[WhiskeyPapa]

Wow, just like World War One.

So was British military thinking in 1944.

LOL!

If you watch the "World at War" episode about the desert war, you'll hear the stentorian tone of Sir Lawrence Oliver intoning something like: "Rommel might have been tempted to echo the words of the Duke of Wellington. 'They came on in the same old way, and we shot them down in the same old way.' "

The British lost @ 470 tanks in five days during Operation GOODWOOD. This after a very heavy attack by Bomber Command.

Eisenhower is reported to have said, "we can't advance to Germany 1,000 tons of bombs at a time." The British had no idea of lifting and shifting their supporting arms or getting any synergy from combined arms - armor, arty and infantry.

Many U.S. units were little better.

Walt

[Light Speed]

Was reading a short essay on that battle in a WW-2 magazine.
The bombing preceeding the attack saw German Tiger tanks overturned..and nearly buried.
some percentage of the German line strength did buckle under the bombing..from shell shock to near insanity response.
yet the German line was able to regroup and as conveyed by what occured..put a serious hurt on the British mechanized advance.
I guess its a study in weapon performance and the numerics needed to dislodge an entrenched defender..the old..3 or 4-1 odds force/attrition factor.

My Dads cousin Bob arrived D-Day +6.
In no time..his Sherman tank regiment was all but decimated.
Most went up in fireballs..the Ronson lighter comment.

Like so many allied tank units..some percentage were recovered and repaired..new crews and newly arrived tanks.
Later they were off on operation Market Garden.

[SAMWolf]

The losses during GOODWOOD are even more amazing when you realize how few German units were left holding the front during that operation.