Profile of van Voort

You get a PTRS and you get a PTRS and you get a PTRS! We should ALL get PTRS!

My question to you then is have you served in a combat zone? If not then you have no right to state if he as a real soldier or not.

I might take issue with that, because that sentiment ultimately strikes at the concept of civilian control of the military.

We have the right to judge, but we also have the obligation to inform ourselves

That might just have been because Rommel was not all that comically inept as you make him out to be.
Also, I don't see why you would not accept the premise. I don't recall any situation after the success of Compass/arrival of the DAK where the Allies did not possess an overall favourable manpower/AFV/logistics heck anything situation.

I wouldn't describe him as inept; just that his reputation is slightly overblown because of his career spent entirely fighting the WAllies.

Upon arrival in Africa there's only worn out and green units facing him, all the veterans are either refitting or in Greece


In the so-called Third Reich however, leaders who found themselves in an unsalvageable situation were, somewhat literally, expected to fall upon their swords, a fate, that as you might recall befell a certain Friedrich Paulus come spring 1943. And if their was a whiff of disloyalty, your decision to put your pistol in your mouth might just be helped along by threatening to kill your family, as just so happened to Rommel; and Rommel had been a personal favourite of Hitler and a darling of the German propaganda effort to boot.
Just to, as they say, keep it real, when it comes to the notion of pressure.

Hitler didn't shoot people for failing him, until maybe right at the end, plotting against him, that's a different matter. Guderian came back after being dismissed in 1941 and Rundstedt got fired and rehired how many times again?

Paulus was promoted to Field Marshal in the expectation that he would kill himself rather than surrender; but I am far from convinced that it Hitler's mind that was punishment for failure, more an opportunity to achieve immortality in the Nazi pantheon.

Oh yes, with the benefit of historical hindsight I agree that the push on Egypt was certainly a mistake. However, how much time would that have bought? With the strategical situation being as it was, Malta remaining in British hands, and the weight of the US making itself felt? Two months? Three at the most?

I'm not unconvinced that under different leadership and more conservative decisions the African Theatre could not have been kept going into 1944, or at least long enough that Sicily doesn't happen until in 1943. If that happens, then it doesn't happen at all because Overlord will take priority.

The Italians lack mobility and finesse, but they are reliable enough in static and defensive warfare. As it stands their best units get bled out or captured for lack of transport and cannot be replaced. With more care they can be kept around.

Why does Montgomery allow DAK to escape in the first place?

It's a lot easier to retreat down your supply route than advance away from it blazing a new one.

True, but did you not (IMHO rightly so) bemoan a German lack of perceptiveness for the political desiderata of coalition warfare? Italian glory is very much Germany's problem when you have Commando Supremo breathing down your neck, not to mention the question of the overall strategic balance. What is the worth of an ongoing actual Italian war effort compared to 2 armoured divisions worth of supply and logistics? Strikes me as a difficult question to answer.

Italians stay in the war after the loss of East Africa, and then again after Libya. It takes Sicily for Mussolini to fall.

To add into that balance you need to include:

It takes as many trucks to supply North Africa as it does an entire AG in Russia.

Include that Germany is supplying the Italians with all their fuel and the air power involved


Germany is not even necessarily better off with Italy in the war

Ok, changed Nationality, it's done

Thank you

tankette BARTON nowwwwwwwwwwwww

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