However, the plan ultimately failed because of the lack of communication between the troops and the miscalculations of the leaders. Churchill expected major-general John Lucas, in charge of the campaign, to take advantage of the surprise factor and strike an attack that would cut off the supply route to Cassino. But the latter decided against it and followed US commanding officer Mark Clark’s advice to dig artillery positions to secure the bridgehead. This delay would allow the Germans to prepare an opposition force. Even though there had been some errors they only influenced single operations of the conflict and therefore, did not have as great an effect on the length of the campaign as the strength of German
One of these, the Anglo-Irish Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, better known as the 1st Duke of Wellington. Wellington commanded the Anglo-Dutch forces, being extremely experienced in battle. He had been embroiled in both the Flanders Campaign, the Mahratta War in India and notably in the Iberian Campaign against Napoleon. In this campaign, he worked massively with British Iberian allies, clearing the peninsula of the French and gained a reputation equal to Napoleon in battle. The Prussian commander, Prince Wahlstadt Gebhard von Blücher, whom was over the age of 72 in 1815.
This led to Operation Torch. Operation Torch was a plan designed to open up another side of Europe and force the Axis to fight on multiple fronts (“Remembering Operation Torch”). Operation Torch consisted of many different Allied forces and required the use of most branches
Even after Moltke issued a change to the plan to Kluck and General von Bülow, commander of the Second Army on Kluck’s left, Kluck willfully ignored the directive and began to cross the Marne River with Paris in sight. Clausewitz notes, “A battalion is made up of individuals, the least important of whom may chance to delay things or somehow make them go wrong.” If a man of minor importance can have a strategic effect, then a field general’s impact may be catastrophic. Indeed, Kluck’s decision proved costly for the First and Second German Armies since the French not only took advantage of the gap between the armies but also launched a surprise counter-offensive that would prompt the Second Army to retrograde. As the beleaguered French and British armies attempted to pursue the Germans, the efforts on both sides to out-maneuver the other would result in the stalemate of entrenched warfare on the Western
This way, the war rapidly escalated to the unprecedented volumes. The Germans won strategic victories by occupying strategically important economic areas and causing heavy casualties. In the course of warfare the German offensive was pushed back by a Soviet counteroffensive that had forced Nazis into attrition, which it failed to survive. All further German operations on the Soviet territories (Operation Nordlicht, Case Blue, and Operation Citadel) failed unsuccessfully (Baker 37). During the initial stages of the war, Brits much helped the Soviet Union with the tanks and aircraft.
Joint Campaign: “Operation CHROMITE” Introduction One of the most successful multinational operations was Operation Chromite. The Battle of Inchon was an amphibious invasion that resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations (UN) and battle of the Korean War. “North Korea's invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, caught the United States unprepared” (Korean War, 2006) , the United Nations forces were trapped in the Southeast corner of the Korean Peninsula in an area known as the Pusan Perimeter. With the bulk of the North Korean People's Army (NKPA) engaged around Pusan, United Nations Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur began advocating for a daring amphibious strike on the peninsula's West Coast at Inchon. The General believed that this would catch the North Korean’s off guard, while landing UN troops close to the capital at Seoul and placing them in a position to cut the North Korean's supply lines.
Rommel’s recommendations consisted of massive minefields, foreshore obstacles such as concrete bunkers and underwater devices, and air landing obstacles. The use of minefields as a means of defence for the Atlantic Wall was influenced by Rommel’s campaign against the British in North Africa, which “made the maximum possible use of mines in constructing their new line” for the defence of Tobruk, which cost the Afrika Korps many men but taught Rommel “the value of the British large scale mining.” The extensive use of minefields coupled with tanks, machine guns, and artillery meant the US and British forces would have to “attack through the minefields against the defence works sited within them fight his way through the zone of death in the defensive fire of the whole of our
On June 17 1940, The French signed an armistice and pulled out of World War 2, after being defeated by Hitler’s Nazi Germany which had conquered most of Western Europe in less than two months. But British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rallied his stubborn people, and out-manuovered those politicians who wanted to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. But Britain’s success in continuing the war very much depended on the RAF Fighter Command’s agility to thwart the Luftwaffe’s efforts to gain air superiority, This then would be the first all air battle in history. The Germans had poor intelligence and little idea of British vulnerabilities. They wasted most of July waiting for a British surrender and attacked in august.
Cited from the book “The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine during the First World War” , war tactics and strategies began to form. Troops were well trained and prepared for war. As technology advances, weaponry equipment, such as, machine guns, recoil systems, explosives, optical sights, heavy artillery and communication lines were deployed in the First World War. The third generation of warfare, particularly in the Second World War, saw the big leap towards joint warfare. Rapid advances in technology meant that wars are now fought on a different level.
Prior to this happening, there was an extensive amount of preparation for the allies. They knew the Germans wanted more land and more control over Western Europe but they were angered by this decision, thus forming an alliance to confuse their enemy and perform an invasion. Since getting word of this invasion, Adolf Hitler tried to stop this plan in its tracks even though deep down he was never really sure of where the allies were going to land and attack from. A couple weeks before D-Day, the allied forces went through with a plan that shocked everyone, they wanted to confuse the Germans into thinking they would invade a very narrow area between Britain and France, “Pas-de-Calais” instead of Normandy’s beaches. Many other factors of Sun Tzu’s maxims were carried out during the invasion as well.