Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

After looking at the paratroopers' individual equipment, Yannick was very satisfied, but these equipment alone were far from enough. After all, the "Market Garden" operation of the original time and space is a lesson learned from the past.

In 1944, by the end of World War II, the German army had begun to experience a period of weakness due to long-term combat, and its combat strength had also been significantly reduced. At this time, the Allied forces had achieved the Normandy landing and opened up a second battlefield. Although Germany's combat effectiveness was not as good as before, the Allied forces were still blocked on a large scale, and every step forward had to pay a heavy price.

Therefore, the Allied leaders 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. He saw the important role played by paratroopers during the Normandy landing, so he formulated "Operation Market Garden".

First, three airborne divisions were deployed to cross the German defense line and seize bridges over the Maas, Waal and Lower Rhine rivers to form an 85-kilometer corridor; at the same time as the airborne operation was launched, an armored unit belonging to the British 30th Army The division and two infantry divisions used the bridges controlled by the airborne troops to advance along the corridor to the Arnhem area. After joining the British 1st Airborne Division, they detoured to the north of the Ruhr area in Germany. When the 30th Army launched an attack along the corridor, the British 8th Army and the 12th Army conducted coordinated operations on the east and west wings of the corridor. This combat plan was named Operation Market Garden, with the airborne operations being Operation Market and the ground operations being Operation Garden. The original intention of this plan is to advance the front into Germany without a frontal attack. The most important thing is that once this operation is successful, it will be able to seize Germany's most important Ruhr Industrial Zone, which will undoubtedly become the crushing enemy. Germany's last straw.

This plan seemed to be perfect, so Montgomery used his sharp tongue to explain his "flawless" plan to the Allied forces, causing all countries to invest their own money in it. It was finally determined that a total of 35 aircraft participated in the war. Ten thousand, and nearly 2,000 armored vehicles participated in the battle.

So on September 17, 1944, "Operation Market Garden" was implemented!

But what Montgomery didn't expect was that he made a huge mistake.

Because Montgomery did not conduct a detailed analysis of the German deployment, many paratroopers landed directly on the German military base. The Germans might have been eating when they suddenly saw dense crowds of people above their heads, so they started shooting like birds. When shooting Allied troops, some Allied troops even hung on trees, unable to go up or down. Since the parachuting heights of various Allied countries were not consistent, paratroopers from many countries were thrown to death.

The "Garden" operation did not go very smoothly. It was difficult for the more than 2,000 Allied armored vehicles to drive into the German army. Even if they drove into the German army, there were no paratroopers to respond. The most tragic incident in this battle was probably the 1,500 Polish paratroopers, none of whom survived.

The direct cause of the mistakes in this war was Montgomery's failure to make combat arrangements in advance. So on September 24, the week-long "Operation Market Garden" officially ended.

Montgomery's plan was intended to win by surprise, relying on the unparalleled strategic maneuverability of the airborne troops to seize key nodes deep in the rear of the German army, and then use the rapid advance of ground armored forces to consolidate and expand the results, thereby causing the collapse of the entire German army's front. But at that time, after the airborne troops landed, they lacked the heavy firepower to destroy enemy fortifications and suppress enemy armored targets, and they also lacked armored targets to provide sufficient combat assault force. In essence, they were still an elite light infantry.

This determines that unless airborne operations can receive timely support from friendly forces on the ground, in most cases they can only be used for infiltration and harassment operations, and are not suitable for force attacks. However, at the beginning of the planning of Operation Market Garden, the success of the airborne landing was regarded as the key to the success or failure of the entire operation. This is completely different from the Normandy landing, where the airborne operation was only an ancillary combat operation in the entire landing operation. The key to Operation "Market Garden" lies in the success or failure of airborne operations, and the airborne troops lack the ability to independently attack difficult tasks. They must obtain support from artillery and armored forces in order to expand the combat results achieved by suddenness into operational results.

This also determines that to support a large-scale airborne operation, the supplies needed to be stored are more abundant than those required for a large-scale ground operation to have the possibility of success. But Montgomery's original intention in formulating this combat plan was to achieve greater campaign results with less material consumption and fewer casualties. In order to ensure that the airborne operations could proceed normally, Montgomery ordered that fuel and other supplies be given priority to the airborne troops. This deployment resulted in insufficient pre-war preparations for the ground armored forces, so that during the critical period of the battle, they were unable to rush to the designated assembly area on time to provide necessary support for the airborne troops fighting alone.

Overall, the main reason for the failure of this battle was Montgomery's blind optimism and paranoia about ending the war against Germany before the Soviet Union. Such a large-scale combat operation did not have a pre-plan to deal with emergencies, so that In subsequent operations, when various units encountered unplanned counterattacks by the German army (in the operational plan, all German counterattacks were not planned), they had no choice but to endure it. The intelligence department issued early warnings to Montgomery several times about the entry of the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps into the Arnhem area, but Montgomery did not pay attention to it.

Reports that our own armored forces lacked sufficient fuel and ammunition failed to obtain a response from Montgomery. Naturally, it is understandable that Montgomery, as Field Marshal, did not understand the lack of effective suppressive firepower and anti-tank firepower of the airborne troops. Among the main generals of the German army, there are Model, who is good at defense, and Stuart, who has the most experience in airborne operations in Europe. The information is even less worthy of special attention. But the final result of all this was that as soon as the Allied airborne troops landed, Stuart captured a combat order. As a veteran airborne soldier, Stuart naturally knows better than anyone how to counter airborne operations. The German army quickly assembled all the mobile forces it could muster to carry out anti-airborne operations. When the British and Polish paratroopers were beaten immobile by two armored divisions with a combined number of less than 7,000 people, the British armored forces were exhausted due to fuel and ammunition. At the end, I can only look at the distant bridge and sigh.