly on German military bases. The Germans, perhaps in the middle of a meal, suddenly saw a dense crowd of people above them and began shooting at the Allies like bird hunting. Some of the Allies even got stuck in trees, unable to move up or down. Due to the different parachute jumping heights of the various Allied nations, many paratroopers were killed on impact.

The "Garden" operation also did not go smoothly. The more than 2,000 Allied armored vehicles found it difficult to penetrate deep into German territory, and even if they did, there were no paratroopers to meet them. The most tragic were the 1,500 Polish paratroopers, none of whom survived.

The direct cause of this military blunder was Montgomery's failure to make proper combat preparations in advance. As a result, the "Market Garden" operation, which lasted a week, officially ended on September 24.

Montgomery's plan aimed to achieve a surprise victory by relying on the unparalleled strategic mobility of the airborne troops to capture key points deep behind German lines, then use the rapid advance of ground armored forces to consolidate and expand the victory, thereby causing the collapse of the entire German front. However, after landing, the airborne troops lacked heavy firepower to destroy enemy fortifications and suppress enemy armored targets, and they also lacked sufficient assault force against armored targets, essentially remaining an elite light infantry force.

This determined that airborne operations, unless they could receive timely support from ground allied forces, could only conduct infiltration and harassment operations in most cases and were not suitable for strong attacks. However, at the beginning of the "Market Garden" operation, the success of the airborne operation was considered the key to the entire battle's success or failure. This was completely different from the Normandy landings, where the airborne operation was just one part of the overall landing operation. The key to the "Market Garden" operation was the success or failure of the airborne operation, and the airborne troops lacked independent assault capabilities and had to receive support from artillery and armored forces to expand the immediate results of the battle into campaign-level achievements.

This also determined that to support a large-scale airborne operation, the reserves of supplies needed to be more abundant than those required for a large-scale ground operation to have a chance of success. But Montgomery's initial intention in devising the operation plan was to achieve greater campaign results with less material consumption and fewer casualties. Even to ensure the normal conduct of the airborne operation, Montgomery ordered that fuel and other supplies be prioritized for the airborne troops. This deployment meant that the ground armored forces were not fully prepared before the battle, so that during the critical period of the campaign, they could not arrive at the designated assembly area on time to provide necessary support for the struggling airborne troops.

Overall, the main reason for the failure of this operation was Montgomery's blind optimism and his obsession with ending the war against Germany before the Soviet Union, launching such a large-scale operation without a contingency plan for emergencies. As a result, when the various units encountered unexpected counterattacks from the German forces (which were not planned for in the operation), they had no choice but to face them head-on. The intelligence department issued multiple warnings to Montgomery about the 9th and 10th armored divisions of the SS 2nd Armored Army entering the Arnhem area, but these did not receive Montgomery's attention.

Reports of the lack of sufficient fuel and ammunition for the Allied armored forces also did not receive a response from Montgomery. Naturally, as a Field Marshal, Montgomery's lack of understanding of the airborne troops' lack of effective suppression firepower and anti-tank firepower was to be expected. Intelligence on Model, known for his defensive capabilities, and Student, with the most extensive airborne combat experience in Europe, was not considered particularly noteworthy. But all this led to the final outcome: as soon as the Allied paratroopers landed, Student captured a copy of the operation orders. As a veteran paratrooper, Student naturally knew better than anyone how to counter airborne operations. The German forces quickly assembled all available mobile forces to counter the airborne operation. While the British and Polish paratroopers were pinned down by two armored divisions totaling less than 7,000 men, the British armored forces could only look at the distant bridge and sigh, as they had run out of fuel and ammunition.